An REI commercial

The original plan was to do a long hike in the snow up by Mount Baker with Larry and Raechel, camp overnight with a group of ex-intern friends, and then do a mini hike around Picture Lake before heading back on Sunday. However, fate intervened in the form of a delayed start due to waffles and an hour+ scenic detour due to missing the Rt 9 turnoff. Oops. Extra car time meant extra knitting time, though, so I wasn't as sad as you might expect. :-P Here was the scarf an hour in:




When we got up to the campsite, the rain stopped, so we joined the group and pitched our tents. This shot is terrible, but it's supposed to convey how much I liked our campsite: level, without rocks, firepit, nice picnic table, Brian and crew had already strung up a huge tarp to keep off the rain, and there was a bathroom right across the road. My kind of camping. :-)




The best part of our site was that there was a river running behind it, with small rapids. The noise was beautiful. I actually woke up earlier than most of the group (stunning for those that know my sleeping habits, and for anyone who knows how comfortable that sleeping bag was), and took my chair, tea and knitting over to read by the river. The sun was out and it was beautiful:



Apparently the color of the water is due to glacial runoff. It looked otherworldly to me (in a "wow, nature's amazing" way, not a "toxic sludge!" way), much like the lakes that we saw in the last camping trip I was on, three years ago in the Olympic mountains with a lot of the same group. (Aside: that's where I met Kevin! :-) ) There used to be a crayola crayon the color of the water here and I thought they just made it up (I always sorted it with the florescents instead of with the blues) until I got to the pacific northwest.

The crowd we were with was exceedingly well-equipped, which was awesome. I'm a fan of convenience-camping. Here's the makings of breakfast:




Hopefully there will be more trips this summer!