Hurricane Ridge

It is summer and the sun doth shine, so it is now worth it to visit the mountainous part of Olympic National Park.  The rainforest part isn't bad to visit when it's all cloudy, but it's hard to appreciate a vista you can't see.  And it is quite a vista.

 

Here's a little closeup of that ever-cooperative little son of mine.

 We decided to do a 1.6 mile hike out to Hurricane Hill.  On the way up Merrick rode in the Baby Bjorn and Annie rode in the backpack . . .

 . . . off and on.  She would get tired of riding and want to get down, but she wants to stop and love every rock, and if you hold her hand to keep her going she wants to be swung by the arms every other step, and that's just exhausting.

 The first part of the hike was nice and flat, leaving us plenty of time to admire our glorious surroundings.

 The lupine was especially beautiful.  

 Then the trail started climbing the hill and we kicked our parenting skills into high gear to get all the bodies to the top for a prize picnic lunch.

 We had great views to the north of the San Juan Islands and Vancouver Island and Mt Baker in the distance.

We were so close to Canada I even got a welcome text message!

And of course to the south we had an unhindered view of the entire Olympic range.  Voila!

Vivi's summit picture got photobombed by a butterfly.  It's hard to tell how big it is.  If you look at it a certain way it looks like it could be an ENORMOUS butterfly cruising on down the valley.

 Merrick contemplating life.

Annie was unposable. Too interested in chasing ants.

 I caught her on the way down with her sister though.

 There were lots of black tailed deer on the trail who did not give us the time of day.

And we saw a couple marmot holes in the big grassy fields, but no actual marmots.  There were probably a few too many people around for them to be comfortable out in the open.  

The woman on the right's husband took a family picture for us.  They said we were like a 40-year flashback for them.  I hope we'll still be hiking in 40 years!

 Merrick's hiking experience will certainly be different by then.

 I love to share the mountains with my family!  It cleanses my soul.

A few other things from the week: Rafe, Vivi and Annie watching their daily episode of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood.  I get to prepare breakfast in peace, they learn catchy jingles about being good humans.  Win, win.  

 There is a 5K for the Webster reunion in a few weeks, so I started a couch to 5k program.  One of the junior highs has a nice track and shares a field with an elementary school that has a fenced playground, so the kids can play while I try to be less of a potato.  I have to put a pebble for every lap I'm going to do in the left side cup holder of the stroller and then move it to the right side once I've completed a lap so I don't lose count "on accident".  The track has a nice view of the Olympics, which is inspiring!

 I have been trying out barefoot running, since I never wear shoes anyway and for some reason it makes it feel less like work to me.  The track is pretty rough though, so I wear a pair of socks when I run on it.  Still, afterwards I say, "Wowww, my feet are so raw!"

And here's one more of the kids eating pineapple pops on the trampoline (a diced pineapple and juice of a lime, blended, 1 1/2 cups cream stirred in, frozen in my new favorite silicone muffin cups).  Annie says, "Cheeeeeeese!"