washington

Hiking the John Muir Trail was an incredible experience but eventually the “mountain high” wore off. Last fall I had a crazy idea… what if I hiked the PCT through Washington? Well, I’m turning it into a reality and have been gathering my gear.

After successfully beating off early-season colds, it was time to get back out on a serious trail. Last weekend we…

Rainier is a mountain that will get under your skin, in a very, very good way. There is something captivating and enchanting about Mount Rainier that pulls us in and doesn’t let us go. John Muir, one of America’s best naturalists, understood the draw of Rainier.

I was completely oblivious of our nearest national park until only a couple years ago. Now that I’ve had the chance to explore it, I consider it one of my favourite parks, and one of the best places to venture for a weekend of hiking.

I would definitely count Skyline Divide ​as one of my favourite hikes. It is a perfect distance for a day hike, not too easy but not too hard either, and offers insanely beautiful views for the better part of the trail.

Olympic National Park is best described in three words: wild, remote, and rugged. There are three separate ecosystems to discover, and three unique areas of the park to explore. Because of it’s isolated location, visiting the park is best done over multiple days.

​Sunrise is a truly beautiful area of Mount Rainier to explore. We were lucky enough to get a taste of much of it, spending a couple nights at backcountry sites, a couple nights at a front country campground, hiking low, hiking high, seeing sunsets and sunrises.

The day after our aborted backpacking trip in the north-east corner of Mount Rainier National Park was grey and dreary, though a bit less rainy. After some discussion and perusal of our map, we decided to head to Glacier Basin, a trail that conveniently started about 50 feet from our campsite.

I was seriously itching to get back on trail after getting home from our California road-trip after completing the John Muir Trail. For Labor Day weekend we’d promised ourselves a trip to the Sunrise area of Mount Rainier, which is only open for a short time through the summer season.

What an awesome send-off before we venture down to California! We spent this past Saturday night in the Park Butte lookout tower on the South-West side of Mt. Baker and the mountain was an amazing sight! Our last training hike ended up being one of the better ones, thanks to a few different factors.