Perils of Caffeine in the Evening

Reposting from Facebook, I stupidly left my camera on the car roof and drove away from the trailhead.  Lost lots of lovely photos, and a damn good camera.  Holding out slim hopes that someone found it and returned it.  Sarah, our interpreter Ranger, has put out an APB on the Parks Service lost & found network:

Just back from a sweet, too-short foray into the North Cascades. Yesterday we hiked to Cascade Pass, interpreted by our favorite Rangerette, Sarah Krueger. A nice young couple accompanied us, and we had great conversation all the way to the top (3.7 miles in, 2000′ elevation gain over a nicely-designed and maintained trail.

Reserved a room for last night in Mazama, and met up with our son Andrew Philbin, who served us dinner at Old Schoolhouse Brewery. Met up with him this morning for breakfast at Mazama Store. Turned out he was headed up to the mountains to scout out some bouldering territory, and we followed him up and hiked a much steeper and less groomed trail. Fortunately, he was burdened with a large bouldering crash pad, and we could keep him within visual contact. It was worth the effort, had lovely views and espied a young pine marten, who sat for the longest time observing us intently. Hiked back down, grabbing handfuls of ripe huckleberries as we descended.

Our hike today ameliorated two unfortunate, and expensive, events: yesterday at the trailhead, I set my Canon SX1-IS on the roof of my car, and drove off. I heard a “clunk”, but didn’t realize what it was until I was inventorying my gear last night; and, this morning, backing out of our lodging and striking a tree, damaging my wheel rim and requiring that I drive all the way home on my spare (Les Schwab stores are closed on Sunday). Made it safely, and have great memories despite spending $1500 in 36 hours.