Alpine Washington

For the inaugural hike of my Alpine Lakes Wilderness mission, we chose to check out a trail I'd been eyeing for a while. This "backdoor" route to Rampart Ridge is much shorter than the route normally taken via the Lake Lillian trail. However, it comes with an unmaintained trail and a road with brush growing in from both sides. I white-knuckle our almost-new Subaru Forester to the trailhead, and fortunately there seem to be only minor scratches when we get there. This trail provides very fast access to a number of Alpine Lakes, but on this sunny July day there are only about 6 cars attempting it. On this hike, Jeannie, Lucas, and Kyra are along for the adventure. The trail starts out on a bit of abandoned road, but then quickly gets down to business scrambling up steep woods alongside Rocky Run Creek. As far as unmaintained trails go, it's not too bad, but it certainly gets the blood pumping. After less ...

It's already the middle of July, and due to COVID and the general chaos of 2020, we haven't done any hiking yet. I ask Jeannie if she wants to do a hike for our twenty-second anniversary and she agrees! We set out on a very warm Sunday afternoon for the Granite Creek Trail. This is actually a rather new trailhead that we haven't been to before, and should be a bit off the beaten path compared to the more popular I-90 corridor hikes. There is an old trail that starts right next to the Mailbox Peak trailhead, but the new trail is over a mile shorter. Note: this trailhead is managed by the state and NOT the US Forest Service, so you need a Discover Pass to park here. The trailhead is at a very low 900' of elevation. The first mile or so of the trail is brand new, built in 2012 . It has some decent elevation gain, but is wide and easy to walk on - ferns and other woodland plants line the way through the forest. We reach the junction with the old trail to the M...