Back on the trails - Hiking to Clayton Beach Trailblazer hike

Eight months later and I'm finally hiking with the Trailblazers again. Well, kindof ;-) I decided that my start of hiking with an organized group again should be with the "other" Trailblazers group, or as I will call them "Group 1". Group 2 starts an hour later, 9 am (yippee!) than the group I used to hike with (or as they shall now be called on my blog "Group 1", and I've been told that they hike shorter distances and at a more comfortable pace than Group 1. Until I get my calf stronger I will be hiking with Group 1. So nice to be hiking with a group again, and as I found with Group 1, very nice friendly people. I picked today's hike because it was going to be fairly short and flat. It said on the schedule it would be 4 miles & easy. 12 of us started at the Cleater rd. parking lot and hiked to Clayton beach and back.

The hike started on the Interurban trail, then to the Clayton beach parking lot and the all important outhouse. We crossed the road to join up with the trail again.

our fearless leader "Pat"

We had to cross the railroad tracks to connect with the beach trail again.

Clayton Beach!

after lunch it decided it really did want to rain, so on with the poncho!

Great to be back at it!!

Endomondo stats:
5.27 total miles hiked
Min. altitude 0 feet
Max. altitude 327 feet
Total ascent 1981
Total descent 1830

Our birding weekend

My husband and I decided that we would get serious this last weekend about finding Snowy owls that were supposed to be in our area, so Friday we went to Skagit Wildlife area .The photo below of me is at the end of the trail at the Skagit Wildlife area. The photo above is my husband looking through our scope at Fir Island. The weather even cooperated, it was a beautiful February weekend!

(just click on the photo's to see them larger)

Two Bald eagles with their large nest.

Towhee



Blue heron

Snow geese

I had read that there were Snowy owls at Big ditch so armed with directions we drove there Saturday A.M.

Big ditch

Saturday P.M. we decided to watch the movie "The big year" about birding. The big year - is an event where birders try to find as many different birds in one year as they can. The stars are: Steve Martin, Jack Black, Owen Wilson. It didn't get great reviews, but we really enjoyed it, especially as the Snowy owl was the elusive bird on the list for Owen Wilson's character.

Rotten Tomatoes review and rating of the movie

Swans near Everson

and finally on Monday, a Snowy owl at Sandy point.

This is the same owl after he flew off of the other houses roof. He seems to be trying to hide behind the roof's vent pipe. The house was at a bad angle for a good picture, so it blurred when we tried to use our zoom lens.

Here's just some pretty scenery from our long birding weekend.

Lichen and baby ferns -



 Fir Island view

 Mt. Baker and the Twin sisters from Gooseberry point -

Sunset at Fir Island -

Mt. Rainier at sunset, from the Fir Island farm/Hayden reserve parking lot -

Birders on the dike at Fir Island in last light of the day trying to get one more bird sighting for their list.