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Family

Red Top Lookout

At a risk of doing too many hikes in a row and burning out Elijah, I decided that Labor Day would be a good day to tackle Red Top Lookout.

We left the house around 7:30 and got to the trailhead around 9:30. Once turning off of Highway 97, the dirt road isn’t too bad, but about halfway, the route turns onto a second dirt road that was rough. I was happy to have four wheel drive and a lot of ground clearance. It took us about 25 minutes to go the six miles on that road, and I posted a video from the dash cam because when I’ve done that in the past, random people have seemed very appreciative as they stumble across it.

The hike was short. Really short. I knew it was short, but it seriously only took us 20 minutes to get from the parking lot to the top. So 2 hours in the car for a 20 minute hike, but still, the view was uh-mazing. The lookout was locked so we couldn’t go up but we still had an incredible 360 degree view, and best of all, there were zero other people on the trail for the entire trip. We had the place to ourselves! There were a few other cars in the parking lot but they were all taking a slightly different trail to look for agates.

Photos don’t do a scene like that justice, but I’ll post some below. This Google Street View photo (I didn’t make it) does a better job of recreating the view, but it still doesn’t capture the pucker you feel standing up there with cliffs all around!

The hike down was easy, the drive down was slow and bumpy, and then we hit some Labor Day traffic in Cle Elum, but we made it home around 2pm. It was too much driving for the short hike, but I think we were all happy to have the memory of that view. The weather was just too perfect to pass up! I will need to make sure I pick a closer hike next time to keep Elijah interested though.

I was really bummed when I got home because I realized that it would have been perfectly legal to fly my drone up around that lookout. It would have been amazing! It will be hard to justify going back just for that, but maybe if we’re already in that part of the state doing something else, we can head back. I need to start thinking about taking my drone on more hikes, but it’s just so unlikely that I’ll be in a place that allows it AND there won’t be many people around so I won’t feel annoying.

benmartens September 7, 2021 Family, Outdoors

High Rock Lookout

At the beginning of summer, I handed Elijah a kids hiking book and asked him to pick out a few ideas. He came up with four. The first one we did was Coal Creek, but this past weekend, we tackled the toughest one: High Rock.

We left the house before 7am on Saturday since there is only space for about a dozen cars at the trailhead. It’s on the south side of Rainier just outside the park. It’s about an hour and 45 minutes to the start of a 10 mile dirt road. Thankfully the dirt road was very smooth and we were able to get down it pretty quickly in the truck. There were quite a few cars there already but we had no trouble parking.

The hike is about 1.6 miles and 1300ft to the top so it’s pretty steep the whole way. The kids hiking book lists it as “moderate for kids” and I think that’s because the bulk of the trail is pretty smooth. There aren’t a lot of rocks and roots to climb over.

The last ~100 feet of elevation is pretty intense for a little kid though. You have to pick your way up a rock face and walk up to the edge of a cliff that falls off hundreds of feet. Up until about a month ago, there was a fire lookout perched up there but they recently had to remove it because of vandalism. (AUGH.) Thankfully they left the wood platform and that made a relatively safe place to hang out to enjoy our snacks and snap photos.

The photos are disappointing though. The enormity of the view can’t be communicated in a photo. There’s just SO MUCH of everything. You can see to the horizon in every direction. You can see straight down the cliff face. You can see Mt. Rainier front and center. It’s incredible!

We had planned to attempt this hike a few weeks ago but canceled because of smoke that was rolling in. I’m glad we did because it sounds like the bugs on the trail have died down since then and we had pretty clear skies and perfect temps.

We didn’t get back home until 3pm and the day took a lot out of us but we were all glad that we did it. It’s one that we’ll remember for a long time!

As I mentioned, the lookout building has been removed. It is being restored by a museum and will hopefully be reinstalled in 2023. That site has some good photos of the lookout and some really interesting history of the lookout too.

I’ll include some photos below but this link should also take you to a quick panorama that I took from the top. If you click all the way into the photo, you can swipe left and right to move around the circle.

The last bit of the hike was a rock face up to the platform.
We could see the parking lot from the top.
On our way out, we spotted the platform from the parking lot.
benmartens August 30, 2021 Family, Outdoors

Day Trip to Kingston

One of our go-to family adventures is taking the ferry from Edmonds to Kingston, having lunch, and then coming back. We can easily walk onto the ferry so there’s no need to plan ahead or worry about the lines. I’ve shared this with quite a few people individually and realized that I should just have it on my website so I don’t have to hunt for the info every time. So if you’re looking for you own fun lunch, here’s what we’ve learned.

  • You can park close to the Edmonds terminal, but you have to pay ~$15. If you look at a map, find 6th street. If you park east of 6th street, there is no fee and no time limit. West of that you are limited to 3 hours. You MIGHT make it back in three hours but I don’t like to have that hanging over my head. We’re rule followers so we just park east of 6th and make the ~5-10 minute walk to the ferry.
  • Walking on the ferry is $8 for adults and $4 for kids. You can buy the tickets right in the terminal but to buy the kids tickets you have to go to the actual ticket booth and not the automated kiosks.
  • The ferry ride is 30 minutes.
  • When you get off the ferry, start walking straight up the hill. There are a number of good places to stop:
    • The Kingston Ale House – This is a table-service restaurant with lots of craft beer on tap.
    • J’aime  les Crepes – You could probably eat a full lunch here but we’ve only gotten crepes and ice cream to go. There’s no real indoor seating.
    • Mora Iced Creamery – Delicious hipster ice cream.
    • The Grub Hut – This is a bit farther up the hill but we really liked it! You order at the counter and then go sit down. They had a lot of options on the menu.
    • There are a lot of other places within walking distance and that strip of restaurants does change. Yelp is your friend.
  • There’s no ticket booth on the way back. You travel east for free.
  • If you end up with a bit of a wait for the next ferry back to Edmonds, there is a big grassy park right by the terminal and sometimes they have a little farmers market/craft fair. There’s often a farmers market on the Edmonds side too.
  • The whole trip usually takes us 4-5 hours including the drive to/from Edmonds.
benmartens August 16, 2021 Family, Travel

Ipsut Falls Bike Hike

We get a couple local newspapers and every once in a while I flip through them. A recent article called “Where’s Sara? Bike & Hike Carbon River Road” in Northshore News caught me eye. You can read the article for the full description but basically there’s a road into Mt. Rainier National Park on the northwest side that was washed out in 2006. There was a campground at the end of the road so it’s still popular with bikers and hikers.

There are a lot of things to explore off of the road, but I thought that just making it to the end and back (12 miles roundtrip) would be a big challenge for Elijah. So a couple weekends ago, all three of us set off on the adventure to give it a shot!

The road gets progressively less road-like over the length and there are a few spots where the river has totally washed the road away but it’s never difficult to see where the trail picks up on the other side. The ride out to the campground ended up being pretty tough but we all made it. We locked our bikes up and took a short hike to Ipsut Falls. It was a gorgeous place for lunch and we had the whole place to ourselves aside from about 5 minutes of overlap with another family.

The ride back was significantly easier! Since we were following the river downstream, the road had a slight downward slope that let us coast a large portion of the way.

I was really proud of Tyla and Elijah for powering through and getting all the way to the payoff at the end! Hopefully we can go back some day and explore some more of the sights off of the road.

benmartens August 12, 2021 Family, Outdoors

God is Here

Rewind to March 2020. We had just entered lockdown. As a church leader, I was scrambling to figure out how to do services online. We didn’t know what was happening (like we have any idea now!) I remember sitting down as a family and watching a video from Time of Grace called “God’s Got This!”

During that, Pastor Mike talked about reminding ourselves that God is here. He’s right here with us guiding us and protecting us, whether there’s a pandemic or not. After that video, we sat down as a family and made “God is here” signs. We taped those signs to the wall in our kitchen and they stayed up until very recently.

As we took those signs down, I decided to make a more permanent version. I used the cedar circle leftover from the fire pit project. I drew some words, cut them out of 1/4 MDF on my CNC, painted them, and glued them on.

benmartens August 9, 2021 Family, Woodworking

Indiana 2021

We’re back from our first trip since COVID hit! We flew out to Indiana for a week in the sun at Dad and Mom’s house. It was a little weird being in the middle of so many people in the airport but I’m glad we went when we did. I think we have a long way to go before we’re really “post pandemic”.

On our first day, we drove up to the Grand Rapids, MI area to see Luke, Rachel, and David’s new home. After that we spent most of our days swimming in the pool or in the yard playing croquet. The temps were in the mid to upper 80s with plenty of humidity (the dew point was 74 one day!) so the water felt great!

I took my drone along on the trip and had fun exploring the area around the house. It was neat to grow up thinking about what it would be like to fly around our house and then actual get to do it.

As always, a big thanks goes to Dad and Mom for hosting us all. It’s a lot of work having that many people in your house!

I hadn’t planned to make a video, but then I thought about how much we enjoy looking back at the older ones so I collected everyone’s footage and put something quick together. It’s not anything super special right now, but I’m sure I’ll be glad I did it down the road.

benmartens August 2, 2021 Family, Travel, Video

Bay View State Park Camping

As Tyla and I struggled with what to get Elijah for his birthday, he was regularly asking us if we could go camping. We have a couple trips planned this summer, but then we had the idea to go camping for his birthday. Mid-June can be cold and wet but then we hit on the idea of renting a cabin at a state park. There are quite a few options but we ended up at Bay View State Park. You can check my Instagram account for more photos, but I wanted to share a little more about the trip here.

When we pulled into the park, I said, “UH OH! Elijah! I didn’t pack the tent!” Then we turned the corner and saw the cabins. He got a kick out of that, and the cabin was fantastic! It’s about a 12×12 room plus a covered front porch with a swing. It rained a lot for the first evening, night and and most of the next day. We were very thankful for the dry area! It was just the right size for the three of us (one more kid would have been fine too.) The cabin had power, lights, and a heater. We didn’t see it listed before went, but it also had a fridge/freezer and microwave. We didn’t make use of those since we hadn’t planned to have them available. We ate our meals on the front porch when it was rainy and we were able to play some card games there too.

The park itself isn’t huge but it wasn’t very full and we generally had the shore area to ourselves. We spent a lot of time throwing rocks into the water and exploring at low tide.

We drove a mile or two down the road to Padilla Bay Shoreline Trail. As I parked at the south end of the trail, I noticed fresh glass by our spot… and the spot where the next car would be, and the spot after that… and all ~5 spots in the parking area. We got back in the truck and parked on the north end of the trail which was in a more populated area. Elijah was able to ride his bike and we walked the ~2 miles down to the barn along the trail. If you’ve been in our house, you may remember the barn photo that’s above the half-wall in our living room. I took that photo about 8.5 years ago when Tyla and I visited her family who was camping at the park. Tyla was pregnant at the time so it was fun to go back with Elijah and take a family picture in front of it.

I kept thinking about how perfect the cabin rental was this weekend. We might have canceled the trip due to weather if we had planned to use a tent. It didn’t take us long to start searching to see what other parks have cabins and yurts available for rental. I think this might be something we explore more in the future.

benmartens June 16, 2021 Family, Outdoors

Christmas Card

Whether this is your first time seeing our card or your second, we hope you had a blessed Christmas! Things were obviously a lot different for us this year, but we found that we enjoyed a lot of the changes. With kittens in the house, we didn’t put up as many decorations which means less work when it comes time to taking them down. And with the global pandemic raging, we skipped all the parties, trips, visits, etc. I’m not saying we won’t enjoy doing them in the future, but it sure was relaxing to just enjoy the holiday season. When you strip away all the traditions and fluff around the holiday, we’re left with more time to focus the birth of our Savior and our eagerness for his second coming to take us to heaven.

benmartens December 28, 2020 Family

2020 Ornament

Every year we add a new ornament to the tree to commemorate something big from the year like a family vacation. But what kind of ornament would we get from 2020? We thought about one of the funny ones like “Our First Pandemic“, but we wanted to remember the good stuff about the year. This called for a custom ornament. To the CNC machine!

This year’s ornament has two photos that we snapped on random family adventures. The top one is Rasar State Park which we loved because it was beautiful and we could carve out our own piece of riverfront without anyone else around. The bottom picture is from a rainy hike at Saint Edward Park. We did a lot of rain hikes because we knew nobody else would be crazy enough to hike in that weather! The ornament also has the outline of two cats near the top for the new additions to our household.

You can see our past ornaments in these posts: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2008-2010

benmartens December 8, 2020 Family