Picture of the week ~ Ice heart

Hearts in Nature❤️

Picture of the week ~ Icicle Fern

Chuckanut Ridge Lollipop hike

It was 27 degrees at our house this morning when I got up. Brrr. The temperature warmed up a bit by the time we arrived at the North Chuckanut trailhead for our hike. We began just before 10 am, it was a balmy 36 degrees. I left my new camera with it's zoom at home since today's hike won't have too many view/zoom opportunities.

My first “Hair ice" sighting of the year!

Contrary to the chilly morning temps this tree was wearing it's hula skirt😊.

Trail junction signs pointing the way to the Ridge trail via the North Lost lake trail.

After a couple of miles hiked from our car we made it to the Chuckanut Ridge trail.

We would stay on the Ridge trail until we got to the Cyrus Gates Overlook.

First view area from the trail.

A bit of a zoom to bring Mount Baker and the Twin sisters a little closer.

Another couple of miles till the overlook and lunch!

The Ridge trail has some fun sections with roots and rocks.

My husband got a chance to use his little hand saw. A tree had fallen over the trail, so he cut off what he could and removed it from the trail. He then trimmed off the branches of the section he couldn't move so it would be easier to step over.

He did a great job, when he had finished we only had to step over the tree at the lower section.

We found a tree with an over zealous Woodpecker. Wow!

More roots and rocks to get through.

We had hiked nearly 6 miles to the overlook, I was ready for lunch. We had a great view even though the smog from Vancouver, B.C. left a low brown haze in the distance.

It was very chilly while we ate, the sun hadn't come up and over the trees yet. I put my fleece Buff over my head, my fleece jacket and my wool gloves for the hike down the hill.

We were now making our way around the lollipop section of our hike. Time to head down the Rock trail.

As we made our way down a group of hikers were coming toward us. I was happy to see it was one of the Trailblazer groups. I had hiked with this group - "Group 2" for several years. There were some new faces, but also a few familiar ones. It was nice to share our hello's and hugs.

This section of the trail has many large rock areas surrounded by ferns❤. 

Natures landscaping at it's best.

We walked beside Lost lake as we made our way to the trail junction.

More rock walls to walk beside.

As we made our way down the North Lost lake trail the sun was just beginning to set. We were now walking on the "stem" of our lollipop, the only repeat section of today's hike.

It was only 4:30 but it got a bit dark for me, so I put on my headlamp as we had about a mile left to get to the parking lot and I didn't want to stumble.

It wasn't nearly as dark in the deciduous forest, so by the time we got to the car I'd already removed my headlamp.

I could've put our start photo of the trailhead here at the finish, because the plants were still covered in frost. The car temperature read 36 degrees when we got in to leave. Kindof crazy that it was 36 when we began and 36 when we finished. Today's hike was a lot of up and a lot of down, just the way I like it!

After looking at the Garmin map of our route, I should have titled this the deflated balloon loop. It really looks more like that than a lollipop - don't you think?!

Relive video of our route:

https://youtu.be/dulWzJGw0Ss

Garmin stats:

total miles hiked - 11.8

total ascent - 2684 feet

total descent - 2697 feet

Positivity note 🎵 for November 20, 2019

Sometimes we don't need to know where we're going, we just need to take that first step and we'll find the way......

STEP: verb, 

definition:

Lift and set down one's foot or one foot after the other in order to walk somewhere or move to a new position.

A rare sighting - Sandhill Crane

I had heard rumor that a Sandhill Crane was in our area this week. We searched for it where it had been reported but all we found were Swans and Snow Geese.

Today we did a walk/run on the Hertz - North Lake Whatcom trail and as we were driving home we found the Sandhill Crane! As rumored it wasn't far from where we live. It seems to have adopted a flock of Swans❤. We dashed home and I got my camera out so we could get a “few” photos. I'm still learning what settings to use, but I was pleased with these:

(Click/Tap on the photos to enlarge and see them in a better resolution)

It seems so strange to have so many Swans and Snow Geese in our own Whatcom county, it wasn't so long ago that we had to drive to Skagit county to get a view of these wonderful birds. Their populations have definitely increased and happily for us they are nearby and even fly right over our house. 

The Swans, Snow Geese and now this rare sighting - "Sandhill crane" help make this dark season a little brighter for me.

Today's blue sky after yesterday's deluge wasn't too bad either😁