august 4, 2012 dinner

after breakfast, we drove up to paradise. the weather was absolutely perfect, not a cloud anywhere. the beginning trudge uphill up to panorama point is a superhighway of a trail, but the further you hike, the more it thins out. a lot of people turn around about halfway. we pushed on, although part of it went through snow on an incline - kinda sketchy without poles!

you could see for miles. that is mt. st. helens peeking over the horizon in the distance.

the wildflowers were everywhere. here are some magenta paintbrush.

marmots were moseying about. this one seemed to relish the contrast of the sun on his back and the snow under his belly.

naturally, godzilla was our amiable hiking companion. although his boastful posing on the way back held up our party a bit.

following a not very picturesque lunch of leftover sausage, eggplant and zucchini, we decided to tackle the silver falls trail, which leaves directly from the campground. this waterfall, on the ohanapecosh, is definitely worth the hike!

the trail winds through some mossy forest, strewn with massive boulders. part of it passed through old growth forest (the trail links to both the grove of the patriarchs trail and the pacific coast trail).

we'd passed some hot springs upstream of here, but didn't linger, as the day was sweltering enough. returning to the campground, we saw that some folks had the right idea!

i dunked myself in the river a couple of times, but it was freezing! we'd hiked about ten miles that day through temperatures in the 80's, so it felt good to get some of the grime off, though. anyways, on to the campfire pig greens. ridiculously easy. cut a cabbage into eighths, wrap each with a piece of thick bacon, dab butter here and there, and salt and pepper the whole thing. wrap in heavy duty aluminum foil (more than one layer strongly recommended) and place in the campfire coals. Turn occasionally - it'll be done in, oh, 45 minutes, or longer if you want to leave it in the fire..

as the piggie greens sizzled away in the campfire, we grilled up some cod for fish tacos, using this amazing recipe.

eaten open-faced on butter lettuce leaves. (we are foolish, and brought living lettuce camping. it sure takes up a lot of cooler space! next time we will wash and prep the leaves at home.)

the spicy citrus sauce and mango avocado salsa on top made for messy but oh-so-delicious eating.
(note: right now, this photo is upside down. i will fix it later. for now, marvel at the amazing gravity-defying fish taco!)