HIKING BLOG: July 2021

Saturday, July 31, 2021

Great place to camp or just park for the day to take either trail to Tolmie Peak ⛰ and/or Spray Falls & park , or a few other destinations. End of July Lake Mowich is warm enough to swim in 🏊 👍. Don't bother fishing 🎣 though - i don't think there's any fish 🐟at all, except i DID see a few dead crayfish - but only dead ones.

And there's also Lake Eunice on way to Tolmie - smaller than Mowich - there were some critters in the water - maybe polliwigs on the verge of becoming frogs 🐸. & don't forget mosquito spray or something to keep the bugs away - repellant seems to work but I ran out and then I had to use mud on my arms which actually worked pretty good .

Oh also DON'T forget to purchase a park pass (or preferably an annual pass to save money if you go to the National Park more than two times per year) .

You might think that the rangers won't drive all the way out there to issue parking citations but they DO. In fact when I came back from Spray Park I saw several citations on vehicles as I was walking back to my car .

I'm glad I had put my annual pass on my dashboard cuz sometimes I DON'T do it thinking that they don't really ever check - but this time I did so I didn't get a ticket.

I wonder how many people actually DO have annual passes but just forgot or neglected to put them on their dashboard.

To be honest there's NOT a lot of signs saying you need to post your pass on your dashboard. Maybe they do that purposely to surprise you and raise a little revenue. Nothing surprises me

Monday, July 19, 2021

Re place where I hiked & a teachable moment

Pretty nice place - free parking & you take a Switchback Trail down to the water across the train track. One side of the water was very grassy NOT very swimmable. The other side was more clear - I went swimming 🏊 here and this is after I had taken about a 7 mile hike 👣 up by nearby Fragrance Lake.

So I was a little bit tired and then I had an " issue" coming back up the Switchback Trail so I went off the trail and this is where I'll just have to be honest with ya'll - a guy started yelling at me not to take shortcuts but I had to find a place off the trail to take care of business (if you know what I mean) - I had diarrhea 💩 -a bad bout of diarrhea- that had to be released -so I snuck off to the side and he thought I was taking a shortcut and started yelling at me.

I'm glad he didn't chase or he would have been in for an unpleasant surprise 💩. But it just goes to show that you if you're self- righteous or holier-than-thou sometimes you should suspend judgment until you know the whole story.