The happy hiker, always shouting “more, more” in my ear while climbing.

Reflections on Independence Lake before the sufferfest began.

This is why my calves feel sore today. 35+ pounds of kiddo and stuff, with 1200′ of climbing straight up the mountainside.

Fall light catching some trailside webs.

Rest-stop overlooking North Lake. Thea discovers the huckleberry motherload!

Getting to be a pretty good hiker on her own now.

Step 1: Harvest huckleberries.

Step 2: Squeal with delight.

Step 3: Eat all of the huckleberries.

Lounging around this morning at camp.

Helping dad with some fishing.

Sunday hike to Big Four Mountain’s Ice Caves. A pretty short hike, but perfect for the day. The caves are sculpted out by water falling from up high on the rock cirque.

Enjoying the cool breezes at the mouth of the caves.

Very cold and wet inside, so this was as far as Thea got, while Lulu and I traded off to explore and take photos.

Closeup of a thin wall between two sections.

Not bad for a quick weekend adventure and first exploration of a new zone!

In the end, it all worked out easily. Thea taste-tested a lot of the rocks, but we kept her out of the firepit and didn’t worry about the dirt. She was a great camper, loved crawling all over the ground, ate with us out in the open, and slept great in the tent. Three days later, we had a camper on our hands, and an exhausted baby that slept really, really soundly Sunday night after all the excitement at the end of the weekend. More adventures to come!

All smiles for a sunny Friday on Puget Sound.

Thea, super happy in her outdoor dining perch.

First night’s sunset over the Strait of Juan de Fuca, with the Olympic Mountains on the left.

Beautiful evening on the trails.

Ready to play in the dirt and taste-test all the rocks.

Pine-fresh baby.

Thea’s buddy Greta.

A delicious spread for breakfast Saturday morning.

Dungeness Spit, sticking 5 miles out into the Strait with a tenuous hold against the seas.

Loving the baby backpack.

Picking up someone’s left-behind frisbee.

Ready to slackline already.

Out on the bluff trails for another sunset.

Happy little explorer, happy dad.

Matt heading up the Phantom in the early dawn of a beautiful day.

Snack break looking out with Alpental Backcountry in the background.

Looking down into the Slot… just need to mind the giant cliff exposure out of sight to the left on your entrance.

In the gut of the line, ready for leftover powder.

Charlie riding the steep, smooth snow of the Slot.

Matt under the sheer walls of the Slot, headed toward the Middle Fork basin.

Matt heads toward the exit, last climb up held sheltered snow, kind of tease for the descent back down to the car.

There was no avoiding the return to the southern snow on the way out, and we all knew what was coming. Still psyched from the Slot run, the descent down the Phantom became an exercise in comedy, using hyper-exaggerated turns down breakable sun crust on anything in the open. Searching out tight, shaded trees, we found a few good turns, but were mostly happy to make it back out unscathed. All in all, a pretty solid adventure.

Nick embracing the dawn approach.

This one looked to be different, with four inches of cold smoke sitting dormant for a couple days. Underlying the pristing surface though was the remains of a prior rain event, a hard crust with no bonding between the layers. It looked spectacular; it skied like, well, extremely loud powder with little edgeability. Anyway, still a great day and a fun adventure.

Josh and Lulu, with Mt Rainier in the background.

Josh making loud powder look good. Run #2 in the background.

Lulu making it work.

All smiles on the up-track.

Mid-winter’s steely skies.

Day 1. Check. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

The hike and location have a lot of meaning for Lulu and I, as we wrote our vows at the lookout before our wedding in Colorado. It’s a stunning, inspiring view, and one that we love to share with friends and family coming to town. Except that since we’ve been there, every time we take visitors out there, the views have often been left to the imagination in rolling banks of fog. Even with a beautiful forecast, the swirling clouds and winds around Mount Rainier often tease visitors, with the slightest of windows opening up to the mountain, only to close seconds later in a rush of cold air and thick cloud. At that elevation, the trail itself frequently becomes part of the clouds around it. It’s a cool, eerie sensation, but not particularly stunning of a panoramic show-off when you tell your guests, “You wouldn’t believe how awesome the view is from here, I swear.”

Nonetheless, it’s a great hike, and even the fleeting glimpses afford incredible scenery. Sometimes a constantly changing scene affords more wonder than the static vista, and hopefully we still gave Jeff and Sam some of what they were after on their trip.

Mount Rainier starting out on the Fremont Lookout trail from Sunrise.

Wildflowers starting to develop a thick coat over the alpine.

Jeff, Lulu, and Sam as the fog starts to roll in.

The trail remains pretty incredible, even if the bigger views are obscured.

Great to reunite with Jeff and meet Sam as they neared the end of their roadtrip.

Glacier Basin and Frozen Lake with the Wonderland Trail as we re-emerge from the fog.

Ominous clouds, beautiful sunlight, and wildflowers lend to the eerie and constantly changing feel of the landscape at Rainier.

Just to prove to family and friends that yes, there really is a view there, here’s the view from our original hike out to Fremont Lookout. Maybe next time we’ll bring printouts of those shots for guests to bring along just in case we wind up in the fog again

For the second year in a row, weather, conditions, and willing companions all came together to close out the season with a climb and ski of Mt Adams, Washington’s second highest peak. A spectacular Cascade volcano, Adams is also a pretty legendary slog. Last summer, Darrin and I blasted out the iconic SW Chutes in a 18-mile, 7500′ day (report here). With a Friday-Sunday weather forecast of blue skies and warm weather, Lulu and I opted to split it up into a longer adventure and do some late spring/early summer camping too.

I’ll let the photos tell the story below, but the weekend couldn’t have been nicer… A dusky evening climb on Friday to a perfect campsite, leisurely but steady climbing on Saturday all the way to the true summit, perfect corn skiing for several thousand feet on the SW Chutes, a lazy afternoon and second evening camping out in solitude on Adams, an easy exit on Sunday down to Hood River for beers and burgers at Full Sail, and an impromptu roadtrip up the eastern side of the Cascades through The Dalles, Yakima, Ellensberg, and back to Seattle.

Mt Adams from Trout Lake, with our line on the SW Chutes seen dead center.

Skinning in to the campsite on Friday evening in the alpenglow.

Climbing high on the South Face, the green fields of summer below and Mount Hood off in the distance. Temperatures were soaring, but the snow stayed great.

Lulu and I on our second Cascade volcano of the year, with Mount Rainier in the distance.

Perfect skiing conditions for July, with St Helens in the distance.

Lulu napping after a successful climb and ski of Adams.

Taken from camp on Saturday night, the sun sets over the Cascade Mountains and the 2011-2012 ski season for Lulu and me. From powder days at Alpental to Jackson Hole with the Lozners, France, Switzerland and Italy on our April vacation, long-admired routes close to home in the Cascades, and several firsts on Mount Baker and Mount Adams for both Lulu and me, it’s been a fantastic season. Time for summer…