Twin Peaks

Darin and I hiked to Twin Peaks on Sunday. It rained just a bit, and it was a beautiful day in the mountains.

We took Ben & Jake, and they had a fantastic time, of course. Ben was focused on finding any hikers in the vicinity, and he met a few new friends that we ran into during the hike.
I think we might leave them home the next time we hike to Twin Peaks. Jake's tongue isn't too big in the photo below, but Ben's is HUGE!

2010 Owl Prowl

This year brought sweet success from my three-year quest to get my hands on Owl Prowl tickets. This year I was in in to win it. My strategy began with a 6:45 a.m. alarm on Saturday morning, a quick drive to Leavenworth, and was followed by standing in line at the Leavenworth Chamber of Commerce with a bunch of bird nerds. About an hour later, I was on my way home with two carefully guarded tickets for a late-night hike outside of Leavenworth to view owls.

On a Friday evening, Darin and I met our Owl Prowl guides (and fellow prowlers) at the Leavenworth Ranger Station. We drove out to the middle of nowhere and started hiking through the woods (not on a trail, mind you). It was really dark and really fun. It was spooky too. I was really wishing that I wouldn't have watched that werewolf movie recently, because I swear I heard werewolves while we were out there.

After hiking only about a quarter of a mile, the owl biologist started hoot hooting for Barred Owls, and within 10 minutes or so, two Barred Owls flew into the trees above us. It was awesome. They made all sorts of calls that you wouldn't expect to come from an owl and flew around us to scare us out of their territory. After about 5 -10 minutes, they figured out we were a bunch of silly owl prowlers, and they flew off. It was too dark to get photos of the owls, but this is what we saw. I can't wait for Owl Prowl 2011!

Sauer's Mountain

Darin and I hiked to the top of Sauer's Mountain this weekend. It's one of my favorite spring hikes - a beautiful 6-miles that's loaded with wildflowers and awesome views.

We saw a ton of different birds which was cool, because I practiced all of my bird calls while we were hiking. I really only know a few different bird calls, so I like to try them out on all different species hoping someday to find a match! Really no luck so far with that. We did see a turkey vulture; their call must be something like, "Hey! You dead yet?" But I didn't try that call out on him, so I can't say for sure. I just didn't want to use this turkey vulture as my first guinea pig.

The trail gains 1,900 feet over three miles - some parts are a bit steep - but its worth the view. When we arrived at the top, we were checking out the cool view of Leavenworth and came to the conclusion that lunch at South would most likely be the perfect pairing with the hike. Just to be sure, we tried out our theory. As it turns out, lunch at South WAS a good match!

I think we'll next try the Eight Mile Lake - Gustav's pairing. It sounds fantastic, but we'll have to try it to be sure!