The Hiker Mama

Category: Camping

  • Winter Camping – Salt Creek Recreation Area and Dungeness Spit

    Winter Camping – Salt Creek Recreation Area and Dungeness Spit

    Camping in February? This was a first for my family. I don’t think I’ve ever braved late winter/early spring camping before, but the weather was looking so nice, and we had two bonus days off from classes, so I thought we’d give it a try. We had heard good things about the camping at the […]

  • Mt. Rainier Fling Part 2, Backpacking to Snow Lake

    Mt. Rainier Fling Part 2, Backpacking to Snow Lake

    In Part 1 of this series, I wrote about our first day at Mt. Rainier last week.  This post covers our second and third days, backpacking to Bench and Snow Lakes. We took our time on Tuesday morning, packing up and leaving Cougar Rock Campground. The weather continued to be warm and clear. The Mountain […]

  • Finding Nature Around the Edges

    Finding Nature Around the Edges

    We got back last week from spending two weeks with my parents.  A large chunk of that time was spent driving down to California and back for my cousin’s wedding.  Dad drove the truck and RV down, and we took my 94-year-old grandmother, so it was mostly a lot of driving on the freeway, staying […]

  • Columbia Hills State Park (Spring Break 2014)

    Columbia Hills State Park (Spring Break 2014)

    This post is the third in my series about our trip to the Columbia River Gorge for Spring Break.  The first was about hikes from the Catherine Creek Trailhead.  The second post was about the Vista House and Gorge waterfalls. Future posts will include: Visiting the Observatory in Goldendale [Added 5/31/14] The Columbia River Gorge Discovery Center […]

  • Crater Lake and Rogue River Camping – August, 2013

    Crater Lake and Rogue River Camping – August, 2013

    In the middle of August we spent a week camping with my parents on the Rogue River in southern Oregon.  We stayed at a campground that was my favorite as a child; many fond memories live there.  I hadn’t been down that way since before we had kids – I took my husband there in […]

  • Thunder Creek Trail Hike and Camping at Newhalem

    Thunder Creek Trail Hike and Camping at Newhalem

    Summer has officially arrived here in Washington.  It’s time to get out there and soak up as much of the mountains as we can before the gloom descends in the autumn and we have to wait 9 more months.  We had some time to make a longer drive the Friday after the Fourth of July […]

  • Hoh Valley Hike – 6/11/13

    Hoh Valley Hike – 6/11/13

    I had an interview to do last week over on the Olympic Peninsula for an article I’m writing.  I also had childcare arranged for a few days, so I took the time to camp overnight at the National Park Service campground near the Hoh Visitor Center.  It was a long drive for a quick trip, […]

  • Wildflowers at Wild Horse – Trip Report, 5/10 – 5/11, 2013

    Wildflowers at Wild Horse – Trip Report, 5/10 – 5/11, 2013

    We wanted to attend the Wildflower Weekend at the Wild Horse Renewable Energy Center last Saturday.  Since it’s such a long drive and the weather was nice, we decided to break up the drive by finding a place to camp along the way.  Unfortunately, the Forest Service campgrounds up in that area are all closed […]

  • Columbia Gorge Adventure Report – April 25-27, 2013

    Columbia Gorge Adventure Report – April 25-27, 2013

    “Perhaps the metaphor of time famine is not quite accurate.  We are perhaps crammed with time, but with the wrong kind.  Like people who eat too much junk food, we have filled our lives with the wrong kind of time, and rarely if ever do we avail ourselves of the kind of time that will […]

  • Camping Weekend at Twin Harbors State Park

    Camping Weekend at Twin Harbors State Park

    My husband had his 25th class reunion last weekend.  Apparently no one wanted to meet in the charming town of Winlock (former egg capital of the world, and home to a giant egg statue).  The planners of the reunion decided to meet in Westport on the beach.  We thought it would be nice to stay […]