Snow Lake / Gem Lake

I went hiking for the first time in 2 months to Snow Lake / Gem Lake. It was actually a rather last minute plan and I ended up dropping everything I planned to do today to go (I guess hiking has the highest priority on my list. lol...)

The trail (with 2 alpine lakes on the way) is about 50 mins from my home. It's 10.6 miles long roundtrip and a total 2900ft of elevation gain.

The trail to Snow Lake was fairly clear (except some streams from the melting snow up the top of the mountain). We started to see snow once we hit the top of the mountain (before heading down to the snow lake). The trail from Snow Lake to Gem Lake was pretty much covered in snow (and very muddy) so it was a little harder to get to the Gem Lake. The Gem Lake area was very quiet and the snow was pretty fresh so it was very peaceful. It took us a total of 6.5 hours and I really enjoyed it. I totally want to do more hiking in the winter time now.

It was the first time I hiked in non-summer so I was actually a little nervous before I started. I have to say, my baselayer (long poly undershirt and underpants) really helped me a lot - it kept me very warm throughout the hike. I think I will invest on a few more. Extremely tired right now and hope I can get to work tomorrow.

Winter sports

I am supposed to work on my slide deck for a presentation next week but I always procrastinate what I should do when I don't want to do them. sigh... anyway, so I have been learning a lot about gears for winter sports and it's pretty interesting. Why do I learn about it? Well, I want to play in more winter sports this year and want to make sure that I am prepared for the cold weather.

I took off work a little early yesterday and went to a sports store (Mountain Hardware in downtown) to ask a salesperson all about it. How should I dress for a winter activity? I should dress in layers for both upper and lower bodies. The first layer is the base layer. It should NEVER be cotton (I wore cotton last time I went snowboarding and I remember it being pretty a horrible experience). It should also be as close to your body as possible as it'll keep you warm. The next layer is the mid-layer. People usually have a fleece for this layer and the thickness depends on the activity you do. The last layer is the outer-layer or the shell. It's usually a waterproof (like Gore-tex) jacket/pants. Depending on what activity you do, you may need one that's durable (for example, if you are going on a backpacking trip).

I only have a fleece jacket so I need to get a few extra items. I started looking at these items at REI and, man, they are pretty expensive (as a side note, I rarely buy clothes and when I do buy, they are almost always on sale, so I really don't know what's normal pricing. How could I get it on sale all the time? Well, it's because of procrastination. I needed winter clothes but I was always too lazy to get it and then by the time I got myself to get it (usually a visit to the outlet with other people), it's already the end of the season and it's sales time. lol...). Anyway, I just got myself a set of base layer from REI ($50). I am now shopping for the jacket. There are WAY too many options. Why couldn't someone just tell me which one I should get.

By the way, I was just thinking about what store I buy non-grocery stuff from in the past eight months and it was pretty much only REI. Maybe I should replace my Amazon.com card with an REI card.

Time to get back to my slides. or maybe I'll sleep and get up early in the morning (it never works for me though...)

Hiking at Burroughs Mountain

There are two national parks that are close to Seattle (Olympic National Park and Mountain Rainier Nation Park) and I tried to go there once a year. I have already been to the Olympic National Park for a camping trip back in July 4th. As for Raininer, I had been planning a trip there since May and after many setbacks, the trip finally happened last weekend.

You can enter Rainier National Park through three entrances:

• from the southwest side through the Nisqually entrance to the Paradise visitor center
• from the east side through the White River entrance to the Sunrise visitor center
• from the south east side through the Stevens Canyon entrance (have never been there so don't exactly know where it goes)

Sunrise is the highest visitor center you can get to (~64ooft) and you can get the closet view of Mount Rainier via the Burroughs Mountain trail and that's the trail we chose to hike last weekend. The trail is a part loop trail and part out-and-back trail; the total distance round trip is about 9 miles, the elevation you need to climb is about 2500ft (the trail goes up and down at a few places), and the highest point you'll get to is about 7800ft. This trail has three peaks (Burroughs Mountain 1, 2, and 3) and each peak gets you closer to the Rainier and the view gets more and more spectacular but, of course, the difficulty level increases as you go along.

We were lucky enough to get a really awesome day and we were able to see Mount Rainier very close up. The hike is tough towards the end (on the way to peak 3) but the view was totally worth it. I highly recommend to anyone who want to visit Mount Rainier National Park. Where is the details about the trail? Well, I am going to skip them as as you can find it from the link above. How about pictures? Well, it'll be available some time in the future :).