It was a cool and misty morning when our group of 10 met up at the Snoqualmie Lake trailhead to join a larger crew for some trailwork with the Washington Trails Association - perfect weather for working outdoors. After reading Dirt Work, Christine Byl's memoir about her 16 years working in trail maintenance, I could think of nothing better than hitting the trail for some dirt work of our own. I was beyond excited that so many other women from Alpine Trails Book Club agreed, and chose to spend a Saturday volunteering for hard work in the woods. Several in our group were even out for their first time!
Read moreLife: Week 21
Holiday weekends mean crowds, traffic, and stress, so in the past Andy and I have tended to just spend long weekends close to home. Especially after weeks of overtime at work, a quiet weekend at home sounded pretty perfect. That is until I noticed that WTA had work parties scheduled for both Saturday and Sunday on a trail that's only a 15 minute walk from my parents cabin! By the time I saw this, both days were full, but I put both myself and Andy on the wait list and crossed my fingers. If we managed to snag spots for either day, we could spend the remainder of the weekend at the cabin with my family - even better than spending the weekend at home. At the last minute, two spots opened up, but they'd moved the work party to the nearby Denny Creek trail. Instead of walking from the cabin to meet the group Saturday morning, we'd have to drive. Regardless of the location, the work was fantastic as always. Andy spent most of the day building rock steps, and I worked on drainage. Drainage maintenance is mucky, filthy work, but it's so satisfying to see clear water once again flowing down a drainage trench when you'd started with a debris filled mud pit and water running across the trail!
Read moreLife: Week 2
After a quiet, rainy work week, our annual mid-winter spring preview arrived just in time for the weekend! Perfect timing too, since I signed up for my first winter work party with the Washington Trails Association on Saturday. It was a good thing we lucked into dry weather, because our work site conditions were anything but. Our task for the day was building several puncheon structures (those boardwalks you see on particularly muddy stretches of trail) through a literal mud pit. As usual, it was enormously rewarding and so much fun! After working so hard on Saturday, I spent Sunday relaxing and catching up with one of my oldest friends at her new lakefront cabin home out in the country. With such an unseasonably lovely day, we decided to row around the lake to soak up the sunshine before returning to her patio for a lunch cooked over a fire. It was the perfect break from the doom and gloom of winter, the memory of which may have to last the next several months until the sun returns to stay!
Read moreLife: Week 23
Washington has a bad reputation for being perpetually rainy, but all that rain keeps our lush green forests happy! I often take our forests for granted, and have even been known to complain about hiking through the "boring trees." Every so often, I'm reminded just how lovely a quiet walk in the woods can be, and hiking to and from our work site for another trail work party with the Washington Trails Association on Saturday gave me the reminder I needed. The phenomenal views from a viewpoint the crew leader shared with the group certainly didn't hurt either! Since the trail we spent the day working is currently closed while new and improved trails to the summit are being built, we had the view all to ourselves, unheard of for any trail off I-90. Once again, we had a great time, mostly digging holes then filling them up again and getting filthy in the process.
Read moreLife: Week 10
The photo above is not remotely representative of this past week! It was a week of rain, rain, and more rain, with just a few hours of patchy blue sky to remind us what we'd been missing. Obviously, the moment I saw sunlight hitting the trees outside my window, and I had to dash outside for a short walk on the Powerline Trail. While it still looks very much like winter out there, I was able to spot a few early bloomers. Hopefully there will be more to follow soon. I'm definitely ready for some color around here!
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