[Quark]

Sarah and I wanted to get out for a night, and we didn't care a whole helluva lot where; just to get out. She wanted to see the stars, I just wanted to be. An original plan to head to Mt St Helens flew down the drain when my back sorta went out & I couldn't sit in the car for long periods of time. Eightmile Lake fit all lame criteria except my heat wussiness. The Hatchery Creek Fire (or Tyee Creek Fire) sliced through this area in 1994. Hmmm....just how smart is this? Says I. Oh well, it's only 3.5 miles or so. We had to stop at the Ranger Station to get an overnight Pass. Sarah wanted a Wenatchee Forest map and the price was $6.48. I handed 7 bucks to the lady at the counter, and Sarah said, "Wait!" as she dug into her pocket. I admonished her, "We just had this whole conversation in the car about not acting like old ladies. Only old ladies dig for exact change!" "Well I don't want to carry it up to the lake, I want it out of my pocket." "You have a whole goddam car sitting out there in the parking lot," I waved my hand toward the window, "and half of it's empty. Put the change in there." And so it goes with Sarah and me. We got to the trailhead at the princely hour of 1:00. Who says the Forest Service isn't thrifty?

Thrifty sign

Walking through a burned forest is amazing, tragically beautiful, plaintive, hopefull, wonderous...all at the same time. The lack of trees exposed the piles of red rocks near Little 8 Mile Lake, interspersed with chunks of glittering granite. The lack of trees allows a nice cool breeze or wind, refreshing on a hot day. Lots of opportunity to rest and drink water from creeks. A final thrust up a few switchbacks, and voila! You're there. Pics taken with my Pentax Optio W10 point & shoot.

Classic view of 8 Mile Lake

We just enjoyed sitting on the large rocks draping down to the lake watching the light play on the mountains.

Silver snags1

Silver snags2

2 kinds of clouds

The sunset was beautiful

SunsetJPG

Morning was nice and chilly. We did a lot of hanging out, doing nothing; the sun was warm, the breeze was cool, and we were at total ease.

Stonecrop

Hanging out

painting

Last weekend, Don and I, while at Twisp Pass read about the discovery of babies living on the Titanic! Sarah didn't believe me, but I had proof: The worlds most reliable news source The Weekly World News. What's equally amazing is that one of the 7 Cities of Halvah has been found :

News

I became intrigued by the light shining on the water;

water

sunglint, like millions of winking stars.

Sunglint

I took some video of the sunglint and of white flowers dancing in the wind at dusk, but I registered at YouTube and immediately forgot my password or misspelled it, so I can't get into my account. This is no surprise We stopped at the new Iron Goat Interpretive Center at Scenic. Walked the accessible trail to the 1/3 mile long snow shed wall. Impressive! VOW is building a waytrail so users from this trailhead can get to Wellington without going so far out of their way west to the switchback in order to go east to Wellington. The waytrail will be finished this fall.

Where trains once thundered by

[Quark]

Here are the flowers in the wind.

[treasureblue]

Nice TR Quark. Your water and sunglint photos are going to look mighty nice tomorrow afternoon when I'm sweltering and trying to think of something cool. Ahh!

[Quark]

OK now a video of sunglint on the lake. Absolutely beautiful (well the video only shows so much, it's not the whole experience).

[peppersteak'n'ale]

[treasureblue]

Ahh! Nice sunglint video.

[Quark]

The sunglint video shows up fuzzily on my computer screen; it's crystal clear on my camera. Hope other folkes' computer screens are better'n mine - or the pixels are too stretched....

[derekwayne]

LOVE......the sunset pic

[Matt]

Nice shots of the water, and also the silver forest. Looks like a refreshingly relaxed trip. Except for the Weekly World News. The glinting water video looks fuzzy to me too. YouTube must use a different resolution than your camera. Still, it shows enough to recall how pretty the light looks on the water.