We had a great time this weekend, just Joy and I on a long overdue camping hiking excursion. I’d forgotten how much we enjoyed doing these. It had been a couple years since we made a trip. I packed up Thursday to get us ready to vamoose as soon as I got home Friday. Guilt set in and I removed the rocks and six pack of beer from Joy’s pack. It seemed way too easy for her to give me a little push off a cliffs edge to repay my ill advised attempt at personal merriment. Of course we didn’t make it to the campsite until well after dark. Fresh out of large quantities of gasoline or a hose to siphon some from the car, we were forced to start a fire with only sticks and matches. I have heard this can be done, but should only be attempted in emergency situations. After a few attempts and some excessive hyperventilating we achieved some success. I wouldn’t advice attempting this much heavy breathing at one time without hopes of some kind of award or a Commemorative T-shirt, perhaps accompanied with large amounts of body lotion.
We made camp and set up the tent well before midnight. This assured us an early start and a shot at a backcountry camping permit at our destination, the Palisades area, near Sunrise at Mount Rainier National park.
We got to the trailhead permit in hand about 9:30 the next morning and were greeting with exceptional September weather and a spectacular view of Mt. Rainier.
The short of it is this is a great hike that can be done in one day, or if you want to savor the moment as we did, an overnight excursion with full packs. It’s a hike of many alpine lakes, 9 or 10 depending how you count.
We awoke the next morning at 3:00 AM to the sound of a bugling bull elk with a little too much enthusiasm for that time in the morning. It was about 30 degrees and we couldn’t drive ourselves outside for a view of the stars, except through the tent door, in spite of dangerously full bladders. Suffice it to say no leakage occurred into our fancy down sleeping bags in spite of our advanced age. This was no small accomplishment. We were further serenaded throughout the trip with the EEK of pikas and the whistling of marmots who hung out very near camp. We even got some good pictures of the little beasts. On the way out we saw a huge 4 or 5 point (8 or 10 eastern count) black tail buck that would have made any self respecting deer hunter salivate like Jimmy Swagart at a hooker’s convention. Sorry, too far away for a good picture.
I’ll waste no more words nor your time. What follows is a few of the pictures with captions that describe the scene.
We made camp and set up the tent well before midnight. This assured us an early start and a shot at a backcountry camping permit at our destination, the Palisades area, near Sunrise at Mount Rainier National park.
We got to the trailhead permit in hand about 9:30 the next morning and were greeting with exceptional September weather and a spectacular view of Mt. Rainier.
The short of it is this is a great hike that can be done in one day, or if you want to savor the moment as we did, an overnight excursion with full packs. It’s a hike of many alpine lakes, 9 or 10 depending how you count.
We awoke the next morning at 3:00 AM to the sound of a bugling bull elk with a little too much enthusiasm for that time in the morning. It was about 30 degrees and we couldn’t drive ourselves outside for a view of the stars, except through the tent door, in spite of dangerously full bladders. Suffice it to say no leakage occurred into our fancy down sleeping bags in spite of our advanced age. This was no small accomplishment. We were further serenaded throughout the trip with the EEK of pikas and the whistling of marmots who hung out very near camp. We even got some good pictures of the little beasts. On the way out we saw a huge 4 or 5 point (8 or 10 eastern count) black tail buck that would have made any self respecting deer hunter salivate like Jimmy Swagart at a hooker’s convention. Sorry, too far away for a good picture.
I’ll waste no more words nor your time. What follows is a few of the pictures with captions that describe the scene.
