[Schmidt Altitude]

"Oh ****, Jeremy, I forgot the water!!" Thus, our RTD hike almost started. Geez, what rookies we are ! 20 minutes from the trailhead, we turned around to go pick up water in Quilcene. Great, now we are set back about 30 minutes into our Race The Darkness hike. We know we'll have to headlamp for sure. Oh, well. Darkness beat us this time - but we'll be back for revenge!! It had been awhile since our last RTD, so it was great to do another. We started out at the nice and "early" time of 7:05pm on the Tunnel Creek trail, planning on hitting the Harrison Lakes at 4.1 miles (according to TH, 3.8 in somes books...can't we get some accurate info, please?) before heading back home. We knew we would have to make haste. We set a decent pace and covered the first 2.7 miles to the Tunnel Creek shelter in about 55 minutes. Truthfully, those 2.7 miles seemed a bit long for 2.7 miles....but that's just our opinion !

Rowena at Tunnel Creek Shelter

A guy heading down warned us of the railing being out on the bridge...so we were extra cautious even though Jeremy didn't heed the warning...

Jeremy encounters difficulty on creek crossing

Though the previous section of trail had been pretty clear of blow downs (really only spot), this next section was definitely steeper and had a few more blow downs, plus those oh-so-nice-on-the-knees built in stairs. This next section went much more quickly and we were soon arriving at the Harrison Lakes around 8:30pm. We took a nice break at the lake even though darkness was imminent. The whippets acted like usual when encountering K9crack, but what could we expect from them?

Kiefer at First Harrison Lake

Rowena at Harrison Lake

Whippets in the K9crack

Harrison Lake

Harrison Lake

Jeremy posthole spot

Tisha at Harrison Lake

It was much prettier, even though foggy, with the snow around its bank compared to later in the season. Still not the prettiest spot in the Olympics for sure. Jeremy was a bit bummed he didn't have more time to test the fishing waters...that's trout lust for you. We headed back down the trail at a break-neck pace, stumbling occasionally on the slippery roots underfoot. We donned our headlamps for the last half hour of our hike, making it back to the car at 10:10pm. It was nice to get out even for a short while, despite the "packnesiac" experienced by Tisha (a new term for forgetting important items.) Geez, Tish, get with it, already!!!

[ADrewzki]

Great pics guys. Jeremy looks like he's got lotigo (low vertigo) on the log picture. Tsk tsk. No handwarmers this time?

[Yet]

[ActionBetty]

Don't fall in Jeremy! Tish..you look a little chilly...layer up

[Schmidt Altitude]

[foggy]