Saturday afternoon to Sunday

Okay, I finally finished posting all the photos to Flickr. So let's finish the slideshow.

Here are some skis. Not ours. A group of three carried them up the hill so they could ski some runs on the snowfields.


On the way back down, we started running into more and more hikers. Lots of kids. Which sort of belied the "too technically difficult" stigma the Mountaineers at the lodge placed on the hike because of the snow crossings. Some of the younger hikers enjoyed the huckleberries quite a bit.


Instead of looping down around below a big snowfield, I started off walking straight across the snow toward where I could see the trail a half mile ahead. Steve followed me, but Kyle and Bruce didn't want to stray from the official trail (even though there were plenty of "trails" in that area, since it was just rock and snow. So Steve and I kept them in sight as they trudged down and across and we raced over the snow in a straight line. We got to the meeting point about ten minutes ahead of them. Here's a picture of me at that point.


The skiers took the same route Steve and I did.

So we went back to the lodge, ate dinner, and then the sun set. I ran (literally again) down to Picture Lake to snap some pictures. A man was there with tripod and big box camera. I tried to walk soft around him so not to disturb any timelapse shots he was taking.

I've been told this is the best of the sunset set:


At night, more stargazing, meteorgazing, and some dominos, scrabble, and connect-four.

The next day, after a breakfast I helped cook (I cut the muffins in half and scrambled two dozen eggs), it was time for another dayhike. This time was to Yellow Aster Butte, which was back down the road, north of the ski area. I only got one person to go hiking with me, but that's okay. I suppose I didn't try very hard to recruit anyone Sunday morning...

After a steep mile and a half, the trail levels out and meanders around the mountainside through endless meadows. Multitudes of flowers.


And wide-open views of Mts Baker and Shuksan.

I wish it had been this clear on Saturday! Do you see the little peak about halfway along the crest to the left of Baker? I was just the other side of that, playing cards on Saturday.

Within 500' altitude of the top, Yellow Aster Butte has a great many lakelets. This is only some of them.

Instead of climbing to the top, we headed down to the lakes. I wanted to go the bright blue one. When we got there, it was the same color as all the rest. Trick of the light, I guess.


I went swimming; Chunlin didn't. The water was cold, being right next to snow and all. Lunch and walk back and drive home, arriving back at 6. Gone for 49.5 hours.