Take a Walk
Location: Redmond.
Length: 3/8-mile loop.
Level of difficulty: Level-to-gentle wood-chip trail and short boardwalks.
By Cathy McDonald | September 26, 2002
Tonga Ridge in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness near Skykomish is an ideal hike for fall colors, blue huckleberries and mountain scenery.
By Karen Sykes | September 26, 2002
A couple years ago, a TV commercial featured a daredevil mountain skateboarder flying off a mountainside with effortless grace. He then planted his face into a pile of loose shale and tumbled downhill. The ad cut to a shot of several Gore-Tex-clad observers climbing into an SUV and wondering aloud: "What was he thinking?"
Staring down a small hillside at Seattle's Woodland Park with a mountainboard strapped to my feet for the first time, I'm asking myself the same question.
By Andrew Engelson | September 26, 2002
You fall asleep to the sound of a pleasant drizzle drumming against your tent walls, lulling you like the sound of the ocean. But in the wee hours, you awake abruptly to the dreadful realization that you are cold. And -- gasp! -- there are tiny puddles of water around the rim of your tent and pooled on the surface of your sleeping bag.
Has your $350 tent sprung a titanic leak? Probably not.
Often it's not a leak that gets you wet, but a condensation buildup inside the tent -- the result of you and your tent mates breathing through the night.
By Kristin Hostetter | September 26, 2002
"Our mothers would not be happy right now."
That's the third time my friend Rick Lingbloom has said this, and like the two other times, it's not left me all a-burst with confidence. He's about 30 feet above me as we scramble up Hidden Lake Peak, a pyramid of rocks that tops out at 7,088 feet, about 15 miles east of Marblemount, Skagit County.
By Mike McQuaide | September 26, 2002
Good wine is one of our state's many charms, and winery tours make great weekend trips to the Tri-Cities, the Yakima Valley and other Eastern Washington destinations, or a great day trip to the wineries in Woodinville.
By Madeline McKenzie | September 26, 2002
Short Trips
A little apple quiz: What's a cross between a Gravenstein and a Golden Delicious? If you guessed a Gravedel, you're wrong. Surprisingly, it's called a Hawaii apple.
Octavio Torres, who manages the Feil Orchards Fruit Stand in East Wenatchee, said the apple is supposed to have just a hint of pineapple taste. I tried one and it tasted great -- very crunchy and plenty juicy, but sorry, there wasn't any pineapple flavor I could detect, even with my discriminating pallet.
By Jeff Larsen | September 26, 2002
When Duane Perron fires up the 1914 Wurlitzer the 1914 Wurlitzer at his International Museum of Carousel Art, drums rattle, the bellows wheeze and whine, and the mood moves in.
Visitors surrounded by his carved carousel animals can close their eyes and float back to a gentler time when, for a few moments and a nickel, they could be a knight on a snarling steed and, with some luck, catch a brass ring.
By Joseph B. Frazier | September 26, 2002
An early morning mist rolls across the Squamish River as sunlight flickers through cottonwoods lining the bank. A bald eagle swoops down and lands on a sandbar, its talons piercing the black sand. After neatly folding its wings, it hops awkwardly toward a shallow pool at the river's edge. A movement in the water reveals the dorsal fin of a large chum salmon.
September 26, 2002
