So many times we've taken the trail most people take to snowshoe near Mount Baker. I do love that trail.  It is so satisfying to make it to Huntoon Point that allows a 360 view of the area showing Canada and south into Skagit Valley. However as we make our trek up the hill I often look over towards the small bowl that has Bagley Lake buried under multiple feet of snow and wonder what that trail is like.  This was our day to find out. The avalanche warning was low, I thought it should have been a bit higher seeing as how we could hear and then watch snow tumble off the cliffs picking up speed and more snow once it hit the ground. The starting point for both Huntoon Point and Herman's Saddle are the same.  The end of the road near Chair 1 at Heather Meadows Ski Lodge. From there you drop down into the bowl following a light used trail over the lake to the northwestern side of the valley.  We could see out of bound skiers make their trek up to ridge right below table mountain only to leave just a bit of snake like trail behind them.  An hour of hiking for 10 minutes of beautiful graceful skiing. We wound our way along the valley floor hugging the south facing side peak and started to climb. So very slowly up towards the saddle, thinking it was closer than it actually was.  We hiked and hiked and hiked. I paused all along the way to soak up the sun, the view, the clean mountain air, the bright blue sky. Each step was closer to our destination. We talked about finding a spot part way up although as we neared the top we couldn't imagine not making it. At about 5200ft we looked up and realized that the skiers who had passed us about 45 minutes ago were taking out parachutes of all things. The brightly colored fabric filled with the breeze as they prepared for their decent to the valley 1000 ft below them. One at a time they started downhill picking up speed until their chutes filled enough and lifted them up to skim the trees below. They were pulled right and left weaving  down the hill and finally out of sight to leave us wondering how many actually made it to the bottom of the valley. A 200 ft higher and we had made it to Herman's Saddle which offered a spectacular view of Mount Shuksan, Mount Baker, and the Northern Canadian Cascades. During the summer this can be hiked as a loop called the Chain Lakes Loop, shich is 6.5 miles and it definitely leaves you feeling as if you've had a good day hiking.   In the winter, Herman's Saddle is as far as you can get and it will still leave you feeling as if you've had a great day outdoors.  Note to self on sunny days, bring sunscreen and shorts.  I was sweating rivers of water hiking up and my nose was more of Rudolph's color the next day. This will definitely be one that we do again.
















 

 The House of the Revolving Door has had to under go some changes.  This year John has started to work from home exclusively.  The pool table has outlived it's usefulness since it's main user went to boot camp last year.  The carpet is trashed.  Too many kids, a foursquare area taped out on the floor and too many stains to know what they are from.  Walls that have been beat upon and gouged were all part of the room John has been working in.  he finally had it and wanted to change out the carpet.  That wasn't my plan.  I wanted hardwood floors.  I researched and looked and dreamed and looked some more.  My Pinterest was starting to smoke from all the ideas I was generating from other pins. Finally we decided on hardwood after listening to a podcast from Clark Howard that we would recoup our money dollar for dollar by installing hardwood.  The catch was that John would pay for the one room but we couldn't do two types of hardwood in the house.  It would look strange, disjointed.  We also couldn't match the existing hardwood since it was 20 years old.  It also needed some major work done.  I would pay for the rooms that already had hardwood and John would pay for the one that had carpet.  Well, if we were going to do the floors why not redo the fireplace.  I mean it wasn't really my style and it was taller than me.  The mantle was this giant focal point to the room but it kind of floated.  It didn't have a hearth to anchor this ginormous mantel to the rest of the room.  It seems part modern part traditional.  Like it couldn't make up it's mind what style it should be.  So I did some more research and caught my Pinterest board on fire and came up with a solution that was more me. A cast stone fireplace mantel. However, since our other one wasn't broken I would pay for that.  My idea, my project, my money.  John of course would provided all the work.  I measured and sent in my payment.  We signed off on the design and went for it.  This meant that we needed to ripe out the existing mantel and move the fireplace from being two feet above the floor to being just about floor level.  That entailed taking the siding off the house, and cutting an new exhaust for the fireplace, working on the gas line to the fireplace and since we were already doing that might as well put an outlet above the fireplace in case we wanted to put a TV there.  John calls this scope creep.  We removed the carpet, ripped out the hardwood floors, removed all the baseboard trim, lowered the fireplace, patched the wall,  patched more holes in another spot, painted the room, gave away the pool table, installed the flooring and then waited for the fireplace mantel to show up.  Finally it did.  Just in time for Christmas.  It was a long haul but totally worth it.  I then started shopping for a couch for the room, and replaced John's 30 year old lazy boy. Little by little it started to come together.  There were a couple of people that were significant in this whole remodel.  Isaac's roommate helped with advice on the electrical.  Then there was Jake from work.  He helped to rip out the existing flooring and with the install of the new flooring.  I came home from work one day and 1/3 of the house was done. He also helped with moving the fireplace.    I was so grateful. John took a week off from work and knocked out the floor with Jakes help.  This whole project started in June and by December we had it done except for replacing the trim.  It felt so good.  One of the hardest parts was lining up the flooring.  In one room we needed it to flow around a partial wall and then have enough on the far facing wall in both rooms.  We also need them to line up so we could change direction in the hall way as well as change again in the dining room.  These guys were amazing.  All I needed to do was choose which board we were going to use next and put down a layer of glue.  They had the hard job of placing it just right, making sure to line it up correctly and nail it in.  John and I both agree that if we had to do it over we would have just used traditional hardwood since we installed it the same way.  However I am happy with how it turned out.