Just when you're about to slit your wrists ...

... A clear sunny blue-skied day like today comes along and cheers you up.

In order to take advantage, I picked up a book covering 'winter' hikes near Seattle (describing trails that aren't closed for the season or made un-hikable by snow) and drove up with Matt to a place called Blue Mountain.

The book says that it's possible to drive a regular car right up the steep gravel road to the summit, and the Neon was ready to prove that fact except the road got really icy so after a certain point we just stopped moving forward and started sliding backwards. We parked at the edge of where the ice started and a short but slippery walk later we were at the top enjoying clear views in almost every direction. We could even just barely see the tallest of Seattle's buildings 100 kilometers away.

Really the best of this hike was there at the summit only a few minutes walk from the car, but not knowing this, Matt and I blew the next few hours trudging through the snow following a trail walled by trees on both sides that led pretty much nowhere (and then back again).

One funny thing that we noticed is that people out there in backwoods Washington really like to play with their guns. I say this because it didn't seem like there was a lot of hunting going on (our only encounter with wildlife was a hidden drain pipe whose irregular flow sounded like an animal splashing in a stream) but we saw so many groups parked on the side of the road just, like, shooting at stuff. We gawked at them from the car and they gave us back the kind of look that you give to people in Neons with Manitoba plates when you're holding your rifle and leaning up against your truck. On the trail, shotgun shells and beer cans were littered everywhere and there was a constant echo of semi-automatic gunfire from the valley below. The metal gate guarding the fireroad we walked down had a bullet hole through every square inch of it's surface.

We headed home after dark, coasting down the slipery road in neutral, back towards civilization.