I didn’t hike this week, mainly due to my distaste for crowded freeways so I was extra happy to start St. Patrick’s Day with my typical conditioning hike – Adventure Trail, Section Line, etc.
At the top of the little connector trail (short but very steep) that takes you from the E. Sunset Way parking lot up to the Puget Power Trail is a view point. I typically stop there for a minute to check out the view, which is of the City of Issaquah, and parts of Sammamish, and you can sometimes see all the way to the snow-capped Olympic Mountains in the west.
When I was on Tiger Mountain a couple of weeks ago I had to put on the spikes because it was still very snowy and icy. Today, up to 1100 feet, at the junction of the Section Line and Nook Trail Connector, no spikes needed. Spring has almost sprung.
I figure by next week I should be able to leave the house for hikes early enough to avoid sitting in line for 10 minutes to get on the freeway, and then sitting in stop-and-go traffic for another 20 minutes to clear the area.
All that snow and ice that has melted has to go somewhere and what hasn’t evaporated back to the sky has filled the mountain’s creeks and lakes. Round Lake is a lake again:
Looking forward to Spring. Reminds me of good old Charles Algernon Swinburne, he of the purple prose, who wrote (if I recall):
When the hounds of springs are on winter’s traces
The mother of months in meadow and plain
Fill the shadows and windy places
With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain….