Camping out and Noisy Creek

Me sitting in Steve's chair, drinking a Bud Lite

Well, the five of us arrived in plenty of time to set up at the Shannon Creek campground on Wednesday afternoon, all ready to charge out on a hike, but somehow, we ended up just visiting and enjoying the lovely mild weather and skipping the evening hike. I realized once we arrived that I had forgotten to bring my usual red wine, or even some good beer! Steve, however, had this Bud Lite, which I did really enjoy (it was cold), but I hankered for a real beer.

Mark, his dog Lakota, Gary, and Tom

I happened to notice that our neighbors were drinking Heineken beer (a nice brew) and sauntered over to see if I could buy one off of them. Of course they gave it to me free, and soon Carol wandered over, and we ended up enjoying some very good beer with our neighbors. They were off very early this morning to fish for sockeye; I hope they got some, but we were already off on our hike before they returned this morning. They were up and about by 5:00am, off by 5:30am.

Linda (with Riley), Ward, Steve, and Carol (I took the picture)

I slept great in my little tent (not shown, that's Steve and Carol's in the picture), and Carol fixed us a wonderful breakfast before we left to go on our Noisy Creek hike this morning. Linda, Ward and Riley have their very own camper, a wonderful 17-footer with everything one would need. But I was very impressed with the new version of the Coleman stove, the great breakfast, and all this before we started our hike!

Who wouldn't be impressed by this tree?

Once we got to the trailhead and enjoyed seeing so many old growth trees and walking on the Noisy Creek trail, we noticed that we had to work HARD not to step on little tiny toads that proliferated along the trail. I've never seen so many of them! I saw a bunch of they trying to climb a little spot, who knows where they were going? We must have seen more than a thousand of these newly hatched little toads.

How many do YOU see here?

Poor Linda, who was leading, was really not wanting to step on any of them in the trail, but it was hard. She tried but hated it when she couldn't avoid stepping on one of them. I've seen these little guys here before, but today it was amazing how many there were. Thousands, at least.

Hidden creek, with very little water

Although it was still very beautiful, I was saddened to see how little Hidden Creek was today. Usually there is plenty of water spraying us at this point, but as you can see, it looked almost ordinary today. Still, it was wetter than many other hikes we've visited so far this year.

Mt. Baker hiding from us behind the clouds

And then we reached the lake and our lunch spot. It had been cloudy all morning, but they cleared off pretty much everywhere except right over the mountain. This is the best view we had as we enjoyed our lunch. And then we headed over to Noisy Creek. See the bridge in this picture?

The bridge is in the center

We then walked over to the Noisy Creek bridge and looked at all the tiny toads underneath. And then it was time to head back home, giving us more than ten miles and around a thousand feet of elevation before we returned to the campground. I headed home in my car, but I had to take a couple of detours before I made it home because of a fire in the area. It added another half-hour or so to my return trip, but when I got home, I hit the shower and poured myself a glass of wine. Now it's almost 8:00pm, my post finished, and my adventure behind me. But there will be more!
:-)