Girls backpacking trip

We finally got to go backpacking again!  We weren't able to go the last couple of years but we were able to do a 2 night trip with Auntie Kina on her birthday weekend! We tried to go to Shellrock Lake to try something new. Unfortunately, there was a wildfire too close so the trail was closed.  We headed to Packwood lake since it was close and we'd been there before.  Turned out to be a good thing.  We're not in hiking shape to do much more than we did.  The length was the same but the elevation change would've been triple what we did. Packwood Lake is the first place we went backpacking and it was... uninspiring.  Part of that was weather, the other was our campsite.  We were excited to be backpacking no matter which trail though.

We got to camp around lunchtime.  Since it was Friday we had a ton of choices of campsites. We followed the trail around the lake and found an amazing site!  It was down from the trail, you could barely see the only campsite next to us and we had our own private water entry.

The first thing we did after getting to camp was to put up the hammocks!  It was awesome that we had enough trees to put THREE up next to each other! A lot of time was spent in the hammocks.  Mostly reading, or in Kayda and Kina's case, napping.  Best last minute purchase of the trip for sure.

The smoke was fairly heavy.  We couldn't smell it but you could definitely feel it.

It was nice and toasty Friday so we spent almost the whole time in our swimsuits after setting up camp.

Our campsite...  It was empty a ways to the right.  Then there was a big divide before the next useable site.

I got an expandable 2 gallon jug.  We filled it twice.  The first day Kayda insisted on doing it all herself. Saturday we worked together.

On the hike in I had mentioned that people recommended bringing a floaty but I didn't want to carry the weight.  Kina simply said that we did, in the form of our sleeping mats.  We kind of forgot about it that day.  However, Saturday we decided to give it a go.  

It turned out to be AWESOME and it was warm enough that they dried out quickly for bedtime.  Just in case you were wondering...mine won.

The smoke cleared up just in time for us to be leaving.

We took this picture so we could remember exactly where to find the campsite. We've decided this will be our annual trip. Forget having to find a new one.  We love this spot!

On the hike back we found huckleberries and wild blueberries.  I take after Papa G and thoroughly enjoyed "grazing" on the berries on the way back.

Side note: We found it really entertaining that the boys went camping with Daddy's family.  Daddy would only camp if they could be in the trailer.  Then the girls went backpacking!  Talk about role reversals.

Carbon River Glacier backpacking

After wanting to go backpacking again (since last summer) and having a crazy busy summer I finally decided, last minute to go on a trip.  I checked the weather and went and got the permit.  I was determined to go whether other people came along or not.  After making arrangements to go I discovered we could ride bikes in to the camp so I decided to do that.  Fortunately for me Auntie Kina was able to go and Kayda was feeling adventurous enough to go along. 

Our destination was Ipsut Creek Campground in Mt Rainier National Park.  Saturday afternoon we arrived and rode our bikes in the 5 miles to camp.  Once upon a time, you could drive to the campground, but after multiple wash outs they closed the road.

Along the way we stopped to take the very short hike to Chenuis Falls.

We ended up on these bridges multiple times throughout the trip.  Kayda hated that there was only a railing on one side going over the fast sections of river.

The lighting was so weird between the pool and the falls that it's hard to see both.  The pool at the bottom is a beautiful blue, you can see a little of it in the photo but it was actually richer than the photo shows.  I saw this and immediately thought how fun it would be to play in/on... then I felt the water.  SO cold.  Delicious (post filtering) but SO cold.

You can see the actual falls slightly better here.

It took us a while to get to camp because Auntie Kina was riding a road touring bike so we had to walk through all the areas with larger rocks in the road.  Once we finally made it was had dinner then headed on another super short hike to see Ipsut falls.  This one was pretty disappointing after Chenuis.  The picture isn't great since it was getting dark out, but you can see the wood debri that has accumulated right across the main falls. We climbed closer but the view got worse instead of better.  This was where we went whenever we needed to get water.  Kayda loves filtering the water...unfortunately I was the one that had to dip my hand in the glacial water to fill up the bottle to filter.

Kayda saw Jarrett carving designs in a stick at San Juan so she was making a "wand" for Auntie Kina.  

The next morning we ate, got our stuff together and took off on our hike.  Our destination was the Carbon Glacier View Point.  It's the headwaters for the Carbon river.

I have a weird fascination with stairs on hiking trails... I realized I did the same thing on our South Dakota trip.

We had to work our way across the entire river bed.  It's much wider than it appears in this photo.  We were lucky that people had put up cairns frequently because the trail was easily lost.

Hello Mt. Rainier. 

Kayda didn't want to cross the bridge since there was so little water and your could hopscotch across it. We decided to take a picture... When you're in a stream you should expect to get wet!

Auntie Kina was overwrought with terror when crossing this stream.

According to the maps the park service provides, the hike should've been about 7 miles round trip.  Auntie Kina's gps and mine didn't match up but at one sign it said we had gone 2.2, mine said 2.75 and hers said 3.25.  The sign also said we still had a mile and a half to go.  Auntie Kina has a lot of joint problems and decided to turn around an head back shortly after.  Kayda and I continued on (normally I wouldn't let her hike alone, but it was a heavily trafficked trail and we were going back the same way).

We found a suspension bridge along the way.  We didn't need to cross it but who sees one and doesn't go out on it?  It actually had a decent view of the glacier but we wanted to get to the actual "viewpoint".

When we finally go to the view, we were at 4.25 miles instead of the 3.5 the map had indicated.  Unfortunately, most of the glacier is covered in carbon so it wasn't very impressive.  You never go near the bottom of a glacier due to rock falls, but I really would've liked to get closer to actually SEE it.  From what we could see it surrounded by steep, loose rock walls.  It would've been really hard to get near it so we just at lunch and headed back.

All around we ended up hiking about 8.5 miles.  We were definitely ready to be done by the end of it but Kayda was a trooper.  We need to do this more frequently to do longer than that!

Monday morning we needed to get up, eat and get packed up so we could make it to lunch for Grandma H's birthday.  So we packed up and got back on the bikes.  Going back was SO much FUN!  We were able to ride through most of the wash outs and we were downhill 90% of the time.  So we got to coast for almost the whole 5 miles.  We were back to the car in an hour.  It was a great way to finish the trip.  We may just do this again since there are a lot of trails you can get to from this campground and the biking was so fun!

Side note:  Riding a bike with a fully loaded pack is a little tricky but is way better than hiking along an old gravel road for 5 miles (10 by the time you go round trip).  Beware when getting on and off your bike.  I almost fell just swinging my leg up on several occasions.

I love camping.  We normally trailer camp, occasionally car camp (drive up and tent), and pretty rarely backpack.  That list is definitely easiest to hardest.  Backpacking is becoming a favorite of mine.  It's an entirely different experience, I love being out where it's less busy and you don't have excess noise.  All the people around the campground were quiet and kept to themselves (but are very nice when you cross paths - hikers are just NICE).  There was no car or plane noise, no music no banging around chunky, heavy, metal gear.  It's just QUIET.  There is something special about it that I am coming to love.  Fingers crossed I can get out more than once next summer!

Packwood Lake Overnight

I've been wanting to try backpacking again for quite some time so Kellina and I planned to go on a one night, relatively easy one.  Kayda is getting big enough that she wanted to go with us.  We packed and planned and kept her pack as light as possible.  We decided on Packwood Lake. It's only a couple hours away, it's relatively flat, and only 4.5 miles one way.

 It was pretty fun walking behind Kayda.  She looked like a backpack with legs and arms.  You could not see any other part of her body.

Kayda was such a trooper!  We hadn'gotten either of our packs adjusted correctly so it was a tough hike in.  By the time we got there we were both having pretty bad shoulder pain.  We took a lot of breaks on the way in simply to give our shoulders a break.

Me being me, I had to set up camp before we did anything else.  The only problem was that by the time we were set up Kayda was hungry and then it was too cool to swim!

Kayda did venture into to the lake to filter water for us.  She thought it was great fun and filled up all our containers, including the 2 liter one Kellina had.

Kellina and I fiddled with the packs before it got dark.  They fit much better.  I still need to adjust them some more but we'll figure that out when we're ready to go again, which Kayda says she wants to do.

It rained most of the night, a summer with barely a cloud and it had to choose this weekend to rain... Can't really say I'm surprised.  Because of the rain, Kayda wasn't too keen on sticking around come morning and Kellina wasn't too interested in coming out of her tent.  I woke up, unable to go back to sleep so I got up, in the rain, and managed to get a fire going.  It was a pretty good fire too until Kayda told me she wanted to go and I had to step away to pack up.

The hike back went much smoother.  We had to take it a little slower than we wanted to because of Kellina's asthma but we still got back a lot faster than we got in.  The packs were resting much better on our hips thank goodness.  It ended up being a pretty good trip.  There are definitely some things I need to do differently to be more comfortable; a couple things I'd like to buy to make being around camp a little more comfortable.  But we had fun and like I said, Kayda wants to go again.  Dillon gets the next trip though.