Cascade trail bike ride: Lyman to Concrete

Yesterday we decided to bike the Cascade trail from Lyman to Concrete for lunch.

My trusty steed ready to begin our ride.

We've walked, ran and biked on this trail many times. It's one of my favorites.

We were lucky enough to see the local Elk herd fairly close to the highway. The trail parallels hwy 20 for most of it's length from Sedro Woolley to Concrete. Sadly there was a dead Elk beside the road. The hazards of grazing near a highway.

The only place we had to detour the trail was near the Baker lake road. We had to go out on the hwy and cross a bridge before accessing the trail again.

Just as we entered Concrete via the trail a driver in a car waited for us to cross the road. Since we'd just entered Concrete by the trail I wasn't prepared to cross traffic right away. I got across the road O.K. but we had a slight uphill as soon as we crossed, I wasn't in the correct gear and my feet weren't in the pedal straps. Gravity won as I was trying to sort out getting my feet in the straps and shifting all at once on a hill. I toppled over onto the sidewalk and proceeded to get a cramp in my right calf. Nothing was damaged but my pride and a scrapped knee. Lesson learned, when a car driver waves me along I can say no thanks. I need time to assess what's in front of me. We ate lunch at 5 B's Bakery and enjoyed the view of Sauk mountain in the distance.

Back on the trail for our return trip.

The sun was going down as we journeyed along and it became quite bright for my eyes as we rode directly towards it. 

We stopped at the bridge both times we crossed it and enjoyed watching the fish that were spawning in the creek.

Fish spawning

As we neared Lyman we passed a farm that raises Bison.

What a great day!

A close up of my knee this morning. I had put antibiotic and a bandage on it overnight. It doesn't look too bad. My pride however will take a few more days to heal.

*I’ve also discovered that the news I’d been told about the blog not publishing to email feedburner recipients was wrong. Apparently, if you had subscribed to my blog through the email subscriber you are still receiving my new blog posts via email.

Skyline loop trail: 50th Anniversary trip

Sunday August 29th, we planned on getting up early at our camp to beat the crowds to the parking lot at Paradise. The plan was to take our camp stove and eat there and get ready at the parking lot. I was awakened at about 6 am by my husband saying that the cars are already heading up the highway, we'd better get up there. So we drove up with me still in my pajamas and wearing my glasses. There were already several cars in the lot. The day before the lot was full and the cars were parked way down the road. Our plan worked we found a spot, I got dressed and put on my contacts while my husband made breakfast. After breakfast we got ready to begin our hike up the Skyline loop trail. It was a beautiful day, there wasn't as much smoke in the air.

Get ready for photo overload, it was just too beautiful❤

The first part of the trail is paved and has quite an incline.

At the end of the paved trail a wedding party was busy getting photos with Rainier in the background. They were lucky they had such a beautiful day.

We saw several marmots along the trail.

Love this view of Rainier behind me❤️

Mount Adams in the distance.

More trailside animals

He's a bit blurry, but I added it in anyway cause he's so cute.

Ever Upward

We passed the Camp Muir trail junction. Way back when the Ice caves were still open we hiked up to Camp Muir. I found an interesting 2015 article on Rainier's Ice caves, you can read it HERE.

Click on the panorama photo below to more clearly view Mount Adams and Mount St. Helens.

First viewing of the Panorama Point stone restroom building.

We weren't done climbing yet. The lower Skyline loop trail was closed, so up to the high trail it was! The photo below shows the lower trail going through the snow field.

Views from Panorama point.

Ever upward

but first a stop at the nice restroom.

Such a cute door!

A high up view of Rainier

My husband got a nice zoomed in photo of a waterfall coming off of  Rainier

Animal life above 6000 feet

More Glacial melt

On our way down now

Looking back at where we'd come from, with a view of Little Tahoma off it's right shoulder.

Little Tahoma, can you spot the white coated marmot on the hillside?

The marmot didn't pose very well, but here is a zoomed in photo of the one that was on the hillside below Little Tahoma.

We ate lunch while we sat on a rock in one of the few shady spots along the trail.

Another fun zoom photo my husband took. 3 waterfalls coming off of Rainier.

The rest of the hike was much more lush with creeks and flowers along the way.

A Kim on a bridge sighting

As you can see the water was running over the trail in places.

A marmot enjoying a shady spot under a tree.

A grouse along the trail.

This rock bench was along the trail.

Such beautiful views❤

I thought I saw a movement from the corner of my eye, sure enough it was a deer. It never came out for a full view, but we saw it through it's camouflage.

A look back again

More creeks and flowers

Wow this is a wavy bridge.

Another Kim on a bridge sighting.

What a lot of photos! Hope you enjoyed our Skyline loop trailside hike.

After our hike we went to the Longmire Inn again and had a day after Anniversary dinner! We couldn't have come up with a better plan for how to celebrate our 50th❤. I'm glad I kept up my walking/biking/hiking and just plain moving while I was in my Chemo treatments, it really paid off.