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The hike wasn't nearly as bad as the title makes it sound. I headed out just 20 minutes east of Seattle to hike Tiger Mountain. There are *tons* of trails for all level of hiker and it's a great place to take kids. There's even a convenient bus route to it!

I did one of the tougher climbs - West Tiger Trail #3 - (it was tough at times), but I managed to pass four thin/fit college students and a few others on my way up, proving that I'm not completely washed up *:^) The full set of pix is at this flickr set. I forgot the SD card for the camera, so it's just crappy iPhone pix. On a clear day, the views would have been spectacular.

The outlook for the day was overcast with a high of 70°F, so I decided to go hiking (to also allay any concerns out there that I've become only a cyclist).

Given that I was hiking alone and almost completely unfamiliar with the area outside the city, I picked Little Si for my first northwest hike. [Wikipedia (ugh) has a good detail page on this tiny mountain.] It's a left off of exit 32 on I-90 coming from Seattle. Follow these directions and you'll eventually see signs for the Little Si parking area. Bring hand sanitizer and a sound stomach if you plan on using the restroom in the parking lot.

You can choose to literally climb Little Si if you like and there are many markers indicating good spots to start from. Either way, once you get to the top, you get an amazing view of it's larger sibling (aptly named "Big Si") and all you want to do is hike up there after beating this obstacle of nature. The views would have been even better if it weren't so overcast.

My hike turned out to be about 3.5 miles, took ~2 hrs (I spent some time up on at the peak) and went from ~400ft to ~1600ft (with many downs and ups along the way). Families will need a much longer spread since there are some decent hike-climbs that the kids will despise. Luckily, you should be able to keep their spirits up by letting them bound on rocks (plenty of them) and seeing if they can find some wildlife along the way (I saw three, tiny snakes). As far as replenishment goes, individuals should be good with a liter of H₂0 and a snack bar; kids are going to need something a bit more interesting to keep their spirits up. Thankfully, there's plenty of room at the top to have a nice lunch or snack.

It was definitely a good starter hike and I'm looking forward to doing more, especially with Mary and the kids.

You can view my route here [861KB PDF] and pictures from along the hike here. (I'm not sure I want to keep putting thumbnails in the posts from Flickr, but if you'd prefer that, leave me a note in the comments.)

A reader (yes, a reader of at least one of these blog posts...hard to believe it, eh?) pointed out in a comment today that Montebello Software makes an interesting app called Ascent which seems to fill in many of the gaps Garmin left with it's new OS X Training Center, and provides some extra functionality to boot.

Alas, you'll have to wait for a review since I won't be able to play with Ascent until tonight or tomorrow. It's nice to have options, tho, and it's great to see another GPS-enabled OS X app out there.

It was a great day for a hike Saturday (2007-02-17). We even managed to get a bit of new snow along the way. Pippin thoroughly enjoyed her off-leash time, too. If the temperature and precip - cold with snow or at least lack of rain - cooperate, it should be a good hike next weekend as well.

The mercury finally dipped low enough the past couple of weeks to get in some "ice hikes" up at Jacobsburg State Park. The first few photos in the set are from hike #1 and you can see that there is a distinct lack of ice. However, we were definitely not disappointed on the second hike. We managed to trudge up most of Bushkill Creek (that is in the park) directly on the creek itself. The layer of ice was almost three inches thick in some parts.

The kids especially liked the brittle, crystalline formations on the top of the more fluid areas and the big icicle formations towards the end of the hike.

It may not be the arctic or even close to what folks in more snowy regions are used to, but it's fun here nonetheless.

Sunday

So, Old Rag (background info also here, here and here) was definitely worth the effort. (all Old Rag pictures have been added to the complete picture set).

We started off at the Old Rag parking area near the Whiteoak Canyon parking area (there are multiple starting points). The trail starts as a fire road that is pretty steep & boring, but then it turns into a very cool set of switchbacks that take you up to the top.

The view was incredible. And there are rocks. Many. Many. Rocks. BIG ones, too. The climb isn't too bad and there are no leaves to slip and slide on (unlike the Whiteoak Canyon trails). Acting like a 10-year-old, bounding from rock-to-rock over at the "rock scramble" was fun, but I paid for it later. Mary actually got closer to the edges than I've ever seen her get as well.

We managed to recover, get cleaned up and ate back down in Charlottesville again at Sakura - a Japanese Steakhouse. The sashimi was excellent and Mary's hibachi-grilled dinner looked good as well.

We highly recommend staying somewhere in Madison, VA and doing as much of this part of the park as possible. I'd stick to fall/winter/spring and plan on a full week to take in as much as possible.

This blog entry comes to you from a secluded bunker, somewhere in the boundaries of Madison County, VA where two travelers are holed up, desperately awaiting the Candian air mass to finally depart...

(OK, so it's not *that* bad, but it *is* cold - even for me)

The full set of pictures is over at flickr since I'm way too lazy to make them all intertwined into the story right now. I should be able to tag them properly at least in case anyone wants to see where some of the pix took place and can't figure it out from the blog entry context.

Thursday

We set off a bit later than we had wanted to, due to some mis-placed keys (to the camper). The trip down was un-eventful, despite stopping @ a Cracker Barrel for lunch (I have to admit, tho, that the sauteed apples were fresh and yummy).

We made it to Shenandoah Hills Campground in Madison, VA somwhere ~1430. After a speedy check-in we set-up camp and immediately set off for our first hike (I was as surprised as you are). Mary really wanted to see Whiteoak Canyon Falls, so we headed there since it wasn't far from camp. We only managed a short hike due to the approaching nightfall, but we managed to see some of the smaller "falls" and really started to fall in love with the scenery. We ate at El Agave, a small but authentic Mexican restaurant also not far from camp. The food was excellent, but getting out of the restaurant was a challenge. We managed to get back early enough to download (camp-wide 802.11!!!!) that week's Lost episode and watch it before zonking.

Friday

We planned on doing the complete Whiteoak Canyon Lower & Upper Falls trails and made a last minute decision to add the Cedar Run Trail (the link shows the whole loop). That makes for a total of ~2500ft elevation gain and ~8 miles. The falls and rock formations were indescribable on both trails (Cedar Run has falls as well) and we even saw some deer on the Cedar Run part. Even though we left later than we would have liked, we completed it well before nightfall. We got back to camp and went over to Giovanna's Italian Eatery for a well-earned dinner.

Saturday

We decided to take it a bit easier and have some fun doing other things besides only hiking. We drove around the small towns near Madison and tried to visit a local winery, but our timing was a bit of (too early, not open). We headed up to Skyline Drive and ate a very well prepared lunch at the Big Meadows Lodge. We kept going north and decided to pick up the AT not far from the lodge. We did a very scenic hike on the AT for a couple miles to scenic vista stop where I left Mary (not feeling well) and headed back to get the Xterra. We then went back south and grabbed some fresh local cider before getting distracted at the Plow & Hearth outlet on the way back to camp. We then chilled (kinda literally since the camper isn't exactly an all-season one) for a while before heading to Charlottesville (~30mins south) for dinner at the Maharaja, a good Indian restaurant.

Sunday should bring tales of Old Rag (if we aren't completely exhausted by then).