we went backpacking...finally

A couple weeks ago we dropped the dog at the dog spa and went backpacking with our friends S and P. Sean and I have been working opposite schedules, so its been tough to find mutual time to enjoy living in Washington as much as we'd like to, but we made it out to the North Cascades for three days for this trip, and it was awesome. I am a big fan of the S and P backpacking approach, which involves sleeping in, eating well and a pace that provides plenty of time to look around. I'm also a big fan of their culinary skills. They have a food dehydrator, which allows them to produce backcountry deliciousness such as Chili and Pasta with Meat Sauce for dinner. To those of you who have never been backpacking and faced the challenge of finding food that doesn't weigh very much OR perish easily but also doesn't taste like cardboard, Chili and Pasta with Meat Sauce may not sound all that impressive. But to Sean and I, who almost always just add those weird vaccuum packs of tuna to mac and cheese for dinner, the S+P meals were heaven. Anyway, here are some pics:

Emerging from the woods...


S trudging toward our campsite...


Eating Dinner Day 1...Sean is so excited he can't keep his eyes open...


The second day it rained non-stop, but the weather oh-so-conveniently broke for 30 minutes at mealtimes thanks to our deal with the rain gods. We basically stayed in our tents all day, slept, talked, and took turns being the one pestering out of boredom and the one half annoyed/half hysterical from the pestering. It might sound tortuous to spend nearly 20 hours in a tent, especially when all 20 hours are spent with your significant other, but having that much forced downtime together was actually super awesome. We couldn't believe how quickly the day passed.

We woke up on day three to this:


..and did this...


...saw this...


...on our way to eat lunch here.


After lunch we took advantage of the best outhouse EVER.


Then we walked back down to our campsite...




...ate dinner, and watched the light show.


On the last day we hiked back down through fields of wild blueberries, picking and eating them all the way. When we got to the cars we took off our boots and hightailed it to Cascadian Farms for some more fresh blueberries, this time in the form of organic ice cream, the best post-hike refreshment EVER.

We love the mountains. Thanks S+P!!!