This morning, I left home at 8:55, walked to 5th & Union to catch the Sound Transit 550 bus at 9:23, and we at the Bellevue Transit Center by 9:55. Valerie texted me shortly before my bus arrived, I'm illegally parked on 108th. It was about a half-hour drive to the Poo Poo Point trailhead—or, specifically, the longer-yet-more-moderate of the two access trails. There's a steeper, 3.6-mile trail with lots of apparently steep switchbacks. But, we elected to take the 6.4-mile trail that is not as difficult a climb.

Those distances are round trip. So, Valerie and I hiked 3.2 miles up to Poo Poo Point, from the trailhead by Issaquah High School. We found a small parking lot and snatched the last available spot. It was about 10:35 when we started walking; it was 12:30 when we reached Poo Poo Point. So, the roughly three miles took us about two hours. This involved a roughly 1,200-ft gain in elevation.

I should note now that the entire impetus for this hike as an idea for my Birth Week was that view from Poo Poo Point—on a clear day. When I was looking up best views of Seattle, I came across Tiger Mountain, from which you can find some spectacular cityscapes—of both Bellevue and Seattle. Now, seeing those photos, I am not absolutely certain these were the views specifically from Poo Poo Point, as other photos I have found specifically from there appear to only have a view of Bellevue—again, on a clear day. You could hardly tell today, because it was cloudy nearly the entire day, and most of the brief time we spent at Poo Poo Point, the panoramic view was totally obscured by clouds.

I had hoped I might at least have a view of the area under cloud cover. But, nope: we were largely right up in the clouds. Plus, even though the forecast had shown clouds but not rain this morning, it literally rained the entire time Valerie and I walked up to Poo Poo Point. Maybe I jinxed it: it wasn't raining until we got there, and as we got close I said, "I'm so glad it's dry." Oops!

We both carried backpacks, but Valerie was much more prepared in a hiking sense. She had a backpack designed for this, and told me she had "the ten essentials" with her. We discussed this on the hike back down, actually. When I asked her what all the ten essentials were, she could only remember most of them, off the top of her head. But it did include things like a knife, an emergency blanket, a fire starter, and of course food and water. Hmm. Well, I had food and juice!

I had packed more food than I needed, really: a panini sandwich; a half pint of smoked mozzarella pasta; and a 12oz bottle of Private Label cucumber juice that was actually kind of gross. All of that was purchased at PCC yesterday—the juice was actually free, as part of a Member Only Offer. The only other flavor available was Orange Cayenne, and I sure as shit wasn't going to drink that. Anyway, I also packed a container of fresh pineapple, which I never ate any of until after I got home. I had thought I would share it with Valerie, but she was starting her prep for a colonoscopy on Friday and already cannot have nuts or fresh fruit. Well, crap.

I know it would have been prudent to take water. Valerie had a bottle of water and a tube wrapped around from another container in her backpack, so she could just suck on it. She had forgotten that she washed it out with bleach the last time she used it, though, and had to spit out a few mouthfuls of water as a result. Anyway, I simply waited to drink my juice until we reached the top, because I did not want to wind up having to pee really badly in the middle of the hike up there.

Anyway. Once we reached Poo Poo Point, we were pretty amused—there was truly no view to speak of. We commented on the brightness of the clouds, and hoped they might magically clear up while we were up there. No such luck, except that after we ate our lunches, we did see a few brief breaks in the clouds, which at the very least offered us glimpses of Issaquah down at the base of the mountain, and a portion of the south end of Lake Sammamish beyond.

As for the rain, it actually stopped falling right as we arrived at Poo Poo Point. This made the time we spent on that vista much more pleasant than it might have been otherwise.

I should clarify, the rain was never exactly a torrential downpour. But, it was moderate enough to get us pretty wet, hence the state of my hair in the photo at the top of this post—my rain jacket was wet all over, only barely keeping the water from finally seeping through. My one pair of lace-up shoes is rather porous, and they got quite wet on the way up; had the rain stayed as consistent on the way back down, it might very well have soaked through to my feet. Thankfully that never quite happened. My jeans got pretty wet on the way up (Valerie even said she was surprised I wore jeans, but the only other option in my wardrobe would be shorts, and it wasn't warm enough for that today), but again, they were dried up again pretty well by the time we made our way back down.

I had kind of hoped there might be a shelter of some kind up there. We did see a couple of benches, and even a couple of picnic tables—all exposed to the rain and soaking wet. The open ground of Poo Poo Point is a popular launching spot for hang gliders, though of course there were none up there today. We only sporadically passed couples or small groups of people on the way up there for the most part—we did pass one large class of kids clearly from nearby Issaquah High School both on the way up and on the way back down, different groups each time—and when we reached Poo Poo Point, we saw just one other couple there, who left shortly after we arrived. They were two young women, totally covered in brightly colored tarps and carrying cameras.

Valerie took my suggestion that we eat our lunches standing under the eaves of the bathroom structure which, thankfully, was up there—I didn't have to piss in the woods! We stood right outside the two bathroom doors, me often leaning against the wall to get some half-rest, as I ate my panini and Valerie had what appeared to be a turkey sandwich. It was made with sourdough bread she said she made herself.

I could have been satisfied with my pesto panini sandwich, which was delicious. But, I also had the smoked mozzarella pasta with me, and I just had to eat that too. I took that out to eat it after we walked over to the flattened area again where people launch on their hang gliders. It was then that the brief breaks in the clouds happened, and we had to re-take our selfie. The best view I got of the landscape at the base of the mountain and beyond happened to occur when I took that selfie, better than any of the other shots I tried to get of the view between the clouds.

It must have been around 1:00 when we headed back down—we were not up there for long. The hike back down, of course, was a lot faster, and we got back to the car at about 2:15. There was an odd effect of the hike back down, which was definitely easier and faster, but it also seemed to be harder on my legs. My thighs were killing me by the time we got back to the car. On the upside, it really didn't rain on the hike back down, and we actually got a few genuine sun breaks. I almost thought maybe it would have been better to hike later in the day, except that by the time I was later waiting at Bellevue Transit Center again, it was fully overcast and quite chilly, So: never mind!

Valerie suggested we find a coffee shop to get a hot beverage, but when we found one nearby and it turned out to be just a drive-through, she said she realized she had to prep for her photography class, and decided we'd just order from the car. She bought herself a latte and bought me a hot chocolate, which was actually quite good. She drove me back to the Bellevue Transit Center, and I was back on the westbound 550 at about 2:50.

That bus from downtown Bellevue to downtown Seattle takes barely more than half an hour. My posts to socials for all these Birth Week outings tend to be much longer than the single-post character limit for at least two of the four socials I post to, which means I cannot just click a button to cross-post from Facebook to both Instagram and Threads like I do for more regular, shorter posts. Instead, I have to post to all four of them individually: first to Facebook, which involves checking in at the location plus tagging the people I was with; then to Instagram, which also involves checking in at the location; then Threads, which I have to break up into separate posts in a thread due to character limits; and then to Bluesky, which I have to break up into a few more separate posts in a thread than I even do with Threads, both because Bluesky has a lower character limit and because Bluesky allows only four photos per post and will not allow you to combine still photos and video clips into one post. All this is to say, by the time I was done posting to all my socials about my outing with Valerie today, my bus was arriving in downtown Seattle.

I transferred to the RapidRide G bus up Madison to get back home, processed my photos, uploaded them, and now I've written my blog post about the day.

Valerie has now participated in my Birth Week six times—the last five in as many years in a row, 2021-2025, all in the wake of Auntie Rose (Valerie's mom) passing away in 2020. There was no in-person Birth Week in 2020, but Valerie did join Auntie Rose and me for the Bellevue Botanical Garden, my first Birth Week with a theme, in 2018. Since 2021, though, I love that Valerie now fills the Birth Week void since Auntie Rose's passing, as a way of honoring her. In certain ways, Auntie Rose lives through her—though I noted today that she is clearly a very different person from her mother. Valerie was just swearing up and down and left and right today, which cracked me up.

Now I just have to think about what I'll do with her for my Birth Week next year!

[posted 6:00pm]