We headed out to the Pacific Northwest for some great hiking (success), escape the Michigan heat and humidity (mixed-bag), and hopefully do so in away that largely avoided July 4th crowds (mostly successful).
When we landed the line to SeaTac’s rental car shuttles was a shit show even on a Wednesday afternoon so it took 35min to board the shuttle to get our rental car. Thankfully we bypassed the lengthy lines at the rental car complex and walked to a decently stocked (post pandemic anyway) National aisle to pick our car. Grabbed a VW Passat sedan with a grand total of 7 miles on it and off we went.
We kept our Eastern Timezone clock and got up early Thursday to get to Henry M Jackson visitor center were the fourth or so car there. Portions of the Skyline Trail were closed while other sections had up to 12’ of snow. The weather ended up getting warm which eventually made the snow quite soft making this a more arduous hike. That plus our flat sealevel conditioned bodies meant we made it to the Glacier overlook before turning back. The steadily warming temperatures made it very mushy on the way back so you’d sink or slide several inches into the deep snow. I ended up doing most of the hike in shorts and a t-shirt and we needed to reapply sunscreen a couple of times. Still the parking lot was jam packed when we got back so yay for arriving early.
Nisqually and Myrtle falls were still closed due to the snow and Reflection Lake was still covered so we headed back down to Narada Falls and Comet Falls before calling it a day
When we landed the line to SeaTac’s rental car shuttles was a shit show even on a Wednesday afternoon so it took 35min to board the shuttle to get our rental car. Thankfully we bypassed the lengthy lines at the rental car complex and walked to a decently stocked (post pandemic anyway) National aisle to pick our car. Grabbed a VW Passat sedan with a grand total of 7 miles on it and off we went.
We kept our Eastern Timezone clock and got up early Thursday to get to Henry M Jackson visitor center were the fourth or so car there. Portions of the Skyline Trail were closed while other sections had up to 12’ of snow. The weather ended up getting warm which eventually made the snow quite soft making this a more arduous hike. That plus our flat sealevel conditioned bodies meant we made it to the Glacier overlook before turning back. The steadily warming temperatures made it very mushy on the way back so you’d sink or slide several inches into the deep snow. I ended up doing most of the hike in shorts and a t-shirt and we needed to reapply sunscreen a couple of times. Still the parking lot was jam packed when we got back so yay for arriving early.
Nisqually and Myrtle falls were still closed due to the snow and Reflection Lake was still covered so we headed back down to Narada Falls and Comet Falls before calling it a day
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