Last month Anna-Lisa and I spent a week up in the Olympic Peninsula region of Washington State. While we didn’t hike every single day of the trip, there was no way we were leaving without checking out one of the most beautiful, classic loops in Olympic Nation Park – the Seven Lakes High Divide Loop.
Most often done as a backpack, the 20-mile loop boasts ~4,800 feet of elevation gain and traces out a big circle around the Seven Lakes Plateau. The route starts and ends at the Sul Doc Trailhead, about an hour’s drive east of Forks. We chose to do the loop in the counterclockwise direction, first climbing up to Deer Lake. This gets the elevation gain over with earlier in the day and leaves the long, gradual descent down the Sol Duc Valley for the end. The first miles up to Deer Lake are steep but the forest is spectacular. We climbed up through a layer of fog as the sun’s rays were just cresting a nearby ridgeline. Keep Reading….
It’s been an interesting start to the year so far, with several large storm cycles rolling through Colorado punctuated by long periods of dry, sometimes unseasonably warm weather in between. The overall snowpack has lagged behind the median several times only to play catchup with big dumps to get us back to average. And the variable weather has created a somewhat complex avalanche situation state-wide that’s likely only going to get more complicated before it improves. Keep reading…
It’s no secret that this winter has been a great one in Colorado and is currently showing no signs of slowing down as we are now into April and it just keeps on snowing. The statewide snowpack sits at 139% of average as of April 3rd with the graph trending almost identically to the historic season of 2019. It’s the type of year that has one wondering just how long we’ll be skiing for given the snow totals to date. Read more…
There’s something I never really realized about Thanksgiving until this year: it’s a four day weekend. Now, before you judge that comment as being on the same level of stupidity as anti-vaxxers, shutting down the national forest for the sake of keeping skiers off of Loveland Pass, getting arrested at a Costco for not wearing a mask, or any other related absurdities of 2020, allow me to explain. Keep Reading…
