Studio711.com – Ben Martens

This is the fourth annual big summer camping trip where Matt, Laura, Andy, Stephanie, Tim, Chelsea, Tyla and I head out to a state park for a weekend. We make the reservations around Christmas time to make sure we can claim a weekend on everyone’s busy summer calendars. This year’s adventure took us to Birch Bay State Park up north near the border.

Tim, Chelsea, Tyla and I arrived on Thursday night and the rest of the crew arrived Friday night. We upgraded to two campsites instead of the single site we’ve gotten in the past. It was very nice having extra room, although ironically, this probably would have been the best park to cram four tents onto one site. The campsites were quite large!

On Friday, Tim, Chelsea, Tyla and I hopped in the car and drove 2 hours east to Artist Point. It’s a spot above and beyond the Mt. Baker ski area. It’s only open for about two months out of the year because there is so much snow. In fact, the road opened for the first time that very day. There were still 20 feet of snow in some areas! We had fun playing in the snow and then headed back. It was a lot of driving but I’m glad we got to see it. I rode up there last year on my motorcycle and have always wanted to take Tyla there.

Saturday was spent playing cornhole, walking along the beach, and exploring the little town. On Sunday we headed back home.

Of the four trips, I think this park was my least favorite. The park was nice, but it didn’t have as much to explore as Deception Pass, Fort Flagler and Moran State Park. But still, it was good to be out camping. Thanks to everyone for coming and making it a great weekend!

Photos are available in the photo gallery.

Let’s say you’re lost in the woods and you didn’t pack a compass. Now what? There are ways to determine direction based on the way trees grow and moss growing on trees but there are various situations where those aren’t available or reliable. What then? If you can see the sun, you’re in luck.

Point the hour hand of your watch at the sun. Half way between the hour hand and the 12:00 position is due south. Remember this simple trick and you’ll always be able to get a bearing. Unless it’s night… or very cloudy…

There are some caveats. If you’re in the southern hemisphere, this trick will point north, not south. This should also be done using the true local time without any adjustment for daylight savings. The farther you are from the equator, the more accurate this reading will be.

Your pack is full and you’ve been looking through hikes. If you’re looking for some advice, I recommend that you try these 4 in order.

Once you complete these then you’ll have a good range of hikes under your belt and a good idea of what to look for in a hike. As you start to expand your abilities, you’ll be able to do the hikes that have fewer crowds. These four hikes are all very busy, but think of it this way: all those people can’t be wrong! They all have very big payoffs for relatively little effort.

Hike	Distance (miles)	Elevation Change (feet)	My Review
Twin Falls	3.0	500	Link
Rattlesnake Ledge	4.0	1160	Link
Talapus and Ollalie Lakes	4.0	1200	Coming Friday
West Tiger Mountain #3	5.0	2100	Link

In previous posts, I forgot to include a couple common courtesies that every hiker should follow and teach their children:

• Stay on the trail. Don’t shortcut the switchbacks. It only takes a couple people to destroy a hill side.
• Leave it better than you found it. Don’t leave trash and pick up any trash you see.
• The uphill hiker has the right of way. If you’re coming down hill, find a spot to pull off the trail and let them by.

This ends the Hiking 101 series. We live in an amazing part of the country. Don’t take it for granted. Go forth and enjoy the great outdoors!

Now you’ve got your pack ready. How do you know where to start hiking? If you want a good, consistent experience for comparing hikes, I recommend two books: Beyond Mt. Si or Day Hiking Snoqualmie Region. I have the former but it’s getting a bit hard to find online. If you’re sitting at the computer and thinking about hiking, go to wta.org. They have a new hike finder tool which lets you see hike locations on a map.

But how do you know which hikes are in your skill range? There are a few things I look for in any hike:

• Length and elevation are the two biggest ones. The best way to know what you can handle is to start small (less than 5 miles and less than 1000 vertical feet) so you have a baseline experience to compare against. Elevation change is generally the most important statistic. If you’re still getting into hiking, avoid hikes with more than 2000 vertical feet.
• How do you get to the trailhead? Is the whole route there paved or are you going to be on a dirt road of questionable quality? Is the road closed or gated? The hike description should give you some idea, but if you have any questions call a ranger and ask.
• Do you have to pay to park at the trailhead? Many hikes that start on forestry service roads require a Northwest Forest Pass. You cannot always pay at the parking area! I keep an extra day pass in my glove box. You can order them on the internet, pick them up at REI, or get them from a ranger station. Look for “pass required” in the hike description.
• What does the actual route look like? This can be a bit hard to discover, but it can make a big difference. If the path is wide and smooth, you can cover a lot more ground than if you’re scrambling up rock falls and streams.
• Do you have enough time to finish the hike? I think I’m an average to fast hiker. I can cover a mile of shallow incline at a rate of 20 minutes per mile. Very steep/difficult terrain slows me down to 40 minutes per mile. Once you figure out your own pace, you can use that to estimate the length of the hike.
• Look at the weather forecast right before you leave to get the latest info. This will help you dress for the right temperatures and let you know if any foul weather is expected.
• Early in the season, the higher hikes will be blocked by snow. The road to one hike I’m looking at right now is still blocked by 20 FEET of snow. No joke. The best way to check for this is to look at trip reports on wta.org.

The only real way to get good at picking hikes is trial and error. Don’t be afraid to try a hike but ALWAYS be prepared and be willing to turn around if you run out of energy or time. Don’t get stuck out in the woods after dark or in bad weather!

Tomorrow I’ll recommend some hikes for you to start with.

So you want to start hiking? Tyla and I were chatting about this on a recent hike, and I decided to make three posts about it. The first will be tips things you should consider carrying with you, the second is how to pick out a hike, and the third is a selection of good first hikes to get you started..

• Water. Lots of water. I can pretty easily go through 1.5 liters in 4-5 hours depending on the temperature. I like Camelbaks because you can drink small amounts as you hike, but however you do it, everyone should be carrying water. It’s much better to have too much than not enough.
• Carry a printout of the trail route with you. I also like to do a little extra studying of some topographical maps. That might be more than you need, but you should at least know the directions to the trailhead and which turns to take along the trail. You should also know how to discover when you’ve missed a turn or gone too far. What other trails or land features are in the area?
• Know the weather. I usually guess what I’ll need and then take one more layer to stay warm. However you do it, layers are the key. Make sure you have room in your backpack for any layers you aren’t wearing.
• For your first hikes, you can probably get away without carrying a compass or GPS, but you don’t want to do that for too long. It’s easy to get turned around in the woods.
• Always carry some kind of food. I like to carry Cliff Bars, and Tyla usually makes some trail mix. For hikes that go over lunch time, we’ll carry sandwiches with us. Even if you don’t plan to eat, you need to bring something. You never know what’s going to happen and having food gives you more options.
• Hiking early in the day has two benefits: you’ll be finishing up before the heat of the day and you’ll get a better parking spot at the trailhead. This is particularly important for the first hikes you’ll be taking because they are more popular.
• What else do I carry in my pack? (You definitely don’t need all this stuff when you’re starting out on busy trails.)
  • Ankle gaiters in case I run into snow.
  • Emergency survival blanket
  • Small tripod
  • First aid kit
  • Multitool and pocketknife
  • Waterproof matches and a flint/magnesium combo. I probably only need one.
  • I just picked up some trekking poles to use on the tougher hikes.
  • Small amounts of ibuprofen, antihistamine, antiseptic wipes and burn gel
  • Extra socks
  • Headlamp
  • Small combination compass, flash light, signal mirror, thermometer, emergency whistle, and magnifying glass
  • Mini roll of duct tape
  • A little bit of twine

You’ll come up with your own system as you do more hiking, and you can greatly reduce the amount of stuff in your pack when hiking with a friend who is also prepared. For example, Tim brings a SAM Splint which is nice to have along. The important thing is that you think about what you might need if your trip doesn’t go as planned. I know I can survive overnight out in the woods if I need to.

I keep all these items in a backpack that I dedicate to hiking so I don’t have to spend time packing and remembering all these items every time I leave on a hike or camping trip.

A couple years ago, Tim bought a flint and magnesium stick from REI and we tried to make a fire on a camping trip. We never got much more than a spark. Luckily Tim carries a butane torch to coax campfires to life so we weren’t left in the dark.

On this last weekend’s camping trip with the in-laws, I decided to give it another shot. I picked up that same magnesium survival fire starter. We took a hike to the top of Thunder Knob and along the way I found some stuff hanging from the pine trees that I thought would work. I wish I knew what it was called but I remember seeing it on one of those survival shows on Discovery. Anyway, it’s green, hangs from the branches, and it looks like long clumps of string. I collected a handful of it and later that night I decided to humiliate myself in front of the family.

I scraped off some magnesium shavings with a knife into the green stuff that I had collected, lined up the edge of the flint with the shavings and with a single stroke, the whole thing caught fire!

Ok, so making fire without a match isn’t that impressive, but it was the first time I’ve ever done it. Thinking back to our previous attempt, we didn’t have anything good for the magnesium to ignite. I’m going to look around for an outdoor survival class that would teach you these kind of basic skills localized to the environment of the Pacific Northwest.