Photo Friday: Washington Dayhikes and Sunsets

My boys and I traveled to Seattle to spend a little time with family, especially my mom and my brother and his family. It was a good time to relax and get taken care of a bit, and we also fit in a couple of dayhikes with Dave's brother and his wife. Seattle was delightfully cool and while we never did see Mt. Rainier (never in the right place at the right time), we enjoyed some good views of other things.

Our first and best hike was a 9 1/2 or 10 mile hike to Melakwa Lake. Like most of the hikes near Seattle, I'd been there before--30 years ago. Funny, but I didn't remember much about it.

The hike starts out climbing up beneath the westbound lanes of I90. It felt a bit like the Ewok world in Star Wars--all forest and primitive, then up above there's this space-age transportation thing.

Fantastic waterfall 1/3 of the way up.

We enjoyed our lunch at the lake, but weren't inspired to swim, as temps were in the high 50s and there was still snow down to the water in places.

The second hike, up the Ira Spring trail to Mason Lake, was less scenic, and as we'd failed to realize Friday was the holiday for the 4th, far more crowded than we liked. I did get a few good shots, though.

Trufula trees, er, bear grass grew in several places along the trail.

I'm pretty sure these are a berry, but my mind refuses to come up with an ID.

Nearly every night gave us a beautiful sunset from my brother's home, too.

We were definitely a little sorry to come home, back to the land of way too hot!

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All images and text ©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2020, unless otherwise indicated.
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