Camping - Marten Creek

Got back yesterday morning from a weekend camping trip with some friends.

We camped a little north of Seattle and east of Granite Falls at a favorite spot called Marten Creek Campground, located in the Mt. Baker - Snoqualmie National Forest.

What a wet trip it was! It rained practically the whole time.

I got up there Friday night about 9:00 p.m to join up with the others in our group.

Luckily Sven & Suzanne had rigged-up a tarp that covered the entire picnic table and still had room for six people and their camp chairs to fit under, so we stayed nice and dry.... mostly.

Saturday wasn't so bad. It rained briefly in the morning and then stopped and was overcast all day until dark. Then it started pouring down and didn't stop until after we left the next day.

But we had a lot of fun, ate a lot of food, and generally lazed about camp reciting lines from "Blazing Saddles" and drinking tequila and mojitos.

The youngest member of our group noticed that there were huckleberry bushes growing at our campsite and that they had ripe berries on them. So we picked quite a few, with plans to make some campfire huckleberry pies but I had forgotten to bring my pie-irons.

I brought them home and froze them and then next camp trip we'll make them.

(we picked quite a few of them!)

I made a quick run to the local "last chance to buy supplies" grocery store about 9 miles away, and found a nifty new camping accessory that will join me on future trips.

On Friday night, right before I showed up, but after the rest of our group had gotten to camp, a group of interlopers drove in to our RESERVED campsite and made their camp in the lower section.

This was mostly just an annoyance, really. We didn't have any trouble with them, but since we had paid for the site and they came in and freeloaded, I told the forest station about it, who in turn told the local sheriff. He came by and had a little "chat" with them about how camping in National Forest sites without paying is a theft of services and is punishable (although I don't think they got a ticket for it).

They left soon after, and then I'll be darned if ANOTHER vehicle didn't pull into our campsite while we were eating dinner to do the same thing. This time we told them to find their own site or reserve this one for themselves next time.

Just a word to you freeloaders out there: Camper Ferretnick dislikes people who take advantage of others. Our National Forests are in serious need of support financially and camping without paying, when required, is wrong and ruins it for everone else.

Be a sport and pay your fare share.

Anyway, we had more visitors to our campsite that weren't of the two-legged variety.

We were visited by not only our native species of slug:

The Northwest Banana Slug: known habits include drinking lattes, wearing fleece jackets and socks with their Birkenstocks, listening to "indie" bands, and biking to work.

But also the non-native black slug:

The European Black Slug: known habits include driving erratically in rush-hour traffic, eating pork-rinds, and slamming down energy drinks like there's no tomorrow.

That's all for this past weekend. Another camping trip is coming up in a couple of weeks, so I'll have more woodsy, adventure stories to share and I'll let you know how those huckleberry pies turn out at that time.

Coming up later this week: Jury Duty! (stay tuned....)