The Pacific Northwest Hofheimer Family: September 2011

We started the month of september off with a family trip to the cabin. It was great. This was Will's first trip to the cabin and he seemed to like it. We did a few small family hikes, played at the river, and I sanded and stained portions of the cabin that had been weatherized

Trail near Freestone Inn

Ella, Owen and Sebastian, Methow River (saw 2 huge spawning salmon)

Owen, combing trains, cars and a tower

Rachel, & kids, Spadas and Ruud's went to Klaloloch Beach

Char and Will at the Ruud's house

Earlier in the summer I had planned a trip to go backpacking with my freind Mark Willingham. Mark is a Physical Therapist at Fidalgo Care Center in Anacortes and was clinical instructor for my spring clinical. We became fast freinds. he is my age, has 2 daughters and likes to run and hike, loved the outdoors. We both took off on Friday September 16th and made it close to the top of Sourdough Mountain. Mark has some sort of vertigo disorder that has yet to be fully diagnosed and on one of the exposed sections, felt uneasy so we decided not to backpack and instead go to our cabin and do day trips. Day 1 was Sourdough Mountain. Sourdough Mountain was steep. Our quads were toast after the 10 mile round trip 5,000+ elevation gain.

On day 2 we drove up Hart's Pass Rd and hiked on the PCt to Windy Pass. It was awesome. It snowed breifly at the top of Slate Peak, but other than that, the weather was awesome.

views to north from Slate Peak

PCT to windy pass

Windy Pass

On day 3 we hiked to Blue Lake. It was awesome, great views of Liberty Bell. It was round trip 5 miles, about 1,100 feet gain, easy family hike.

We all made it safely back home. Here is a picture of Will taken on 9/26 (below). He is starting to make some facial expression and really into moving his hands and feet.