Tom's Past Adventures

A quick 3-day trip prior to our sabbatical road trip.  Goat Rocks, located south of Mt Rainier, is one of our favorite haunts.  It was very dry, with the flowers all gone and the streams mostly dried up.  Clear skies on the way in, but there was a big fire on the east side of Mt Adams to the south, which infiltrated our air for part of the time.  At night, we could see the flames from the fire!  We were treated to a particularly beautiful sunset the 2nd night. Mt St Helens Meadow Detail (the soil is mostly ash from the Mt St Helens eruption in1980) Pasqueflower The Knife Edge (PCT) Rock detail Sunset Mt Adams (note smoke from fire on lower-left flank) Goat Rocks crest from Old Snowy Yours Truly with Mt Rainier in the background More Photos

Dayhike to Yellow Aster Butte, near Mt Baker and Canadian Border.  It took a bit of hunting to find the trailhead (it was unmarked & overgrown with almost no parking).  But we persevered, and followed what we concluded must be the Keep Kool Trail described in our 1980's hiking book.  It seemed a bit underused, but pretty straight forward to follow.  Pretty direct route up the hill through forest.  We didn't make it all the way up, but reached a couple of meadows with some views through the clouds, including Mt Shuksan.  Didn't see a soul!  We later discovered that the trail was abandoned in the 1990's, in lieu of a newer trail farther up the road, explaining some of our earlier observations! Breaking out of the forest Mt Shuksan Keep Kool Butte Sunny Leaves More Photos

We visited Larrabee State Park, just outside of Bellingham, about an hour or so north of Seattle.  It was our first outing on my first annual Aug-Oct sabbatical from work at NSE.  We relaxed at the rocky beach areas, and camped at the park ... which we then remembered had train tracks running through it along the coast.  It sounded like the train was rumbling right beside our tent ... multiple times throughout the night!! Seagulls enjoying the sun Sailboat and the San Juan Islands Sandstone abstract More Photos