Summer Adventures 2024 – Jennifer and Zach's Adventures

You may have noticed that there haven’t been many posts here lately… Jennifer had some health issues that affected her ability to go on the type of adventures we like to do between 2022 until this spring (see our previous post about a road/hiking trip to the southwest). But things are looking better now, so we had some summer adventures.

In June, we went to the Hawaiian island of Kauai for about two weeks. We were joined there by Jennifer’s friend Melissa for part of the time, and Zach’s cousin Donna for part of the time. Highlights included some great snorkeling and hiking, a boat trip along the Na Pali coast, and a helicopter ride. We camped for most of the nights at a campground run by a non-profit organization in the northeast corner of the island (Kumu Camp), and stayed two nights in the Koke’e cabins in Waimea Canyon. Here are some photos.

Na Pali Coast, Kauai, Hawaii — Zach on the Na Pali Coast boat trip

I had my waterproof camera with me, which was fun for snorkeling. This sea turtle had some hitchhikers!

We saw a rare monk seal on a small beach on a hike on the south coast

hibiscus flower — We all four visited the Limahuli Botanical Gardens on the north coast together, which had a lot of native plants

All four of us went together on an open-door helicopter ride over the island, which was beautiful and thrilling

In August, we went on a 3-day backpacking trip in the Kettle range, a few hours northwest of us (here’s the trip report I posted on the WTA web site). It was a beautiful place, filled with wildlife (mule deer, a large rabbit/hare, lots of birds), wildflowers, and a few alpine huckleberries. We only saw one other hiker while we were there; the main drawback was that it is open rangeland rather than pristine wilderness, and we did encounter some cows. Also, the second afternoon of the trip, we had a thunderstorm with rain and hail — luckily our tent was already up, and the weather cleared up enough for us to cook and eat dinner without getting very wet, so that wasn’t much of a problem.

A grouse (I think a female spruce grouse) that calmly let us watch it for a while instead of startling and flying away

Kettle Crest Trail — Jennifer backpacking on the Kettle Crest trail

Other summer highlights:

We had some of the windows and doors on our house that were letting in outside air replaced in June.
Zach went on a couple of backpacking trail work trips with the Washington Trails Association (and numerous day work parties).
Jennifer went over to western Washington to visit friends for a few days in late June.
Jennifer went to her 40th high school reunion in Pullman in July.

Stay tuned… we’re about to head up to Alaska with Zach’s mom, and I’m sure we’ll make a blog post. Eventually!