Since it’s summer, I thought I’d lighten things up a little bit and share a personal experience I had with two of my sons over the weekend.   

One of the advantages of living in the Seattle area is our close proximity to the Cascade Mountain Range.  As you may know, we get near constant rain (and snow in the mountains) for most of the year.  But when the rain does stop in July and August, we’re left with a lush landscape in the nearby mountains.

This year, there was a particularly large snowpack, so the mountain streams and rivers are flowing strong, and most of the alpine lakes are up to their brims with cold, clear water.  Perfect for trout fishing.

Every summer, I try to take each of my kids on a backpacking trip near one of these pristine alpine lakes.  Last weekend, we decided to hike around Lake Snoqualmie.  You can view our route by checking out this posting on Trimble Outdoors.  You can also take a look at a satellite view on Google.

Our original plan was to stop at Dear Lake (the third of the four alpine lakes along this trail), but we couldn’t find a campsite we liked.  So, we hiked an additional mile to get to the northern most tip of Snoqualmie Lake.  The total distance to our campsite from the trailhead was just over six miles.  The hike took about four hours and we logged about 2,000 feet of elevation change along the trail.

When we finally arrived at the lake, we were rewarded with perfect weather, clean, crisp air, breathtaking scenery, and amazing peace and quiet.  Since there were a few other people camping around the lake, we used our small inflatable “trail rafts” that allow us to fish away from the shores.  With no one else on the water, it makes you feel like you have the lake to yourself.  As the sun was setting, we cooked up some of the trout we caught, and then enjoyed a warm campfire for as long as we could keep our eyes open.  

The next morning, my boys jumped back in rafts and headed back out onto the lake to do more fishing, while I stayed back and read.  During this morning session, my son Clark hooked into the largest fish of the trip—a fat 16-inch cutthroat trout.  Before leaving, we hiked down the outlet stream that empties what the snowmelt inlets continually feed the lake.  After lunch, we packed up camp and made it back to the trailhead just after 5pm, and we were home before dark.

What a great privilege to be able to enjoy this type of natural beauty…and to experience it with my teenage boys.  These are great memories.  But, is there a recruiting lesson in all this?  Believe it or not—there is!  And, it originates from a comment my younger son made as we were hiking out from the lake on Sunday afternoon. 

I’ll share more about this in my next WorkPuzzle entry… 

Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.