Monday, August 11, 2008

Barclay Lake







Last Monday we hiked to Barclay Lake in the Cascades. The lake lies in the middle of a U-shaped glacial valley and Mount Baring looms above--the summit is 3,400 feet straight up from the surface of the lake. So we're sitting there, enjoying our picnic on the sunny sandy shore, when we hear this bizarre flapping noise. We look up and there's a guy parachuting down from the top of the mountain! He landed in the lake adjacent to the shore not too far from us, pulled his chute in, then craned his neck up to the summit. Couple minutes later, another guy jumps off the summit, chucks his chute open, and lands in the exact same spot. It was amazing. We chatted them up a bit and one of the guys said he has done the jump a couple dozen times, and that Mt Baring is probably the premier base jumping peak in N America. Who knew? Afterwards we prowled the wetlands along the lake and caught and released three red-legged frogs, that was good, muddy, slippery fun.

Tomatoes!


This is the best time of year for fresh tomatoes and our cherry tomatoes and a few of the full-size varieties we planted are just now starting to ripen. Mmmm!