Snow Dust on Tiger, Feb 10, 2018

Frost and frosty snow limned trees' needles and leaves on Tiger 3 today.

Tiger Mountain was icy cold when I exited my Honda Fit this morning. The cold cut through my safari pants, but before long the hike and warmed me up. I made it to the summit today, reaching the top in less than two hours and  descending in about one hour. After the two-mile point I began to see snow residue along the trail.

Distance: 3 miles
Elevation gain: 2,000 feet.
Weight: negligible.
Distance year to date: 12 miles
Elevation gain year to date: 3,965 feet.

Snow-dusted salal

Hike #2 for 2018

Map of hike to 2.2 mile mark

I was tired today and the hike was more of an effort than last time. I think it was due to too little sleep.
I hiked a total of 4.8 miles. Map My Hike seemed remarkably accurate for distance, but off for elevation by approximately 90 feet going up. I gained 1,350 feet in elevation. I wore rain pants and perhaps an 8 pound backpack. There was no rain. My right hip hurt on the descent, in which I relied on trekking poles.

Statistics for the  year:
Distance: 9 miles
Elevation gain year to date: 1,965 feet.

First hike, 2018

Looking down the trail on Tiger 3 early in the hike; shot with my LG G6.

This was my first real hike of 2018. I've been lounging around, settling in after trips to Vancouver and New Orleans. I did a hike in Vancouver, but I think I lost the photos. If I find them,  that will be my first other real hike.

Today I partitioned my hike to allow me to compare distances with Map My Hike software to what the trail says.  Here are the details:

0.67 mile 95 feet elevation gain to 500-foot sign, shown as 627 feet with Map My Hike.
1.60 mile 1110 ft elevation gain:  634 to 1822 feet
0.53 mile         From 1813 feet, descending to 1.1 mile marker
1.12 mile         From 1364 feet, descending toward trailhead
0.67 mile         From trailhead to car, not counting distance from trailhead to 500-foot elevation sign.

Elevations leading on flat land to trailhead varies from 615 to 627 feet: It's about 115-127 feet off.

One of the segments -- from 1.1 mile market to trailhead was off by only 1.7%

Total hiking distance shown here: Hike was about 4.5 miles.

Heart rate got to 140 bpm; day was cool; not a lot of sweat.

Forgot my parking pass, so I had to park just outside the park.

City Hall Protest hikes

At 8 a.m., the bodies were already piling up inside the entrance to Seattle City Hall. The homeless and their supporters lay splayed along the floor in a silent protest of police sweeps to close homeless communities. I attended to shoot photos for Homeless in Seattle, and this led me to hike to city hall twice yesterday and again this morning. Then, in the afternoon, I hiked to the library in a futile attempt to obtain support from a staff representative to encourage distribution of information about the Homeless Web site.

At 8 a.m. cars were still streaming into the downtown, but the volume had already lightened up.

A topo map indicates that the condo is at 325 feet elevation above sea level. Kaiser Permanente is about 375 feet. And the Seattle Public Library, slightly higher than city hall, is situated at about 175 feet. The distance from the condo to City Hall is 1.1 miles and to the library, 0.9 miles; to Kaiser Permanente, 0.5 miles.

So, using simple math, here's my performance for the past two days:
1.1 (2)(2)(2) [city hall] +0.9 (2) [Library] + 0.5 (2) [Kaiser Permanente]
= 9.4 miles = 15.04 km.
(325' - 175') (8) = 1200'

Official statistics for year to date:
Distance: 361.62 km
Elevation Gain: 30,375 feet

Fall colors on Tiger 3

Descent from Tiger 3's 2.2 mile mark to the Talus Rock Trail

Yesterday I followed a different path on Tiger Mountain, taking in the fall colors and, toward the end of the hike, discovering a cave. The cave, which is situated at the termination of the portion of the hike depicted here, seems to have been created by a rock fall. For safety reasons, I skirted the cave, noting one approach that, if taken carelessly, might have resulted in a fall. This is worth a return visit for further study.

I found the cave by happenstance. After hiking to the 2.2 mile mark on Tiger 3 I began my descent, detouring onto the Talus Rock Trail near the end and following the Nook Trail fork to the Bus Trail. (See "nature photography hike".) This path involved another ascent, which gives me confidence that using the topo map above and using the additional ascent as a cushion, I'm confident I ascended at least 1,460 feet today. Adding to the confidence is the fact that, due to paving of Tiger's upper parking lot, I had to start from a lower location, which was well below the 500 foot market near the upper parking lot. From the car to trailhead showed at about 0.8 miles, using Map My Hike; From there MMH showed 2.08 miles to the 2.2 mile mark, so I'm going on faith that it was reasonably accurate for the other legs of the hike, and I'm claiming easily 6 miles today.

The sign directing hikers to the Talus Rock Trail. A fork from this trail leads to the "Bus Trail."

Here were some of the scenes that greeting me today:

Fall colors greeted me as I left the roadway to ascend the hill leading to the upper parking lot.

At this point I had begun the descent to the Bus Trail.

Statistics for the day:

Distance:  6 miles, 9.6 km
Elevation gain:  1,460 feet

Official statistics for year to date:
Distance: 396.18 km
Elevation Gain: 30,635 feet

Second Rainier, 2017

I'm finally claiming my second "Rainier" for 2017. Today I walked to Ivar's Acres of Clams and back, representing an elevation gain of 300 feet and a distance of 2.8 miles. Map My Hike would dispute those numbers, claiming a distance of 2.97 miles and a top elevation of between 210 and 253 feet, but it also showed me as going as low as 90 feet below sea level. My inclination for future hikes is to subtract 20 percent from any distance recordings with that software and to rely only on topo maps or other sources for elevation gains. At any rate, I've well surpassed the 92 feet I had to ascend to represent two Mount Rainier elevations, so for the rest of this year I will close each posting with this symbol, from my 2014-2015 run at Mount Adams:

The hike took me down Madison, through Seattle Library's downtown branch, and on to the waterfront before the return to the condo.

Later in the day I walked to Regal Cinemas at 7th and Pike to see the sequel to Blade Runner. The round trip was 2 miles and the elevation gain (Google maps) was 145 feet.

Here are the statistics for the day:

Distance:  4.8 miles, 7.68 km
Elevation gain:  445 feet

Official statistics for year to date:
Distance: 346,58 km
Elevation Gain: 29,175 feet

Long Beach, Oct 22-26

This was an ocean-to-mountain vacation stretching over five days with two friends: Larisa and Luda, who live in Federal Way. We stayed in a time share in Long Beach, WA, walking the beach, visiting light houses at the mouth of the Columbia river; Astoria, OR; the almost-ghost town of Oysterville, and the nearby Leadbetter State Park; and enroute home, Mt. St. Helens, where I hope to return next summer for some serious hiking. This trip, however, involved hiking no more than 10 easy miles, with nominal elevation gain, and because I didn't keep track, I'm not adding it to my statistics. All I'm posting today, is photos.

The one at the right shows Luda and Larisa viewing one of two lighthouses at Cape Disappointment, a finger of land that reaches out at the junction of the Columbia and Pacific Ocean as if to point at all the shipwrecks there. The location of this lighthouse, marked on a panel on the opposite side of the structure, shows Latitude/Longitude of 46-17-57 N / 124-04-48 W.

To the southeast, a second lighthouse showed remains of a platform capable of holding 15-inch guns. The lighthouse was armed during the Civil War, according to information provided at the location. The photo below shows a gun platform and the buildings associated with it, where, presumably, the gun crew were quartered and materiel stored.

A small building along the driveway to the lighthouse.

A ship rests at anchor on the Columbia at Astoria.

The Pacific's tracks in the sand at Long Beach

The beach at Oysterville at Willapa Bay was quite different from the beach beside the time share.

There was sand on the beach at Willapa Bay, but there was also a muddy bog.

Larisa and Luda bundled up for a hike on the overcast, drizzly afternoon at Oysterville.

On the subsequent hike through Leadbetter State Park, Luda discovered mushrooms.

She proclaimed the mushrooms edible. There were lots, but we had nothing to carry them in.

There was also an abundance of witches hair moss.

An old automobile engine, repurposed (perhaps) and abandoned, lay along the trail.

On our final day, we drove east for 2.5 hours to see the volcano. At 1,000 feet elevation, there was a cloud bank and we wondered whether St. Helens would even be visible. But well before we reached the Johnston Ridge Observatory, the sky became clear and the mountain came into view. We climbed to a viewpoint, where a strong chill wind swept up over the ridge, flapping our garments and making it hard to hold the phone-camera steady.

A log points away from the mountain that blew it over on May 18, 1980.

Official statistics for year to date:
Distance: 337.8 km
Elevation Gain: 28,730 feet