HA! This title just made me laugh and I couldn’t help myself. You can see the precursor to this post here…in case you’re curious. 🙂

It’s been a week since our first adventure to Comet Falls. There I was, my booty parked on the couch, expecting to just sit back and relax all day, but then I had this crazy hair to check the weather for the area around Comet Falls. It was cloudy, and about 70 degrees, but the next weeks to come are full of rain and crumby weather. It was the first day of fall so I couldn’t really expect much different than that. Heck, I saw that up in Canada they’re already getting snow in some areas. I knew I had to do it or I would be mad until next spring, so we packed and loaded everything up, and made our way to Comet Falls.

AGAIN.

This time, fortunately, with not only the knowledge of how to get there without my GPS, but also what to expect on the trail, and that once I made it to Bloucher, I just had to go a little bit further to make it to the end.

I was kind of a dreary day. I could tell that it had rained here and there heading up the mountain, and was worried that we would get rained on. Without the proper gear for rain, this was a tad concerning. But somehow we made it up and back without rain.

We showed up to the park, and the ranger station was out of power, so we didn’t have to pay the $25 dollars for a 7 day pass (which my last one had just expired the day before) so that was a good sign for me! We didn’t get a parking spot in the lot by the trail head, but since I had been up there before, I knew that there was a little turnout just big enough across the street that I could park there, and not have to walk ever further up the hill to start the hike. Another plus, if you ask me!

We got there around noon, had a little snack, and started up the trail. I remembered how tough it was not more than just a few steps into the hike, and thought “am I REALLY doing this for the sake of my pride?” And I was, and it was going to happen. I couldn’t NOT do it after the 3 hour drive to get there. We hiked, and hiked, and hiked. We found a group of ladies making the hike up that stopped just about as often as I did. We would leap frog each other at points in the trail, I would pass them, then a little ways up, they would pass me. Finally one of the ladies turned around back to me and said “we have SO much respect for you!” So that pushed me to keep going. The switchbacks full of rock-stairs, and logs, and roots, and rocks made it not so fun, but I managed to make WAY better time than the week before. Maybe because I knew some landmarks, or maybe that I was just THAT determined to get there. We continued to hike. Raylee drove me nuts as she would tuck her legs into her carrier and stand up, making my hike ever harder, and I’d have to pull her feet out and pull her back so she was sitting. I stopped twice to put her back into the shoulder harness, only for her to wiggle her way back out of it. So I gave up. Naturally. No point in fighting a 2 year old.

I did notice a few things on the way up that I missed the first time. More views of things that I missed out on the first time from staring at the ground and willing myself to keep going. At one point in the trail, you literally go up like 2 foot stairs made out of logs, and 2 foot stairs are hard to get up, especially when you have a 35+ lb pack, but I knew at that point that it doesn’t get easier. There’s rock steps after the log steps, and they just manage to keep going, and going and going, but I knew what laid in front of me, and I had to keep up with my new friends.

Finally we made it to Bloucher falls, it was as pretty as I remember it the first time, but I didn’t stay long because I knew where I needed to go. It KILLED me inside because once I passed the little sketchy foot bridge at Bloucher Falls, I realized that if I would have LITERALLY just looked up from that point, I would have seen Comet Falls last time. I would have seen it, and I would have known that I hadn’t seen my final destination.

But here was the sequal. My 2nd round up the mountain to see what I really came to see. Comet Falls is seriously something that stops you in your tracks. A 380 foot drop.

I literally stopped in my tracks… “WOOAH!”

Comet Falls

I remember just staring at it, then I knew that I wouldn’t just be satisfied seeing it from far away, but I had to get up to the falls. THAT was a hike. Even more switchbacks, even more roots, luckily no rocks, but my legs were so tired at that point I tripped over the roots and probably could have died. Ha. Literally. I saw a couple, probably, around my age, and the guy offered to take a photo for me. He shot Canon, but managed to figure out my Nikon pretty quickly. I look nasty, but that’s kind of how I felt so it was fitting. 😛

We made it all the way to the base of the falls. I didn’t go too far into it because the mist was spraying up, and I was freezing because I had wrapped my jacket around Raylee after we had gotten to Bloucher Falls because she kept saying “COLD! COLD!” She was cold, I was cold, and I didn’t want water all up on my lens. But it was amazing. Majestic. Wow. If you have a chance to do it, DO IT. The pictures are awesome, but it’s even cooler in person.

So, we made it. And learned another life lesson-When things are hard and you think you’ve done everything you can do, sometimes all you literally have to do is look up. You might see that there’s even more [better] things ahead.

Oh, and I didn’t get any photos of Mount Rainier this time because it was COVERED in clouds. I’m pretty sure it was snowing. UGHHHHH…..fall. *sad face*

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