What Goes Up Must Come Down

This thought kept running through my head on the last two hikes that Keith and I did.

On May 7 we hiked up Bowman Mountain.  We had already done the first mile with the kids and this trip we hiked to the 2.6 mile mark.

The access to Bowman Mountain is off Mosquito Lake Road in Acme, about 4 miles from Highway 9.  It is a logging road.  The gate may or may not be open but public access is limited to bike or foot traffic.  There is active logging right now and I think we had three logging trucks pass us but they always slowed down.  Eventually our path diverged from theirs. 

The first mile is a gradual incline with occasional flat stretches.  After that it is a steady unrelenting uphill hike.  Geocaching along the way helped break up the monotony of the constant upward climb.

I would love to reach the summit one of these days (a 6.2 mile hike one way) but that just isn't possible in the approximate 5 hour window we have while the kids are in school and my current physical condition.  Hiking like this each week though will certainly help the latter.

This was our turn-around point:

The road continued to climb from this point.  Going out and around this clearcut would most likely have brought us to the impressive views that are the reward of this hike; views of Mt. Baker and the Twin Sisters.  Next time!

On May 16 we had plans to hike on Blanchard Mountain.  I tried to research ahead of time to see if a Discover Pass was required.  Well, it is.  We will be getting one but it wasn't worth the risk of a $99 ticket so we headed to Squires Lake.  Hiking through the park we accessed the PNT and hiked to the summit of what is referred to as Alger Alp (1315 foot summit, about 1000 elevation game from the trailhead). 

Again, mostly an uphill trek but not as difficult as Bowman Mountain.  Very peaceful once you get away from the I-5 traffic noise.  We only met two other people outside the Squire Lake Park boundary.  Our reward for this hike was a great view of Mount Baker on one side:

and the Skagit Valley on the other side:

We found two geocaches on this hike, both near the summit.  Also managed to miss another cache on the way up, so another reason to come back in the future.

I will be purchasing that Discover Pass and we'll be heading to Blanchard Mountain on Monday.  Exact destination there is yet to be determined.