Chain lakes loop hike

We did our first Mt. Baker area hike of the summer today - Chain lakes loop, starting at the Austin pass/Heather meadows parking lot. We opted to hike up the Wild Goose trail and then go over Herman's saddle to our finish.

We've been having a lot of smoke in the air lately from the British Columbia fires, but there was supposed to be a marine push that would help take some of it away. It was still there, but not too bad.

A friendly fellow took our picture before we started up the trail.

I love the Wild Goose trail. It's about a mile hike up to Artist point parking lot.

We had almost a blue sky for our start.

Usually when we hike it there is still a snow field before the top that opens up to the road, and we follow that to the parking lot. Today there wasn't much snow so we followed the trail all the way to the parking lot. As you can see by looking at Shuksan in the photo below, that there was still some smoke in the air.

We walked across the parking lot and got on the Chain lakes trail.

Mount Baker, barely visible in the distance.

Iceberg lake with a reflection and flowers around it.

We took a left turn when we got to Galena lake and sat on a knoll for our lunch break.

After a nice lunch break we headed up the trail to Herman's saddle. We looked back to see Iceberg lake and Mount Baker. The photo below shows our last attempt to see Mount Baker through the smoke, it's barely visible.

I like this photo of my husband standing on the flat rocks at the top of the saddle.

A look over the saddle and there was Shuksan and Bagley lakes!

After we got through the boulders and rock section of the trail we came into a wonderful green, lush flower filled area ❤.

Then it was cross the bridge and hike up to the parking lot for our finish.

It was so beautiful, it was hard for me to leave today.

We stopped at Graham's for the mandatory ice cream cone and horror of horrors, we were told they would no longer be selling them 

WHAT!!!!

We solved that by driving to the store in Maple falls and bought our ice cream cones, only to be told by them that they might stop selling them as well. He said they are too hard to scoop.

Good grief - Spartan up.

We hikers need our ice cream after hikes on hot summer days.

Total miles hiked - 7.02 

(I start my Garmin at the car bumper and stop it when we return to the bumper, hence the .02 😉.

Total ascent - 1867 feet

Total descent - 1880 feet

Portland Sprint 2018 Spartan race results

We took a little trip to Washougal, Washington for Saturday's Portland Sprint Spartan race.

This is known to be one of the shorter Spartan Sprints, with a fun festival and community feel to it. This year did not disappoint. The course was fun and spread out all over the Motocross grounds.

I found a photo that shows the uphill start. *photo credit Mud run guide. We started waaaaay at the bottom of the hill as you can see on the left side of the photo below.

This year my husband had his first "burpee free" race. That happens when you succeed in doing every obstacle on the course. *See the map photo above for the list of obstacles.

I did much better this year also: 

The slip wall had mud on it and I had no problem walking right up it. 

I barely needed a push up the inverted wall, I nearly did it by myself. 

I got 3/4 of the way up the rope climb. 

I was really proud of these successes. I really feel like I'm improving not only physically but my fear level has greatly diminished.

Here's our official photos of the day.

Dunk wall

Bucket carry

7 foot wall climb

Monkey bars

The official finish photo was taken after a short run up a hill instead of a fire jump. 

A little different.

I got someone to take a photo of both of us after the event. 

I like this one better.

Last of all my #spartan photo!

Fun day, with a fun community of like minded encouraging, supportive people ❤

Total miles -

My Garmin tracked 4.10 (it keeps recording as I do burpees), the course designer listed it as 3.5 miles

total ascent - 932 feet