Seattle the weekend before Christmas

Getting on the Bremerton Ferry

The Olympic Mountains glow.   Seen from the 9:35 sailing of the Chimicum

New Shoes,  Downtown is kind of quiet and all
the bikes in the background make Seattle look like
a different city today.

City is kind of quiet the Saturday before Christmas.  An ambulance
and a stretch hummer pass below the Bon Marche sky bridge. (now Macy's)

The Seattle wheel is looking good, seen from the 5:30 sailing of the Chimicum

We walked 8 miles.

Winter Paradise Lost

 Went to my favorite winter hiking destination and found that the wild life gate was wide open and the sign about seasonal closures was gone.  Decided to hike anyway, even though I could have just driven to my destination.  Felt a bit tense the entire time not knowing if cars were coming and if they were being driven by potentially bad people.

Not sure if I will go back now.  As a solo female hiker with PTSD, I do not feel particularly safe hiking on an open road.  I found several gut piles, finding a gut pile never really improves my mood.  The legs in the gut piles still looked good with their little hooves still attached, beautiful animals, now dead.  Probably killed by some obese hunter with huge expensive truck.


When I got to the top I could see a truck down below driving very slow.  Hunters looking for an animal to kill.  Glad that I had my dog dressed in orange.  Sad that my winter paradise is gone.  Hope it does not get as gross as the capital forest.  Hoping they don't start enforcing passes where I park for the start of my hikes too.  Guessing the open gates are a money grab by the state for hunting and discover passes.


My knee was really hurting after my 10.5 mile walk in Seattle.  I rested up for three days and my knee was not getting better.  So I took the chance that hiking would cure my knee problems.  To be safe I wore a brace that I found in my mother's condo after she died.  Knee felt pretty good during the hike, but I was not up for any brush crashing.

After I got home I took the brace off and forgot about it.  A few hours later I suddenly realized that my knee did not hurt anymore.  Ah yes!  Hiking is the cure for all of my ailments be they physical or mental.

Two days later my knee feels great now.  I'm thinking hard about where I will hike this winter though.  Staircase might be an option for solitude with the access road washed out.  But Sage is not welcome there and I like hiking with sage. Also I get claustrophobic hiking those tunnel trails in the winter.

5 miles with 800 feet elevation gain, a very easy day.

Seattle

10.5 miles with 200 feet (?) elevation gain.

Got a good deal on new used shoes at RIE basement.  Found out the shoes were two different sizes but only after I had already walked 5 miles in them without noticing, so I guess they are okay.

Got a thin purple coat at REI too.  Got a new hat at the U of W bookstore.  I went to the U of W but I actually graduated from Evergreen.  Purple is my favorite color though, so I wear U of W gear and not ugly green Evergreen gear.  Also U of W let me keep my email address, Evergreen took it away.  So I use my U of W address and not my Evergreen Address.

I lived in Seattle for  ten years and a bit after I got booted out of my father's house was sent to live at Seattle Children's Home at the age of 16.

After finishing our studies at the U of W my spouse and I moved to Port Orchard where all of my family was from.  Then after my divorce I was priced out of Kitsap County and had to make Mason County my home.

Sometimes I wish I still lived in down town Seattle, but with enough money to actually be able to eat.  Then I remember the view of Seattle from the Olympics.  From the Olympics you can clearly see that everyone over there lives under a constant haze of brown smog that runs the length of I-5 and is pushed up against the Cascade Mountains.  Yuck.

I have so many memories in Seattle and Bremerton, I'm always overcome by emotion at some point on my trips to Seattle.  This time the only really sore point was when I was very tired and hungry and I  passed by the Four Seas restaurant in China town.  My mother took me there once on one of her flying visits.  I was living in such poverty and I was so hungry, it was so nice to be taken out to eat.  But it was just a flying visit and I was left behind in my poverty, dropped of at my apartment in Bell Tower to starve until the next flying visit.  My mother died two and a half years ago.

How I envy people who have supportive parents.

Lunch Lake

Back to lunch lake.  Logging near by was loud and never really stopped.  Normally logging operations quiet down later in the day.

First trip with my newest used GPS.  I bought a defective one off  EBay and got a refund and then bought this good one for less.  I've got a keeper this time.  I want to get a screen protector for it though.

My first GPSmap 60CSX was better quality then the next two.  The rubber is softer and the screen is softer too on the newer ones. This is an old model but I like it.  For the sake of simplicity I don't feel like learning a new GPS system and being forced to use base map instead of map source.

I'm really tired the day after this hike, so I fear that I am coming down with something.

8.6 miles with 200 feet elevation loss on the way in.

Kamilchee Ridge lost camera, Draconius Go

Decided to go to Kamlichee Ridge and take advantage of my enchanted pillar.  Hiked up a new way and had to do some brush crashing when the road suddenly ended.   Thought I was brushcrashing back to the road but instead found I was brush crashing to the spot where there is no road.  The one spot where I always have to brush crash on this hike anyway.

Found a Portal to the rift of Arcana in the woods then a Dragon Mother also in the woods but down hill and back in the direction that I had come and gave it an egg to hatch.  This added some time and effort to my hike but was great fun.

Very windy on the top.  A Toyota 4 runner passed me on the way up without seeing me.  When I got to the top the gate was open and a door to the tower room was open.  Walked around the tower a few times without them ever noticing that they were not alone up there.  Went down just a bit for coffee but it was too windy to cook..

While not having coffee the 4 runner left.  They never saw me.  Hiked down a bit more for noodles and coffee near a pillar of abundance.   Was running a bit late due to the adventures in the portal.  But went back into the portal on the way down, nothing there though.

Part way into the brush crashing section I noticed that my expensive camera was missing.  Spent the next hour or so looking for it.  I knew about where I lost it, but still could not find it in the heavy brush.  Before leaving in total defeat, I sent a text to Phil and asked if he could help with his metal detector tomorrow.  He said he would help, so I had some hope that it would be found.

Next day went back up with Phil and a relative and a metal detector and Phil found the camera under a sword fern with his metal detector.  We then hiked to the top and took the shortest route back down.

Pretty tired after hiking two days in a row, but very happy to have my camera back!  The neck strap had come undone causing my camera to fall off.  Since it fell off into the brush it did not make a sound and I did not miss it until about 30 feet after I dropped it. I need to put some orange duct tape on it to help find it, but where it was under a sword fern tape might not have helped.   Think I'll get a bluetooth tracking device for it.

A few weeks ago when I was on Mount Ellinor, my old GPS opened up and got water damage inside due to some cracked plastic that holds the thing together.  I bought a replacement on eBay but it had battery acid damage and would not stay on reliably!  I contacted the seller withing minutes of opening the box that it came in and they gave me a full refund and did not ask me to return the unit.

I used the unit on my last two hikes and it kept turning off but it was still somewhat useful since I knew the area.  I would not trust it deep in the back country or  in unknown areas and where my phone can not get data!

  I have a new one on the way and will retire this one to the car when my new one comes.   When the new one arrives I will hopefully once again have a unit I can trust when I am off trail in new areas.

6 miles with 1,000 feet elevation gain going the shortest way possible.

Last picture I took before I lost my  camera

Kamlichee Ridge Draconius Go and Pokemon Go

A lot of roads are washed out and the mountains have snow and the days are short.  Time to hike close to home.  Today I made my second trip up Kamilchee Ridge starting near the Lake Isabella boat ramp.  I think the hike was 7 miles, but I’m not sure since my GPS is broken and I had to use my phone for navigation.

The view at the top is good but it was cloudy and rain was falling so I did not stay long.  I went up the power line mostly.  On the way down I took a different route.  In one spot all my maps show a road going through, but the road does not go through, it dead ends.   It does not even look like the road ever when through there.  

 There is a trail that connects  two roads together though, it was even flagged.

 I found that most tree farms have trails that make all the roads connect.  I think they are motorcycle trails.   A dead end road in a mature tree farm,  is almost never a reason to have to back track because there will nearly always be a trail at the end of the road.

I had both Draconius Go and Pokémon Go loaded for the entire hike.  I did not find as many Draconius Go stops (Pillars of Abundance)  as I had hoped and I ran out of eggs to hatch on the summit. 

In both games you hatch eggs by walking and you collect fresh eggs at stops.  Pokémon go has no stops in wild areas so I always just run out of eggs on my hikes and then turn the game off or walk my buddy pokemon.

Draconius go has pillars almost everywhere, but there was only one stop on the way up.  Draconius go is much more fun to play when hiking.

I waited at that one pillar stop for 15 minutes so I could spin it 3 times but no eggs dropped.  On the way back down I stopped for lunch and coffee at the Draconius Go stop and still no eggs were dropping. 

So I enchanted the pillar/ stop to drop only eggs.  With three spins I refilled my egg bag and was ready to go.  I did not want to walk three miles and not get any egg hatching credit! 

Now I feel like I have to go back at least a few times to visit my enchanted pillar.  I found a bunch of Chanterelles in the area on the way down.  I was surprised that they were in such good shape with all of the rain we have had this past few weeks. 

Hike started at ten am and ended at about 4pm.  

7.5 miles with 1,100 feet elevation gain (Cir)

dirt in my image sensor and too tired to fix it in post

Nice natural decommissioned road unlike the USFS monstrosities

Old roads are fun to hike on when the USFS has not tilled them up

Lunch on the way back down

Ramen minus the flavor pack (msg gives me migraines)
 Plus hot sauce, peanut butter, dried peas
salt and dehydrated hamburger.