There’s still time to scurry to the east side where fall color is making its last stand at Umtanum Falls and other trails in the region. The transitional seasons, spring and fall, are my favorites for this short but spectacular hike.
If you like to gamble you might consider rolling the dice and heading up to Sheep Lake via the Pacific Crest Trailhead at Chinook Pass. But hurry – the gamble, of course, is the weather!
The Taneum is a sprawling complex of rivers, streams, meadows, campgrounds, memorials, peaks and trails. If you’ve got the itch to explore, this is the place.
It was a beautiful day at the Hanford Reach National Monument with bluebird skies, white puffy clouds and what we can only describe as “big” views of this inspiring landscape. We saw several wildflowers including phlox, balsamroot, lupine and intricate ground-hugging flowers. It gets very hot in the summer and many flowers will have bloomed. Fall is scenic when the shrub-steppe turns to shades of gold and copper.
Below are some of our favorite late spring Washington hikes, early summer hikes with the focus on photography without much risk to life, limb and happiness. The trails described here were hiked in May/June/early July of 2012 (conditions may have changed over the winter).
This book will either scare you off or inspire you to hike this trail from end to end.
I am apt to cringe when someone asks about my favorite photography sites in the Pacific Northwest. How can I choose when there are so many? Though it’s still winter, I am already eagerly anticipating my favorite spring hikes in Washington.
Gold Creek Pond is one of the easiest snowshoe hikes near Snoqualmie Pass with great views to the head of Gold Creek valley. The valley is situated below the formidable cliffs of Rampart Ridge, Chikamin Ridge and other Snoqualmie peaks. The loop around Gold Creek Pond is suitable for snowshoers and cross-country skiers of all ages and abilities.
We’ve yet to meet a hiker, snowshoer, or skier who didn’t enjoy winter recreation at Mount Rainier National Park, especially Paradise. There are plenty of options for snowshoers between Longmire and Paradise ranging from short trips to more strenuous trips such as Mazama Ridge. Even non-hikers will be rewarded with the views from Paradise, especially when Mount Rainier emerges from the clouds or wears a cap of lenticular clouds tinted with alpenglow.
There’s nothing that whets our appetite like word or rumors of abandoned trails or historical sites on the verge of vanishing into the mists of history. The Carbon River Valley outside Mount Rainier National Park is full of such places, long-forgotten mining and logging settlements with names almost lost except to historians and descendants of those who once lived or worked there in the coal mines or on the Northern Pacific Railroad.
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