Oyster Dome Hike

Hi there,

I know. It's been a while since I posted, but Amelia's just better at this than I am. Anyway...

Yesterday, we went on a hike to what is called Oyster Dome. It is a wonderful, and very challenging, hike. Our friends Jeremy and Jamie McCullough, with their 15-month daughter Avery and Jeremy's dad John, were with us as well as our friend Ryan Schols. Buster and the McCullough's dog, Tatum, were with us too.

Oyster Dome is located off of Chuckanut Drive just south of Bellingham. We arrived at the trailhead about 8:30am, loaded up the kids in backpacks and started on our journey. Luckily for us, Jeremy knew a back logging road that cut about 1000ft of elevation gain off of the hike. Seemed like a good idea at the time...we had no idea.

Jeremy had the map and after starting down the trail (instead of up) for about a quarter mile, we backtracked and found the right trail to take. To Jeremy's credit, the correct trail did lose elevation initially from where we had started.

Here are Charlie and I about a third of the way to the top. I was already sweat-drenched.
Most of the hike was in the forest, like the picture shows. Luckily, since we were early in the morning, the bugs didn't come out in full force until we were on our way down. They sure were thick then!

The entire trip up was about an hour and a half, but the hardest part was the last 10-15 minutes. I'm not sure I would have even attempted that last part on a muddy day, especially with Charlie on my back.

However, the views from the top were well worth the trek. When we first reached the summit, the morning clouds were still around and we could only see the surrounding forest, the tops of the San Juan peaks and the distant Olympic peaks. Here is a bit of our initial view to the north with about half the clouds still around:

However, after about 20 min, the clouds dissapated and this was our view:The island in the foreground is Samish Island and beyond that is Anacortes. Below is Jeremy, with Avery on his lap, and Jamie.
Charlie zonked out just before we reached the top. He was working hard!

It wasn't long before he was up again!

And my personal favorite from the trip:
Here are some more good pics:
We napped quite a bit the rest of the day as we were well wore out. We are hoping to go on another hike in a couple of weeks. It sure felt good to be outdoors and get a workout.

The best part of the whole trip was capturing some video of Charlie laughing when we were at the top. He just LOVES being on my shoulders. It's fun to have him up there, too, notwithstanding the hair pulling and ear grabbing. Enjoy!