Friday, October 06, 2006

Leavenworth

A few weekends ago I went out to Leavenworth for the Pathology departmental retreat. The department always puts us up in the Sleeping Lady, which I really like. We listen to science talks and then have a nice dinner (cafeteria style, but with really good food), followed by a scientific poster session and wine and cheese. This year I ended up eating dinner with an old labmate, and it was really great to catch up and reminisce about old times. The poster session was good - I got a fair amount of traffic - but I didn't get a chance to read anyone else's posters. The evening ended, as it usually does, with everyone hanging out at the "Grotto" - the on-site bar.

The next day we had more talks and then were given lunch and let loose. I had been planning to stay out there and camp that night, but it was pretty cold and no one was available to stay with me, so I decided to just go for a dayhike instead. For that adventure I convinced my two labmates ks and jg to come along. We headed up to Eightmile Lake out along Icicle Creek road. We headed up the trail through the open forest - the area has been hit by forest fires from time to time - and then reached Little Eightmile. It wasn't more than a pond, being the end of summer and all, so we headed up another half mile to reach the main Eightmile Lake. It was bigger than I expected - and had some nice craggy snow-dusted peaks surrounding it.

The air temperature was a bit too chilly for my companions, so we spent only a little time at the lake before heading back down. On the way back to the car it started to rain, and then when the sun came out, we had a rainbow right in front of us. It felt like the rainbow was very close - not sure I've ever seen one like that before. The valley to the south was very pretty as well, having been dusted with snow the night before. Before too long we reached the cars and headed back home. I made the (poor) decision to go down 97 to 90 instead of taking 2, thinking it would be faster, but instead was met with a torrential downpour at Snoqualmie Pass. Doh!

Click here for the rest of my photos from the weekend.

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