Tag Archives: Cascade Mountains

Beaver Hill Wild

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Two crazy parents have fun getting their kid to do a steep, grunt hike up a local classic in the Washington Cascades, Saturday the 25th of July 2009

“I don’t wanna hike. I’m too tired!” Talia, my youngest, says as she lays down in the trail on the way up Beaver Hill. She’s rebelling, fussing, and laughing all at the same time. And she’s game! Tater Tot does make it to the tippity top. Her mom, Kristina, watches patiently before gently nudging her to stand back up. “C’mon, Bug, let’s go!” Kris finally says. Foto by William Bass.

We parked at the Phelps Creek Trailhead. Got out of the minivan to stretch and look around before opening the rear hatch to pull out our packs. The three of us were about to start our backpacking trip up into Spider Meadows when we realized something weird was going on like some kind of spacetime distortion from a shimmery syfy show. Because, what? Where were…hey, our backpacks aren’t in the car. What?!? I was so flabbergasted and confused I even peered up into the bushes. Darn! Where were OUR PACKS! Even peeked underneath the car. Ugh, not there either. OK. How? How could I forget? I’m SO CAREFUL and METHODICAL! It’s how our post-multiple divorce, remarried, extra-blended, postmodern, post-polyamorous family managed our logistics amidst chaos! Truth was we’d forgotten the packs. Nope, I’d forgotten the packs. Me. I failed to doublecheck back at the River House, our base in the Greater Leavenworth-Lake Wenatchee-Plain-Spider Meadow area. My goodness, was I upset! Mad, despondent, but also laughing at the absurdity of it. Deep down I felt grateful, tho, as a menacing tumult of heavy, dark clouds rolled in, the wind blew, and a few raindrops fell. Kristina thought it all ridiculous, and yet so divinely perfect as we didn’t have to camp in the rain. She was more peeved at how grumpy I was. Talia threw back her head and rolled her eyes in her most perfect act of pretend delirium. 

Stormy skies thunder into the Glacier Peak Wilderness here at the Phelps Creek TH where the hike up to Spider Meadows begins.

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To the River House

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Our blended family’s joys & sorrows finding, gaining, enjoying, and losing our dream house and the many wacky adventures & jolly mishaps in and around the area, 2007 – 2010

*Click on any picture to expand and enlarge*

*This is a graphic intensive foto essay with 246 fotos & 1 video, and the larger the screen the better*

Kristina out in front of our new home with our realtor Randy V. We called it The River House. I took this picture with a LG smartfone camera at the time, Tuesday the 16th of October 2007, down in Mule Tail Flats outside Plain, Washington, in the Greater Stevens Pass – Leavenworth – Wenatchee Corridor.

The River House, Monday 18 August 2008.

Our back yard ends here at the river. The Wenatchee River flows thru the Cascade Mountains from Lake Wenatchee down thru several canyons before merging into the huge Columbia River. Wednesday 26 December 2007.

Blended family dynamics, y’all! Trying to get ourselves togerther for a family portrait by our comic genius Emily, one of my oldest daughter’s closest friends. I’m on my knees in the snow. Behind stand L2R: Talia, Kate, Morgan (now Dylan), & Kristina. Wednesday 16 January 2008.

Kids were at the right age for goofy pranks, too. Here my oldest, Morgan/Dylan discovers, well, this shower stall doesn’t quite work like one of Dr. Who’s TARDIS booths. This one here just sucks people screaming down the drain merrily, merrily, merrily into oblivion. OK, well, I don’t know exactly what she’s up to here, LOL! But Emily does! Mid-January of 2008.

Talia & Kate wrecked & laughing at the Sledding Hill over in Lake Wenatchee State Park close to the River House. A big day for Talia as she got back into snow sports after breaking her leg in a sledding accident on the same run two years earlier. Taken on Monday 15 February 2010.

The back side of the River House, the side facing the Wenatchee River. Yeah, I cleared and cleaned up what was an overgrown, debris-strewn yard. “Parked it out,” as the locals say. Took many long days and weeks. Had to for wildfire insurance, too. Hot tub on the deck picture right, and an onion swing, a fun gift for the kids from family friends up in Edmonton, Alberta just left of center. Aye, we love this place. Took us a long time to get over its loss. Was a house we’d expected to leave to our kids and their kids and have family & friends from around the world visit us here. Monday 18 August 2008.

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East into Winter Woods and Frozen Deserts

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A wacky Father-Daughter Winter road trip East across Washington State into Cascadian forests around Lake Wenatchee and the River House then on into the deserts of the Channeled Scablands carved by gigantic Ice Age floods into vast, prehistoric lava plains, themselves formed by even more ancient basalt lava floods, January 2010.

Road Trip! Zooming deeper into Coulee Country in the Scablands of the Columbia River Basin, Monday 18 January 2010.

Lake Wenatchee in the Cascade Mountains on a beautifully gloomy day as more storms roll in this Sunday the 17th of  January 2010.

My oldest child, Morgan Hannah years before she became Dylan Blair, as she strides thru the icy edges of the Potholes Reservoir Lakes, Monday the 18th of January 2010. She’s 15 still, only two months shy of turning the Big 16.

Me, her Dad, at the River House on the Upper Wenatchee. In good spirits, too, as I love road trips & being outdoors. I’m only 50 here. Gosh, be 51 years in about 3 months. Foto by Morgan/Dylan. Sunday 17 January 2010.

Emerald Isle, Lake Wenatchee, Lake Wenatchee State Park. Sunday 17 January 2010. It’s a cold, cold late afternoon as dusk approaches.

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Exploring Spider Meadows, 2006 & 2007

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Two journeys deep into the Glacier Peak Wilderness, one alone with my lover Kristina in August of 2006, and together with our youngest in August of 2007. One was an erotic, lust-drenched, sweaty exploration of high alpine meadows & a rocky mountain pass above a dying glacier. The other was a family misadventure awry with unexpected misery, voracious, nose-stuffing flies, & insane giggles.

*This is unfinished, a work in progress. Most of the pics & associated journals were lost in a house fire. This help builds what remains. Thanks for being here. Enjoy!*

William & Kristina in Spider Meadows. Timed selfie shot from the top of a rock left in the meadows from some long ago avalanche. Sunday 13 August 2006.

Spider Meadows sprawls deep within the Glacier Peak Wilderness. Phelps Creek rushes down the middle of wild copses of dark woods and open mountain meadows to plunge down a gorge of its own making to eventually flow into the Chiwawa River. Glacier Peak is one of Washington State’s still-live stratovolcanoes and dominates as the central giant of the USFS Wilderness Area named after it’s Anglo-American name. The Native American tribes referred to it as DaKobed, among other names. The volcano rises as a giant pyramid cone at the head of the Dakobed Range to a lofty 10,541 feet or 3,213 meters, but one is unable to see it from Spiders Meadows. The meadows is edged by a ring of 8-9,000+ foot-high peaks. During August of 2006 I ventured into the wilderness into what became an alpine celebration of hot, lusty, forest love. A year later, however, proved harrowing and disorienting. Two very different trips! Such is the joyful, tearful, giggly ass messiness of Life!
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