Ah, the proverbial 2023 highlight post…
As I mentioned yesterday, there was a lot of “recapping” for this year. One of my intentions at the beginning of the year was to get the most out of my America The Beautiful Pass, Oregon State Parks Pass and Discover Pass. Apart from all the bike riding, I think I did a pretty good job of meeting that goal! Eleven national parks (2 of them twice) and ten state parks made for some beautiful landscape memories. Not to mention some DNR, national forest, land trust and city green spaces, too. I acknowledge that all of these are ancestral lands of people who lived here before colonization and my recreating on them is a complicated situation. Learn more about native lands here.
I debated making this recap into a month’s worth of posts but then opted to just make a long one now but follow up with more detailed posts on some of the places I visited. So, it won’t hurt my feelings if you take this one in little pieces…
January
At the end of December of 2022, I made a lofty intention to ride more bike miles in 2023 than 2022. And then on December 27th, I took a bike ride loop over to Snohomish after a week of snowy conditions. I didn’t notice anything on the ride but by that night my left leg was so stiff I couldn’t bend it. I would later find out (by insisting the doctor do an MRI) that I had a small tear in my MCL. So much for starting out strong on the bike miles. I did, however, receive my first ever cortisone injection and with the relief that brought, I took my first long weekend of the year to drive west towards the Washington Coast.
I had signed up to write a few hike guide descriptions for Washington Trails Association, one of them being on the Olympic Peninsula. I had been to the Clallam Bay Spit before and I was always surprised that my trip reports were the only ones for this lovely stretch of shoreline outside Port Angeles. I guess most people don’t stop on their way to Cape Flattery and Shi Shi but I love to beachcomb here. And it seemed perfect for my current physical condition.
You can read my hike guide description at Washington Trails Association or my trip reports here.
I stopped by Tongue Point in the Salt Creek Recreation Area to visit an area I had seen on social media. Yes, that darn social media. Of course, the picture didn’t look anything like the real place, it is nuts how people can angle photos to give you the impression something is different than it really is. Despite that, it was a nice hike in the forest to a sheltered beach and the campsites had potential for a future family camping trips. And it was fun to drive through the old military installations.
From here drive west and spent a night at Bogachiel State Park outside the Hoh Rainforest. It was quiet and rainy but I am used to the old blue tarp camping. There are also some short forest walks from the campsites.
The next day I drove into Olympic National Park with hopes to camp another night. The drive in was otherworldy:
There was a primitive DNR campground shortly after I turned off 101 that would have been free with my Discover Pass but I decided to continue on and see what was available at the Hoh Rainforest Campground run by the national park. Staying there would allow me to park my car and just hike from the campsite for a few days.
With the wet forecast keeping folks away, I was able to score a scenic campsite along the Hoh River. Both the day I arrived and the next day, I was able to baby my injured knee along on the Hall of Mosses, Spruce Trail, and Hoh River Trail in between rain showers.
February
Early in February I drove back over to the Washington Coast and spent the weekend at the beach cabin in Moclips. Still nursing my knee and trying to be good about physical therapy, I continued with low (no) elevation walking. Knit, walk. Knit, walk. Repeat…
The next weekend, I did a loop on Whidbey Island and stayed one night at Deception Pass State Park. I have many memories as a kid camping here with my family but haven’t done so as an adult. From my campsite in the Quarry Pond section, I could walk directly out to the Goose Rock trails and get down to the beach near the Deception Pass bridge. This is also part of the Pacific Northwest Trail!
Determined not to let my knee keep me indoors, the next weekend I headed over to Wenatchee and hiked to Rooster Comb in the Dry Gulch section of the Chelan Douglas Land Trust. It was just a little muddy from recent snow but offered a great view out over the Columbia River. I wrote more about this area on my Saddle Rock page and Is Saddle Rock In Wenatchee A Super Volcano?
On the way home on SR 2, I did something I have always meant to do! I hopped out at the Tumwater Campground which has been closed forever and snowshoed around campsites and down to the creek. It was so pretty and peaceful, I had it to myself and my knee didn’t complain at all.
The last weekend in February, I got the idea to drive up SR 20 (North Cascades Highway) to where the road was closed for winter (something I had never done) and see what the snow looked like. Maybe there was enough to snowshoe the road?
There wasn’t, but I hiked the Ross Dam Trail instead. I would never stop here in summer as the parking lot is always full but I had the whole trail to myself today! It might have been the icy conditions but my spikes came in handy.
March
I got back on my bike in March, time to get working on my miles goal. Here I am checking out spring flowers at the Mukilteo Beach.
This year’s anniversary wasn’t well planned out but we did take a Sunday to drive south to Vashon Island. There was a short trail down to Point Robinson which had a lighthouse where we could see across at Seattle. I hear the whale watching here is fabulous if you time it right.
The next weekend I spent three days down at Mount Rainier National Park playing in the snow. I started off by snowshoeing from Longmire along the Wonderland Trail, I wrote more about it here.
When I am not sleeping on a forest road outside the park, I splurge and stay at Whittaker’s Bunkhouse. The rooms are cozy, reasonable, and usually available on a short notice.
The next day I was at the Longmire gate at 9am to drive up to Paradise and enjoy some fresh powder. This was my first time snowshoeing here and it might be my last as it has hard to deal with folks postholing through snowshoe tracks in their tennis shoes and families giving their children trail mix to hold in the their hands for birds while taking pictures. The Mountain did briefly show herself so at least there was that, I wrote more about it here.
On the way back down, I took the Carter Falls Trail over the bridge and part way up the Wonderland until I was close to running out of daylight, you can read more here.
After another night at Whittaker’s and with a winter storm in the forecast, I did some snowshoeing around the Longmire campground which offered solitude after the crowds at Paradise. There are pullouts where the road would go into the campground where you can park and climb over the berm. Here is my trip report.
On my way out of the park, I stopped at Kautz Creek and went as far as I could before the trail turns steep after the bridge about 1.25 miles in. Again, I had the trail to myself.
At the end of the month, I was down in Lyle, Washington, along the Columbia River Gorge. The rest stop outside Lyle made for a lovely overnight in my car and I enjoyed coffee with the sunrise. There is even a short paved trail past the bathrooms!
I hiked the Lyle Cherry Orchard Trail (again) and did a little knitting with this view. I headed out on what turned into a 7 mile loop that took me up to the ridge above where the power lines and a “summit” are but it didn’t seem to connect on the other side so I may have had to do a little off-trailing to make that happen. I didn’t want to because I was paranoid about ticks this time of year but I bagged and changed my clothes when I got back to the car and thankfully avoided any. I wrote more about that here.
And last but not least, I stopped off in Battleground to visit the bestie and we took a walk in her backyard at the Moulton Falls Park. It looks like the trail crew here has a lot of fun.
April
In the beginning of April, I took off for Wenatchee again in search of sunshine. On the way I stopped in Sultan at another hike I was writing up for WTA, Susie’s Trail. This makes for a great leg stretcher if you are stuck in traffic which happens often along this part of SR 2.
I camped at the Wenatchee Confluence State Park campground because it is in town and along the Apple Capitol Recreation Loop Trail. It is definitely urban but perfect for getting out on my bike and exploring various sections of Wenatchee.
I realized that the BBQ place I love in Rock Island south of Wenatchee is close to the popular spring hiking area of Ancient Lakes so I headed over to do some hiking on the Ancient Lakes Trail and Dusty Lake Trail. I was also able to car camp overnight at Quincy Lake. Definitely not backcountry but after seeing all the tents spotted all over the Ancient Lakes Trail, I was okay with that.
I also did some hiking on Kenzie’s Trail in Sage Hills, a popular spot for spring with the Insta famous balsamroot. I hadn’t meant to but this also became a hike guide write-up as the new trailhead offers alternate parking from more crowds ones in the foothills of Wenatchee.
April means spring break and this year I took a long road trip loop down I-5 thorough Oregon, across to Klamath Falls and up 97 through Bend, Oregon. I hoped that as I rounded the bottom of the loop, the weather would present an open window for snowshoeing at Crater Lake, a bucket list item that has eluded me for a few years now. On the way down I visited Silver Falls State Park, Champoeg State Park, and Valley of The Rouge State Park.
I would not get clear skies for Crater Lake but when looking online I saw that Lava Beds National Park was its “sister” park so I decided to drive down a few hours into California to check it out. I snagged a first come, first serve campsite and hiked some trails, including some caving and a lookout!
Coming back up along 97, I took a detour east to Christmas Valley and Crack-In-The-Wall. I wrote more about that on It’s Christmas All Year Round At Crack-In-The-Ground In Christmas Valley Oregon.
Fort Rock State Natural Area was on the way back west from there so I took a walk here, too.
My last night was at Lone Pine State Park where I rode around the not-quite-melted-out campground and took a hike down to the Deschutes River.
I finished April by riding my bike down and catching a ferry ride from Mukilteo to Clinton on Whidbey Island for the farmer’s market in Langley.
I may have visited a mobile yarn truck and a yarn store that shares space with a “speak easy”.
May
Let’s just get this out of the way, May is Bike Everywhere Month. For the last three years, I have ridden my bike every day in the month of May. It is crazy making but gets me out of the house when I don’t want to go deal with spring thaw out in the mountains.
In the beginning of May, I took the Edmonds -Kingston Ferry and drove over to Bainbridge Island with reservations at Fay Bainbridge Park Campground. I had not been here before and chose a campsite from the map online. I didn’t chose wisely as my site was walk-in, which was not really explained well. And my campsite as a mud pit. So, I set up a tarp to cover my bike and slept in the car. The beach at the park was just a short walk but my real goal was to ride across the island to downtown Bainbridge.
No one showed up the first night because of the rain despite the sites around me being reserved but the second night saw people just pitching tents wherever without much care for the sites being numbered. If I camp here again, there were two campsites tucked up into trees in other part of the park that would have been better. What I did love was that the park does have biker and kayak campsites close to the beach.
Sharing Wheels held a bikepacking seminar at my local library and I enjoyed hearing about their trips. Most of the gear was what I have for backpacking but there were a few new things like these straps for slinging things onto your bike. I had hoped to get out on at least one overnight this summer but the stars did not align…
There were many miles on the Centennial Trail…
And for Memorial Day Weekend, I did my usual camping along the Cowlitz River near Ethel, Washington, with my best friend Elizabeth. We had hoped to check out the Mayfield Lake Trail near by but we obeyed the signs and went to South Swofford Pond that I have written about here.
June
June saw me getting some training hikes in at Lord Hill Regional Park in Snohomish, Washington.
And packing for a trip with the hubs to Utah. I have my camping-gear-for-the-plane pretty much down, including a new collapsible cooler I bought at Costco so we don’t have to buy a disposable Styrofoam one when we get where we are going. It holds ice surprisingly well. I can fit all this in my 60l and 40l bags.
We visited Cedar Breaks National Monument, Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, Kodachrome State Park, Capitol Reef National Park and Goblin State Park. These were all new places to us except for Grand Staircase Escalante and the hubby was pleased to find disc golf at both state parks. I played at Kodachrome with him and let’s just say, the course was a little wild. They even have lights on the baskets to you can play at night! We did not camp at any of these places, we used Campendium to find free spots for boondocking just outside of the parks.
When school got out at the end of June, Elizabeth and I hopped in her new pickup and drove over to Montana and Many Glacier on the east side of Glacier National Park. I had managed to score us a week at the Many Glacier Campground when spots opened up 4 days before we left. Our plan was to park and hike the 7-8 trails that you can day hike to from the campground.
It was an amazing trip but not without some adjustments. On our second full day in the park someone “fed” a grizzly bear by leaving their food out and so the campground had to go to hard-sided only which meant we would have to sleep inside the truck cab if we wanted to stay at our site. Long story short, we drove over to a campground about 45 minutes away to camp and shuttled back into Many until the last night of our reservation when we returned and slept in the cab so we could get in the last few hikes we wanted to do.
July
Glacier continued into July…
After Glacier NP on our way home, we spent a few nights at Thompson Falls State Park. It was quiet and had a nice trail that led into town.
A few days after returning home, I had backpacking permits in North Cascades National Park. The route would start at Rainy Pass, take us over McAlester Pass and into Stehekin. My friend Sarah had agreed to go and we would do a shuttle with our two cars. I can’t say it was the most convenient of plans and to make things worse, my car decided to overheat going over Washington Pass as were setting up the day before we would start the hike. Long story short, Sarah was patient with me as we pivoted to staying a night at the Tumwater camp outside Stehekin and the Lakeshore camp in town. We did some day hiking, bike riding and watched helicopters and planes carry water to fight wildfires close by.
The hubby and I biked about 40 miles on the Snoqualmie Valley Trail from Duvall to close to Snoqualmie Parkway. I loved riding past my old summer camp…
We also met up with some online biking friends to ride around Seattle.
August
The first full week of August I had permits for the iconic Seven Lakes Basin Loop hike along the High Divide Trail in Olympic National Park. Since I got them during the general window, I was camped at Deer Lake and Sol Duc which meant a longer day hike through the “pretty section”. I didn’t care, I was just happy to be out on the trail. Even with a less than ideal forecast.
August saw a few more bike rides…
And our annual family camping trip, this time to Kitsap Memorial State Park in Poulsbo.
More date night bike rides…
…and then back to work with some rainy rides.
September
Labor Day Weekend we drove down to Hood River for some BBQ and Crush Cider. We camped up an old forest road close to Mount Hood and Cloud Cap and rode our bikes down to the fruit orchards below. It was super fun on the 9 mile steep descent and side roads but I let Gary climb back up those 9 miles to get the car. I waited in Parkdale for him!
The next day we biked on the Mosier Tunnels trail into Hood River and had coffee before biking back to the car in Mosier.
Then the school year started…
Later in September, I drove over to Chelan and hike the Chelan Butte Trail that leaves from a trailhead close to town. It was my first trip in my new-to-me car, having gone most of the summer without a car.
I love my new car and how well it works as a mini camper!
I also drove up to Mission Ridge and hiked the Clara and Marion Lakes Trail in search of golden larches but it was a bit early. There were fall colors, nonetheless. I took a forest road to Beehive Reservoir, too.
October
We took our annual Cascade Loop weekend for my birthday, this time in reverse. I don’t know if we will do that again because it means driving west on SR 2 on Sunday which should be avoided due to traffic.
We camped at the trailhead for Pot Peak near Twenty Five Mile and tagged the summit which turned out to be a scramble because it was in a burn area and no trail was evident.
We also hit up Goat Peak Lookout near Mazama because you can always count on the larches here this time of year…
Elizabeth’s daughter had her bridal shower down at the river so it was another car camping weekend…
November
I drove down to Oregon (again) for a Honda Element meetup in Gresham and the weather was horribly wet. It may have rained 1″ in a day! The only hiking I did was to walk down to the Columbia River’s edge at Viento State Park that day.
But thankfully the second day the skies cleared a bit at Oxford Regional Park in Gresham and I could walk the trails there.
I took my usual week off at Thanksgiving and headed to Palm Springs. Originally I had planned to spend the week around Joshua Tree National Park but a few weeks before I saw that Death Valley National Park still had a lake in Badwater Basin so I diverted my first two days to visit the park. I had never been to either park although we had been close to Joshua Tree when we visited Mojave in 2022. I have to say that Death Valley stole my heart.
One last hike in November was to revisit Al Borlin Park in Monroe, WA. I wrote about it on We Are Still Not Broken But Something Is.
December
On December first I looked at where I was and found myself 325 miles short of my bike miles goal. Needless to say, I spent almost everyday on my bike this month, a lot of them looking at neighborhood Christmas lights in the rain. But I busted those miles out 2 days earlier than I thought I would, thankfully to my two weeks of vacation.
The only day I didn’t ride my bike was when we drove down to Oregon so I could see the Peter Iredale shipwreck at Forst Stevens which was exposed more than usual due to winter storms. We didn’t have the tides in our favor but it was still worth it. It may have also rained another 1″ that day.
Before Christmas, I visited my sister in Tumwater outside Olympia, Washington and did a hike to Mima Falls which is near her house. I had been to Mima Mounds Natural Area before but not the DNR land nearby in Capitol Forest. It was a great day as the rains cleared up in time for our walk.
And it wasn’t all rain for my bike rides, I did manage to get a few rainy days.
Oh my, when I go through the whole year I realize there really was a lot of adventure!
I have no solid plans for 2024 except for a trip to Breckenridge in February with my son for some snow play. There may be a trip to Banff for the annual family camping trip and a road trip to New Mexico to visit my dad. Other than that, it is all still up in the air.
And I kind of like it that way.
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