Rock Mountain, Mosquito's, and Cashmere

We've had some great camping adventures. This wasn't one of them. The plan was simple enough. Day hike up Rock Mountain off highway 2. Get back to the Truck, head towards Leavenworth, find a campsite. Get dinner in Cashmere, sleep at the campsite, find a bakery in the morning and come back home.






On the plus side, the wild flowers were pretty on Rock Mountain. The scenery wasn’t bad. But the trail was very steep and very exposed to the sun. It was hot. Oppressively hot. Did I mention the trail was steep? The charm of the wild flowers was slowly replaced by the misery of the hike. To make matter worse, the hikers coming down had the same general consensus. More of the same awaited us and no real payoff at the end. So we turned around. We don't do that often.

As we approached the bottom, Rex the rugged trail dog was gassed. He was limping and not having any fun. Neither were we. We hiked about 6 miles in total and we were done.

So we jumped in the car, cranked the AC and went to find a camping spot. We didn't do the research needed to find those quaint out of the way spots. We ended up at the Tumwater camp ground. 81 campsites, only 5 left when we arrived. Tt was full 15 minutes later, but we had our spot. Somewhat private, just us, our tent, 1 lukewarm beer and about 2 million annoying mosquitos. We donned our bug hats and resembled homeless beekeepers.



Jodi had wanted an evening out at a quaint restaurant. She had read about one in Cashmere. Off to Cashmere we went. As we dropped down into the Valley, the temperature rose and by the time we got to Cashmere, it was 97 degrees in the shade. Eating at a restaurant and leaving Rex the rugged trail dog in the car was out of the question. We would have come back to Rex the roasted trail dog. Take out. Yum. Take out in Cashmere on a Saturday night.



My Rueben wasn’t bad, but Jodi’s vegi burger, here in the middle of cattle ranch country, wasn’t so good.



Back to our mosquito plagued campsite, but we did stop off for ice and a 6 pack.



The temperature did cool off enough where sleeping was comfortable. The inflatable mattress in the tent is an absolute luxury.



Morning dawned, tried out our new backpacking filter for coffee (worked great!) and headed for the bakery. The Anjou Bakery in Cashmere is fantastic. Their almond scone, in one bite, made all the misery of the hike and the mosquito’s worth the drive. Over the top fantastic. That, and a cup of coffee made the trip back home pretty good.