Looking back at hiking, you probably have a year that changed you. When it became an obsession and more than just a hobby, you did it once in a while. Mine was in 2001. It seems so long ago, yet it feels just like yesterday. I picked up hiking as a hobby after my oldest… Continue reading 2001: The Year That Changed Me
Tag: Olympic National Park
The Moment It Clicked
Long ago, when my oldest son had just turned a year old, a simple front country hike in the Olympic Mountains changed my life. I had hiked and backpacked before, long before, but it had not woken that part of me. Hiking was something I had done because my friends were going when I was… Continue reading The Moment It Clicked
Olympic Hikes: Pumpkin Seed Lake
When we rebuilt Trailcooking from ground up this past year, I lost every trip report I had written from 2004 to current when we couldn't transfer the older version of the blog. There are some hikes I truly loved that I never wrote about, including Pumpkin Seed Lake in the Olympic National Park, in Washington… Continue reading Olympic Hikes: Pumpkin Seed Lake
Local Adventures: Dungeness Spit
Dungeness Spit sits just outside of Sequim, on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. It's a close drive for us, from the ferry from Whidbey Island. Run by the US Fish & Wildlife Service, it is a wildlife preserve, that sits next to a county park that offers more trails and a great campground (I… Continue reading Local Adventures: Dungeness Spit
Local Adventures: Hurricane Ridge Wandering
When my oldest son Ford was little we spent many days hiking in the Olympic Mountains. Back then it was easy to do it, in the early 2000's. No needing reservations on the ferry across the Salish Sea from the island to Port Townsend. The area was a lot quieter with a lot less people,… Continue reading Local Adventures: Hurricane Ridge Wandering