Riding 200 Miles on a Bike in One Weekend is Normal, Right?

Hardly.  Well, it depends what you consider 'normal.'  To my husband and a handful, well, actually a lot, of his friends this seems quite a reasonable thing.  If you think to yourself  'Hey self, why don't we get on our bikes in Seattle and ride so far north that we need a passport' then I've got the ride for you!  It's called the RSVP [Ride from Seattle to Vancouver and Party], put on by the Cascade Bicycle Club https://shop.cascade.org/ and it sells out every year.  You heard me right, it's so popular that it sells out!  Meaning that if you were number 4,001 you would not have gotten to ride your bike 200 miles and pay to do so.  Sorry, better sign up earlier next time.  But don't feel too bad, we all decided that the 'p' for 'party' should definitely be a footnote... they need to work on the party in a major way.

But really, it was quite fun for me.  Our friends from Dallas, Rich and Matthew, flew up to do the ride with Will while I served as support crew.  Day one of the ride was from Seattle to Bellingham, WA and then day two of the ride was from Bellingham to Vancouver, BC.  I served as the sherpa and made sure the luggage and transportation made it to each stop.  According to the boys, it wasn't bad and had a lot of nice scenery.  I enjoyed getting to eat at cute restaurants in Fairhaven, WA (near Bellingham) and in Vancouver.  I have also had the urge to eat lots of ice cream lately, so I had that just about every day, as did Matthew.  I think Matthew put it best when he said 'Ice cream is really just like water, it just kind of smooths and melts around everything', exactly, Matthew.  Zero calories because it just sort of dissolves once it gets inside your belly :)  Another very high point of the weekend was staying at the luxurious Bay City Motor Inn.  Let me tell you, the name is about as nice as it sounds.  The website can be deceiving...if you define 'newly renovated' as something that was done within the last 20 years. It was a charming little hotel (enter, irony) that was right by the stop after day one in Bellingham (think... everything sold out in town and ridiculously overpriced).  It reminded me of Will's apartment in law school in Waco, TX... with the kind of carpet where I wouldn't walk around without shoes on.  You get the picture.

I digress.  The ride was great and we all made it through the border just fine, well except Matthew, who apparently got a lot of questioning.  Apparently there's a fugitive on the run in Arizona named Matthew... different one though!  But he finally made it into Canada and finished the ride :) The weekend was really nice and it was great to see our friends from Dallas.

Here are the much anticipated shots from the weekend on the bike.

Leaving Queen Anne Ave for the start line. Full of energy.

Will and Matthew cruising along on day one.

End of day one. They burned up 108+ miles of asphalt.

Free ice cream sandwich...score!

After dinner in Fairhaven. I am enjoying ice cream!
Will enjoyed a dinner of fish and chips and
has not yet felt its wrath...

Beautiful sunset in Bellingham.

Crazy Canadian statues, eh?

Happy and off the bike! All done!

Two very happy men, finished riding. Rich (l) and Matthew (r).

Summer Ramblins'

Recently my parents came to visit for my birthday, you'll need to check back for that post as I'm still arranging photos :)

In the meantime, I'll share a few recent activities that we've been up to in the PNW and on the East Coast.

Went to NYC for work for a few days and guess what... it rained!  It was a necessary visit and I got a lot done while there, but boy was I glad to get back to Seattle.  I forgot how noisy, busy, and smelly New York was.

The weekend I got back from New York, Will and I took a nice bike ride down to Seward park. The flowers blooming right now are amazing, as are the water lilies!

And most recently, we went to a super secret bellydance party on a rooftop in Seattle.  It was so much fun! Our friend, Amy, is an amazing bellydancer and she showed everyone up with her Macklemore dance :)

Hope you're making the most out of your summer, too :)

July 13 & 14, 2013 Trip Report: Mt. Stuart - Longs Pass - Ingalls Lake - Ingalls Pass

Will and I took a backpacking trip this weekend to Mt. Stuart and the surrounding area. The original plan was to summit Mt. Stuart but after dicey trip reports from people who had summited and attempted to summit, we decided it was a trip that would be better in August after the snow melted out and we had three days vs. two.  Instead, we did a huge hiking loop and it was breathtaking. I may even go as far as to say the most beautiful place I've been in Washington state.

Day 1: Longs Pass to Ingalls Creek Basin
We headed out from the parking lot and up the Longs Pass trail.  The trail was clearly marked, as most hikers do this as a day trip to the top, then turn around and hike down the same way.  Once at the top of the pass, we were met with an astoundingly beautiful view.  I wasn't expecting to see what I saw:

Mt. Stuart - view from the top of Longs Pass

We descended over the pass and down into Ingalls Creek basin to camp.  The trail was not marked well at all and was very rough in places, turning from dusty scree into a creek.  Once at the bottom of the basin, we crossed Ingalls Creek and found a lovely camp sight.  After dropping our (extremely heavy) packs, we explored the area a bit further to get a game plan for morning.  It was then that we talked to people who were on their way down from an attempted summit and decided that we would not pursue Mt. Stuart on this trip.

Esmerelda

Hike up Longs Pass

Top of Longs Pass, preparing to descend.
The Mt. Stuart Range an exquisite backdrop.

Day 2: Ingalls Creek Basin to Ingalls Lake to Ingalls Pass

After a good night's sleep we woke up, ate breakfast and were packing up camp when we saw a huge deer with big antlers!  It was rummaging around eating a few things in the forest.  We were being super quiet and didn't want to get too close and scare it away so we didn't get any great photos unfortunately.  

From camp, we hiked west on the Ingalls Lake trail.  On the way we encountered stunning scenery, all different types of wild flowers, meadows, and creeks.  The Stuart Range was a lovely backdrop throughout our hike.

 We continued our hike towards Ingalls Lake and on the way happened through a beautiful meadow.  At the end of the mountain meadow we did a scramble up a smaller peak to get a view over the ridge.  From the top of the ridge we were able to get a peek at Glacier Peak, while gorgeous, this added a few hundred feet of extra elevation and a few more miles to our trip.

We reached Ingalls Lake around 9:30 a.m.  It's a magnificent, crystal clear blue lake set just below Ingalls Peak.  To get to the rest of the trail, we had to hike around the lake.  So, we headed to the east side of the lake, through bits of snow (an ice axe was handy here) and did another small climb up some rock to try and avoid most of the snow to the top of the descent trail.  However, we were not successful in finding a way off the rock without a rope, and the snow had melted just enough so that it was too thin to walk on to pass over the lake safely, so we ended up hiking all the way around the lake on the west side to reach the trail...bummer.  I do not like really like snow, especially in July, this is one of the reasons why... scary and unpredictable!  Oh well... we made it but again, added time and elevation to our trip.

Ok, lots of pictures of the lake, but you get the point... it's really pretty :)  

After leaving Ingalls Lake, we started the final push back to the car.  The descent from the lake was steep and took a bit of finesse.  Once it leveled out a bit, we crossed some snow, a few camp sites and then ran upon the much discussed, but yet to appear on our trip.... GOATS!  We had been told that there were tons and tons of mountain goats in the area but we had yet to see one until we were on the way out.  We continued along the trail and a few minutes later we saw marmots!  Seems like animals wanted to come out to play during the middle of the day.  

The final stretch of the day was popping over Ingalls Pass and down-hiking a few miles to the car.  As soon as we came over the ridge, there were more goats waiting for us and a super cute baby goat!  It looked like a little lamb almost.  So cute that I wanted to go pet it and squeeze it, but I didn't because the mom and dad had horns ;)  Too bad I can't have a baby goat as a pet, because I think it would be a good one (until it grew up that is).

Saw a few more gorgeous views over the last few miles down, Esmeralda Mountain and Mt. Rainier.  Exhausted, battered, a bit bruised, and about 16 miles later (plus 3.1 miles from the 5K we ran in Queen Anne Saturday morning) we reached the car.  

We will return to this area for future hikes and likely an attempt to summit Mt. Stuart. It's an enchanting area and I'd encourage anyone to go check it out. There are a variety of hiking trails of all distances and elevations. If you are going to do the same route (or similar) to the one we did, I'd advise an ice axe and some traction device.