Oyster Dome

First hike of the year! A beautiful day for February. Sunny, fairly cold but the best part is SUN! That means no rain,YES! The hike started off a trail head located off of Chuckanut drive. Switchbacks in a thick wooded area. As we head up the trail we come to some breaks in the trees where we get a lovely view of puget sound and the San Juan islands. Gorgeous! According to the reports I read we should be coming to a fork in the trail that will take us to the dome, bat caves or the other direction would go to the parking lot where you can see lots of people hang gliding. We ended up taking the wrong trail to the parking lot. Oh well there were great bathrooms there so we got to enjoy a small break and add an extra mile to our jaunt. We head back up the trail and realize its getting colder and fairly icy on the trail. We decide not to break off the trail to the bat caves ( I will save that for the next trip there ). The trail gets steeper and steeper with more and more people passing us. Maybe because it was my first hike since October but this trail seemed much steeper than I had anticipated. I am definately not cold anymore. We continue on as the ground starts to have a light dusting of snow with more ice. All the hikers heading down tell us how the view is going to be so worth the hike. Finally after 2 hours of hiking we make it up to our destination. A huge granite slab overlooking Puget Sound in all its splendor. We couldn't have asked for a better day to be at the top of the Oyster Dome. Lunch at the top couldn't have tasted any better than it did that day. After a few pictures and a tasty lunch we head back down the trail. Once at the bottom I had decided this hike was a bit harder than I had thought it would be ( I was glad of that). It was going to be added to one of my favorites. What a great way to start off my hiking season!