October 10, 2024

When looking through Washington photos I realized I had taken a photo of the same spot in July 2023.  Kind of a cool comparison:

October 8, 2024

Finally feel recovered from our very long Enchantment hike. I hadn’t been that sore in a very long time. But I’m ready to go back. If only every fall could be spent in Washington. I like that Leavenworth place. 

October 7, 2024

Cam is 20. What?!? No more teenager for that girl. She’s a wise one. She had a great time celebrating over the weekend with sushi, cake, açaí bowl, massage, and more. Tonight we celebrated at The Old Spaghetti Factory. Mizithra makes birthdays taste better.

October 6, 2024

Fly home with a detour drive to see a little downtown Seattle. My body is sore, my heart is happy, and my camera roll is full. (And once again while hiking in Washington I followed Darren.)

October 5, 2024

Bright and early leave time at 3:40am for our 4:00 shuttle to the Stuart Lakes TH. We did a larch march with the rest of the state. We hiked the 19 mile Enchantments Traverse. It was absolutely enchanting! Walking through all the larches was epic. Add the light granite, the cool clouds, the jagged peaks - sigh. 

We were definitely happy with our strenuous hike choice. We started about 4:45am (and finished about 5:30pm) and hiked to Colchuck Lake in the dark and made it to the gorgeous lake just as things were getting light.  Then it was up Aasgard pass which was so hard. But much harder than Aasgard was the overall 7,000 foot descent, especially the last 8 miles from Vivian on. It was mental and physical exhaustion.  Funny how the downhill was more difficult than the uphill. Thankfully the amazing scenery from miles 4-10 made it all worth it. When we planned this trip months ago we hoped for some fall larches and the Enchantment larches were better than we could have imagined. Also - I was expecting the hard. What I didn’t expect was the amount of people.

October 4, 2024

Today was our rest up day. We explored Leavenworth a bit. Breakfast from a fruit stand with delicious plums and pears. They were so good we headed back for more later in the day. We browsed German Square Leavenworth and ate lunch at The Munchen Haus. Apparently their brats have more snap - said the two guys in front of us in line who looked like they would know where to find a good brat. Let’s just say it didn’t matter to me as I couldn’t get past the “pork casing”. Darren said his brat was delicious. Note to self - if I do go back, get the full mustard. It was the best of the 14 specialty mustards. 

Dinner was delicious Rudloof’s Pizza. Last time in Leavenworth I was disappointed in the pizza. Not this time - Rudloof’s came through - mmm! 

Here we are yesterday so  happy we found yellow larches:

October 3, 3024

We decided to go back to North Cascades for some hiking. It was almost a 3 hour drive but that is a small price to pay to be back in NCNP. 

Maple Pass is one of my very favorite hikes. First off, you encounter the smell of Washington pine. Then you are greeted by the pikas. After that it’s views for days. The mountains just keep coming. I did not think I could love Maple Pass more than I did in July but October Maple Pass was even better. The larches were not quite in full fall glory but they had turned their highlighter green and there were a few yellow. Awesome. 

We decided to quickly see Blue Lake. While Maple Pass Loop was a journey hike, Blue lake was a destination hike as the end of the trail was stunning with prime yellow larches. It felt like a dream come true to hike and see Autumn Washington. 

We stopped at Three Finger Jack Saloon in Winthrop to eat like we had last year. Saloon in a small town for food was about what you would think. 

I love this picture so much.  Can you spot Darren?

So happy to be among larches: