The Wandering Dogtor

Before visiting Seattle, I thought people were a little intense with how much they love this mountain. But, I can confirm it's justified. I lucked out with another beautiful, sunny day. The mountain really can hide behind clouds that come out of no where at a moment's notice, though. There are two main sides to the park, Sunrise and Paradise. They are about an hour and a half drive apart, so best to do some research and decide which you'd rather visit, as both in a day would be challenging. I chose the Paradise side, which is the more popular side, especially for wildflowers during the summer. Even on a Thursday, I got there before 8am, the main lot was almost nearly full. So get there as early as you can!  Skyline Trail According to AllTrails, this is about a 6 mile loop with 1800ft of elevation gain. There are a ton of other trails off of it, so I ended up at about 8 miles with the different routes I took, with about 5 hours worth of meandering. I started in a counter-clo...

I know I say this a lot, but this park definitely warrants days more to explore than I was able to give it. The hike we did was absolutely spectacular, but this is one of those places you could take a week to explore and never get bored. There is a rainforest and a beach section to this park that I've only seen pictures of, but can't wait to go back and check them out for myself. Also, I didn't realize how obsessed I am with moss covered trees, but turns out they're really important to me.  Mount Storm King  This hike starts as a vary large and VERY busy trailhead (even on a Wednesday afternoon), since it's an easy hike to Marymere Falls from that point. I would consider this hike difficult, at only 4 miles, but with 2,000ft of elevation and a ropes course, this was a very fun challenge. It took us about 4 hours, stopping a while at the top, and adding in Marymere.  This hike starts off on the wide, well maintained trail that takes you to Marymere Falls, and this tr...

This park isn't nearly as popular as the others in the state (it's like, really far north), but absolutely worth a trip to visit. The road up to this part of the park was sketchy at best, but we made it in my friend's Honda Fit, which maybe isn't recommended but feasible.   Cascade Pass Trail  We only had time for one hike, and opted for this 6.7 mile with 1700ft of elevation gain up at the top north corner of the park. There was a big lot at the trailhead that was surprisingly mostly full for how little traffic we saw on the way in. The views from the parking lot alone were absolutely stunning. This hike took us about 3.5 hours.  The hike started with a lot of switchbacks in the woods with some occasional breaks in the trees, which being the first hike after The Enchantments, were welcomed. It then came to a couple of straight aways with clearings to look over the valley. It was foggy and misty and was just serene. There was also park of the trail that was mostly ju...

For lack of a better term, this hike was an experience. This beast is an 18 mile through hike, and can take an insane amount of time if you're my friend and I who thought it was not going to possibly take 17 hours, but somehow it did. My disclaimer is I'm from the Midwest and we don't have mountains here. My friend's disclaimer is she is she has been living in Washington for about a year and she had coworkers that said it "wasn't that bad". This hike was absolutely amazing, but definitely something you need to be physically and mentally prepared for. And, there are lots of mountain goats, need I say more.    There are two trailheads to this hike, both outside of Leavenworth, WA, which in and of itself is a precious town with great food and beer and coffee (like many places in Washington, which I can appreciate). It's a pretty touristy spot, which is nice in that there is a lot of lodging and food and groceries and such. The trailheads are the Snow Lake...