Father/Daughter Hike

Brad and Kylie planned a "last hurrah" backpacking trip, thirty miles over four days, up near Staircase.  They ended up doing 20 miles in less than 24 hours!  Kylie got an eye infection the first night and they had to turn around and come home.

 

Here they are, blissfully unaware of what's to come! 

Crossing the bridge at Staircase.

 

Made it to the first night's camp site!

Next morning, ready to head back.

Brad's favorite spot!

They said there were all kinds of berries everywhere.

Notice Kylie is now wearing sunglasses, the light really hurt her eye.

They met up with another hiker and enjoyed his stories for a while on the way down.

Back to the river, almost there!

They made it!  Exhausted, for sure!  They were pretty disappointed not to be able to do the whole trip.  Maybe next year. 

Green Mountain Hike

We've had a string of gorgeous, but very cold, winter days.  I've been wanting to take the family on a hike, so when Saturday promised to be sunny, I decided we'd go to Green Mountain.  We invited another family who has an adventurous streak.  They have four kids, plus two of the mom's half-brothers, who are the age of her two oldest kids (13 and 10) were visiting so they joined us as well.  At the last minute, Brad and Jillian decided not to go.  They definitely missed out!

Kylie leading the way, with Ben and Jeffrey following.

John, Jeffrey, Kylie, Aaron, Alan, and Ben, about 1/2 way up.  

We ended up ahead of the rest of the group, who had the two younger kids.

At the top!  That's Seattle and the Cascade mountains in the distance, with Puget Sound, Bainbridge Island, Silverdale and Bremerton in between.

Ben and I at the top. 

We ate our lunch and waited for the rest of the group to arrive.  Kylie was anxious to head back down (she was slightly under-dressed for the cold weather), so she went on ahead.  

Somehow I ended up with all but one of the kids on the way back down.  The mom and dad of the other family was behind with the youngest girl, and Kylie was way ahead.  We went down a different way so we could see the view of the Olympics.

Everything went well until about 1/2 a mile from the end, when we had to decide which way to turn to join the main trail.  I chose the wrong way, and after about 15 minutes, realized we weren't in the right place.  I had a map, and thought I knew how to get us back, but I was with six young boys who were a little freaked out about not being where we were supposed to be.  Eventually we came to the main road, fortunately only about 1/4 mile up the road from the trail head.  I think we ended up hiking about six miles instead of five.  I'm glad we went, but next time I will choose the left instead of the right!

Ozette Triangle Hike

Brad and I have wanted to take the kids on a backpacking trip for a long time.  We finally made it happen this summer.  The Ozette Triangle is a 9 mile hike, 6 miles of it along a mostly boardwalk trail and 3 miles along the coast.  We added about four miles to the hike by going up the coast two miles to a more secluded spot.

Starting out...very excited!

Still at the very beginning...

About a mile in it opens up to a nice meadow area.

And after three miles, we reached the coast!

These markers show where the trail is.

The view towards the coast from the end of the first leg.

And the lovely bathroom facilities...this was pretty plush, some of them only had half walls!

Heading up the coast.

 

Kylie loves to climb! 

Taking a break.

Scrambling over the rocks was one of the hardest parts of the hike.  Ben was a natural and sprinted ahead of us (you can barely see him up front with the blue pack.)  We gave him the nickname "mountain goat."

We were worried about bears, but these deer were the only wildlife we saw.

We missed the window for low tide, so we had to climb up and over at the very end to get back to the beach.

Trying to start a fire.

Preparing dinner.  We precooked chicken and couscous, then warmed it over the fire.  Delicious!

 

Here's our first night's camping spot.  The weather turned drizzly and cold in the evening, so we went to bed early hoping to wake up to sun. 

Unfortunately it wasn't sunny when we woke up, but the rain had stopped and it was warmer. 

Heading back down the coast.  This time the tide was low and we were able to walk around the point.  I think it was easier to go up and over!

 

A dead whale...yuck!  I wanted to take their picture and they said, "Hurry up! It stinks!"  I wonder how long it had been there...

Going around another point, we found these petroglyphs.  We stopped for lunch here and talked about who could have made them and what they might mean.  Ben decided it was from an episode of Psych where Shawn said he is going to propose to Juliette.  Gus would be standing on one side of Shawn and Juliette on the other while an Orca jumps over all of them. Maybe the Native Americans were psychic, just like Shawn. 

After our five mile hike down the coast, we reached Sand Point and looked for a camping spot for our second night. 

After about an hour, the rain moved in and we decided we would rather hike another three miles back to the car than spend another wet night!

 

This was a great hike for our first backpacking with kids experience!  It's mostly flat, but scrambling over the rocks was tough in some spot, which Ben really enjoyed. 

Summer Vacation Part 3--White Fish Resort

White Fish Resort is a few miles outside of Glacier National Park.  During the summer, their chair lifts are open and they have zip lines and an alpine slide.  We spent the afternoon enjoying the mountain.

Someone is missing...oh, it's me!  I couldn't find anything to balance the camera on so I could jump into the picture and there weren't many people around to ask. So sad!

Kylie, Ben, and I decided to try out the zip lines.

Learning the "moves," pencil, starfish, and landing...

Perfect pencil!

Look at that starfish!

It was so much fun and not a bit scary!  I loved these longer lines where you could enjoy the scenery.

Coming in for landing!  Sometimes you hit the mats kind of hard, so had to really be prepared with your knees tucked up.

About half way through.  They were loving it!  We did the full 7 line tour and I'm glad we did.  There was a less expensive 5 line tour, but the two longest, most fun lines were only on the longer tour.  It took us about 2 1/2 hour to do them all.

One of the starting towers.

Here comes Ben!

Ready to go!

We took turns going together, two at a time.  One of us was always left to go with a guide. There were 13 people in our group and we were the only ones with an uneven number in our little group.

The race is on!  Since Ben is lighter, he usually got a head start, but Kylie was able to catch up using her superior pencil form!

We also rode the chair lifts, which were a lot more tame than the zip lines, but still fun!

Kylie and Ben tried out the alpine slide

After the resort, we explored the town of White Fish.  Ben really wanted to see a moose on this trip, but this was the closest we got.  

From White Fish, we headed back to Missoula to return the RV. We drove along the east shore of Flat Head Lake, which is another beautiful place we wish we could have stopped to explore.  There are many, many cherry orchards along the lake, and lots of quaint, picturesque towns.  St. Ignatius is an example of one, nestled up against the mountains.

(I didn't take this picture, I found it on the internet...)

After driving through St. Ignatius, we ran into a forest fire, or at least the smoke from one, and the beautiful scenery was obscured until we hit Missoula.  I should have taken a picture of us trying to jam all the stuff back into our van!  We had one extra person (Nate) and all his stuff from college.  With the help of a car top carrier, we were able to fit everything back in.  It was a great vacation, but three full days of driving out of seven was a bit much. I hope we're able to go back again and spend more time, especially in Glacier.  It's such a beautiful part of the country!