2025.3.30. UW Cherry Quad + Issaquah History + Tiger Mt.

3/30, Sunday. Supposed to be sunny, but it wasn't. Grey sky. I reached The Quad at ~9:50am, already full of people. Cherry blossoms were peaking. I was here last Tuesday afternoon, when it was sunny and blue sky. Here's a comparison. Note the color of the right photo on Sunday has been doctored by Google's AI.

I had a guide book with me, so found a place to sit and read. Then I heard a familiar voice. It turns out it is my roommate at UW. She was out strolling with her husband and grandson. She moved back to Seattle at the beginning of the COVID work-from-home craze. We've only met once since she was back. What a pleasant surprise.

Back home, quickly chowed down some food. Repacked, and transferred to bus 554 to Issaquah. First, walked to the library to use the toilet and to fill my water bottle. It so happened that Issaquah History Museum was starting the first talk in a series called "Let's Talk Local History". So I sat down and listened. A few interesting tidbits:

• Issaquah is named after the Squak Valley - this area of flat fertile land south of Lake Sammamish.
• Issaquah's very first commercial product is coal (in Squak Mountain). 2nd is hop.
• Before the railroad put in by Gilman et al. (1888 Lake Shore and Eastern Railway), transporting products to the market took 20 days via this circuitous waterway.

When it finished, it was already past 3:30pm.

Walking to Tiger. Too many people in front of Jakob, that I didn't stop to take a photo. But it's always good to see his giant smily face.
At the lower elevation of the Section Line (above the powerline field), saw these flowers. This may be White Butterbur. Quite some moths on them. Saw 3 trilliums, first this year. Saw maybe a couple of yellow violets and stinking robert.

By the time I reached Tiger 3 summit, it was already 5:15pm, but the sun was still too high to wait for sunset. Dark clouds looming to the south. It's supposed to rain this evening. Continued on to Tiger 2. Somewhat windy. Better view. On my way out, it was dusk, many robins on the trail at the lowest elevation.

Waited for the bus for an hour! The bus I was waiting for either never came or left early for more than 5 minutes. That ruined my otherwise perfect day. Filed a complain to Sound Transit. Didn't get home until past 9pm. Rain had started.

2025.3.29. Lake Aerene

2025/3/29, Saturday. Rain in the forecast. Attended a flower talk by WA Native Plant Society at Brier Library, we headed to Lake Serene in the afternoon.

Parked at the lower lot, ate lunch before the hike. First, as always, took the spur trail to Bridal Veil Falls. After a few days of rain, the waterfall is full of force. A true delight. Need rain jacket here.

Back to the main trail, continued towards the lake. The high water (multiple creek crossings) and this fallen tree made the otherwise easy trail more interesting. Only 8 miles, 2000'. Many wooden stairs to ease the ups and downs. No snow all the way until almost reaching the lake basin. Saw a short rainbow across the Hwy-2.

Lake Serene is now thawed on the edges: the prettiest time IMHO. All around is still snow covered. Mist shrouded Mt. Index, making the peaks more menacing. A short trail over a bridge to a small overlook. Some used microspikes. We brought them, but didn't use. 2 boys camping here.

A light hail started as we turned around. Then, rain. But in 15-20 minutes down the trail, we were out of the rain. Near the bridge crossing the creek, took a short detour via a beaten but unmarked track to the other side of Bridal Veil Falls. The last ~1 mile of the trail is a flat logging road, bordering salmonberry bushes now already in red flowers. Some skunk cabbages in flower, not stinking. Some yellow violets. Near dusk, a lot of birds singing. Robins on trail.

Driving back through Gold Bar ~7:30pm had no traffic! A perfect day.

2025.3.26. Seattle Reads 2025 kickoff

Seattle Reads this year chose a poetry collection: You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World.

Today is the launch party, featuring Laura Da’, Claudia Castro Luna and José Luis “Pepe” Montero. Each shared a poem in this book and talked why they liked it.

We were given a book. Surprised to see snacks.

2025.2.21, 3.10, 17, 24, NEA Big Read "The Cold Millions" by Jess Walter

Folio at Pike Place Market hosted a series talks about this year's NEA's Big Read: The Cold Millions.

2/21, I went to Folio, received a paperback of "The Cold Millions". I didn't know that the author Jess Walter was present. He's one of my favorite local authors. Not too local. He's based in Spokane. I read 4 books of his, but not yet this one. I lined up for him to sign my newly acquired copy. I told him that his books are often too "sad".

3/10, Labor Connections Between Seattle and Spokane in the Early 20th Century" by Dr. Betsy Pingree. She talked about temp labor, the so-called hobo, bum, tramp. Fun to know about songs like Hallelujah, I'm a Bum, and The Big Rock Candy Mountains.

3/17, Radicals in the Community: Wobblies in the Pacific Northwest by Dr. Aaron Goings. He talked about the labor movement in the early days, the IWW, especially in Grays Harbor The helpful and mostly the swindling job agents between the labor and the employers. The lady in the photo is Jannie Sipo, a union organizer.

3/24, Jess Walter talked about this book. He mentioned that a class of the community college near his home decided to use his book as a teaching material. Later the same class would do a mock court trying. I brought my old copy of Beautiful Ruins to have him sign it. He recognized me. Maybe because I complained that his books are too sad!

2025.3.20. Emergence - PNB

3/20, Thursday, 7:30. Went to the ballet.

Dawn Patrol (World Premiere) | Price Suddarth
Afternoon of a Faun          | Jerome Robbins
Mopey                        | Marco Goecke
Emergence                    | Crystal Pite

I actually really like the new work "Dawn Patrol", even though I didn't associate it with fighter pilots before (or even after) reading the program notes. I also really like its music by Alfonso Peduto, fit the dance very well (commissioned for Dawn Patrol).

The middle 2 short works are interesting. Quite different. Especially Mopey, not ballet like, very jerky, but not bad.

Emergence, maybe I had too high expectation. I like the group syncopation. I sat at row H, could hear the dancers counting.

I like today's lighting, even though all too dark, except for "Afternoon of a Faun". I think the guy shouldn't wear white footwear for this piece, which showed the browning/dirt of the floor. Better use skin tone.

Went to the after-show Q&A. Today, we are fortunate to have Lucien Postlewaite who's been dancing with PNB since 2003! Most of his dancing peers now are half of his age. Will see where his long career takes him. Wish him all the best.

2025.3.20. Daffodil Day - 1st Day of Spring

3/20, Thursday. Anyone can pick up 4 stems of daffodils at Pike Place Market today. Despite of the rain, quite a lot of people. The line is long, but moves swiftly. The yellow paired with the purpil tulips I received last weekend makes the perfect Husky color.

The equinox party at Seneca Plaza on the same evening was prosponed to 3/25 due to rain. Art installation, break dance (the performers wore flashing LED masks over their faces, on gloves and shoes), music and snacks. Quite some people, not as many as the crowd in the daffodil line.

2025.3.19. Author talk - The Inner Clock

3/19, Wednesday. 6:30pm. Seattle AWIS hosted a book talk by a local science writer Lynne Peeples on her new book: The Inner Clock - Living in Sync with Our Circadian Rhythms. Some takeaways:

• make day brighter (bluer light), and night darker (redder light)
• eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like a pauper
• make the time of sleep, eat, excerce more regular per day
• restricting food intake to daylight (reduce the time difference between the first and the last meal of the day)
• to reduce jet lag, stimulate with light more towards waking up, rather than closer to going to sleep

Not too many people came. Some were on Zoom. Not all women either. Those who came are very nice. I ended up chatting with an old guy who biked around world ~40 years ago. The president of AWIS, Tracy E. Popowics, gave a short speech. She's not a good speaker. I find the treasurer - Reitha Weeks very nice and she speaks well.

2025.3.16. Snow Geese and Daffodils at Skagit Valley

3/16, not as rainy as Saturday. Woke up late, headed out ~noon.

Washington state is the wintering ground of snow goose (smaller, orange beak, black wing tip) and trumpeter swan (larger with black beak). These are beautiful white birds scattered in Skagit Valley north of Seattle every winter. I think we are already too late now, maybe only this year, it's too warm. Not many birds. Saw a few small clusters ranging from 2 to ~20 in grassy fields close to I-5. Maybe better at the dusk and dawn. About a month ago, saw a trip report of large flocks in the same area. Went to Skagit Wildlife Refuge (state park Discovery Pass required). Saw quite a few herons, a lot of Avocet, Green-winged Teal, American Wigeon, Mallard, 1 bufflehead, no white birds.

Good timing for daffodils. Found 2 large fields in peak bloom. Just lovely.

Drove to Deception Pass. Walked to Goose Rock's summit first. Not a bad view. A little muddy on the trail. Walk under the highway to get to the other side, in order to walk both ways on the bridge. Always great view here. The water is churning. Saw a seal happily float and swim. He has spots on his skin. Saw a large black bird diving into the churn of water. Cormarant? But it has a cream underside.

Only 3 of the 6 rest rooms at the parking lot were open. One is plugged. One has diarreah all over the garbage can - I don't know how it could be done.

Driving back to Seattle. Pouring around Everett. Clear sky in Seattle.

2025.3.15. Rite of Spring with Seattle Symphony

3/15, Saturday, 8pm. Seattle Symphony.

Brian Raphael Nabors ---- Upon Daybreak
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 22
                  Piano:  Jan Lisiecki
Igor Stravinsky --------- The Rite of Spring
              Conductor:  Peter Oundjian

The new work "Upon Daybreak" is large, a lot of sounds. Not bad, but neither memerable. Inspired by Maya Angelou's poem "A Brave and Startling Truth". I didn't like this poem. Doesn't rhyme at all. Nor did I like the title of the poem. I do like the title of this music poem, quite fitting to the work.

Mozart's Piano Concerto 22 has a very melancholy but pretty 2nd movement, a very familier and equally pretty 3rd movement. The pianist today, Lisiecki, is very skillful, and full of dynamics. However, he stares at the audience half of the time, very unnerving. Maybe he just wants to show off that he didn't need to look at his fingers.

I'm getting more and more comfortable each time I hear The Rite of Spring. Started to enjoy it, especially the first half. Today, the preconcert talk by the artistic director at Rainbow City Orchestra, made the work easier to understand. He also made us try to tap on the mark with a string of 3/4/5 beats, to appreciate the difficulty of dancing to this music.

2025.3.14. Guiding Star art installation at Space Needle

3/14, Friday, 7:30-9:30pm. Wa Na Wari commissioned and presented “GuideStar”, an immersive laser light installation by artists Mendi + Keith at Space Needle on March 14. To be honest, I totally missed the point. Saw 5 people dressed in white, walking slowly in the dark around International Fountain, with no particular order nor rythm, looking like floating ghosts. 4-5 people in black carrying video cameras with large microphones. It's simucasted on Youtube. A tented audio-visual station broadcasted music and controlled laser on top of Space Needle. Loudspeakers were placed close by. Advertised 30 lasers were not all visible. I never was able to count more than 10. The light of the laser doesn't draw any patterns, only a line of color shining to the dark clouds. Some pulsating, but no movement.

It's slow, and getting a bit boring pretty soon. There were spectators, not many. Walked around Seattle Center, noticed these colors when the laser shone into tree branches. Maybe diffraction of the water drops on the trees?

Afterwards, a few gathered at Seattle Opera building for a Q&A, and served some drinks and empanadas. Only then, I was told that, these 5 ghosts were singers from out of state, and the songs were carefully chorephraphed. The commission may have cost about $300K. With such a small attendance, not sure if it's money well spent.

2025.3.14. Brady Black - mural artist

3/14, 2nd Friday Belltown Art Walk. I only went to Slip Gallery and Basecamp #1.

Brady Black had his solo show in a larger space at Basecamp #1. He has his studio here. I talked to him before on my occasional visits on 2nd Fridays. I knew about his work because some of them are on Monorail's supporting posts. Today's show is worth noting: these 2 images of Trump are fun. According to him, they were taken down only few minutes after him putting them on.

In the gallery, there are photos of his murals. Some survived for months, some less than an hour. In Austin, Bagdad, Seattle. Interesting to hear about their fate.

2025.3.13-14. Blood Moon Total Eclipse

3/13 Thursday evening, Friday morning. Lunar eclipse. I went to the roof ~10pm to see the eclipse. It just started, but to my eyes, the moon still looked full and bright. The progress is so slow, and I went home.

Around 11:30pm, went up again. This time, a few more people. Almost fully covered by the earth shadow. Took a couple of photos with my phone. The moon was pink. The totalily lasted over an hour. I didn't wait long. Went back to my warm apartment.

An hour later, I went up again. This time, only briefly saw the moon shrouded in clouds. Soon, completely covered by thick clouds.

2025.3.8. Sun Top Lookout + Snoquera Falls

3/8, Saturday. Overcast. I didn't take my bike this time, rode the lightrail, because it was drizzling when I left home, and lightrail was running for a 6am meetup. 6 people showed up. Picked up one more (a Brit who just arrived in Seattle a week ago) in downtown Seattle... if I knew...

Starting from Sun Top snow park off Hwy-410, crossed the yellow gate, walked almost all the way on FS-7315 to the lookout. Only maybe half a mile is on trail, which goes to a different TH. Snow level was at ~3800', and solid from 4000'. We carried snowshoes all the way, never used them. Snow was compact, not sinking much. I'm probably the slowest in the group apart from the new comer, but I cut a couple of zigzags and reached the lookout first.

The lookout is completely bolted shut. I was told that this is one of the only 2 working lookouts in WA. By the time everyone arrived, it was only 10:30am. We hung around waiting for the sun to show up (supposed to be partly sunny in the afternoon). One tested his drone. It's so noisy.

After an hour, we gave up waiting. The Brit didn't bring enough clothes and was getting cold. Back to the parking lot before 1:30pm. Too early to go home, even though we did ~10 miles RT, 3000' gain.

Drove to Camp Sheppard on the other side of Hwy-410, and hiked a loop to see Snoquera Falls. The Brit didn't come along. It's all on trail. Needs a bit of scrambling to get close to the waterfall. It's quite tall, but thin. Still pretty. We relaxed here for ~half an hour. Blue sky as the forecast said. Back to the car. Passing many cabins and structures of the campground. Almost 5 miles here, 900'.

I got dropped off at REI, where the Brit had to return his rental snowshoes. I walked home, still in day light.

2025.3.1. Hidden Lake Lookout

3/1, Saturday, blue sky. 8 of us met at 5am, so early that no bus goes there yet. I rode my bike and downloaded the BikeLink app to store it in a bike locker. I reserved for 15 hours, expect to be back by 8pm.

This year, the snow was so little, we were able to park right at the start of the scramble. (My last 2 trips here, we had to park 1 mile out). The lower section in the woods is quite steep. Once clear of the trees, only one short section is steep. But the snow is in excellent sticky condition, very stable.

I've been to Hidden Lake Peak in winter twice, but this is my first time to the lookout in winter. More or less the same all the way to the saddle, which has an excellent view of the lake and the peaks beyond.

We waited for the 2 skiers to catch up for a long time, and gave up on them. No one expect this little snow. They had only ski boots, which is terrible on the steep forest slope.

Got down from the saddle, traverse a semi steep slope (thanks to the thick snow) to the ridge beyond the cornice, so we could go up. Reached the lookout a little after 12:30pm.

Great view from inside the lookout too. We were surprised to find many provision inside. The door was jammed open by snow. Two in my group loved it so much, that they tried to convince the rest of us to stay the night here. We started cleaning up the snow, so we could close the door. Filled 3 buckets with snow, and set them by the window to melt in the sun. It's above 60°F inside!

There's a big rock next to the lookout, which marks the highest point here. Some of us scrambled up to take photos. Great view looking down all the way to the saddle, where we found 3 more people there. An hour later, 2 showed up. I happened to have met one of them before. They prepared to sleep in the lookout, had all the gear for the night, except for tent. They also informed us that the 2 skiers in my group gave up just above tree line, didn't even make to the saddle. Soon, another person arrived. He brought a tent, so pitched it under the rock. There's cell signal at the saddle and at the lookout. We sent message to the 2 skiers in our group, but didn't hear from them. They were probably already below the treeline, no more signal.

I brought a chair out to sit in the sun. We waited for the sunset. Those who were prepared were melting snow, cooking dinner. We had nothing. Getting hungry. I ate all my food, except for one bar (for tomorrow). Someone found a bag of trail mix and a bag of cashew in the lookout. I ate quite some salty cashew. My legs were cramping up. Need salt and more drink. I put some cash in the envelope in the lookout, read the log book for comments, while away the time. Later 4 young hikers arrived, one on ski. They cowboy-camped to the south of the lookout, only one of them had a bivy. The sunset was somewhat disappointing: thick clouds to the west blocked the setting sun.

In the lookout, the 6 of us arranged to spend the night. 4 on the bed, lying cross sideways. Can probably fit one more. There were 3 quilts, 2 sleeping bags. The mattresses are wet, so we put one quilt above the mattress. 2 share one quilt on the bed. 2 on the floor in sleeping bags. The 2 of the other group had their own sleeping bags and pads. They stayed on the floor. We can probably fit one more on the floor, still leaving a path to walk to the door. By 6pm, it was dark. The 8 of us played a game using the paper from the log book. It was hillarious.

The stars were great. Could see light pollution both to the north and south. No moon. I had trouble sleeping, with all the noise. But I must have slept, because the next morning, I wasn't too sleepy.

3/2 Sunrise was surprisingly pretty. We didn't expect anything, because the forecast called for overcast, if not rain. The clouds shifted in and around, made it quite mystical. 40°F inside the lookout.

I filled my water bottle with the melting snow in the pots, ate my one last bar. We headed down. The snow is firmer. We followed our own steps out, because, at time it was whiteout. One of us stayed behind with the guy in tent, so he could get a ride back. The other 5 of us barely could fit in one car with all the gears. It was straightforward. Took only 2.5 hours to get back to the car. Didn't glissade at all. At the car, there was a note left by our 2 skiers. They waited for us until 7pm.

Our driver was so hungry, that we stopped at 2 restaurants before landing at Moe's in Darrington. They were closed this early on Sunday. Moe's had a very nice backyard, with view of Whitehorse. By then, the clouds were gone, another seemingly nice day ahead.

Back to the P&R. I was more than 16 hours past due for my bike. At least, the lock was still locked. Fetched my bike without any issue (a small penalty to pay).
Total less than 7 miles for 2 days! About 4000' EG.