Avalanche Awareness for Beginners

Learn about avalanche awareness in Washington

Building an adventurous life informed by curiosity, courage and environmental stewardship:
one hike at a time.

I started Every Two Pines to log my outdoor adventures, triumphs, and failures. Hailing from Seattle, I am love spending time on the trails when I am not working as a marine biologist. I am passionate about backpacking, climbing, snowshoeing and hiking from the tidelands to the high alpine in Washington state.

Sharing this journey is important to me. I followed other adventurer’s pursuits before I gathered the courage to go on my own and try to pay it forward. Whether you are brand new to hiking or a seasoned adventurer, I hope this site serves as support and motivation. I love sharing the areas I care about in Washington and hope it sparks you to treasure the areas you care about as well.

All
Backpacking
How-to
Snowshoe
Trip Reports

Second Beach

Artist Point Snow Camp

Woman at waterfall near Source Lake Snowshoe in the snow

Snowshoeing Washington: 10 Steps To Find the Perfect Route

Woman snowshoeing at skyline lake

Skyline Lake

Source Lake on Snoqualmie Pass

Source Lake Snowshoe

Wenatchee Crest Snowshoe

Second Beach

Artist Point Snow Camp

Woman at waterfall near Source Lake Snowshoe in the snow

Snowshoeing Washington: 10 Steps To Find the Perfect Route

Woman snowshoeing at skyline lake

Skyline Lake

Source Lake on Snoqualmie Pass

Source Lake Snowshoe

Wenatchee Crest Snowshoe

Follow Every Two Pines on social media or sign up for my newsletter and blog updates through e-mail.

Second Beach

Artist Point Snow Camp

Woman at waterfall near Source Lake Snowshoe in the snow

Snowshoeing Washington: 10 Steps To Find the Perfect Route

Woman at waterfall near Source Lake Snowshoe in the snow

Snowshoeing Washington: 10 Steps To Find the Perfect Route

How To Find Outdoor Gear on a Budget

5 favorite spring backpacking trips for beginners

every2pines

Today I say goodbye to sweet pup that I have been

Today I say goodbye to sweet pup that I have been lucky enough to have as a roommate for the past year.⁠⠀
.⁠⠀
When I first arrived at this house I had just ended a five-year relationship and my world was upside down. The mornings were particularly rough but became easier when I heard his little huffs at the doorway, letting me know he was ready for morning snuggles. I struggled with opening up to people, wanting to immediately be fine, and this pup gave me the space to mourn with his heavy head on my shoulder. ⁠⠀
. ⁠⠀
He made my house a home, he was a landing space for the overflowing love I had without a place to set it. I will miss mornings where he sat at the end of my bed and sang the song of his people to the dogs next door. Coming home after work and seeing him run to the toybox to show me his latest toy. Finding him asleep in the middle of my bed when I get home at midnight, too tired to lift his head and acknowledge my arrival but enthusiastically wagging his tail. He was always in the middle of the bed and I never had the heart to scoot him over, instead, I contorted my body to fit around his sprawled limbs. ⁠⠀
.⁠⠀
Loving dogs is signing up for heartbreak. In the best of cases, you get a bit more than a decade. The dog I loved the most I only got three weeks. I moved in determined to not bond too strongly, knowing that he wasn't my dog, this living situation could only be temporary, but half-loving Gus wasn't an option. It is a whole kind of love I will never regret. Gonna miss ya, buddy. ⁠⠀
.⁠⠀
.⁠⠀
.⁠⠀
.⁠⠀
.⁠⠀
.⁠⠀
.⁠⠀
.⁠⠀
.⁠⠀
.⁠⠀
.⁠⠀
.⁠⠀
.⁠⠀
.⁠⠀
⁠⠀
#pnwpeakbaggers #pnw #optoutside #pnwdiscovered #themountainsarecalling #mountains #peakbagging #pnwisbest #upperleftusa #pnwonderland #mountaineering #pnwadventures #pacificnorthwest #pnwlove #explorepnw #ourpnw #cascadiaexplored #pnwisbeautiful #mountainlife #mountainpeople #alpinisim #pnwhikes #mountainshotz #pnwhikers #pnwclimbers #pnwonderland #thatpnwlife #peakbaggers #mountainpeopleunite

I read the guidebook so many times I nearly memori

I read the guidebook so many times I nearly memorized each word. Dangerous conditions, ice axe recommended, fall could be fatal, glacier travel likely. I waffled back and forth the week leading up to this trip about bringing the axe, it was heavy, but I wanted to do everything possible to increase the chance we would complete the loop I had been planning for 6 years. A fall risked sliding into crevasses, into the lake filled with frigid water, the calving region of an active glacier. ⁠⠀
.⁠⠀
We brought the axe, only, the guidebook was over a decade old. This glacier is retreating 36 feet a year. There was no glacier to fall on, the ice reached far to the side and above us. Instead, we maneuvered a rocky moraine with patches of snow, where a fall would result in a dramatic butt-sit, but not much more. ⁠⠀
. ⁠⠀
As I sit at home, contemplating how to fill the hours that are now filled with smoke, headaches, and dread, I can't stop scrolling through this summer's pictures. The water was the perfect opaque blue, the rocks coppery red.⁠⠀
It was beautiful and heartbreaking in a way that seems to be so common now. I miss it already. I can't help worrying it was already gone. ⁠⠀
.⁠⠀
.⁠⠀
.⁠⠀
.⁠⠀
.⁠⠀
.⁠⠀
.⁠⠀
.⁠⠀
.⁠⠀
#pnwlife #pnwonderland #pnwcollective #rei1440project #exploremore #wildernessculture #goatworthy #wanderwashington #cascadiaexplored #throughthepines #thenwadventure #alphacollective #ourpnw #werehikers #hikehappy #hikingaddict #hikewashington #sweatyhappydirty #amongthewild #nrthwst #themountainsarecalling #exploremore #ourcamplife #optoutside #bestofthenorthwest #every2pines #climatechange

A few moments after this picture, Andrea and I cra

A few moments after this picture, Andrea and I crawled into that tent only to have the wind knock the walls into our faces. After re-staking, filling the tent with rocks and angling it away from the wind, we knew retreat was the only option. We packed up our gear and tried to find somewhere out of the wind.
.
As I read account after account of people fleeing wildfires, carrying what they can on their back, I can’t stop thinking of this moment. The slight sense of fear about what happens if we can’t find a place to stake the tent, whether we could safely navigate the trail in the dark, if we would be able to get warm after frosty gusts. If there was an end.
.
I think we put ourselves in these situations to practice. This route is easily dayhikeable, I could have slept in my warm bed where wind doesn’t touch my face. But there is something about navigating a basin, during a windstorm, to find shelter that serves as a small drill for resilience.
.
My heart breaks for those who had to flee in front of fire, intense winds that toppled trees, or woke up to red skies. I wish it were practice. You are all so resilient, so beautiful. I hope you are taking the time to mourn in a world that feels like we can’t find our footing before the next bit starts again. And please, vote.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
#pnwpeakbaggers #pnw #optoutside #pnwdiscovered #themountainsarecalling #mountains #peakbagging #pnwisbest #upperleftusa #pnwonderland #mountaineering #pnwadventures #pacificnorthwest #pnwlove #explorepnw #ourpnw #cascadiaexplored #pnwisbeautiful #mountainlife #mountainpeople #alpinisim #pnwhikes #mountainshotz #pnwhikers #pnwclimbers #pnwonderland #thatpnwlife #peakbaggers #mountainpeopleunite #mountaineering

This is the story I tell myself now, a story of be

This is the story I tell myself now, a story of being still.

It is not the story of seeking sloth, a skill you mastered early. Nor a story of standing on a summit as dawn melts away, where you feel like yourself. It is a moment of peace in the midst of unprecedented heaviness. .
.

Distraction was your mode of existence for the past two years. Instagram and YouTube videos after waking. Evenings were television, phone in hand to ensure any break in focus on one device has a second device to catch you. You stopped doing yoga when the four minute savasana resulted in far-too-loud-for-a-yoga-class crying three times in a row. Four minutes was too long to be still
. .
You fell in love in October. It felt like deliverance. You wanted to soak every minute in, fully present, distraction a new enemy. When it abruptly ended in February, the physical pain in your chest was a constant reminder that the relief was temporary. Tremendous hope for the future was its own intoxicating distraction and when the hope left, there was nothing under your feet. You begged everyone you knew to let you forget about the sorrow, to emerge when the time was not measured by hours to endure. Then the rest of the world plunged into sorrow beside you. .
.
Now there is this. Three hours last night, laying on your bed, listening as you watched golden hour turn to sunset, turn to night. The heaviness, the loss, the fear that grows when the love promised evaporates, it all lays beside you. You reach down and hold its hand. Stillness.

After my first trip on a deep-sea trawler, fishing

After my first trip on a deep-sea trawler, fishing 100 miles off of the coast, we reached port and I collapsed on the dock. My cheek on pavement that reeked of fish and the detritus of sea, I cried with relief. Six days of unrelenting seasickness, three fishermen for company and no contact with the outside world. After days without food and minimal sleep, I had begun to hallucinate and was convinced our boat would disappear under the waves.
Somehow, I managed to get back on the boat and make the return- journey to Astoria. I finished my 9-month contract, one 6-day trip at a time and it didn’t get better. The isolation was unlike anything I had ever experienced, and I remember it with panic deep in my chest. At sea, I lived hour to hour, too seasick most days to do anything but lay in a bunk and wait for it to be over.
Tonight, as I contemplate the second week of truly sheltering-in-place, memories of those dark nights at sea have been returning. This is a time of counting hours, and willing them to pass. Finding temporary relief in small moments of connection, and moving forward when I realize that the relief was fleeting. Missing the people I have come to accept I likely won’t see before the summer, to mourn the many small losses, to hold the immense privileges that are illuminated in the quiet moments. Wanting something so desperately it is difficult to hold and I continue marching forward without it, hour by hour, because I must. These are things to be endured.

I hold onto the texture of pavement, the scent of days old fish baking in a net, and the immense relief that all things have an end. There is a port somewhere where the waves will no longer threaten to consume my small boat in an immense ocean. I will climb onto that dock, I will lay my cheek on its flawed surface and I will rejoice.

Every time I am in the park I hope to see elk—th

Every time I am in the park I hope to see elk—they are incredible beasts and such a quintessential part of the region, but they have eluded me. Then, a cold winter morning on a rainy river hike, I rounded the corner and there was a herd, calmly standing among the trees. After so many trails, wandering through poo-filled fields or searching in the places the hikers just ahead of us had sworn they had seen them, I stopped remembering to consider it a possibility. It took my breathe away. .

Hopes a funny thing. It’s easy to take for granted when it’s there, easy to forget what it feels like when it’s gone. Sheer want isn’t enough to make something happen or sway someone’s actions, just as it is unlikely to impact the roaming decisions of a herd of elk because I want so badly to see them. What are my human hopes next to animal hunger, need for safety, search for shelter?

The lesson I walked away with was to keep hiking, continue to round corners and put myself in a place to be surprised. Elk were elusive until they weren’t. Wanting was useless until it wasn’t. Hope was never a waste.

⁠Carving a bit of time these past few weekends t

⁠Carving a bit of time these past few weekends to be outside, including the first snow backpacking trip of the season. Love feeling small next to these peaks.
.⁠
.⁠
.⁠
.⁠
.⁠
.⁠
.⁠
.⁠
.⁠
.⁠
#pnwlife #pnwonderland #pnwcollective #rei1440project #exploremore #wildernessculture #goatworthy #wanderwashington #cascadiaexplored #throughthepines #thenwadventure #alphacollective #ourpnw #werehikers #hikehappy #hikingaddict #hikewashington #sweatyhappydirty #amongthewild #blackpineadventure #nrthwst #themountainsarecalling #exploremore #ourcamplife #optoutside #bestofthenorthwest

We've both heard it all before Ooh but I feel some

We've both heard it all before
Ooh but I feel something happening again
Hey coach, I'm ready, put me in
-Shakey Graves
.
Finally got out for a fall hike this weekend and felt really good to be back in the mountains. Three lakes, larches, snow. Doesn't get better.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.#outdoorwomen #adventureanywhere #getoutside #greettheoutdoors #optoutside #wildernesspeople #foryourmountaine #pnwlife #pnwonderland #pnwcollective #wanderwashington #ourpnw #werehikers #hikewashington #sweatyhappydirty #outdoorblogger #pnwwilderness #cascadiaexplored #folkscenery #werehikers #throughthepines #pnw_compass #findmeoutdoors #pnwroamers #wildernessculture #thehikemovement

Load More... Follow on Instagram