(all pictures are low res, for high res click here)
Yesterday, Ellen informed me that
she wanted to go hiking on Sunday, however she didn't want a hike that was "up",
so I told her to find a hike that suited her, so she chose
Talapus Lake and Olallie
Lake. At first glance, we both thought this hike would be easy
,
however as we quickly learned, what is easy in the summer is not as easy in the
winter.
As we began our so called easy
quest, the trail
lollygagged
along
,
slowly putting us in a zen like trance
.
After 2 miles of hiking on dirt and snow
,
we finally reached our first lake, Talapus Lake
(also seen above) . We stopped for a few more photos
,
and then we decided to head on up to Olallie Lake -- thinking it should take us
no time to get there. Little did we know that in the winter, most people stop at
Talapus Lake, and hence there was no trail to be found.
Muhahaha! We looked
all around, and finally decided to find a stream and bushwack up the side of the
mountain. 
After about 30 minutes of my lousy routefinding and bushwacking we finally
stumbled upon this bridge
, and
looked up and located this sign!
Yay,
we were on the trail again. After another 15 minutes of hiking, we reached
Olallie Lake
and
were the only ones there!
For lunch we chowed on some hummus
from Karam's
and a few oranges. Ellen brought some field
roast as well... Do yourself a favor, don't eat that shit, its nasty. We lay
in the sun for about an hour
and
then headed back down. On the way down, I did the usual thing where I take artsy
photos
.
All in all, this was a lot more fun that I had anticipated. Just remember to only hike this trail in the early spring, as most people won't go to the higher lake, and you'll have it all to yourself.