This Beautiful Place - Carkeek Park

Life lately has been a fairly good balance of working hard and playing hard. My new summer schedule is underway and I'll still be adjusting over this week but it's been working out so far. I recently had a birthday and today my special present came! So, in celebration, and because it's Saturday, and because it was absolutely gorgeous out AGAIN, and because we both had the day off...we set out to test the new pack, to Carkeek Park! This park has great beach access but this time we took the South Ridge Trail to the South Bluff Trail for an amazing view of Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains. The woods are vibrantly lush and knee high grasses are thriving under the tall tree canopy, which tickled us with fluttering leaves and it felt like if I twirled fast enough in this magical green place I could fly away with the leaves too. At the end we laid in the grass and laughed at the daisies.

This picture doesn't really look like anything but lots of green and a leaning tree. But it's really domino trees! We actually heard these two leaning trees, creaking loudly with the wind, before we came across them and I bet they don't last much longer, especially if we do end up having some stormy weather soon. I definitely want to go back and check soon! Other things of note on the walk: an occasional burst of rhododendrons (and/or azelias?!), heavenly smelling lilacs, the sun on the Sound, a big brown slug, some freaky trees, and the wandering path - I love coming into a clearing and looking back into the wild, before heading into it again.

 

 

 

Happy Adventuring!

Grand Teton National Park

I couldn't imagine a better final destination than Grand Teton National Park. This place embodies natural beauty and my heart felt so full and happy here. I mean, just look at this place, water, mountains, forest, sky...all you need.

This is just a glimpse of Jackson Lake beneath the Teton Range. I wanted so badly to swim out in the clear water, under that sky, and lay in the sun all day but these are deceivingly glacial waters and it was actually pretty cool, I wore pants for the first time on the whole trip! 

We camped at Jenny Lake campground in Teton NP for two nights, spending one day in Yellowstone and one at the Tetons. Neither was enough! There's so much more I'll still be excited to do the next time I visit. But by this time we were pretty beat, choosing easy hikes and improvising more but everything is something to see, something to appreciate. Growing up in a similar ecosystem I've always loved this place. This place with so many layers, where I walk through wildflower coated meadows and evergreen forests with a colossal mountainous backdrop and your mind is free and your heart is happy. This place nearly stole my heart, but I think it will always belong to home, Lake Tahoe. On the last hike we found out our trail had a busted bridge so we went the long way around which led us to both Bradly and Taggart Lakes, and as we doubled back we came across the pack donkeys carrying the wood and supplies for the bridge, so we stopped by to check out the repairs. I love the evidence of glacial activity here, hiking over the forested moraines to reveal sub-alpine lakes like hidden crystals under the mountains. I got one last shot just coming over the moraine and revealing the wild below before my battery finally died.

"There is nothing so American as our National Parks...the fundamental idea behind the parks...is that the country belongs to the people, that it is in process of making for the enrichment of the lives of all of us." I found this FDR quote in the Craig Thomas Discovery and Visitor Center, as it is formally known, which is super rad with tons of interactive information and big panel windows. I have a thing for neat buildings, having grown up with an architect, so I couldn't let this one go unmentioned! Sorry, these last few came from my phone!

No campsite is complete without some campfire art, so I built a rock circle around this campsite's fire ring to begin. What is campfire art you say? Well, it's when I use my pokey stick that has been charred from excessive playing with and rearranging of the logs (I'm not the only one obsessed with playing with the logs right!?), to draw on large, smooth rocks. Hopefully it brings a smile to the next campers!