Sunset in Wonderland

It was a rare sunny warm October day in Mt. Rainier National Park on Tuesday (October 6th). When I saw the mild weather forecast, I knew I had to make one more trip to the Wonderland Trail this year. This time I accessed the trail from the southwest, and ran/hiked 7.4 miles to an area called Indian Bar. I dislike the name for both social and poetic reasons, but I was mostly able to distract myself from the lame name by enjoying the surrounding beauty. The trail climbed 4,700 feet in elevation, which was my biggest climb of the year. It was tough, and I went into it knowing that I would walk a lot of the uphill portions rather than run. Even hiking was a doozy! Once I emerged from the wooded four mile uphill grind into the pristine alpine meadows, every ache and gasp became worthy payment for the gift of the scenery.

Home Life

Tuesdays are my solo trail run day. Wednesdays are our mom-kid Wedventures. Saturdays are our family bike rides. We adventure hard, and then we stay home the rest of the time (minus a weekly grocery trip and Jeff working from his empty classroom at the high school because it's bigger and quieter, with faster internet). Our three adventures per week are keeping my travel itch scratched just enough so I feel an unexpected, slightly precarious balance in my life. Maddening online kindergarten policing on one hand, intense mountain adventures on the other. It works. 

Silver Falls

Wedventure 3.0 took us to the Silver Falls Loop Trail along the Ohanapecosh River in Mt. Rainier National Park. We hiked this trail as a family five years ago when Amber was a baby on my back, and it was amazing how much was the same (big trees, pretty waterfall, quality trail) and how much was different (zero kid-carrying, no Jeff, lots of climbing and jumping and running, wearing masks when we passed people). It was one of those rare outings where everyone was energetic, engaged, and excited about all of the details. This hike fulfilled my vision for our Wedventures. As a parent, there are dozens of things I do for and with my kids that aren't actively FUN for me specifically, but hiking with my kids (when everyone is cheerful) is my total zen zone. Best Wedventure so far! 

Mt. Catherine and the Snoqualmie Tunnel

Tuesday, September 29th was my weekly Shainadventure // Trail Tuesday // Half-day. Since my legs were still feeling a bit fatigued from last week's extra-long trail run, I decided on a flatter pathway. The most adventurous flat path I could think of within 100 miles of home was the Snoqualmie Tunnel, a two mile long old train tunnel that makes up part of the Cascades to Palouse Trail bike path. Since I didn't want to run through the dark tunnel more than once, I scoured my trail maps and crafted a nice ten mile loop using a forest service road, the Pacific Crest Trail, and the bike path. With the memory of last week's mileage miscalculations still painfully fresh in my mind and muscles, I quadruple-times-two checked the distances and trail names. I was beyond overprepared!

Weekends Together

Our weekends are fuller of family time this fall than they have been since Jeff started coaching cross country four years ago. On Saturdays, we venture forth on family bike rides. On Sundays, we have home church together. In order to "fill the void" of bouncing all over the state in the back of un-sprung school buses on the way to weekly cross country meets, Jeff has instituted family bike rides on Saturdays. It started as a father-son outing, but it became too hard for Jeff to find time to take each kid on a special bike ride individually, so we converted it to a family ride. This is Jeff's show! It is refreshing for the planner in me to hand the reins over to Jeff in this case. He brainstorms locations and loads the van and plans the food, and I attend. Of course he knows I'll help if he needs/wants me to, (and I do tend to pack extra snacks and make sure everyone has their water bottles), but generally Jeff is content to handle it all himself. 

Wedventure 2.0: Brooks Memorial State Park

Our second Wedventure was delayed for two weeks by that bout of mid-September wildfire smoke, but once we had clear air on a Wednesday, we were back at it. After a morning of online school on September 23rd, we drove 50 miles southwest to tiny Brooks Memorial State Park. As we drove along, I started noticing the telltale sights and smells of SMOKE. When we arrived at Brooks, the big half of the small park was closed due to wildfires. The smoke wasn't too bad, though, so we studied the trail map at the kiosk and decided to hike the available one mile loop. Signs proclaimed proudly that we would see a Big Fir Tree somewhere along the trail, so we hunted for the trailhead. It took a few detours down some closely-wooded pretty pathways before we picked up the edge of the small loop path.

Iron Bear Trail

When my trail research uncovered the Iron Bear Trail, I put it on my list based on the name alone. Turns out it's named for two nearby parallel creeks, Iron Creek and Bear Creek. The only downside to this trail was its length-- a mere six miles. If I was going to drive nearly two hours to the Iron Bear, I wanted to have more trail time than that! So I started zooming in on trail maps, calculating distances, and eventually designed, memorized, and downloaded my very own gorgeous 13 mile loop, utilizing the Iron Bear trailhead as the start and finish point. Normally I feel best on out-and-back trails because once I turn around, I know exactly what to expect on the return journey. All of my recent trail time must have made me bold, though, because I felt confident and ready for a loopy challenge. So I went for it! 

Smoke vs. Mist

Friday, September 18th was a teacher inservice day, so the kids didn't have school. I was planning on driving the kids to the mountains for an adventure. Since the smoke was beginning to lift down in our valley, I figured it would be even better air up high in the mountains. It was supposed to be cloudy with a chance of rain in the mountains, but we were desperate for outside time, so we decided to go anyways.

Jeff got up and went to work bright and early, only to discover that the high school teachers did not, in fact, have an inservice day. They had the day completely off! Jeff returned home and joined the rest of us on our mountain adventure instead. It was an awesome surprise to have him along! From our limited options, we chose the Naches Peak Loop trail in trusty Chinook Pass as our destination. We've done that trail before, but this was not an exploration; it was an escape.

BLAH

We had one of those weeks that I'd prefer to leave behind rather than relive with a blog post. The vibe around the White house over the past two weeks can best described by a single four-letter word: BLAH.

Pandemic. Online school. Hazardous levels of wildfire smoke. For the last two weeks, our daily life was bursting with quite the lofty trio of large-scale trials. Homeschool, pandemic, and smoke, oh my! The other day I told a local friend "aside from the obvious--pandemic, online school, and hazardous smoke--I hope you have a good day!" Hah. It was a beast of back-to-back cooped-up smoke-headachy weeks 'o BLAH.

Owyhigh Lakes Trail

Our valley's air quality has been stuck in hazardous range for nearly a week, thanks to nearby (and not-so-nearby) wildfires. Hazardous air means no exercise, indoor or out. No exercise means restless crazy Shaina. In desperation, I moved my weekly trail run up a few days--to Tuesday (Sept 15th) instead of Friday this week. As I researched which trail to run, I discovered that one of our three main mountain access roads, highway 12 through White Pass, had just been closed due to--you guessed it--another wildfire. Since I-90 is still under major reconstructive surgery (involving several key road closures), my portal to the Cascades shrunk to one entry point: state road 410 through Chinook Pass.

The air quality had deteriorated so drastically since Friday that I didn't know if even the mountains would be clear enough for running. The Air Quality Index (AQI) maps sure didn't inspire much hope for fresh mountain air. But I had to check! So when Jeff got home early Tuesday afternoon, I drove 2 hours up and over Chinook Pass and down into Mt. Rainier National Park a short ways to the Owyhigh Lakes Trail. The air may not have exactly been clear, but it was much LESS smoky than at home, so I ran in it... slowly, with plenty of walking "smoke breaks." 

Crystal Lake

Sunnyside is not threatened by the wildfire flames that are ravaging so much of Oregon and other nearby dry areas. Instead we deal with the intense smoke from those fires. Our valley loves to collect thick bad air. In the winter, dense freezing fogs settle in and torture us. In late summer and early fall, wildfire smoke does the same. We had bad air quality all week, to the point that running was not an option. I was already feeling off physically, so I used the smoky air to help me take a break from running. It was weird. I have been running 30 miles per week for six months! But when school started, maintaining that 30 mile standard became too much of a strain. I need energy to be a nice mom, especially when my children are at home all day doing online school! So it felt smart to take a break from running to reset. 

Devil Creek Falls

We went on a Labor Day excursion with the cousins! Journal excerpt from Monday, September 7, 2020:

What a day! It was so nice yesterday that Jeff and I slept with our bedroom windows open last night. This morning, we woke up to smoke and high winds. The wind storm kept picking up speed, rolling the cursed wildfire smoke back into town. Soon the air was so gunky I knew running outdoors was not going to be an option. So I did my yoga, Jeff hooked his bike up to ride indoors in the basement, and we resigned ourselves to a blah day. 

Then Steph called and we started scheming.