Even in Kyoto

So, our hike yesterday!

First off, I am enormously grateful to one of my rowing teammates/friends, because she took the initiative to organize us to go for this hike. That included figuring out a date, figuring out where to go, getting us to RSVP, finding a place to stop for delicious bagels on our way up, and reminding us of things to wear and bring.

It turns out that for some period of time, she was working to hike all 46 of the Adirondack High Peaks, so she had this fantastic guidebook with information about the day's hike:



I didn't realize it until later, but the day's hike was not too far from where scrottie and I attempted to go bike camping in the summer of 2022:



R watched the weather forecast all week on our behalf, and by Thursday when the forecast was increasingly looking like rain, checked in with us to see if we were still all interested in hiking, in spite of the forecast. We were. We're rowers, after all. It looked like things would get worse as the day progressed, so we rolled back our departure time to 6:30, and managed to get ourselves on the road promptly.

Apparently for R, for any hike in the Adirondacks, it's a requirement to make a breakfast stop at a place called Lox of Bagels in Queensbury. No complaints from me! They had dill pickle cream cheese, which was fantastic on a whole-grain everything bagel. Excellent hiking fuel.



It did indeed rain. Here we are, looking pretty dry at the beginning:



Here's the incredible view at the top of Sleeping Beauty Mountain:


Let's see that again, in case you couldn't properly admire it:


Looking slightly more damp:


We didn't linger at the top, because it was exposed and windy.

While the views were obscured, there were still lots of flowers, trees, lichen, and fungi to admire.

The local trillium!


Turkey tails and more?


Ferns unfurling:


The trees were half leafed out. I love seeing the forest at that stage. It doesn't last long.

Roots and rocks.


And salamanders!



I think this is my first time seeing them in the wild, and they were everywhere. So cute.

From Sleeping Beauty, we continued in a loop around Bumps Pond, which was also beautiful:





We all managed to stay warm, and thanks to R's advice, we all had clothes to change into when we got back to the car.




It was a shorter hike, just under 5 miles, but that was a perfect distance for us for a wide range of reasons. I felt a little silly about bringing trekking poles with me, but on the other hand, I used them throughout the hike and I do think they make hiking a little easier on one's body when one is out of hiking shape, which I am. I also wanted them with me as a preventative in case anyone turned an ankle on the rocks. Thankfully, none of us did.

I am so glad to have gotten in a hike here, finally. I'm now at least a little more confident about finding other hiking and camping opportunities out here. Not only that, but it's great to know that many of my rowing teammates are up for other kinds of non-rowing adventures, too. I'm sure we'll do it again sometime soon!

And maybe on that occasion it won't rain and we'll have a view? I won't count on it. Besides, on a rainy day we had the trails completely to ourselves.

Every third or fourth trip out to Washington, I manage to get in a hike. This one was with annikusrex and two of our other high school friends, M&M. M had been wanting to hike Rattlesnake Mountain for a while as a through-hike, but found it tricky to orchestrate things to have vehicles at either end of the 10.2-mile trail. Well, AKW's dad's car to the rescue! Once we finally figured out that we were waiting for each other at the other trailhead and got ourselves sorted out, we enjoyed this absolutely wonderful hike, and we didn't even have to call in Search and Rescue to haul us out (sarcasm font! joke!).

There are so many amazing views on this hike, and it was an almost perfectly clear day, so we got to see almost all of them, including a distant view of Mt. Baker. I'd been to the Cedar River Watershed Education Center before, and LOVE the rain drums there, but I'd never before gotten to see the entire watershed valley from the Rattlesnake Ledges.

I took some photos, but I'm woefully behind on going through them and uploading them, plus we put AKW in charge of most photography, so hopefully I'll have them ready to share soon.

I was especially glad for the direction we took on the hike. A lot of people will park at Rattlesnake Lake and then just hike the 2 miles and 1000 feet up to the Ledges, which provide fantastic lookouts. Coming from Snoqualmie Point Park did indeed provide a splendid progression of views, and I was grateful that it was only the last 2 miles of trail down from the Ledges that were at a relentless downhill grade on dusty, rocky trail.

We even managed to find some mountain huckleberries to snack on, plus some blackcap raspberries, too. Not enough to pick, but enough to savor the fruits of summer. Animal highlights included tons of teeny frogs, a snake, squirrels gnawing on sparkly green and black fir cones, and a grouse.

We also did a ton of catching up with each other, and even got to cap off the ride with beer and burritos in North Fork. No cherry pie for us, however, so clearly we'll just have to go back again sometime soon.

I think that during the ride I managed to get out most of my need to be self-congratulatory about organizing today's Bike&Hike event, so I'll keep that to a minimum now and just tell you about the craziest part. If I get my act together, I might have a few pictures from the expedition.

Instead, here's the gist of things: we rode our bicycles from downtown Tempe to the trailhead of Cholla Trail (there were even bike racks available, despite the absence of parking!), and then hiked/clambered about 1.5 miles up to the top of Camelback Mountain, where we were treated to a panoramic view of PHX, Scottsdale, and surroundings (suburbia almost as far as the eye could see! Glittering automobiles and swimming pools everywhere!). I think my dad would have enjoyed this urban style of hiking, even though the sound of cars traveling around below didn't diminish as we reached the summit.

At the top, we luncheoned on an incredibly delicious picnic: hummus and carrots, ants on a log, empanadas, beets, tortilla chips, oranges, strawberries, two kinds of cookies, and two kinds of cake. We eat well. There were no other picnickers among our fellow hikers, but we had no shortage of company at the summit--lots of over-fit young adults and a couple of families with kids. D brought along her insect net to try and catch Dipterans (flies) for her entomology class, which inspired remarks that at the summit we should be able to find a lot of hilltopping insects, as well as hilltopping humans (hilltopping is a behavior whereby animals gather at high points to meet up and mate).

Just as we were finishing up our lunch, a large cloud of insects suddenly started to grow on one side of the hill, and someone screamed, "BEES!" It took a moment for us to even realize what was happening: a swarm of Africanized honey bees had appeared on one side of the mountain, then sped up and across the top of the hill, on their way to somewhere. Our gang, nestled underneath a small tree with stuff strewn everywhere slightly off to one side, wasn't quite sure how to react as our fellow hikers all scrambled away from the top of the hill in a state of panic.

Since the bees looked like a swarm, I figured they were probably not as harmful as our fellow hikers imagined, and shouted at people to stay calm as they tried to get out of the way (admittedly, they were still quite terrifying). Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the swarm crested over the top of the hill and was gone, racing onward to some unknown destination. We were left still sitting there, somewhat dumbfounded by the whole event, but managed to recover our appetites, finished our lunch, hiked back down, and rode our bicycles home again.

We are most definitely going to go on more Bike&Hike expeditions in the future, though I hope to never have the same sort of encounter with bees ever again.