Hiking

I've learned in the 1 year I have lived in Seattle area now that this area is the king of hiking. I joined Meetup.com and enlisted with a few hiking groups. I keep getting all these incredible hiking ideas in my emails but have only been able to attend one of them so far which went well and was very enriching for me. The other hikes I've done on my own. I still have not visited Mt Ranier which is supposed to be the pinnacle of all hikes in this area, nor have I done the hikes in Mt Olympia which is supposed to be really beautiful as well.

Within 1 hour drive there are so many hikes in North Bend. There are also some great hikes near town of Monroe as well like Serene Lake which I just did. There are so many forests and trees here. The weather has alot to do with the incredible hiking opps here. Because it rains so much ppl don't want to live here so it keeps population in check. With fewer ppl there are fewer trees removed and more hiking opps.

It snowed not far from here near Mt Ranier a couple days ago. The weather as a result was super cold today as well as the last few days. It's 44F now and 54F in SF to give an example. It reminds me of last year when I arrived on May 8. I drove past Snoqualmie and it had just snowed the day before. I noticed piles of snow on the side of the road and inquired about it. So I guess the next week or so we will still get snow before it finally starts to warm up.

It's weird because only 1 more month before the longest day of the year but it doesn't feel like it. It's been so cloudy the last month that we really haven't seen the sun too much. Only the last few weeks. Today I got to see the sun until 7:30pm. It was very nice. I know when the summer comes in a few weeks that there will be less rain and incredible amount of daylight. The twilights here are much longer than Bay Area. I'm still trying to figure out why.

As of today we could still get pretty good twilight around 8:30p and beyond. I know the Bay Area at it's best will get twilight till just past 9pm or so before it gets totally dark. Here during the longest day of the year we get twilight past 10p and then morning arrives like around 4:30a. It's ridiculous. When you add in the warm moderate weather, with gentle wind, it makes you want to spend all day and all night outside hiking or just lounging around. The summers here are really to die for.