Sunday, September 12, 2010

Olympic Peninsula: Mountains

We went up to Hurricane Ridge for a day to see the mountains.  No hurricanes; in fact, if you can believe it, the weather was absolutely fantastic for our entire trip.  It didn't rain on us one bit the whole time, right up until the day we left.  How do you visit the rainforest and not get rained on?  It was disorienting.  We had brought raincoats, umbrellas, extra shoes, the works, and they were just piled around in the minivan being dry.

But I digress.  The mountains were gorgeous.  This whole post is really just an excuse to show this picture:  click on it to make it bigger for full drama:



I have almost nothing to say after that.  We had snacks.


We took a hike.  We didn't hike long because it was hot and steep and - sorry to say this - actually a little monotonous, once you were done gawking at the view.  A bear-went-over-the-mountain kind of hike if you  know what I mean.   


The boys love to pose together.


We learned an extremely useful fact on this trip: We hike at one mile per hour on easy to moderate trails.  (Challenging trails we do not attempt at all.)  Young preschoolers are often either dawdlers or dashers, and Aaron is very much the former.  He is also too big to be carried for more than a few minutes.  Thus we know our pace and accept it.  Zippy young adults hike easy trails at three or four miles an hour, so we had to be careful when other people referred us to "short hikes" in the area.

We also take frequent breaks for food, water, and trying on antlers.

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