Concrete, WA and Mt. Baker

Thursday, January 14, 2010

On Sunday, Kj, Kelli, and I woke up early and drove 3 hours north to the little town of Concrete, WA.

During the month of January, hundreds of bald eagles can be seen here feeding on salmon in the Skagit River. We wanted to get in on that action but arrived a little too late, around 10:30 am or so, by which time the eagles had fed and fled. We only saw 2 lone bald eagles regally perched in trees across the river, which was incredibly cool, nontheless. They have wingspans of up to 6 feet!

We also saw this blue heron stalking fish in the water. Cars were rushing by barely 5 feet away, but she was so focused on carefully and sloooowly creeping up to the water, she didn't even blink. It was kind of freaky to watch, actually:

We drove around, trying to find Baker Lake, and found a different lake backed up behind an old dam circa 1940s. It was really quiet out there...

After a little exploration, we found this old structure, probably once part of a rock quarry operation, now with shotgun shells littering the ground all around it and gang tags all over it:


I love seeing abandoned vestiges of another era:

Tenacious little plants growing on the rust:

Here is the REAL Baker Lake that we later found --


Driving back pretty soon we went from this:

To this:

So good to be alive in the 21st century. Here's to having our cake and eating it too.

Penrose Point State Park

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

On a beautiful, rare, blue sky day over the holidays, Tiffany and I drove out to the Key Peninsula to spend a few hours hiking in this park, which has lovely views of the bays of Puget Sound and a jawdropping vista-treat of Mt Rainier near the end of the hike.


We wandered around on a side trail for a little bit, through dense forest:



(ahhhhhhh)

Walked through some closed-for-the-winter group campsites until finding our trailhead.


We went A - B - C - G - D - E - F - H - A, to try to maximize the mileage, which even then was only about 2 miles. At G there is this lovely, stoney beach with incredibly clear water:

That looks perfectly green looking at it towards the sun:

We're like a cover for the Gilmore Girls. Tiff, you can be my mom --


Oh hello, sweet forest elf. Sing me your silken song.

View of Mt. Rainier, across Delano Bay. What a sexy beast.


Zoomed in, this is how big the mountain ACTUALLY looks, when you're standing there on the shore, in person:

Love the rocks, could beachcomb for hours:

We had been feeling a little wary while on this hike, due to the intermittent and VERY nearby rifle shots that we kept hearing. When we got to this beach, there was a little row boat with a gun sticking up out of it, pointed towards the water, so I guess someone was out there doin a little duck huntin. Felt better to see that, since up to that point, I'd been imagining that we'd inevitably be coming across other hikers' bodies in the woods.

We drove to and fro with Bjork's Vespertine.. couldn't get a better day than that.

Fort Flagler, WA

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

One day in November or early December I drove up to Fort Flagler for some hiking. One of the unique and wonderful things about Washington state and the Olympic Peninsula especially is the fact that you can barely go ten miles without encountering yet another state park. There are 5 within a 30 minute drive from my house. This one in particular is a 2 hr 45 min drive up from Tacoma. I thought it would only take 2 hours, but I always seem to forget that these parks are invariably located along the coastline way far away from the main thoroughfares, and to reach them, you have to circumnavigate numerous bodies of water while driving through lots of sleepy little towns and dense forests. Driving there is half the fun.

There are many forts situated on strategic bluffs in this part of Washington, built in the late 19th century to guard the nautical entrances to Puget Sound. These forts were closed a few years after WWII and turned into state parks. They are incredibly eerie to be walking around in, alone, on a winter afternoon. The parking lot for this park is quite generous - and mine was the only car there. Following a forested trail, I came upon structures like these every 1/4 mile or so.

Searchlight:





Primary Station:



And then there are these abandoned Gun Batteries with dozens of doors where any homeless person or hybernating bear or cougar could be hiding:






These holes --

used to have these bolted to them:

"Battery Calwell contained four, six inch disappearing guns, model 1903. These guns had a number of advantages over the earlier model Barbette types. The gun was raised above the concrete battery walls for firing and recoils to a lower protective position for loading.

The battery was built from 1903 to 1905 at a cost of $89,500. The shell weighed 108 pounds with a maximum range of 8 miles. War time manning charts called for 175 enlisted men and 5 officers.

The guns were removed in WWI and shipped to Europe in 1918. The guns were never replaced."

This Dharma Initiative hole was far far away in a field by itself, far from other structures. Seriously, walking around this park, I felt like I was in LOST.

The light was getting low and I'd heard lots of rustling in the bushes while out there in the woods by myself, so with the mountain looking like this, I headed back:

Skipped some rocks and chased gulls and watched the sun go down --
Someday I'd like to go back here (with people this time) and walk some of the other trails.