Pictures from outdoor exercise.
Options
Replies
-
Reminds me of an old TV drama called Northen Exposure. The intro had a beautiful video clip of a bald eagle soaring above a pristine wilderness but the audio they used was of a red tailed hawk.2
-
I went out to the coast today to hike. It was about 90 minutes of driving to hike 7.77 miles.
I hiked up Gwynn Creek and then up to Cook's Ridge. That was about three miles or so with about 1200 feet of elevation gain from the ocean. The hike down was steeper, and then I walked out to the ocean to see waves breaking on the rocks and then the mile back to my car.
The hike up Gwynn Creek goes through old growth and older second-growth Sitka Spruce and Douglas-fir. There was one log laying down that someone had marked annual rings on for about 400 years old.
I was sure I had hiked this trail in the past, but now I'm not so sure. Next time I go to that area, I will hike up Cummins Creek, then around the top of Cook's Ridge, and back down Gwynn Creek.
It was a nice day. I was able to take my coat off for the uphill portion. I had to put it back on to come back down. I stopped under a large tree to eat an orange and some cheese, then headed up the ridge. The weather was cool, and the sun really wasn't out, but it wasn't raining. Even the vegetation was dry, so that was nice. I saw one woman right near the start of the hike. She wasn't dressed for hiking, and she was carrying a water bottle in a sling and that was it. Funny - I had water with me as an emergency measure, but I only had a little sip when I stopped to eat. I did have water when I got back to the car. It amazes me how accustomed people are to always having water. I saw one couple near the top of the ridge, and two people up-hiking as I was near the end of the trail. Weekday in the winter and cool out - I almost had the place to myself. I loved that.
I haven't been spending a lot of time in the forest since fall other than near my house. I usually notice how quiet it is. I thought about this today. On the way up, I could hear the creek the whole time. As soon as I was on the ridge, even though I was three miles from the ocean, I could hear it. So not quite so silent. I'm not complaining! I also noticed the other people long before I saw them because they were chatting. I also thought how nice it was to be alone rather than with someone else where I might have tried to fill the space with conversation.
We've got nice weather in the forecast again tomorrow, but rain is coming back soon, and late next week getting quite cold again. I wonder if I'll go hike tomorrow somewhere closer!
On my way home, I had a bit of an adventure. I wanted to explore a different way home. I always had, but never did it. Well, I did. I thought it was all paved. Nope. About 15 miles or so were gravel. Very windy. And it was higher elevation than I thought, so I got into snow. Not much, but I was still a little nervous. I haven't had the "new" 2011 RAV4 in the snow before. It did fine just like I figured it would. I was worried I might get stopped and have to turn around, and then I wasn't sure I'd have enough fuel because of how far I'd already gone. I'm still getting used to the fuel gauge as well as how much fuel economy I get. I got home with a quarter tank left and filled back up for the next adventure.
2 -
Great pictures. That stump... more than 300 years old... remarkable!!0
-
I am sure there are trees up there WELL older than 500. There's a Giant Spruce that has a trail named after it nearby, and it's been listed as a Heritage Tree that for sure is over 500. It is more than 185 feet tall with a circumference of 40 feet. You can sort of read on the picture that log was from a tree that was about 400 years old.
The large spruce in the first picture? There were others I saw yesterday much larger. I like big trees; I will not lie.2 -
When I lived on Vancouver Island, we walked through Cathedral Grove... It's nearly otherworldly...I am sure there are trees up there WELL older than 500. There's a Giant Spruce that has a trail named after it nearby, and it's been listed as a Heritage Tree that for sure is over 500. It is more than 185 feet tall with a circumference of 40 feet. You can sort of read on the picture that log was from a tree that was about 400 years old.
The large spruce in the first picture? There were others I saw yesterday much larger. I like big trees; I will not lie.
cathedralgrove.eu/text/01-Cathedral-Grove-1.htm0 -
My GPS wrist-device came in very handy today on my hike. It was about ten miles. It would have been shorter, but I found some additional loops I could take over on the back side.
Today's hike was much more local than yesterday's. Only a five mile drive to the trailhead, then a ten-mile hike up one creek, over a ridge, and down into another watershed. My plan was to hike about four miles up the one creek. There is another hike about seven miles; I figured I'd save that hike for another time. I had been planning to explore both of these trails for quite some time, especially since a local land trust obtained a key property and built a connecting trail.
Well, as it turns out, the trail up the one creek now continues all the way over. The other trail used to go along gravel roads. The new trail goes through many different habitats and trail types from narrow mud to wide gravel road. At the top, I checked my GPS device and saw there was a loop I could do named after a local leader in conservation. Then I decided to add one more little loop that included a STEEP muddy descent down a single track and a huff back up to that first loop. All nice.
From the top and a few other places, I could see several of the Cascade volcanoes as well as the highest peaks in the Oregon Coast Range at the same time. I got back close to my car and had to hoof it a quarter mile up another trail and then back so I could log exactly 10.01 miles. I like palindromes.
Ann inscription on a bench at the top:
0 -
Sit... Let your spirit dance in wonder and rest in beauty...
This land dedicated to all beings by Jim and Jo Moorefield, Christopher, Liana and Lachlan.
Worth highlighting...1 -
Sit... Let your spirit dance in wonder and rest in beauty...
This land dedicated to all beings by Jim and Jo Moorefield, Christopher, Liana and Lachlan.
Worth highlighting...
That's why I captured a picture because it's a very nice thought. There was a nice view from that bench, too.
For 20 years, Jim was the director of a non-profit community development organization in my city that actually serves a multi-county area that served low-income families and seniors, people with disabilities and people experiencing homelessness. He was a City Councilor at one time. He spent over 40 years on community issues and is one of my neighbors.2 -
(snip)
I stopped under a large tree to eat an orange and some cheese, then headed up the ridge. The weather was cool, and the sun really wasn't out, but it wasn't raining. Even the vegetation was dry, so that was nice. I saw one woman right near the start of the hike. She wasn't dressed for hiking, and she was carrying a water bottle in a sling and that was it. Funny - I had water with me as an emergency measure, but I only had a little sip when I stopped to eat. I did have water when I got back to the car. It amazes me how accustomed people are to always having water.
(snip good stuff and amazing photos)
I wish we had that kind of sweeping scenery here, but locally the Good Stuff is more micro, nice habitats, cathedral hardwoods, earthy swamps.
I have to say, I'm one of those water people. In the hotter stage of summer here, I've found I do best carrying a small water bottle, even on a short walk like 5 miles. I sweat heavily, in a most dramatically unfeminine way, even in relatively cool weather with pretty mild exertion. Add some heat or more intensity, and subjective experience is seriously sub-ideal. It doesn't take much more than that, IME, for my objective performance or recovery to suffer.
Some of my friends are less water sensitive than I am. I'm not very food sensitive, but some of my friends are much more food-sensitive than I am. (One has even fainted from what I'd consider quite mild under-eating.) I feel like individuals' experience can be quite variable, in some of these end-cases.0 -
I wasn't planning on doing a bunch of walking today; I figured maybe just did a little.
I walked into town to get my mail and a bagel. I got two bagels. One was a rye bagel with smoked salmon spread I sat down and enjoyed completely. The other was a cinnamon-raisin to go. I walked home and made "candy coffee." Started as decaf, and after I preheated the mug I added a spoon of Dutch process cocoa powder, a half teaspoon of brown sugar, and a teaspoon of good vanilla. I put some salt and some cinnamon in the grounds, and poured boiling water over. It was so good with the bagel. I had to keep stirring to keep all the cocoa powder from settling to the bottom. That walk was Pi miles (3.14)
I did go out to the boardwalk on the wetland in the NE corner of town. I brought my friend. It's only about 0.9 miles all the way around. So short. And there was surprisingly little wildlife. I heard a couple blackbirds but never saw one. We saw one egret and some mallards. I saw a wren and some sparrows. So I suggested we go do another short walk across the other side of town. It was supposed to be a one-mile loop, but we found a bunch of other trails and explored a few neighborhoods in the hills behind the park; that walk turned into 2.22 miles. That means I totaled about 10K - 6.2 miles and change. I guess that's not really a short day, but oh well. Then I walked back to my friend's house so she could give me produce she got from her CSA and buy me a few baked goods from the bakers who live at her community and bring "leftover" items from the shop to sell out of their home for a small discount. I got a nice whole-wheat sourdough baguette, a cranberry hazelnut & Swiss roll, and a chocolate scone. I have the scone left for tomorrow....
We saw this little guy on the longer walk through the park on the NW side of town (it's a Douglas squirrel):
2 -
Another hike today since the weather was good. This one was a DOUBLE palindrome! It was 11.11 miles (I had to walk a very small extra distance after getting back to the trailhead to get that number to appear on my device) and was 252 minutes (I didn't realize this until I looked at MFP when I got home).
I wanted to explore the trails at a relatively new land trust nearby. It's privately owned but open to the public. Their mission is to "own and manage perpetually self-sustaining privately-owned public spaces to provide enhanced recreational, educational, and research experiences with an environmental focus to its visitors." The land abuts the natural area owned by another land trust that I hiked in on Friday. The one I visited today uses the land to generate some income to help sustain the property. The owner also has a farm and ranch. They use cattle to help improve the landscape, which is perhaps unusual. They also prune up the branches in the forest to reduce ladder fuels. They are managing for invasive plant species and encouraging natives including Kinkaid's Lupine which is the sole food source for a local butterfly that is endangered. It's a very nice trail system, although there's sure a lot of interpretive signs. Lots of trail markers, too. Lots of fences and gates to keep cattle where they're supposed to be when they have them out there. None today. They also have stations with shovels you can use to help clear the trails of cow *kitten*. You just drop the shovel back off at the next station.
The land was once owned by a timber company. Much of the forest is naturally seeded. Some is hand planted with a number of species. There's also an abundance of oak savanna which is really nice to see.
There were picnic tables in various places along the trails so people could pack in a lunch or some wine and cheese or whatever.
This was one of my favorite trees on the trail; a broken oak that made an arch over the trail.
I decided to pretty much walk ALL of the trails and most of the roads. My first trail was the River Trail. It goes.... right along the river. I've paddled this river many times in the past, but it's been a while. It makes me want to get out and paddle it really soon, and I will.
There are open meadows with open-grown oaks, and there are some vistas of the valleys nearby.
I passed a few pieces of "art" that visitors made on the trail out of lichen.
I had looked at my GPS and saw another loop I could take that would take me out into some neighborhoods and back to some trails near the ones I had hiked on Friday. So I went. I didn't quite realize how much extra distance I was adding on, or how much elevation change there would be. I did fine. Part of this part was walking down what used to be a county road that has been closed for decades and decades and that in the last 50 years was just used for people walking, riding horses, or biking to get up to enjoy the forests and go over the ridge to the next valley where there's even more trails that I'll go visit sometime. The road wasn't maintained for many many years and got eroded so that the road bed was well below the ground surface. Walking in it has a "hobbit" feel as there's places there's walls of soil next to the road.
On the last leg of trail, I walked what they call the "North Trail." It's on the north side of the property near a ridge, so it has southern exposure. It was nice to soak up the sun as the temperature otherwise was dropping as it was getting late. Out on the top, there's a nice timber-frame gazebo with a very nice picnic table.
I'll go back again. I probably won't repeat this eleven mile hike, but I might to six or eight or just five. It was nice to get in a new adventure and scope out not just the land trust trails but the neighborhoods on this side of the ridge where I can also drive to if I want to access portions of this area or the other one I hiked on Friday. The uppermost trailhead on my side of the areas is about five miles closer to my house, but it might actually take longer to drive depending when I went since I'd have to go through town and whatever traffic there might be.
My hike with the highest elevations in red and lowest in blue:
1 -
The lichen art is relatively cool...0
-
The one I got a picture of must have been from last week - Valentine's Day. There was another at a trail junction near the edge of Fitton Green (in the upper right part of the green shaded area on the map where there's a little triangle of trails) that was a peace sign.
I did see some people, but fewer than I thought I might on a nice Sunday. Most were in two areas near trailheads that had options for short hikes. One couple made me shake my head. The young woman had a phone or other device in her bag "sharing" what she must have thought was good music and I thought was pretty awful. Too bad they couldn't just enjoy the sounds of the forest and had to bring their own beats. Maybe they thought it would scare off bears or something. I literally shook my head.
There were three groups of people I passed twice. That was fun.
Up on top, there was a woman walking down the street. She commented that it was such a nice day. I mentioned I had come up from the other side. When she finally realized I meant the Wren side of the mountain, she got big eyes and said, "OH, you are going a long way." Yep.
The bagel shop is closed today, and it's a mail holiday so I won't walk downtown. Maybe it should be a rest day. But the weather prognosticators say it won't be "that bad" yet today, so maybe a short local walk by the river in my most local park. Or maybe I should get back to the house organizing I put off to go hike in the nice weather because I'm behind on my "ten hour per week" commitment.1 -
I walked to the post office this morning. It was still sub-freezing, but was sunny. I didn't dally. There was no mail, so I hoofed it home and took care of some chores. It was still nice and sunny, and I knew there was still snow on the ground at higher elevations. So I decided to go visit a park on the other side of town that has a very few short trails. The main trail that goes all the way around is 1.5 miles. There's two little "short cuts" that go up steep hills, so I did a second lap to hit those two trails for a total of about 2.5 miles.
The sun was out. It was warm enough to take off my gloves and scarf at one point. Well, it was also sun beating down so that helped. Vitamin D from nature to boost what goes down my throat in a pill!
The top of the trail has views of town, the Coast Range mountains, and the Cascade Mountains.
Some of the oaks still had a little snow on them.
Later, after I got home, I was looking up the activity, logged in to my Garmin account, and the page it landed on showed me THIS:
Twenty four?
I've been telling people for a few years I'm 42. I was 36 for years and years and years and "gave myself an upgrade" a few years back. Now I can reverse the digits.
2 -
Is that a garry oak? And a madrona aka arbutus tree)? My goodness... that brings me back...0
-
Whidbey Island, Washington beach walk this morning3 -
Is that a garry oak? And a madrona aka arbutus tree)? My goodness... that brings me back...
Quercus garryana - Oregon White Oak.
Arbutus menziesii - Pacific Madrone.
I have some in my yard that I planted as tiny seedlings less than a foot tall. Now twenty years later, they are getting big. Sort of. They were seedlings from the Conservation District's annual sale. I added a lot of native plants to my landscape. I took out the Nootka rose (Rosa nutkana); it was just too aggressive. I took out the tall Oregon Grape (Mahonia aquifolium). Also pretty aggressive, and in the wrong place. I left most of the Dwarf Oregon Grape (Mahonia nervosa) and can mostly keep it contained. I took out an Oceanspray (Holodiscus discolor) - it was in the wrong place. I have some Pacific Ninebark (Physocarpus capitatus), some Red Flowering Currant (Ribes sanguineum), some Indian Plum (Oemleria cerasiformis), some twinberry (Lonicera involucrata), and probably a few more species I'm not thinking of at the moment.
The Madrone is out in the front yard. I really love their bark. The flowers and berries are nice too. The front yard was about the only space I wanted to put it. It's in an area that I do not water during the summer. It's been doing quite well. It has a mycorrhizal association with a fungus, so that fungus must have been present in my soil or the seedling was inoculated in the nursery because it's quite happy.
The Oregon White Oak is out in the back near the orchard. I am careful to keep water away from it in the summer. It's doing quite well also. I want to put a deed restriction on the property if I sell it that the oak tree must never be irrigated like a lawn, and both trees need to remain in place.
1 -
CrazyMermaid1 wrote: »
Whidbey Island, Washington beach walk this morning
My dive club does, or did, an annual critter collection up at Fort Casey each spring. I should really get back up there.1 -
Striking photo, @crazymermaid1!0
-
I took another hike today. I was worried it would be crowded; it's the weekend, and the sun is out. It's been COLD at night, but today was up in the mid-40s for a high. I had a few ideas of where to go, and at the last minute made what was probably a good decision.
Today's hike was 5.55 miles. I hiked some of the same trails I hiked last week, but I started from a different place. I started near the top, did a popular loop, hiked down to what used to the the end of a trail than now continues all the way up, then back to the top and added a steep loop... just because. I met a nice couple on the trail, twice, and we had a couple nice chats. They had parked down near the bottom, and they actually parked in a place they usually don't because the place the usually do was full, full, full of cars.
So my decision to drive a few extra miles and start from the top was for sure a good call. I passed the lower trailhead they would have used on my way home, and the lot was still totally full.
The other place I almost went was actually near several neighborhoods, and it would have been even MORE crowded. Aside from the few folks I saw up top, and a few folks I saw twice, I mostly had the trails to myself. Even on a sunny Saturday in February. I was pleasantly surprised.
There was hills and snow and mud... and SUN!!!
1
