Visitors

My good friends Jason and Emma joined us in Seattle for the weekend after their backpacking trip and by happy circumstance Matt - coming all the way from Vermont - was here as well.

We of course want to act as good hosts any time we have visitors, but since moving to Seattle we put forth extra effort in order to further our not-so-secret agenda: try to convince our friends to move here. Hey, we wouldn't be doing it if we didn't like living here ourselves. Although their visit was far too short for my liking, I believe we succeeded in showing them a fun time.

Although technology gives us lots of options for keeping in touch across great distances, nothing compares to having a beer together (in person) with your best friends. Great weekend.

Matt was kind enough to share the pictures from his camera.

Hiking with Jason & Emma

Our good friends Jason and Emma are here visiting from MN. They'll be spending a few days backpacking at Mount Rainier, so we went to join them on the first day of their hike.

We hiked through beautiful wildflower meadows and climbed to Skyscraper Pass at about 6700' for lunch. The weather was mercifully cooperative - cloudy and occasional spits of rain, which helped to keep things comfortable (the heat we've had in Seattle applies up there, too). It was a lot of fun to hike with J&E and show them around the park that we enjoy so much.

Enjoy the pictures.

Heat

95% of the time, weather in Seattle moves from west to east: temperate air from the ocean means moderate temps. When that air is moist and gets stuck up against the mountains, it's cloudy and rainy. This weather is called on "onshore flow."

But a few times per year - and usually once or twice during August - we experience an "offshore flow" and air is borne over the mountains on a east-to-west wind. East of the mountains is basically a desert, so this air is hot, dry, and dusty. Now is one of those times.

The last few days it's been 90 degrees, which is very unusual in Seattle. Remember, almost nobody here has air conditioning - including many restaurants. In order to get a brief respite we (and everyone else, apparently) went to the beach to cool off in Sound's 57 degree water. We didn't take any pictures, so you'll have to take my word for how nice it was.

Mount Fremont

Sunday dawned sunny and clear; a perfect day for hike. Hmm...where to go? If you follow our blog regularly, you may have noticed a pattern.

Mount Rainier NP; the Sunrise visitor center. There are probably a dozen great day hikes from there, which is why it's our preferred destination for the 3 months of the year it's actually open.

This time, we hiked to the 7200' summit of Mount Fremont. It's quite a bit less strenuous and shorter than our trip a couple weeks ago (see "Burroughs Mountain" below), which means that it was a bit more crowded. Since it's further away from Mount Rainier itself, it's also a notch or two lower on the scale of "spectacular-ness." Still a great hike though, and perfect for those who don't want to spend all day out there (4 hours round-trip, including a leisurely picnic lunch at the top).

Since the terrain & scenery are similar to Burroughs, we refrained from taking too many pictures (there are exactly 5 in the album). The one difference is that we did see a marmot this time...although he was camera shy. A group (herd? pack?) of mountain goats lives on Mount Fremont as well, but unfortunately there wasn't any sign of them today.