Maxine Takes Me & Madame McNutty On Virtual Washington Hike To Stehekin

The past couple months Madame McNutty and I have been being tormented by photos on Facebook making us homesick for Washington.

Both myself and Madame McNutty currently live in non-scenic American locations, with me in North Texas and Madame McNutty near where Lee surrendered to Grant.

Yesterday the Washingtonian known as Maxine emailed some photos of this year's hike over the North Cascades to Stehekin.

One can get to Stehekin via one of two ways. Either hike in or float in on Lake Chelan, via boat or float plane.

The first paragraph of text in Maxine's email explains, I think, the first picture, which shows Maxine crossing a chasm on a foot bridge...

I had an excellent hike to Stehekin this year, the weather was perfect and there weren’t any scary drop offs. The only unnerving part was on the hike out Bridge Creek Trail; the North Fork bridge had collapsed last winter from snow and was replaced by a swinging bridge.  I worried about this crossing for most of the summer and it ended up being a piece of cake.

Continuing on let's see some more scenery with some more explanatory text...

I believe the above must be Lyman Lake. I believe this because of the following text from Maxine's email...

We hiked to Lyman Lake our first night, the 2nd day we hiked a portion of the Pacific Coast Trail that goes thru Plummer Basin (we hadn’t done this piece before, last time we took the unmaintained trail which was a huge mistake), spent a 2nd night on the trail and then hiked the last 12 miles to High Bridge on our 3rd day and made it to the Stehekin Valley Ranch in time for dinner. 

I have had dinner at the Stehekin Valley Ranch. You can see that via the Stehekin Eating webpage I made following the Stehekin visit. These are primitive webpages made a long time ago. Hence the small photos of low quality. And for some reason Google seems to flood the pages with ads.

Continuing on with another scenic wonderland photo...

Some more text from Maxine which contributes to the feeling that I'd really like to go on a real hike...

I haven’t got the Lyman Lake area out of my system yet, I’d like to go back and spend a couple of days at Lyman Lake and day hike to Upper Lyman and Spider Gap. So remote there, we only saw 2 other people on that portion of the trail. I didn’t get as much hiking in this year as I would have liked. 

Some final words from Maxine...

I didn’t get as much hiking in this year as I would have liked. I hope to get to Cutthroat Pass this weekend for the Fall colors. The Seattle Times did an article last weekend about Fall hikes off of Hwy 20 and it’s always a nuthouse on the trails after that. We’ll see...

I was hoping to go hiking with Maxine this past summer, but COVID postponed going to Washington, again, two Summers in a row.

The first time I ever hiked up the slopes of Mount Baker it was Maxine who led the expedition. I have photos of that expedition, but I don't remember if I ever digitalized them. They are likely in an old-fashioned photo album stored in a big box in my closet.

Maxine's Halloween Hiking Tale To Stehekin With Smoky Bears

Time has been busy flying way too fast, what with tomorrow being the start of 2017's version of November.

For months now, beginning in early June, I have been feeling a bit discombobulated. I find myself losing track of this that or another thing.

Like I'd not heard from Maxine since about a week after I got back from Arizona last June.

I knew I'd not heard from Maxine due to the fact that every fall Maxine hikes over Cascade Pass to Stehekin, after which I get a report, allowing me then to get to enjoy, vicariously, going to Stehekin, which is one of my favorite locations I have been to. And the Courtney Ranch in the Stehekin Valley, one of my favorite places in which I have consumed vittles.

Long ago, late in the last century, prior to broadband and the resulting lesser need to make photos small, bytesize wise, I made three webpages about a Lady of the Lake boat trip to Stehekin. There is a general page about Stehekin, which mentions a lot of bears. Another page about Hiking in Stehekin. And another about Eating in Stehekin.

Last year I made Maxine's annual Stehekin tale into a blog post on my Washington blog titled Maxine's 2016 North Cascades Adventure Trek To Stehekin. Last year's Stehekin report from Maxine included a lot of photos.

This year's Maxine Stehekin report included only one photo, which is what you see above. In Maxine's 2017 Stehekin report, below, you will read reference made to the fact that the air was smoky. And there was an encounter with two bears, which you can find, if you look close, in the above photo. Due to the photo being so smoky I used a photo filter to filter out some of the smoke.

And now, Maxine's 2017 Hike to Stehekin...

The hike up to the pass was hot and smoky. One of women in the group broke her wrist in 2 places the week before but was determined to hike in with us. She had overpacked and  really had a struggle, fortunately her 30 ish son was hiking in too and took part of her load so that helped her immensely.

We had lunch at Doubtful Falls, everyone took off their boots and soaked their feet. Delyn slipped on a wet rock and fell on her right shoulder really hard, fortunately it was just a bruise. We were packing for 2 nights on the trail so all packs were heavier than usual, makes for a more arduous hike.

We saw 2 big black bears in Pelton Basin, thankfully far away. We hiked to a nice campground at Flat Creek. The 2nd day was only 4 miles, we stayed at Bridge Creek campground.

The weather was hot and so some of the younger people in our group (in their 50’s) slept outside under the stars. A mouse ran over one of them. We stayed 3 nights at the Stehekin Ranch. It rained a little and the wind shifted so there wasn’t any smoke. I got a massage, a banjo player stopped by one evening and jammed with the Lauri the Mandolin Player.

I kayaked on Monday and ate pie every night for dessert.

The hike out was 16 or 17 miles.  Originally Delyn and I wanted to go in a day early and spend the night at Pelton Basin and take a side trip to Thunder Basin (I think that’s what it’s called, a little valley surrounded by waterfalls), but somehow the whole group ended up going in a day early, I may have opened my big mouth. The campsites are on a first come first serve basis and the sites that would have worked better for our plan were taken. It all worked out, but a 14 mile day followed by a 4 mile day is kind of silly.  The woman with the broken wrist decided to take the ferry out, I think  the body takes a lot of energy to heal.

Can’t wait until next year for more multi night back packing trips. We hiked up to Cutthroat Pass October 8th hoping to see fall colors and everything was covered with snow.  I saw more people than  I have ever seen before out on the trail. There was a big article in the Seattle Times about best places to hike for fall color the week before and I think that was the reason we saw so many people. There were a few people using Micro Spikes, like a crampon that goes over your shoes. I thought I had every possible piece of gear but shoot, one more thing I may need.

There was a big storm on the 18th and 19th of  October followed by snow in the mountains.  A man from Bellingham hiked up Sauk Mt during that time and died. I tell you that mountain is haunted. I haven’t heard the details yet, so can only imagine what happened.

___________________

Yikes, another Sauk Mountain fatality. My worst Nephews in Danger incident took place on Sauk Mountain, when Spencer Jack's uncle, who is also my nephew Joey, and I, hiked to the summit of Sauk Mountain in a mild snowstorm, with ice coating the trail switchbacks near the top. I was being terribly irresponsible. We should have turned back when the trail got icy and the hiking got dicey. But, we were having a mighty fine time, and that top of the mountain kept pulling us higher...

Linda & Maxwell Throw Me Back To A Last Century Thursday

A few minutes ago Miss Linda and Maxwell texted me with "At Glacier with Maxwell."

Included with the text was the photo you see here of Miss Linda and Maxwell in a Washington Rain Forest near Glacier.

Glacier is a small town one passes through on the way to Mount Baker. Now that you are making me think about it, Glacier is the last town one passes through on the way to Mount Baker.

Seeing this picture of Miss Linda and Maxwell threw me into Throwback Thursday mode.

On a Thursday way back in the last century, on the day of a significant birthday, was it 30, or 40? I don't remember. What I do remember is on that day a brutal hike took place a short distance east of Glacier, to the summit of Church Mountain.

The final ascent of the Church Mountain hike requires use of a thick wire cable, left behind from the long gone fire lookout station. The summit is a flat point, with a panoramic view north into Canada, east into the North Cascades, south to the South Cascades, where Mount Rainier is located and west to Vancouver Island and the Straits of Juan de Fuca.

I have photos of the Church Mountain hike, stored in a box, not scanned. It would require an extensive search party to locate those photos.

If I remember correctly, and I likely do, the last time I passed through Glacier was with my favorite nephews, Christopher and Jeremy, also known as CJ and JR. This would have been a year or two or maybe three before my exile in Texas began.

On that pass through Glacier we were on our way to the Mount Baker ski area, which in late summer becomes a major hiking destination, with trails which usually only get free of snow in August, or later.

Our destination that day was to hike up Tabletop Mountain. I do have photos scanned of that hike and have previously blogged them in a blogging from 2009 titled Going Back To Tabletop Mountain While In Texas.

One of my all time favorite photos was taken that day on Tabletop Mountain. I shall go see if I can find that photo...

That would be JR on the left, which would make that CJ on the right.

Behind JR and CJ is Mount Shuksan. CJ is looking to his left, at the Mount Baker volcano. Behind the nephews, if you look closely, you will see a row of what I have come to call Hoodoos.

Looking at these various mountain photos, I am freshly struck regarding the pitifulness of the fact that currently, in 2016, I am aboding in a flat land where I hike up a big pile of dirt, known locally as The Dirt Hill, which I call Mount Wichita, which really is a real sad excuse for a mountain.

One of my other dear ol' Washington friends, Maxine, recently completed her annual trek over the Cascades to Stehekin, eventually reaching the fabled Courtney Ranch, home to some of the best buffet feedings I have ever had.

This year's Maxine Stehekin Adventure Tale is the best ever. I must get around to blogging it on my Washington blog.

In the meantime I'm thinking it really is time for me to cease living in a vertically challenged location and return to one of the world's scenic wonderlands....

Incoming Spencer Jack Washington Wildfire Report On Way To Lake Chelan

Earlier this afternoon Tootsie Tonasket shared photos of a wildfire burning near her Eastern Washington town.

A few minutes ago incoming email  from Spencer Jack and his dad, with the photo you see here of a big wildfire on the shores of Lake Chelan. Also in Eastern Washington.

The other side of the mountains, as in Western Washington, with those mountains being the Cascades, is also burning.

Elsie Hotpepper will soon be heading to the sizzling Pacific Northwest, the Oregon part of the territory. I have read of no wildfires burning in Oregon so far.

Having a Hotpepper in the state may change that.

The message in the email from Spencer Jack and his dad said.....

Spencer Jack and I are en route to check out the burning part of our state.

We thought we'd be staying in Lake Chelan tonight, however, decided to stay in this Bavarian themed town we found along the way.

We will report back as necessary once we get to the front lines of the wild fires.

The Bavarian themed town Spencer Jack found on the way to Lake Chelan is Leavenworth. Leavenworth is the biggest, and  best, of the Washington themed tourist towns. Ironically, the last time I was in Leavenworth, a Saturday in August of 2001, wildfires were burning in the mountains above Leavenworth, with firefighters using Leavenworth as a staging area.

I have not been on Lake Chelan since way back in the last century. I believe the year was 1997 or 98. Not long before the exile to Texas, that I do remember. A floating group of eight took the Lady of the Lake from Manson at the south end of the lake, to Stehekin at the north end, to stay in the National Park Lodge in North Cascades National Park.

This was a bear filled four days. We were barely off the boat  before we had our first of dozens of bear encounters. I documented this Stehekin Lake Chelan excursion years ago in a web tale in three parts, beginning with the float up the lake and the bears, followed by hiking, and then our dining adventures, some accessed through a bear infested abandoned apple orchard.

I don't know if it is a good idea to turn viewing a wildfire into a tourist attraction. Wildfires can turn dangerous real  fast. I'm sure Spencer Jack and his dad will be careful....

Rosie The Rat Dog's Grizzly Bear & Sarah Palin Encounters In Alaska

Rosie the Rat Dog and her entourage have now made it to the Valdez zone of Alaska.

The latest entry on Rosie's Alaska! Blog has some really good pictures of grizzly bear encounters, like the one you are looking at here, in a blogging appropriately titled "Stay in your car."

The only place I've been where I had dozens of bear encounters, none of them grizzlies, was at Stehekin, on Lake Chelan, in Eastern Washington.

Rosie's pictures of all sorts of critters having a salmon feeding are something I don't recollect seeing before.

I also do not recollect ever seeing a picture of my sister paddling a kayak so close to a glacier before.

Does my sister not know that in summer glaciers break off humongous chunks of ice that are known as icebergs? And that it is likely a bit dangerous to get too close?

What with all the bears, moose, dodging icebergs and visiting Sarah Palin in Wasilla, I am appalled at all the dangerous situations to which Rosie the Rat Dog is leading her entourage.

Looks fun though.

Solo Tandy Hills Hiking Observing The Tandy Hills Roadrunner Bonding With The Tandy Hills Trojan Horse & Other Mysteries

I am having one of those rare days where I feel as if someone has sucker punched me in the gut.

Which is a tad disturbing, because no one has sucker punched me in the gut.

It has been over 3 years since I've been metaphorically sucker punched in the gut.

Hiking the trails of the Tandy Hills Natural Sanatorium, today, put me in a less sucker punched frame of mind.

Speaking of sucker punches, this week's Fort Worth Weekly Best of 2011 issue made no mention of the Tandy Hills this year. Or the Prairie Fest. In years previous the Tandy Hills has been mentioned as the Best Place to Stand. And the Prairie Fest as Best Outdoor Festival, or something like that.

Today whilst I was hiking the Tandy trails I pondered why so few people avail themselves of the pleasure of Tandy Hills hiking. Fort Worth has a population of over 700,000. While it is true that over half of the population is over weight and thus not really drawn to hiking up a hill, that still leaves around 350,000 people able to do so.

I know of no other big city in America with a big, wild, natural zone so close to its downtown.

If something like the Tandy Hills existed a couple miles east of Seattle's downtown I can guarantee the hills would be alive with the sounds of people enjoying the natural world. During the hiking season in Washington's Cascades you can go to any of the dozens upon dozens of mountain hiking trails and find a lot of people hiking. And that's after driving a long distance to get to a trail head.

Even as I type, Washington's Maxine W. A. Milling is hiking with a group, over Cascade Pass, to Stehekin, to spend a few days at Courtney Ranch.

With there being so very few hiking type options in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex zone one would think the Tandy Hills would get a lot of visitors.

Before the novelty wore off, I'd drive to places like Turner Falls Park in Oklahoma and Dinosaur Valley State Park. And twice to Enchanted Rock State Park, just to have a semi-good place to go hiking.

And on another Tandy Hills note, I had myself a real cute encounter with the Tandy Hills Roadrunner today. As I was ascending Mount Tandy the Tandy Trojan Horse that I mentioned a couple days ago came into view. I then saw that the Tandy Hills Roadrunner was looking curiously at the Tandy Trojan Horse.

When the Tandy Hills Roadrunner saw me the speedy bird took off running over the hill.

There was no sign that any of last night's thunderstorm deluge dropped any water on the Tandy Hills. I wonder if the Tandy Hills Roadrunner is still drinking at Don Young's birdbath. I have never found the mysterious water barrel that Don Young and his cohorts installed in some hidden location on the Tandy Hills.

Don Young used to be Fort Worth's Best Watchdog. This year Don Young has been in the news a lot, doing a lot of Watchdogging. But, somehow Don Young was supplanted as the Best Watchdog in Fort Worth Weekly's Best of 2011 compilation, supplanted by Kevin Buchanan and the North Central Texas Communities Alliance.

Very perplexing.

Moab, Arches, Stehekin, Maui, Las Vegas, Bears & Fiery Furnace Hikes With Nephews & Slow Modems

I think I mentioned I spent a few hours in the past couple days re-doing a lot of my biggest website. I updated old stuff to make it look slightly less ancient.

But, I did not realize, til thinking about it this morning, that some of those old webpages are well over 10 years old. No wonder they looked so dated.

Another thing with the old webpages is they were made back way before anyone had heard of the concept known as broadband, back when you thought you were being superfast when you upgraded from a 14.4 BPS modem to a 28.8, and then the unthinkably fast speed of 56.6. Was it .6? I dunno. It's been a long time.

So, back then websites could take a long time to load. If you made websites you kept graphics to a minimum. If you used photos you sucked as much resolution out of them as possible, while still managing a semi decent image.

That first picture you see above is not too bad. That was a scanned image, re-scanned during the era of broadband. That is Fiery Furnace in Arches National Park. I've done that hike twice. If you are ever in the Moab zone, do not skip Arches and do not skip hiking the Fiery Furnace, even though it will cost you a few dollars and it's a group, ranger-led hike. It's fun.

The worst pictures are those I used for one of the funnest things I've ever done, that being taking the Lady of the Lake on Lake Chelan to Stehekin in North Cascades National Park. I have never seen so many bears. Not even in Yellowstone, when bears were still allowed there. I think I still have the original photos of the Stehekin trip, though that is well over a decade ago. I could find them and re-scan them. But I am drawing a blank as to where the photos are.

Actually, now that I am looking at them, the absolute worst are the pictures from Maui with my nephews, Chris and Jeremy. They now live in Phoenix. Recently my sister was thrilled to have both boys moving back home again. Temporarily. I do not have the originals of the Maui photos, so I am stuck with these badly damaged images. Damn the early days of the Internet and what it made us do.

I have the originals of photos taken in Las Vegas when my nephews, Jason and Joey, took me there soon before I moved to Texas. I re-scanned one of them recently when I wrote a blog about Death Valley. The nephews and I went out to Death Valley on a HOT August day that had the potential to break the temperature record. But it did not. We got plenty HOT though.

It seems so recent that the nephews took me to Vegas. Joey was 15 then, Jason 18. Joey is now 26, which I guess makes Jason 29, married, divorced and with the cutest kid I've ever seen, my great-nephew, Spencer Jack, who has a blog, but it is viewable by invite only, so I won't bother making a link to it. That is Joey on the right, with his big brother, standing in the Excalibur pool, with the skyline of New York New York behind him.

The Top Ten Places I Want To Escape To

Washington Mutual's Problem Resolution Center called and left a message. I called back. And left a message. I've no clue as to which of the Washington Mutual Problem's the caller was seeking to resolve. Right now I don't care.

Instead I'm in the mood to muse as to where I'd like to go to escape here, someplace fun that I've already been to and know is fun. I'm not in the mood for anything new right now. Though I am taking the TRE train to Dallas tomorrow morning. I live on the edge.

So, where do I want to go if I could right now? I'll try and think of the Top Ten. That should occupy 10 more minutes of waiting for Sarah Palin to have her meltdown.

In no particular order.

Bryce Canyon National Park. I love everything about this place. It's otherworldly scenery. It's great hikes. Ruby's Inn. I spent an Easter weekend at Bryce Canyon a few years ago. It was in late Spring. There was still snow at Bryce. It's at a high elevation, as in over 9000 feet above sea level at the highest.

Grand Canyon National Park. I've been there several times. Have stayed overnight twice. Once at the South Rim. Camping. I hate camping. And the most recent time, at the North Rim, staying in log cabins. A blizzard roared in overnight leaving us snowbound til snowplows from Utah could rescue us. I've only hiked down into the Grand Canyon once. It's a real good thing.

Arches National Park and Moab. Well, also Canyonlands National Park. Moab is your base town and in all directions there is good stuff to do. Like the photo at the top, that's me biking the Slick Rock Trail by Moab. That's a group hike in Arches NP, called The Fiery Furnace, on the left. You have to pay a fee and it has to be ranger led. You can get lost in there.

Yosemite National Park. The first time I saw this place was in fall. I was not all that thrilled. Then sometime in the 90s we rented a big ol' Cadillac, 3 other guys and me, and went on a road trip, ending up in Yosemite at Curry Village. It was spring, the waterfalls were out of control. I loved it.

Disneyland & California. I've not been to Disneyland since 1994, not since they've added Disney California. I've loved Disneyland ever since I was 13 and got taken there on what was to be my next to the last family vacation. We loved Disneyland so much we went again the next year. I was 14. I never went on a family vacation again. 7 years later I was in California on my own, staying at San Clemente State Park. And remembering back 7 years prior. That seems like such a short time now, but then it seemed like so much had changed. Over the following years I've lost count of the number of road trips to California and Disneyland. I guess the last one was in 2000. But I didn't get to go to Disneyland. Yuma instead. To spend Christmas with my mom and dad. It was real tempting when you saw road signs saying it was only 120 miles to Anaheim to take a right and skip Yuma. But I'm not one to ignore my mom and dad. Even though, apparently, they and others think I do. (That's called slipping in an Easter Egg to see if anyone reads this drivel)

Lake Powell. You need to, at least once in your short life, go to Lake Powell. You don't need to rent a houseboat to have Lake Powell reveal its charms. But a houseboat helps. Good housemates on the houseboat are important also. I've houseboated Lake Powell twice, both times in the 1990s. The water is warm and clear. The scenery is among the best on the planet. Which is why you'll be sharing the lake with so many darn foreigners.

Las Vegas. Any longer than 4 days and Vegas wears out its welcome. But I always have fun there. It can be exhausting. It's not the gambling that attracts me, it's the way over the top over stimulating nature of the whole place. I've only been to Vegas once since I moved to Texas. That was on a roadtrip back to Texas after spending a week or two in Washington. Those trips back were so much more pleasant than the more recent ones. Why? I do not know. That's Nephew Joey and me riding the roller coaster at the New York New York casino when I took Joey and his brother to Vegas the summer before I moved to Texas.

Taos, New Mexico. There was nothing I did not like about Taos. I love the southwest adobe style. The great places to eat. How fun it was to ride my bike around Taos and discover interesting things, like the grave of Kit Carson. And the Taos Pueblo. Even the Taos McDonald's is special.

Yellowstone National Park. I've not been to Yellowstone since the fall before wildfires burned most of the park. Yellowstone is one place I don't mind camping. Hiking over all the boardwalks to see the bubbling water and exploding geysers, loved it when I was a kid, loved it when I wasn't a kid. Yellowstone has been a fond memory ever since my little brother and me were awakened by our mom screaming, standing on top of the picnic table, because a bear was running through camp.

Bears remind me of Stehekin. I've only been there once but everything about it was perfect. A long boat ride up Lake Chelan, staying in the National Park Lodge. Stehekin is in the North Cascades National Park zone of Washington. We brought bikes and pedaled daily up to one of the best bakeries ever, the Stehekin Pastry Company. For dinner each night we'd take a long bus ride up the valley to the Stehekin Valley Ranch where the Courtneys would make a real good dinner for us and a lot of other people.

Stehekin is related to another place I'd like to escape to right about now. That being hiking deep into the North Cascades. The trails are good. What you see when you get to the end of the trail is amazing. Some summers I would go on a hike up in Cascades several times a month, til the snows returned in October. It always amazed me, when I lived up there, how many northwesterners had never experienced the sea of peaks, that being the seemingly endless sea of mountain peaks that extends north and south, with things like Mount Rainier sticking up higher.

I've gone up to 10 places I wish I could escape to right now and I left out Zion National Park. It should be in the Top Ten too. I don't remember ever being so surprised by a place as I was by Zion the first time I saw it. The tunnel into the canyon remains one of the finest moments of my pretty much un-momentous life.

Stehekin, Bears, Boats, Bikes, Hikes, Eating & Lake Chelan

Looking through old webpages today I've come to the realization I don't do anything new, different, fun and adventurous anymore. This must come to an end. Soon.

I'd forgotten about the fun of Stehekin. That's an isolated town, deep in the Washington North Cascades and the north end of Lake Chelan. Accessed only by boat or hiking or plane.

The summer before I moved to Texas. Or was it the summer before that, a group of 7 or 8 took the Lady of the Lake up Lake Chelan, to stay at the Stehekin Lodge. We took our bikes along. We were barely off the boat when we were greeted by our first of what was to be dozens of bears. Like the one you see in the photo.

Below is an excerpt from one of my 3 webpages about the trip to Stehekin. Go here to read the whole thing.

"The Way to Stehekin is definitely over the Road Less Traveled. Stehekin is situated at the end of 55 mile long Lake Chelan, deep in the North Cascades of Washington, accessible only by boat or foot or floatplane. No phones, no TV, no radio. Very likely the most remote, isolated location in the Lower 48 of the United States. None of your companions on this little adventure had been to Stehekin before. It was to be 4 days of discovering the delights of a world far removed from our usual Urban Madness..."