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I'm a nerd. I wanted a picture of my truck up at the trail head.. Go Toyota!!
The first trail we did was a very quick loop; Nisqually Vista. The clouds were moving in and things were a bit misty.
You could see some water flowing in the distant run off.. and you could definitely hear it! This is from one of the many lookout spots along the loop.
This is along the start of the Dead Horse Creek Trail. You can see we were greeted by more misty clouds moving into the area. A real treat!
Moving up further along Dead Horse Creek Trail. The clouds thickened.
To my left over the mountain side.. next time we go we should have a great view (I still enjoyed the clouds though!)
Sweet! Ice pack glacier! It was chilly enough to warrant 2 shirts on, but the hike was keeping my heart rate up to heat my body well enough. This picture doesn't do the atmosphere justice.
I found this rock at one of the rest/tourist-type areas. Someone had tagged it. There's plenty of these types of formations in the "turn out" areas so you can sit.. though the weather didn't make you want to stay idle too long ;)
At this point we were going up towards the Skyline Trail.. this was a decent elevation climb. Again, thick clouds gave an eerie yet intimate feel on the trail.. we couldn't see more than what you see in the picture (pretty accurate photo). It felt as if we were the only people on the whole mountain.
MARMOT! They usually sit out and "sun" themselves on the rocks.. unfortunately for these guys it was pretty wet inside the clouds covering the mountain.. they didn't care too much about us passing by on the trail. The big one just chilled and was like 'whatever', while the younger one scampered behind the rock on the left after spotting us.. i think our cameras freaked him out a bit ^_^
At the top of Panorama Point on Skyline.. there's an outhouse. go figure ^_^ We originally planned to stop here for lunch and stuff, but it was pretty cold and windy to really want to do that. We just kept snacking off of our trail mix and stuff instead and pressed on.. STILL continuing upwards.
Up near the pass that cuts through to the other side of the trails, we found a few of these little guys (chipmunks, I think..). They were very cold, and didn't look like they were going to make it (they were out on the trail). I think this one had already stopped breathing =( sorry if it's sad.. but it was pretty rugged up there for sure... they really shouldn't have been so far up.
This is the rock formation and landscape view near the top of the whole trail we did.. it turned into the bands of rock you see here with TONS of this stuff broken and laid about all over the trail and mountain side. Nearly no vegetation, I remarked to Amy, "Are we in Mordor, yet?" as a comparison ^_^
Glacial ice near the top of the trail.
Same shot with a high-contrast filter from my camera.
When we started our descent into the meadows, we saw lots of pretty scenery such as this little stream.
Still coming out of the clouds.
MARMOT!!! (this guy was a sentry, just watching us walk by.. we stood there for a good 2-3 minutes while he just watched.)
THIS was awesome. You could see the glacier's movement path as it was melting and moving along day-by-day.
A stream much further down on our descent.
The tiny rock walk way over said stream (those are Amy's feet).
What you see here in the distance is the starting point of Paradise Lodge and Information & Visitors Center. At this point we had been hiking for about 5.5-6 hours.
Breathtaking views as we came out of the mountains.
Even further down (yet quite a ways to go), looking towards the trail head off to the left.
A really cool water fall much closer to the trail head. The entire side we came down from the mountains on was the one you usually see pictures of with the meadows of wild flowers and such.
From sitting inside my truck bed after a full 6.5 hours of hiking as we ate lunch. I can only imagine how different everything looks w/out the clouds ^_^ We're going back for sure.
