A Sprightly Spring

TJ Personal
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With the weather getting warmer and the sun setting later, it’s time again to post about my shenanigans and adventures over the past 3 months. As with the past few springs, I finished off what was left of the ski season, and started clamming and hiking. Here are the photo and video highlights.

Wildflower hike up to Tom McCall Point on the Oregon side of the Columbia River, near the Dalles. Balsamroots in full bloom, with Mount Hood and Mount Adams looming in the distance.
Skiing in the Big Sky Country. It’s a big resort

My longest trip over the last quarter was a ski trip to Big Sky Resort, near Bozeman, Montana. Big Sky is one of the largest ski resorts in the US, and it definitely has some nice terrain and the iconic Lone Mountain and Lone Peak Tram. I went in March and it was definitely spring skiing conditions, with warm temperature and slushy snow at times. Made the most of the trip and still had fun skiing.

Big Sky Lone Mountain

At the top of Lone Mountain. Didn’t bring my skis up, although soon after they opened some of the trails so skiers were rushing up the tram.

The Kircliff observatory at the top of Lone Peak Tram has a fun glass floor for pictures.
Skiing down from the Powder Seeker Lift at Big Sky, from below Lone Mountain

In total, I only skied 10 days in the 25/26 ski season, which down from 15-17 days in the previous 3 season. It was not a good snow season for western US resorts, and also I traveled to China for 2.5 weeks in the middle of winter. Both of those factors limited my ski days. Hopefully we’ll get better snow in 26/27, as I already renewed my season pass.

Doing some moguls at Snoqualmie on the one weekend in spring where we got good snow.
First hike of my Columbia River Gorge trip was to Beacon Rock. Nice views of the river on the way up.

With the snow season ending early, I got back to hiking and shellfish foraging. My only other overnight trip (not including visiting Vancouver) was to the Columbia River Gorge during wildflower season. The balsamroot blooms were fantastic and I hiked a few trails in the area. Thinking I’ll probably go back again next spring. Here’s the rest of the video and photo highlights.

Balsamroots and lupine in full bloom at Columbia Hills State Park
Video of the hike up to McCall Point. Balsamroots everywhere once again.
First PNW hike of the season was to Otter Falls, a very big sliding waterfall.
Instead of going to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival this year. I went further up into Canada to the Harrison Tulip Festival. Smaller fields, but closer to the mountains and very picturesque.
Might as well check out Harrison Lake since I was in Harrison already.
Wild-Horse-Wind-Facility

Visited the Puget Sound Energy’s Wild Horse Wind Facility in Central Washington. I used to be a power systems engineer, so still remember a thing or two about wind turbines. Got a tour and looked inside the base of the wind generator behind me. 

Easy hike in Central Washington after visiting the wind farm
First part of the hike to the Greider Lakes is a flat trail to nice viewpoints of Spada Lake, the water reservoir for Snohomish County
Made it up to Big Greider Lake. Pretty, and similar to other alpine lakes in the Cascades.
The almost annual tradition of shucking some oysters in the Puget Sound. This time at Twanoh State Park
Digging up some butter clams at Ala Spit in Whidbey Island

Overall, the spring of 2026 has been pretty normal for me. Work has been okay, but obviously the tech industry has a lot of layoffs so have to be on my toes. I don’t have any big travel plans for summer, so it’ll probably be more PNW adventures. There are still a few hikes on my list that I want to get to. I do get more vacation days this year, so will be looking at how to spend them. That’s all I got this time. Thanks for reading.

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