Dayton Falls Second Hike with Bella

 

The area I call Dayton Falls is about to be destroyed by logging. When I blog about this area I never say where I am.  Since the entire area is about to fall to corporate greed I don't have to hide it for myself anymore.

I was supposed to go to another secret spot of mine but my daughter had a change of plans.  So at the last minute I took Bella to Dayton Falls.  The falls were dry as I expected them to be.  Everything was dry.  It was so dry.

The first part of the hike was okay but the last have was not because my route on and abandoned logging road had been punched through with a new logging road, they are even building a bridge over a beautiful little creek. 

I've really enjoyed hiking in this area over the years but that's all about to end.

Bella is crazy!  She has an insane prey drive and lots of young dog energy.  She cut her tongue on something or maybe her mouth.  I don't see the wound now that I am at home.  She is a typical springer, they feel no pain.

She is great at sticking with me and she likes to go in water.  When we are home she is mellow, but she is always ready to go for a romp.  She's the perfect dog.

She is however very timid and spends all of her time at home either in her dog bed or on my sons bed.  She has to be coaxed to go out and get up and eat!  That should get better with time.

Bella acts like she was abused.  She was trained as a gun dog for the first year of her life.  They would have used something called the huntsmith system.  I'm guessing some dogs can tolerate that hard system better than others. Bella was somehow ruined as a hunting dog so she was sold to an ethical breeder.  She was bred 4 times in two years and now she is retired from breeding and hunting.  I got her just for the cost of her spay and rabies shot. 

There was not much water on this hike but we found a Greed Diamond water tank that was dripping so Bella got to have a nice drink.  I did not get to cook lunch or brew coffee due to the lack of water.

5.5 miles with 250 feet elevation gain

First Hike with Bella

 

First hike with Bella.  Maybe I will get out more now that I have a good hiking buddy.  Springer Spaniels are the best.  I'll never settle for less again.  :)

I'm having a lot of piriformis pain and it is slowing me down.  Physical therapy helped some but not enough.  I'm trying a chiropractor now.

We caught two little trout. 

The gate was open at the start of our hike but we parked outside the gate and hiked.  Good that we did,  poor guy got locked in.  I was able to tell him who to call to let him out and exactly where he was.  They told him it would be a few hours.  I hope they don't charge him.  Shame on the loggers who left the gate open and did not post a sign saying it would be locked. 

6 miles round trip with about 300 feet elevation gain

Lake Dead Fish and Lake Slimy Egg

 

Back to these two lakes for the first time since I returned to the states.  My favorite route in was much more overgrown, I probably won't go that way ever again.  We opted to take a much longer route out to avoid brush crashing and wading in the dark.

Fishing was good.  I had never thought to fish here before, but that was the goal today.

I'm about to start doing a lot more hiking.  My daughter wants to get into good enough shape to go to Mildred Lakes again.  That is going to take some work.  We are both very out of shape.  We hope to motivate each other.

We will do more difficult hikes until we are in shape for Mildred.  We are also on fishing kick so we will be combining fishing with hiking as much as we can.

We both eat what we catch, we kill it fast and we don't use live bait.  We agree that catch and release fishing is cruel.  We also know that using live bait is cruel.  

Today we caught 6 rainbow trout between the two of us.  I also had a bite on a bass set up but never saw the fish to know if it was a bass.

We decided we did not want to get up early for the best morning fishing hours so we went for the evening.  We did not make it back to the car until midnight and the entire hike out was in the dark.

After this we will go for the morning fishing.  I did not feel safe driving that late, my body wanted to sleep.  Also on the way home my daughter was passed by a car driving in the wrong direction on the highway between Bremerton and Gorst!  I'm so glad she was not driving the left lane when that happened. 

I only brought my iPhone to take photos with and it is not playing nice with my PC today, so no pictures to share for now.

8 miles with 200 feet elevation gain and I am sore today.

Cloqualliam Hill

I think I will spell this different every time.  Wow, it's been a while since I made it out to hike but I have been doing a lot of fishing, real estate photography, kitchen remodeling and taking my kid to the doctor. More on that later. 

Back to the same old boring hill for me, I don't love it, but it is good exercise and I always get total solitude here even on 4th of July weekend.

I was hungry by the time I reached the top of the hill as I had skipped breakfast.  I did a time-lapse movie at my lunch spot.  I kind of want to do that at all my lunch breaks from now on.

Someone else has discovered my spot and left this behind

 

Not much happens in this movie but it is relaxing and gives you a good sense of the place and the season.

We recently figured out, with NO HELP from his doctors that my kid has Elhers Danlos Syndrome.  I've been working hard to get him diagnosed and he will soon have his dx.  It took two years to get in to see the genetics department at Seattle Children's Hospital. They concure that he probably has EDS but are running genetic tests to rule out other connective tissue disorders. 

My son probably has the hypermobile variety of EDS and a fairly severe case of it.  This explains we he struggled so much in school starting with head aches in second grade. It explains he sore joints, headaches, GI issues, photophobia, fatigue and bendiness. 

It is hard to get EDS diagnosed, is it rare or is it just rarely diagnosed?

Bass fishing

My first ever Bass!

 I've not been hiking a lot but I will get back to it day after tomorrow.  I'll be on a logging road for sure with 4th of July weekend here the trails will be crowded.  

Today I went bass fishing for the very first time and I went alone.  I watched some youtube videos to learn how to use a big rubber worm that I found in a trout stomach.  I used that worm along with a hook I found on the shore line.

Wow did I ever have some beginners luck!  Five casts in I caught my first bass and it was a monster.  Nearly 18 inches long!  I fished from the shore, I used 6 pound leader and a barbless hook.  So lucky to land this fish.  Next time I go out I will use a barbed hook and maybe stronger leader. 

This fish did not fight very much but it was only 20 feet out so not much room for it to fight before I hauled it to shore.