Mirror Lake | Farm Life

So this is the fourth time the girls are sending me out. This time we are expected it to be as many as 8 days. Here are some sendoff photos

Starting at Snoqualmie and heading south for Chinook Pass. About a 70 mile hike. Chinook Pass is where I stopped in 2018 while hiking north and so I am connecting the dots. It was about a 4.5 hour drive from base camp in Oroville to Snoqualmie. As I was preparing this morning I FINALLY took the cocoon sunglasses off my pack. I indicated I had those glasses on my pack for 5 years and I have never used them and every time I put my pack on the sunglasses whip around and hit me in the head. Generally about 10 times per day! Lenora looks at Martha and said that that seemed like good training for a long and happy marriage :). Add that to the fact that when they last picked me up and we were driving home we went past a skunk smell and both of them said that it was a rather refreshing smell. OK, after being on the trail I realize I don’t smell great but to call a skunk refreshing is a bit of a slap in the face. I get no respect!

We get to Snoqualmie and find the trail head which is sometimes not the easiest thing to do. We do find it and we have the sendoff and then I start to hike. I think I am going one way and then the trail does a 180 and I end up hiking right back above the parallel to the road we came in on. I thought I might see Martha and Lenora drive away but I did not. So I am walking in an open are where the ski lifts are and here are some images of that area.

It is a pretty easy trail with nice scenery along the way. I pass a lot of locals who are usually heading towards Mirror Lake and back for a day hike. That is where I am heading for a campsite.

The sign above is one of the better signs I have seen in Washington. They are not much on maintaining their signs. I meet a man on the way that is sitting on the trail and I stop there as we are both looking down on Hwy 90. His name is Tom Hanks and he says he is on the trail gathering information to write a couple books. One for children and one for teenagers about hiking and the trail. We talk for awhile and I am interested in his books and he indicates we can exchange information later. Figure we will meet up at Mirror Lake. He is slow. I am slow. He stops for awhile to look at his phone and I never see him again. Slower than me…. hard to believe. About half way to Mirror Lake I stop to have a snack. I have a day bag that I keep in the side of my pack to make eating easy for the day. A days worth of food on the outside of the pack, the rest of the food on the inside. I take out the day pack and have a snack and apparently I forget to put the day pack back into the pack. I just lost the first days worth of food. I can’t believe I did it. Turns out not a problem as I have food for 8 days and it only takes me 6.

So I get the point where my Guthook application says I am at Mirror Lake. I look around this is what I see. Can you see that small amount of water in the middle of the meadow. You might be able to imagine my thoughts at this point.