And the little guy was even nice enough to pose for a portrait.  

My aunt Phyllis and I hung back while my parents hiked up the snow-covered trail and the rest of our group followed Stu to the top of the waterfall. To our surprise, this creature decided to hang out with us! (See background) 

My step-grandfather Stu refuses to admit his age. You can see him here leading all the "kids" up to the top of this waterfall. 

Anyone kow what kind of berry this is? I took this picture when I took my family hiking near Reflection Lake on Mount Rainier last June. Unfortunately the only reflection we saw was of clouds. (It was so cloudy that we couldn't even tell we were on Mt. Rainier.) 

This is an example of one of the easier stream crossings on this hike. To get a sense of scale, you can see a small glimpse of Luke snapping his own pictures toward the upper left-hand part of this photo. 

If you look closely you can see some guys that were practicing their ice climbing on the glacier below us. The glacier this time around seemed much smoother. (When we did this hike a few years ago the glacier looked like a series of spiked waves, with the tops periodically breaking off.) I'm not sure if that's because we did the hike later in the summer or if the glacier is actually changing. 

The other weekend we took John's friend Luke on our favorite hike, Heliotrope Ridge. Here are John and Luke hamming it up for the camera in the shadow of Mt. Baker (Washington's OTHER active volcano). 

So...What's up?