Cedar Lake vewpoint hike

Sunday "fun day" with my hubby. I like the sound of that, 

I think from now on our Sunday activities will be called "Sunday fun day".

We decided to hike the Pine and Cedar lakes trail today, but we were only going to the Cedar viewpoint for lunch and then hike around the lake before heading back down. We've hiked this trail many times, and I've also done it with the Senior Trailblazers. You can read about that day's hike HERE.

The trail is notorious for the first mile of "up" hiking, I really enjoy this hike though. 

- Even the hill!

After the first mile is out of the way, all of the road noise from the freeway below is gone when you turn the corner near the sign at the top of the hill. Just birds singing and quiet the rest of the way.

We hiked up to the Cedar lake viewpoint for lunch,

looking west 

We sat on this rock looking east for lunch

 then on down to Cedar lake. 

I love the picture below of my husband walking through the forest.

Steps cut into the fallen log

Cedar lake

A quick hike around the lake before heading back down the hill.

We saw many, many Skunk Cabbage plants in bloom. One of my favorite spring flowers ;-)

  

Tree growing over a large rock

There were so many Trillium in bloom along the trail, I couldn't stop clicking away.

I'm thinking I like these Sunday "fun day's with my sweetie.

Endomondo stats:

Total miles hiked - 6.5 miles

Minimum altitude - 283 feet

Maximum altitude - 1817 feet

Total ascent - 1614 feet

Total descent - 1656 feet

Picture of the week ~ "Montana Sprint" Spartan Race countdown

Yikes!

Montana Sprint Spartan Race 

Spartan Training day

Today is normally the day of the week that I hike with the Senior Trailblazers.They were scheduled to go to Skagit county and walk on the Padilla Bay shore trail and as much as I love that trail, the walk was rated as easy and 5 miles. I have been there many times & since I'm training for my Spartan Race in Montana in May, I need to be going farther and with more hills. I chose the Stimpson Reserve trail, and yes I've been here many times as well but it has enough rolling hills to make it a better work out for me today. It is glorious here today, with the next few days looking pretty wet, so this was my best day for a trail run this week. 

Me in my running garb

I decided to do the trail including the Geneva pond loop twice. I ran a half mile and then took a 1 minute walk, and repeated this for the entire run. I've set my endomondo app to tell me every 1/2 mile, so all I had to do was listen and then take my 1 minute walk.

Geneva Pond

 

A lovely day on the trail "twice"!

After the run - happy me!

Endomondo stats:

Total miles ran - 8.57 miles

Minimum altitude - 510 feet

Maximum altitude - 823 feet

Total ascent - 655 feet

Total descent - 644 feet

THEN......

it was time to do some of the daily exercises, called "Workout of the day" or WOD. 

I get the WOD in an  email every day. I do the emailed exercises a day after the Spartan workout day because it works out better with my schedule. So I really was doing Wednesdays workout today. I skipped a couple on today's list because I did a long, hilly run, but this is what I did today when I got home:

5 minutes - jumping Jacks

10 star jumps

5 double butt kicks

1 minute arm circles

30 push up BURPEES

15 pull ups

15 box jumps

15 squats

10 crunches

30 mtn. climbers

and that's my day ;-)

AROOO!

Cub/Smith Creek hike

We chose Cub Creek (also known as Smith creek) for our long weekend hike. I'm not sure how it became known as Cub creek, but that is what our Trailblazer group calls it. We started at the North Lake Whatcom trailhead. We picked Cub/Smith Creek because it is "up and down" ;-) and we wanted to hike a long way.

The trail winds in and out of forests and crosses logging roads. It also travels along a power line area. We saw more mountain bikers today than we did hikers.

Horsetails

Trillium

 We took a little detour from the main trail and enjoyed a nice view of Lake Whatcom.

Time to head back to the main trail.

The picture below is looking back from where we'd already walked. When I hiked this trail with the Senior Trailblazers in January, our destination was the lower knob (between the two forested sections in the photo below) and directly below the power lines. a distance of about 3 miles. We stopped there for lunch on that hike before returning to our cars. You can read about that day's hike HERE.

Today my husband and I passed the knob and continued on up the logging road. I have never hiked any farther on this particular hike and I was anxious to see just what was beyond the bend. My husband had tromped all over this area several years ago and he had just the spot picked out for us to eat lunch. We continued on until we had gone a little over 5 miles. We found a road that turned to the east and gave us the best view of Mt. Baker and the Twin Sisters. This was to be our lunch view.

If you click on the photo below you will see Mt. Baker on the left and the Twin Sisters on the right a little more clearly.

I was more than ready to eat. 

After lunch we hiked back down the road for a ways and then walked cross country a little as we made our way under the power lines, before we got back on the trail.

I really enjoyed this hike, and I was glad that we went a little farther "up" the hill.

Time to head back down the trail

Another great weekend trek. I hope you and yours had a wonderful day, we sure did!

Endomondo stats:

Total miles hiked - 11 miles

Minimum altitude - 352 feet

Maximum altitude - 2575 feet

 Total ascent - 2215 feet

Total descent - 2210 feet

Picture of the week ~ Woodstock Farm Daffodils

Woodstock Farm

Mt. Erie from Heart Lake Trailblazer hike

A little longer carpool for our hike today, we headed south towards Anacortes and Heart Lake.

The parking lot conveniently has an outhouse, which I used before our hike. 

I know - too much information ;-). 

I spied this sign on the wall and thought it was funny -

16 of us walked a short distance on the trail from Heart lake (about a 1/2 mile) to the road. We needed to cross the road to connect with the Sugarloaf mountain trail. As we were walking the first 1/2 mile section we spotted a Fairy Slipper (Calypso) Orchid.

We had a short rain shower just at the beginning of today's hike. I saw some hail on the ground, but the photo I took turned out too blurry to use. 

The trail is a bit of ups and downs through a lovely fern filled forest. Owen & Penny (our chief identifiers of all things) identified the mushrooms below as Helvella elastica sometimes called elastic saddle. It's related to false morels.

Baby ferns

Whenever we found ourselves at a fork in the trail (this trail has many forks), we would stop and make sure we all took the correct turn.

We headed up to Mt. Erie for lunch.

I never tire of the view from Mt. Erie.

Since we had worked up a little sweat going up the hill, the slight breeze blowing at the top gave us a chill, so our "fearless leader" Pat said "let's go" and we were on our way.

We were scheduled to hike Sugarloaf mountain today but, on the way out Pat decided that we would skip that section of the trail and just head on down to the cars. When he announced that I heard a few "yays" behind me. 

I've decided that if our hikes aren't too difficult I would do my "Spartan workout of the day" afterwards. So when I got home, I was a good "Spartan in training" and did my workout. 

Yay me! 

If you want to understand what I'm training for you can read about it in this POST. 

Endomondo stats:

Total miles hiked - 6.25

Minimum altitude - 297 feet

Maximum altitude - 1277 feet

Total ascent - 1256 feet

Total descent - 1170 feet

Picture of the week ~ Bacon Maple Bars