One of the craziest things about Washington is that the two sides of the state are completely different. It's divided right down the middle by the Cascade mountains that run north-south. That range forces the heavy, moisture-laden clouds to rise and dump most of their load as rain on the west side (on our house). As a result, the eastern slopes of the Cascades are much, much drier. This is called the "rain shadow." (You thought this was just going to be a bunch of pictures and a story about hiking, didn't you? That's right: LEARN!)
So when it's raining at home, it might be sunny just 30 miles to the east. That's where we were for a weekend of adventure. We chose (er... I chose) a hike called, "Lookout Mountain" mostly because it had a, surprise, lookout on the summit and that always means good views.
The trail wasn't long, but given the whole rain shadow thing, it was dry and hot. That wasn't so bad as we climbed through the forest, but when we gained the ridge and were exposed to the sun it was a little shocking. Even though it was mostly level, our pace slowed. Bonus: Great views.
The lookout stood 20 or 30 feet high with semi-sketchy stairs leading up to it. Past pups have had issues with climbs that they could see through. Walking across big rocks with gaps? Yikes. Walking on criss-crossed logs over a raging creek? No, thank you. Walking up stairs you can see through? Nuh uh. Tink wasn't stoked, but she made it all the way up like a champ. The view wasn't much better from the top, but it did let us connect the dots/white rocks and see the helipad.
Our trip back down was full of running with the dog, stopping to look at flowers, and meeting even smaller puppies on the trail. We even found those fancy morel mushrooms that everyone loves to find (and walked right by because ew, fungus).
So instead of hanging out in the rain on the wet side of the mountains we had the pleasure of a dry weekend hike. I won't pretend to have been stoked on the warmer weather, but it was nice to not be soaked while climbing a mountain. And it was all thanks to the rain shadow.
Thanks!
