Dog Blog

Hey there! I'm Mickey and that back there is my best pal Audio. I'm the oldest of us two and believe me, I'm starting to feel it. Audio on the other hand, well, lets just say he's doing a little better than I at half my age. We always get along with each other. If he barks I'm right there with him no questions asked.

Do you want to know something?

Come closer!

Can you smell that? Just about everyone who smells can. Want to know what it is?

Ha! That's my death breath!

Hello there. I'm Audio as Mickey has already told you. My breath on the other hand is just fine. No tricks here. Just a warning. Tory and Travis! See that in the background? That pile of leaves the gardener left for you to pick up? The longer you let that sit there the longer I get to mark it as my territory. Better hurry!

In the meantime, lets play!

Rampart Lakes/Rampart Ridge via Rachel Lake 8-22-2008

LOOKING DOWN AT RAMPART LAKES. ALMOST TO THE TOP OF THE RIDGE

This hike is in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. I've been on quite a few hikes in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness and they've all been great. I am impressed with the area more and more everytime I get a chance to visit. The Rachel Lake trailhead can be found 12.5 miles east of Snoqualmie Pass off Kachess Lake Exit 62. Follow signs that take you to Kachess Lake Campground at 5 miles, take a left and follow Box Canyon road No. 4930 for 4 more miles. Anxious to get out and about I decided to go on this one alone. I'm sure glad I went. The weather was great, there were plenty of wildflowers blooming, and the views were spectacular.

The trail starts off at an elevation of 2899ft. Much of the first 2 1/2 miles you can either hear or see Box Canyon Creek. The trail is moderate here. It's a great warm up for what lies ahead. Along the trail, there were huge, moss covered slabs of rock.

With all the flowers out I had to test the macro setting on my new camera.

At 2 1/2 miles the trail begins switchbacking to gain 1300ft. in 1 mile. There are some nice waterfalls along this steep section of the hike.

After this strenuous mile, the trail mellows out for a half more mile until you reach Rachel Lake at 4650ft.

Hiking 1 mile from Rachel Lake you can reach Rampart Lakes at 5100ft. This mile seemed short due to breathtaking views down on Rachel Lake and the view of the surrounding peaks. Rampart Lakes was a beautiful area. Trails intertwined everywhere. Pick out land marks to get your bearings and pick a path you think is going to take you where you want to go. I decided to walk through the lakes to find out what awaited me on the other side. This area was awesome! I could have explored here for quite a while, but wanted to save some time to enjoy the ridge.

Surely enough there was the trail leading up to the ridge hikers told me I should be on top of. The higher I climbed, the better the views got of the lakes below and peaks around. I estimated that the round trip distance from Rampart Lakes to the ridge and back probably added another well worth it mile to the trip. Here are some pictures I took hiking up to the ridge.

Here are some pictures I took from the ridge. There was so much to see up there. The first view I got of the other side of the ridge was Keechelus Lake.

Way off in the distance I could see Mt. Adams sticking it's summit out.
Next, I saw that familiar mountain. Good ol' Mt.Rainier.
Being up on the ridge made me realize I wasn't that far from civilization when I saw the Snoqualmie ski area. I guess that was the one downfall of being up on the ridge was seeing cars driving down I-90. But I didn't have to spend much time looking at cars when there was so much more to see. Like Gold Creek and Gold Creek Pond. This allowed me to reminisce back to a 90 degree summer day when I took a hike down Gold Creek to discover a devastating avalanche that took out a good chunk of forest and dammed up the creek. Very cool to see. I figured I must be somewhere near the source of the avalanche.