Silver Fir Vacation

"I was lying in my sleeping bag, staring at the light filtering through the red and green fabric of the dome tent. We could have been anywhere. There is a peculiar anonymity about being in tents. Once the zip is closed and the outside world barred from sight, all sense of location disappears."
- Joe Simpson, Touching The Void

Camping is an amazing experience. Kids, and adults, find such joy in being outside for the entire day, exploring nature, eating food by the campfire, and sleeping in a tent. We only spent 2 nights away, but it sure felt like a nice vacation. The kids told me it was the best weekend of the whole summer!

We camped at the Silver Fir Campground, out Mt. Baker Highway. It was a very nice campsite and we had fun exploring all the interesting sites to see, right next to us. There were many, many of these white things. At first, I thought they were soap bubbles that a previous camper might have left. Very sturdy and long-lasting soap bubbles. But Henry, our Nature Day Camp Alumni, informed me that these were insect eggs. Not sure what kind of insect, but he was positive that's what they were. They were everywhere! Glad I won't be around when they hatch, just in case they happen to be baby mosquitoes. Just a quick walk from our campsite was the Nooksack River. It was a fun rocky beach to explore.

Alice found a little tiny frog. He was very cute. She tried to put him back down and he didn't want to go. I think he liked her warm hand.
Back at camp, Henry showed off his new skill of building campfires that he learned this past year in Cub Scouts. He started out with a "log cabin" design.
After adding a little moss and a few pinecones, it was a great fire.
Typically, we have smores when we go camping. Alice recently checked out a book on Peeps from the library. In the book, it showed different things to do with Peeps (who knew there were so many variations?) and one idea was to make smores with them, substituting the marshmallow with a Peep. We gave it a try and it was quite wonderful. Toasted pink bunnies - yum!
Henry doesn't like Peeps. I told him we slipped one in his smore.
A happy night by the campfire.
On Saturday morning, we headed up the mountain. The road to the very top just opened this past week after snowplows were finally able to break through. However, there was still plenty of snow left.
It was an incredibly beautiful day.
Even if the snow was more "snirt" than snow. You know - snow/dirt?

This is Table Mountain. We hiked to the top of this last September.

This year, we decided to hike to Lake Ann. Sunglasses, hats, sunblock, hiking sticks, lots of snacks and water. We were ready to go.

Through the boulder field.

Across the meadow.

Through the snow.

And across the water.

We took a lot of breaks. It was a pretty steep hike and the kids were a little tired after staying up til nearly 10pm by the campfire. We still had lots of fun though. It's an eight mile round trip hike and we didn't make it all the way to the lake. We ended up turning around about half way there and hiked just over 4 miles round trip. Still a lovely day.

Another place to stop and smell the flowers.

I wish I would have brought along a flower identification book - there were so many beautiful flowers. Buttercups, mountain heather, and lots more that we simply called "pretty mountain flowers."

Lots of "oohs" and "ahhs." It was such a pretty hike.

After our hike, we returned to the campsite and went back to the river. Henry has never been near a river longer than one minute without picking up rocks and throwing them in. That's what he does. And that can entertain him for hours and hours.

The "glacier green" water in the background was really swift and we had to stay away from that. But the kids had fun tromping through the shallow, calm water.

Dan and Henry spent about two hours building a path through the rocks. Then they launched sticks through the rocks and Henry raced down the shore and threw rocks at the sticks to try and sink them. Talk about a good time!

Alice and I had fun watching them.

Back at camp... The Peep smores were such a success that we decided to be brave and try another new camping dessert - orange cake. When I was a Girl Scout, oh about 30 years ago!!, I specifically remember making orange cake on a Girl Scout camping trip. I have such fond memories of it and decided it was time that I introduced Dan and the kids to this delicacy. The kids loved it because they got to make it themselves. Dan cut the tops off the oranges then the kids scooped them out. They made a white cake batter which they carefully spooned into the hollow oranges.

We put the lids back on and wrapped them in foil.

Then we placed them on the coals.

Ta da! Well, this one was still a little runny. So we baked it longer.

They were excellent! Henry informed me that orange cake is the best cake he's ever had in his life and would like to request it for his birthday cake next year. Now that's an endorsement.

We took the leftover batter (we only filled up four oranges) and made a regular cake in our camp oven. Perfect.

Cake.... Mmmmmm....

And if the day wasn't full enough, we decided that we should go watch the sunset after we were done with dinner. We went back up the mountain and took a twilight hike around Bagley Lakes.

We discovered that hiking at 7pm is a great time to hike when nobody else is around. We had the trails all to ourselves.

And this morning... Breakfast by the campfire.

Alice had some hot chocolate. Henry told her it looked like she had chocolate wings on her face.

It was time to take the tent down. This is the first year that Henry was really a help around the campsite - making the campfire, setting up and taking down the tent. Pretty cool to have a Scout in the family!

On the way back down the mountain, we stopped at an old growth forest. The Forest Service doesn't widely publicize that it's there - no signs or markers - but if you ask at the Ranger Station, they'll tell you how to get there. We've walked through this forest several times before but it's been a couple years since our last visit. I'm always amazed at how huge these trees really are.

You look up, and can't see the top.

A nice stroll through the forest.

Home again. Pearl was mighty glad to see us.

Now it's time to unpack, wash clothes, wash dishes, and most importantly - take a shower! I love camping, but I sure love coming home to take a shower.