Breakfast at 5 Spot and Hiking Crystal Peak

5 Spot
1502 Queen Anne Ave N, Seattle

So much has been going on that I’ve only just gotten around to posting about stuff we did a couple of months ago!

Luke and Madeline invited us to hike Crystal Peak. We started the morning off at 5 Spot – a super popular diner in Queen Anne. This was the line 5 minutes before it opened for breakfast:

5 Spot is famous for rotating its decor and menu five times a year based on different US cities. When we visited it was San Francisco:

Since it was our first time James and I just ordered off the regular menu. I think James ordered the Ranch Hand Eggs ($10.50) – flour tortillas, oaxaca and pepper jack cheese served over black beans topped with chile sauce and topped with eggs, salsa and sour cream. Though I’m pretty sure he omitted the cheese and sour cream.

I ordered Hair of the Dog-wich ($10.75) – a fried egg sandwich with bacon and cheddar on panino with fried red potatoes and fruit.

James’ was better than mine. I think my fried egg sandwich suffered because the bacon was quite bland, though the fried potatoes were nice and crispy. The prices were very cheap but I didn’t think either dish was particularly memorable.

I still maintain that Seattle doesn’t do breakfast very well. Breakfast places here that have consistently long lines – Portage Bay, Macrina Bakery and 5 Spot are at best second tier breakfast places in Melbourne. Or maybe I’m looking back with rose-coloured glasses? At any rate I’ve found breakfast/brunch in Seattle ranges from mediocre to good. I think 5 Spot is good but nothing mindblowing – though it’s so cheap I’d definitely go back to try something else.

But anyway, after that carby breakfast we drove to Crystal Peak (near Crystal Mountain where we go snowboarding in winter). The hike began in the forest and was a little steeper than normal. The views weren’t very exciting until we got out of the forest.

The path was narrow like that pretty much the whole way. Unfortunately there weren’t any scrambles to do but it was nice walking with Rainier in the background.

Apparently at some parts of the year there are berries everywhere but we were too late for berry season. We got to see a bunch of wildflowers though which was nice.

I can’t remember how long the hike took – maybe 3 hours in total? We saw a few people along the trail but most people were heading to the lake instead of the peak.

Here we are at the top!

That cloud over Rainier stayed there all afternoon so we never got an unobstructed shot. =(

We stayed at the top for awhile, taking in the views, eating and drinking.

In one direction we could see the lake where the original trail split off to. There’s also some snow towards the right, which I still marvel at. Snow in summer? Madness!

It was a pretty dusty hike: behold my formerly-black Vibrams!

I swapped them out for runners soon after we headed down because the webbing of my toes kept jamming uncomfortably against the ends. James didn’t have that problem with his shoes so maybe mine are slightly too big? At any rate the runners fixed the problem.

I’m used to trotting part of the way back down – because you’re going with gravity it’s almost easier than going down slowly. We didn’t do that this time and even though the hike wasn’t difficult, James and I were both really sore the next day. Coincidence? I think not! Seriously, next time you go downhill try trotting – faster and easier.

This was a creek maybe 5-10 minutes from the end (and the beginning I guess).

Afterwards we headed to Puyallup to visit Mike, had burgers for dinner, then headed home. It was a fun afternoon of hiking but man I was sooo glad to shower afterwards!