This Beautiful Place-Talapus and Olallie Lakes (Pt 2)

The mushrooms on this hike totally blew my mind! I was thrilled to the point of ridiculousness to see so many mushrooms throughout the entire hike and in some spots at least a dozen different types completely surrounding me! AH! Finally!!! The whole hike was stimulating with all these unfamiliar mushrooms to check out but I also found a few other critters about!

This frozen bee completely surprised me but I took the opportunity to kinda poke him (nicely of course!) and check him out! Fun and random - apparently the whole swarm will become docile just before transporting the Queen to a new hive and there's some crazy videos out there of people scooping them up and just holding handful of chill bees. Pretty neat. There was plenty of toads in the creeks and I found this little mini mini one! And I have to admit, I love this photo below! If you look closely you can see mini frog, chillin, staring out across his entire universe.

 

This Beautiful Place -Talapus and Olallie Lakes (Pt 1)

I think this hike is officially my favorite of all the hikes I have done so far since being here in Washington! The trail was absolutely beautiful from beginning to end, plenty of waterfalls and mushrooms (oh the mushies!!!), traversing through old growth forest to Talapus lake and eventually you climb along the valley to Olallie lake. It's an easy 6 something miles round trip, smack in the middle of Snowqualmie Pass, and there's even a few forest bridges (forest boardwalks?) on the trail!

This Beautiful Place - Mt Si

I was so thankful to get out of the house the other day and hike 8 miles at Mt Si! This hike came highly recommended and I will definitely return to the well maintained and surprisingly shady trail. I got to share the hike with my duuuude and if that wasn't great enough, the weather was wonderful, affording us an incredible payoff for sure, 360 degree view and clear! I saw all the way past Seattle to Bainbridge Island, mini mountains with sprawling valleys and of course like, oh hey Rainier! Yeah, I'll get to you buddy. 

I certainly felt the hike by the time we were done (aaaand the next few days) and was glad to continue having an amazing afternoon at one of our favorite chow down spots - Marination! Knowing that this was probably the last good day of sitting out here in the sun, with this view, I just sat back and enjoyed every bite.

One thing I've learned to keep an eye out for on the trails up here are slugs! I came across these two lovers on the trail and while it's obvious they are snail sexing, I was certainly intrigued by exactly what was really going on here. I managed not only to answer my own questions, but I also learned quite a few other things about slugs. As it turns out snails/slugs have incredibly interesting and also somewhat mysterious sex lives, for example some species practice 'sadomasochism'. For all the details I found this article enlightening for anyone interested. 

This Beautiful Place - Squak Mountain

Today was a much needed day spent outdoors. Spring is one of my favorite times to go hiking because the whole forrest is reawakening. Fresh new growth is sprouting up on everything and everywhere, so small but so determined to get some of that precious sun! In the Spring, trails are much less crowded and your much more likely to run into a local (just birds on this outing I'm afraid)! With so many options around the Seattle area, and after reading pages and pages of hikes in the area, we basically just put a finger down and went there. Today I hiked up to the summit of Squak Mountain via the Bullitt Gorge Trail. Plants were budding everywhere!

This trail brings you right up to the Bullitt Fireplace, leftover from the Bullitt Family summer home, covered in moss and human scrawling. From there is a small shortcut trail across the top of the mountain which brings you to the summit of Central Peak and the microwave towers. As we drove away at the end of the day I saw the towers and was actually pretty impressed and pleased with myself. At the fireplace we ran into some fellow hikers who were geocachers! All right! They shared their cache find with us. 

 

This is what I wore hiking. Medium layers under my super vest (I love this vest. It's possibly wrong, how much I love this vest) with warm leggings and rainbow socks. In my 'converted' Dakine I brought along some light gloves, a hat and my fleecy bandana which I'm really glad for, it was supposed to be sunny all day but clouds soon overcame the mountain and it definitely cooled off.  

The tree above cracks me up! This hike is very woodsy, so lots of vibrant greens. Ferms, mosses, lichens...GROWTH! Beautiful Spring growth!! Of the many hikes in this park, there is only one vista point which we did not get to, on another side of the mountain. The vista boasts incredible views of Mount Rainer though so a must for next time.  Our trail gradually switchbacked through light woods before making some pretty steep and straight inclines, about 3/4 of the way through (just before the fireplace) it leveled out again and the density lessened.

Here I am at the end, about 4 hours and 6 miles later! PS- that handsome devil in the background is my man, Perry. And yes, I am talking about my car. I like to customize a hike by combining trails, starting out on one trail and ending via another, combining paths or just genrally exploring. This theory is very possible at Squak Mountain but some of the trail crossings aren't fully labeled and the trail names don't match up, so there was some confusion and we ended up coming down almost the same way we went up. There were no maps at the TH - should you find yourself in a no map situation pre-hike, take a PHOTOGRAPH of the map for reference. Fortunately we met a nice hiker and his dog who gave us an extra photo copied map he had, woot! Thank you! 

I love these little green plants! They were everywhere, sprouting up through the deadness of winter like little green polka dots for the forests' floor! I only saw a few mushrooms on the trees and just the little ones in the photo by the log. I'd really like to work on finding more mushrooms during hikes. I don't know if it's because they are hiding off trail or what but so far I haven't really been finding any mushrooms up here! All in all, an enjoyable hike and a successful outing, definitely some much needed natural medicine. : ) This year I didn't make a huge commitment to any New Year resolutions or anything but with so much nearby I really hope to make it outdoors at least once a week. With all that goes on between work and the rest of life, it really is important to get out and breath once and a while.

PS- I wrote this post last night, after the hike and passed out before I even posted! Now thats the mark of a good hike ; )