After a long day of travel and a late bedtime last night, today started way too early. The girls were up at 4:30. “But Mom! It’s 6:30 our time!” “I don’t really care. Go back to bed.” Hmm, imagine that, they both fell back to sleep. By 7:30, we were all showered and out the door to the market around the corner for a few breakfast and sandwich items for the apartment.
By 9:30 we were out the door again for our first excursion. We picked up our mountain bikes from Evo Snoqualmie Pass and headed to the parking lot across the street for some practice with hand breaks and gear shifting. Although originally apprehensive, Ellie picked up it up really quick. Then, off we went.
The first 3 miles were county highway-esque riding with some really fun down hills for the second half. At the bottom we paused for a bathroom break, to put on our jackets, and turn on all of our bike lights. Then, we proceeded into the tunnel.
It was a pretty busy morning; quite a bit of foot and bike traffic. A former train tunnel, the Snoqualmie Tunnel is approx 2.7 miles of cold, damp, darkness. And imagine that, there is a cache in the 13th alcove from the parking lot (GCJMDK – Bloody Fingers, Dirty Diapers…). An easy find and our first encounter with other cachers. With the log signed and Pathtags exchanged we hopped back on the bikes and kept going.
Once out the other end, we paused at some tables for a picnic lunch of PB&J, Pringles, and Chips Ahoy. We just happened to sit down across from a group of cachers from Denmark and more Pathtag exchanges ensued. Finally, on to our ultimate goal for the day, APE (GC1169 – Mission 9: Tunnel of Light)!
One downside to caching in this area right now is the number of other cachers in town because of GeoWoodstock that was in Abbottsford two days ago and the 20th Anniversary of Caching Party this next weekend. It is fun to meet other cachers, but makes finding some caches a little anticlimactic. That is a long way of saying there were cachers at the APE cache when we got there and more showed up as we were signing the log and exchanging swag and even more showed up as we were trying to leave. So, we took the obligatory family photo at this location, then hopped back on the bikes and kept heading down the trail.
About a mile later, we arrived at the trailhead for our next adventure. We dropped the bikes against a tree and started down the trail. What an absolutely beautiful hike! The trees out here are so massive. There’s very little undergrowth, so you can see quite a ways through the dense forest. This trail is well kept; as Ellie put it, this is a ‘red carpet trail’ and makes for a nice, easy, down hill hike.
About 30 minutes later we arrived at our goal (GC2FHZ7 – The Rocket Cache). I hung out on the path while Carson, Mackenzie, and Ellie ventured across downed trees, over rocks and boulders, through unknown brush to find the largest cache we have ever seen, stashed inside a pile of large rocks. With the log signed, we made our way back up the trail to our bikes, mounted up and started our trek back to where we started.
On the way back, we stopped at a few more caches: two easy to find just off the path, revisit at the APE cache for photo do-overs, and a short hike up to GC79 – Iron Horse.
With caches done for the time being, we put our jackets back on, turned on all of our lights again, and headed back through the tunnel. Once out the other end, we realized it was 430 and we had to have the bikes back to Evo by 5. Oops… With jackets stashed back into the bags, we started the slog up hill. You remember at the start of the day, how we had a nice ride down hill? Well, what goes down, must come up. After riding and hiking for over 6 hours, we were all pretty pooped! Let’s just say we made it a couple minutes before we gave up and started to walk. About the time we started contemplating hitch hiking, we came to a large parking lot and pulled off for a break and to call the bike place to ask for a ride, or at the very least let them know we would be late. As expected, no-ride-for-you but, hey, we don’t close until 6, so there’s that… back to walking… About halfway back to the shop, the grade leveled out and we hopped back on our bikes. At this point, I don’t recall why, Mackenzie was frustrated about something and took off. (You go girl! Use that energy to finish this ride!) Carson took off in hot pursuit. Meanwhile, I hung back with Ellie, cheering her on with motivational quotes (some garnered replies of tears and sobs of exhaustion).
Alas! Is it a mirage? Is it a ghost? No! It’s the bike shop! We did it! We made it! We survived! Or did we? Noooo! The shop is at the top of a long 30° inclined driveway… We got this; one last charge before we completely collapse. Finally… we made it… we is done with this…
With bikes returned, we climbed in the car and headed back toward Seattle. Since it was on the way, we stopped at Snoqualmie Falls to take in the waterfall and learn about volcanic bombs (didn’t finish the earth cache, though). Afterwards, we grabbed a quick dinner at Rhodie’s Smokin’ BBQ. Ribs, brisket, chicken. We’ll have to warn the grandpas that the girls like ribs.
I think Ellie was asleep before we made it out of the parking lot and Mackenzie wasn’t far behind. It was a long, tiring, adventure filled start to our vacation. (Editor’s Note: The A.P.E. cache is the first stop in completing our geocaching trifecta!)