Grove of the Patriarchs

After our unexpected adventure on Saturday we took it a lot easier on Sunday morning.

We hiked the Grove of the Patriarchs Loop in the Mount Rainier National Park. It’s less than 1.5 miles and has about 50 feet of elevation gain. And the trail is wide and flat:

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The trees, while no match for Sequoias or Redwoods, were pretty cool. Some were 1000+ years old.

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As is usual in much of Western Washington there was a lot of moss:

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There was a cute little bridge to cross:

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And much of the trail was what we considered “just about our level” after the previous day of exertion:

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This was kind of interesting. A bunch of little trees growing out of a an old fallen tree:

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I’m 6’ 3” so this gives you a little bit of scale for some of the trees:

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This is Barb pretending to be a starfish in the same tree:

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It was a pleasant hike with nothing particularly dramatic to see and a low probability of another “unexpected adventure”.

Barb and Joe’s unexpected adventure

It started out with a mistake on my part. I got a call from Bloodworks Northwest on Tuesday asking me to donate blood. I made an appointment for the following evening and a couple minutes after I got off the phone I remembered Barb and I were going to go hiking on Mount Rainer over the weekend. Rats! I’m going to be hiking up mountains at high altitudes while a pint low on blood. It figures. I did the same thing when we went to Yosemite a couple years ago.

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