January hikes: Rosario, Northern state, Ebey & Fragrance lake

 Our January was beautiful. 

Click on the collages to enlarge them.

Rosario Head

Northern State Recreation area

Ebey Landing

Fragrance lake

To wrap up my thoughts for the month:

The outdoors is my place of peace. There are many people that are hurting, confused and broken by the overwhelming amount of hurtful changes to the core of our nation's decency by our current administration. I hope those that are reeling from these changes, also have places to go to clear your mind and heart for a moment of emotional peace.

I realized that another part of my happiness is going on hikes with my husband and our sweet Scoutina. I tried to be a Senior Trailblazer again for awhile, but realized I like to take my time to gaze at the sky, to ponder the depth of how blue it is as it takes my breath away or to slowly take inventory of the plants along the trail or to stop to take my endless amount of photos.  As I hiked with the group it didn't take me long to realize that it was not the place for me anymore. I had great memories with them years ago, but life has changed for me and I'm o.k. with that. I'm walking with a different purpose and mindset now than I felt in those groups. My chosen pace is slower and I'm thankful to just be where I am at the moment. Rushing along and not being able to take the time to notice the small pleasures along the way just isn't for me.

"Her nervous system had bee through so much. She decided to spend the rest of her life calming the inflammation. Thoughts, feelings, memories, behavior, relations. She soothed it all with deep, Loving breaths and gentle practices. The softer she became with herself, the softer she became with the world, which became softer with her. She birthed a generational cycle: Peace." ~Jaiya John

Chanterelle trail Power line loop

 Thursday we headed to Lake Whatcom to hike up the Chanterelle trail. Our plan was to exit at one of the road crossings and return by way of the power line road. This way we would get in a loop hike. As we made our way to the parking lot we saw a couple of runners just past the gate and heading up the road. I'll share more about the runners farther along in this post.

We stopped at the trailhead sign to check out the info.

Madrona💓

A road crossing to another section of the up.

My husband had been on the lookout for a tool to bring on our hikes to work on drainage for wet areas as we hike. He found a nice sturdy light weight one. He was happy doing his trail work.

Our moderate winter weather has kept the mushrooms growing. My husband spied this adorable one growing on a downed log.

We stopped at the viewpoint for a quick snack and a drink of warm broth, before heading farther up the trail.

The view from the overlook.

As we were making our way up the trail from the overlook we met the runners that we'd seen at the start of our hike. They had run up the road and were now coming back via the trail. They had run to the Acme diner up and over Stewart mtn. for lunch. Of course I asked them what they ate. They had Burgers and Blood Mary's. Wow, so that made their distance total about 24 miles. Not a bad way to get to a restaurant for lunch. I marked where Acme is on the map below with a red dot in relation to the trails we did for our route. They went A LOT farther than we did.

We came to where we needed to make a decision for our descent. The Upper Brown Pow trail (a mountain bike trail) junction led out to the road, but we decided to continue to the trail terminus. So onward it was. As I was standing at the corner of the trail I looked back at where the sign was for the Upper Brown Pow trail, it was upended when the tree on the right was uprooted. The sign post was now leaning against a tree. The trail sign on the left is after the hairpin turn.

Taking the hairpin turn towards the terminus and more up.

There was so much blow down in this area. I'm not sure what group did the trail clean up, but it was greatly appreciated by us. All of their hard work kept the trail obstacle free. 

Our first glimpse of snow on the ground. It was raining and we could hear the rain buzzing on the power lines above.

It didn't take long and we were hiking along the light dusting of snow on the ground.

As the snow got deeper Scoutina couldn't resist a good snow roll. Click on the link to watch her happiness

https://youtu.be/VDj5xwC0sK8?feature=shared.

After a few more switchbacks we were at the terminus.

Our usual lunch spot below the branches. There are a couple of planks on some rocks that make a nice sitting place. It was quite chilly and with gloves off to eat our hands got very cold. It was nice to finish eating and put on our gloves and pack to get walking and get our blood moving for warmth.

As we descended by the road it didn't take us long to warm up, not enough to take off our layers but enough to be comfortable. It was misty so we kept our rain coats on.

I didn't know if the clouds would be high enough for us to get a view, but we were able to see the lake from the road.

As we went down the road we passed by the trail junctions signs.

More scenic views and power line views

The chart below shows our up and down. As you can see, the down was a bit steeper.

It was a chilly, drizzly day. I'm glad we chose to go to the top before joining the road. It was a great adventure.

Total miles hiked: 9.6

Total ascent: 2175 feet