Weeks of Adventure

It has been difficult to post lately due to both computer and time issues. I need to take a day to clean up my hard-drive, but who wants to do that when it's warm and sunny outside? I wanted to post a blog about our Sloan Creek picnic and adventure up FR 49, but the blog was blah without the pictures my computer just couldn't upload.

My sister came to visit us from Maryland a week ago, and I kicked her butt on the Boulder Creek hike, and spent a day on the Pilchuck River with our mom and step-dad. But once again, the computer wouldn't cooperate when it came time to upload the pictures. In fact, today is the first day this week I've had to sit down and start my day slowly. The kids were in the SnoCo Parks Totally Tech camp last week, but the north Everett shuttle was canceled, so we've been driving to McCollum Park in Mill Creek every day this week. They made some cool animated movies and wrote a couple of video games (along with swimming and kayaking).

On Wednesday, we drove up Segelsen Ridge behind us (behind Mt. Higgins), determined to find Higgins Creek. On our way up, I spotted a wild fire on the Southeast ridge of Mt. Higgins and called it in. We've had 4 lightning storms in the last week, and on Thursday had 11 fires in the Darrington area. The fires on Higgins and Jumbo are out, but Gold Mountain and Whitehorse Ridge are still burning, and I'm not sure where the other fires are located.

We found really large fossils at a shale slide on Segelsen Ridge that day, and stopped within a mile of the crystal site we were headed for. The Hermit didn't trust my map skills and didn't want to go down the Forest Road I told him to turn on, so we ended up picking through some dry creekbeds and finding some sparkly sandstone rocks. When we got home, I showed him my map and compared it to his gemstone map, and he was really bummed he didn't listen to me.

So today, I have to go back up the scary road and this time go all the way to Higgins Creek. Actually there are some spectacular views of the river valley and the surrounding peaks, including Whitehorse, and the road is only scary on Segelsen Pass, but scary it is! I have no problem with heights when I'm walking or biking, but on a horse or in a car, it really freaks me out. Lake Cavanaugh Road has nothing on these cliffs. I felt like I was on the Highway of Death in Peru, okay maybe not that bad, but let's just say I had some anxiety issues.

So I'm going to attempt to upload a few pictures for you, and we'll see how it goes:

Mt. Higgins fire 7/29/09

Top of Round Mountain taken from Segelsen Ridge

View of Whitehorse from Segelsen Ridge

What do you know? It worked! I will post pics of the rest of our adventures later.