Heitman Lake

Realizing we were stuck in a bit of a hiking rut, we decided to head somewhere new--Heitman Lake. The trail is a 10 or 15 minute drive out of town and heads partway up Heitman Mountain to Heitman Lake. (You can hike all the way to the top of the mountain if you don't need to get back home for your toddler's nap time.) 

The trail felt pretty steep to our out-of-shape bodies (and especially to T, who was carrying Rainbow in a backpack carrier), and our feet were soon covered in mud. It was also rather overgrown with various plants including salmonberry bushes and cow parsnip, a.k.a. pushki. I live in deathly fear of one of us touching pushki, as it contains chemicals which interact with sunlight to cause itchy, painful burns and blisters on the skin. I walked ahead of T shouting "pushki!" ever time I saw one of these plants, which are often big enough that they tower over my head, along the trail.

Luckily, we avoided the pushki and enjoyed the salmonberries. The weather was warm enough that Rainbow got to spend some time splashing around naked in the lake, and we had a picnic at the top of a ridge from which we had a lovely view of the lake on one side and the ocean on the other. 

Rainbow didn't eat much lunch but chowed down on unripe crowberries (a.k.a. mossberries). Not particularly tasty when ripe, they are pretty terrible unripe, in my opinion, but she insisted that she liked them.

 Now that we have flipped the page on the calendar to August, we are keenly aware of the approach of fall, and it was nice to have what felt like a real summer day.