In Search of Snow: Lake Valhalla

 Trailhead Parking Lot

Destination: Diablo Lake

Goodell Creek Campground Site #21

Crabs, Shrimp, & Clams on Lopez Island

This past weekend, I took a break from hiking and decided to go visit my aunt and uncle who live on Lopez Island. We enjoyed boat rides, loads of seafood, and got to car camp

Ferry Ride

Cody and I took a ferry from Anacortes to Lopez Island. These ferries are big enough to load 100+ cars onto. I made a reservation for my car ahead of time on the transportation website so I was guaranteed a spot for my car. Last time I didn't make a reservation, my friends and I ended up waiting at the ferry terminal for 3 hours.... Oops! lol. 

After the ferry ride, we headed over to my aunt and uncle's house. We caught up with them, had lunch, and then headed out on their boat to check the shrimp traps they had put out. 

Boat Ride

Crabbing, shrimping, and clam digging seem to be a big part of my aunt and uncle's life, which is totally awesome. After checking the traps, we came back with some shrimp and a rock crab. Since crabbing season just finished that Friday September 30th, they didn't have any crab traps out. But that last day of crabbing season, my aunt & uncle did catch 18 dungeness crabs. So we got plenty of fresh crab to eat for dinner that night! Plus some. 

Car Camping

That night we camped at Odlin County Park. I booked a site online prior, but it wasn't very busy so there were plenty of walk up sites available (Also remember that it's October though). The park has drive up sites and also hiker/biker sites, in which if you visited without a car, you can try to snag one of these. Our site was right next to the water, a couple of other sites had beach access, pretty neat campground. 

It was a short trip, and we took the early ferry out the next morning. But we will be back soon though! Need to explore the island more. 

Until next time Lopez Island!

Always going somewhere 

Enchanted by the Enchantments

The gang right before we started

Backpacking Park Butte

Pano of Park Butte Lookout with Mt Baker in the back

Tizzy & Doris' Great PNW Road Trip

Astoria-Megler Bridge

1 Burrough, 2 Burrough, 3 Burrough, 4..... oh wait that's Rainier?!

Right before the sun rose at 5:55 am

Backpacking Rachel Lake

Alpine Lakes Wilderness

Backpacking Packwood Lake

 What we walked into as we reach Packwood Lake Friday night

Backpacking Ancient Lakes

 4 packs, each weighing between 25-34 lbs each 

Highway 395

This post will be broken down into a few parts since we did and saw so much on our New Year's road trip up and down the 395. The quick rundown would be first our stay at The Hostel California, then walking on a frozen Convict Lake, soaking in Wild Willy's Hot Springs, camping on the outskirts of Bishop, Hot Creek Geological Site, Mono Lake, sledding and staying at a bed & breakfast in Mammoth, and finally our drive home, all done in 4 days. 

The hostel where we brought in NYE