One of my best friends from high school now lives in Seattle. She's so busy working towards her nursing degree at SU that she rarely comes home to Colorado to visit. It has been a few months since I've seen her and I've been threatening to go up to Seattle for a few days to hang out. A couple weeks ago, my dad finally convinced me to spend a couple hundred bucks on airfare and go stay with her for a few days.
She's not the biggest hiker ever, but we had such a great time in Rocky Mountain National Park in the spring, that she wanted to take advantage of my presence for our long weekend, and have me pick out a day-hike for us.
So I found what was most likely the most popular hike in the area on The Outbound, called Rattlesnake Ledge, about 45 minutes outside of Seattle in North Bend. We woke up (relatively) early and stopped at Snoqualmie Falls, then continued on to the trailhead in North Bend.
Our hike was awesome, I was so impressed by the lushness of the forest and the vastness of the Cascades. Once we reached the top of the ledge, the view opened up, proving the infinity of the Pacific Northwest views that I've heard about, while giving us a great viewpoint of the turquoise Rattlesnake Ledge. We hammocked in the forest for a while, soaking in the vibes and then made our way back to Seattle.
A Seattle skyline photo has been on my bucket list for a long time. We chilled out in her home for few hours, and then made our way to Kerry Park for sunset. The park was the exact view for the photo I had planned in my head, with the Space Needle in the foreground, and Mt. Rainier showing off in the distance.
We waited with a crowd of people for the city lights to come on in the blue hour, and then I went crazy with photos, and eventually thought to do a panoramic shot. The image above is what I ended up with, it is a composite of four separate images blended together in photoshop. Mt. Rainer isn't super distinctive, but I'm happy with its faintness in the background.
Overall, I'm so happy I finally splurged on a short trip to Seattle. Special thanks to Lian Rivers for showing me around, (and housing/feeding me) ;).