It was another couple of glorious fall days this week. I don’t know how long it is going to last. The forecast is for a significant storm approaching and due to arrive on Sunday. Freezing down to 5,000ft; Torrential rains; Snow in the mountains. We had to get out. Hopefully not the last time.
We decided to go to Mt Rainier. We have done the Reflection Lakes Loop several times in the past. We typically go clockwise starting from Paradise, we head up the Skyline Trail across Edith Creek basin and then across Mazama Ridge to Faraway Rock before descending down and back up to Paradise. G suggested that we reverse the loop. What an excellent idea.
The trail traveled south. Tatoosh Ridge was in the horizon and the fields blazed in the morning sun – red, gold, evergreen. The loop is about 5 miles and Faraway Rock is halfway. You have wide vistas down Stevens and Box Canyon east while looking down on Reflection Lakes. We hiked into the vista of fire and ice on Mt Rainier on the trail back to Paradise. Everything glowed ablaze in the fall sun.
The parking lot looks miniature from the top of Bluff Knoll
This week’s Photohunt theme is Miniature. This week’s theme was hard – extremely hard for me. No kids in the house so I couldn’t use a miniature toy theme. I looked around for some photos Madurodam – a miniature Dutch city theme park in Den Haag (The Hague) in Holland but I couldn’t find them.
I decided to do a picture from the top of Bluff Knoll in Western Australia. I remember how small the parking lot looked from the top. We hiked to the top in October 2006. It is one of the highest peaks in Western Australia and a great hike. Here are scenes from our hike.
Have a great weekend.
Bluff Knoll from the start of the hike in the parking lot
Notice how large the Western Australia Grass Trees (Xanthorrhoea preissii) are at the start
Lots of stairs at the start of the hike
Plants are getting smaller as we get higher
And the parking lot is shrinking
Look how small the grass trees are now – they are almost miniature! 😉
Fall is not one of my favorite seasons but I have found that I am enjoying it more and more. There is definitely something wonderful about a crisp Fall day on the trail with sky brilliantly blue. Or the early frost on grasses. And I am finding that I do enjoy the flavors of Fall.
I seem to crave different foods; crisp apples, the pungent flavor of sage, sharp tastes of ripe nuts. I got the craving for cinnamon bread last week. I haven’t made a standard loaf of bread in a while. Mostly I’ve been making the no-kneed artisan bread. But I thought I’d like to try a nice cinnamon raisin bread.
I decided to try Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread from pete bakes!. I halved the recipe to make only one loaf. I had a little problem rolling and crimping the loaf. The recipe suggests to sprinkle the dough with water before sprinkling the cinnamon. It ended up leaking out but no problem. I crimped the ends and squeezed it into the pan to rise a second time.
It was so yummy. I loved it toasted but it was also great in a cheese sandwich on the trail. I used Swiss cheese with a little bit of cream cheese. You can also add a slice of ham if you want meat. Sooo good.
Ready for the first rise
Roll out the dough and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar
The forecast was for another set of sunny days. Perfect opportunity for another fall hike. Our hiking buddies are off on Monday so we gave them a call and they wanted to come. Hmm… where to go. The Seattle Times highlighted a hike in the Teanaway area that we had not done yet – Longs Pass. It was a bit of a drive but with the forecast of sun – it would be perfect.
We picked up our friends and were on the way by 8:30am. The normal Monday morning rush hour traffic getting out of the city but by 11:00 we were at the trailhead at Esmeralda Basin. Whoa – was it cold! It is only about 4200 feet but it was definitely chilly. I pulled on another layer and a vest. I didn’t bring my gloves or winter hat so I needed to get moving.
You start along the Esmeralda Basin Trail #1394. This is part of an old mining road and climbs besides the creek running up to the end of the basin. After about 1/4 mile, you cross a small creek and come to the junction of the Ingalls Way Trail #1390 which leads to the Longs Pass Trail. This trail switch backs through the open forest littered with moss and leaves before emerging to the open slopes below Longs Pass. The vistas open up to Esmeralda Peak, basin and Fortune Pass. At about 2 miles you come to the junction for Longs Pass. Here the trail gets serious and climbs 600ft in 1/2 mile. It was also getting colder. We could see frost along the side raising up the soil with the spiky crystals. The way is mostly through serpentine and red rock. The blue sky is broken by the white snags. Thankfully it is cold. It would be hell hot on a summer day.
After about 2 hours, we reach the top and Mt. Stuart appears in all its glory. It is the second highest non-volcanic peak in Washington at 9,415 ft. The slope is dotted with golden larches tumbling into the Ingalls Creek Valley. The boys continue on up to the right to see the views and I decide to stay back and wait for lunch. Lunch was quite yummy – cheese sandwiches on homemade cinnamon bread and lemon orzo salad. G brought along a soda as a surprise which I really enjoyed but it made me very cold. I had to get up and walk around to warm up. G gave me some gloves that he had and I found a sunny warm spot on the rocks below where I waited for the boys to finish lunch.
We said goodbye to the mountain and headed down. It took half the time to make it back. We needed to make it over Snoqualmie Pass by 6:00pm since they were closing the road for repairs. The shadows lengthened and we were on our way. Another glorious fall hike.
Wild Turkeys seen on the Teanaway Road on the way to the trailhead
Esmeralda Creek cascading near the trail head
Esmeralda Basin Trail starts as remnants of an old mine road
The Ingalls Way trail branches off and starts to climb
Junction to Longs Pass
Longs Pass is in the distance
Happy Hiker
Serpentine rocks along the trailside
Polystichum lemmonii – Shasta fern grows among the rocks
Tarn to show us the trail among the rocks
Enjoying the vista across Esmeralda Basin
Nearing the pass – the trees are sparse
Mt Stuart and Ingalls Creek Valley with golden larches
Looking out towards Eastern Washington
Looking opposite way towards Peak 6878 and Fortune Pass from Longs Pass
I am part of an informal wine tasting group. It started back in 1994 at my former job. A couple of co-workers were discussing what wine to serve with Thanksgiving. They decided to have a tasting and this group became ‘The Winers’. We get together every month. And once a year we have a lamb roast.
Usually it is earlier in the year and we roast the lamb legs over an outdoor pit. But due to other commitments, we had to delay it until October. The forecast was for rain so we decided to do the roast in Weber Kettle BBQs instead. Our chef ordered the pastured lamb directly from Skagit Valley including On The Lamb farm. This summer has been cold and it has effected everything. The lamb legs were small.
A group got together early Sunday and boned and butterflied 10 lamb legs. They coated them with a mixture of roasted red pepper, dried tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and spices and then rolled them and tied them. They started up the Weber BBQ using mesquite charcoal and grilled them until they were about 130 degrees.
We had some great appetizers to start. Goat cheese flavored with sun dried tomatoes, fresh homemade Focaccia bread, olives. But the best of all was Chouriço à bombeiro – Portuguese sausage flambeed. Yummm… I love the little ceramic pig dishes that are used for the burning the high alcohol and charring the Portuguese chorizo which was brought back from Massachusetts.
Everyone brought a side dish or dessert. They were all wonderful. It was fun this year because the side dishes were more for the fall season – brussel sprouts, spoon corn bread, potato salad, several pasta dishes, roasted root vegetables. Everything was very good.
And of course there was a wide variety of red wine ranging from Gramercy Cellars in Walla Walla 2008 Tempranillo to a Silver Lake 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve. There was also a good international representation with wines from Italy, France, and Australia. I also particularly liked Domaine de Bila-Haut Occultum Lapidem Cotes du Roussillon Villages by M. Chapoutier although the San Polo Brunello di Montalcino 2004 was definitely the fav by many of the group.
This week’s Photohunt theme is stripes. Another challenging theme. I was thinking about it today and came up with some pretty boring ideas. I was out driving and then the idea came to me… road stripes!
We visited Mt. St. Helens in July. It was a very hot afternoon when we arrived and the parking lot at Windy Ridge was jammed. So we decided to leave and return early the next morning. Plus the light would be better on the mountain.
We got up early – 7am – and headed up. We made it to the parking lot by 8am on Monday. It was almost empty! And a gorgeous day. We decided to walk up the stairs to the overlook. The morning was cool and it was wonderful. We hiked along the ridge for about an hour before we decided to head back to the camp. It was still deserted. Along the way back we stopped to take a picture of some wildflowers and I was able to capture this picture of the road stripes along the deserted road.
Have a great weekend.
Capturing the wildflowers
Stripes in the empty parking lot at Windy Ridge – Mt St Helens National Monument
Have you experienced a perfect Fall day? Sky brilliant blue, breeze soft and warm, colors aglow in a golden flame?
Finding a perfect day to hike is always difficult in the Fall in the Pacific Northwest. The weather changes from day to day and it is hard to predict. But more often than not, you will find good weather round the third week in September and the first week in October. The first week in October can be glorious. It is also between a couple of major hunting seasons so it can also be less crowded.
The forecast was for good weather on Wednesday so we planned to head for the hills. The only challenge was to figure out where to go. Last year we went hunting golden larches in the North Cascade National Park. It was larch season so one possibility was to go up to the Teanaway. I reviewed the recent trip reports on NW Hiker and WTA. The color has been great along the crest and one report caught my eye – Lake Valhalla off of Stevens Pass. It would be an easy drive and not too difficult from the Smithbrook trailhead.
The morning was foggy and gray but it was sunny at the Pass when we checked the traffic webcams at Snoqualmie Pass. The fog was thick along the Snohomish River at Monroe and it wasn’t until almost Gold Bar that the sun appeared. The maples were turning yellow and there were broad swatches of red on the hills above Stevens Pass.
It took us about 2 hours to drive to the trailhead. The Smithbrook road is in great condition and there were no other cars in the parking lot. We put on our boots and headed up. The trail climbs along the road and stream. The devils club was brilliant yellow and the forest floor dotted with mushrooms of various colors. The trail switch backs through the forest for about 1 1/4 miles until it joins the Pacific Crest Trail at Union Gap. Turning south, it follows along the crest mostly level opening up to red hillsides of huckleberries and mountain ash and vistas to the east. It reaches an overlook down to the lake in about 1 1/2 miles. There below sparkling in the sun was Lake Valhalla.
We continued on and down to the meadows at the foot of Mt McCausland and on to the warm sandy shore overlooking Lichtenberg Mountain. The hillsides were aflame in fall color – Valhalla was burning in color.
We enjoyed our lunch and fed the chipmunks. We could tell the shadows were already lengthening so we headed back to the car. Overall, one of the best hikes this year.
I returned to Powellswood Garden this weekend. I visited earlier this year on Mothers Day when the garden was just waking. I had good intentions to visit again this summer but days flew by. We were in the South Sound to visit a couple of nurseries and stopped by on Sunday.
And the garden is still beautiful. The Parrotia persica at the entrance has just started to turn red. The cooler days has the Brugmansia (Angel Trumpet) in full bloom. The large leafed Petasites are just starting to show a little beating by the weather but still look good. Leaves are bronzing over but there is still a lot in bloom; Hydrangeas, Asters, Sneezeweed, abd Sedums like Autumn Joy and Frosty Morn. But we really loved the wide variety of fuchsias. The colors were stunning especially against the chartreuse of the leaves and grasses.
The weather is getting cold so hurry soon and catch its Fall glory. Don’t forget to check their page on Facebook.
Our good friend J visited this weekend. He is another plantsman who works in a nursery in Spokane. G and J worked together for several years at the now closed Seattle Garden Center in the Pike Place Market. It is always a ball to visit local nurseries with them. Both of our gardens are chaotic homages to plants.They love plants. I always just tag along for the ride.
Late September is a great time in the nurseries in Seattle. Many have Fall sales to help move out plant material before the winter and Christmas season. I was the only one looking for a specific plant. I have started to get into ornamental grasses. I love the grasses because they are still interesting in the late fall and winter. J is a great expert in grasses and was advising me on which ones to buy. I love Calamagrostis acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’. We have a small one in our garden. I wanted something bigger and J recommended a Miscanthus. I was surprised that many of the nurseries in Seattle did not these large grasses. I did find a Miscanthus sinensis ‘Malepartus’ at Wells Medina. The blossoms start out with a maroon tint before opening to cream colored. It will be tall so we’ll have to decide where to put it.
I also loved the autumn displays of pumpkins along with orange flowered and maroon leaved plants on display now in the nurseries. We spent two days traveling the area and visiting our favorite nurseries. Here is a list of the nurseries we visited:
This week’s photohunt theme is Letters. There are a couple of different ways to go with this but decided to use this set of photos of the neon sign for the Casino in Menton France. We loved how the bird lined up on the top of each letter. It is also fun to see the contrasting ‘Discotheque’ just below. I took a couple of other shots at the same time from the beach behind the casino. One close up of a letter and another shot of me – color coordinated with the letters. 🙂
