Well, once again the birthday weather curse struck. The weather was crap where I was. It was great everywhere else, but as you’ll see from the pictures, the suckiness followed me to Lake Ann. That means I have an unbroken streak of crappy hiking weather on my birthdays in this century.
We started up at 7 and got to the lake at 9. The trail is beautiful, even in clouds and fog. You start out in trees, but very shortly end up in meadows. The bottom of the valley is laced with little streams. There are lots of blueberries right now. We missed wildflower season, but there were still a few blooms around. We saw pikas and heard some marmots. There were a few grouse or ptarmigan around as well. The vegetation is low alpine vegetation, so you can see forever once you get out of the trees. After you cross the bottom of the valley, you start up to the lake through some scree and talus and boulder fields. The trail though all of that is pretty well maintained, but you still have to watch your ankles.
We reached the lake and it was completely socked in with clouds. I wandered around the edge of the lake and caught a very brief glimpse of the glacier on Mt. Shuksan. I could also see the trail that leads up to the glacier, and I’m thinking that someday I’ll do this hike again as an overnight trip and go up to the glacier. (But not on my birthday.)
The view lasted about 30 seconds before it was hidden again. Just that short glimpse was amazing. You get so close to Mt. Shuksan on this trail, and the glacier is so big you can’t really comprehend the scale of it, and yet it is only a small part of the mountain.
I went back to the lake to let Duncan drink and eat and wade in the lake while I sat on a big rock on the shore to wait for it to clear up. It didn’t clear up. Over the next hour, the lake got smaller and smaller. It was getting eaten by the edge of the world. I’ve seen some Steven King movies in my time, and I know you don’t want to get caught in that mist. So I packed out. We got back to the car at noon where it was all sunshine and rainbows, but you could see the cloud bank parked on Lake Ann. It wasn’t moving.
Duncan is happy anyway.
And that’s how I spent my summer vacation.
Lake Ann, August 22 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Lake Ann, August 21 2009
I’m not fond of doing hikes that make you hike a V to get to your destination. This one does just that. The first thing you do is drop 800 feet in two miles, then you climb 900 feet in the next two miles. I really prefer all uphill on the way in, then all downhill on the way out. Or just totally flat. But hey, this hike is only 500 feet of elevation gain for two miles on each of the uphill bits so I figured I could manage, sore feet and knees or not.
However, when I got up this morning and drove up to the trailhead, it was raining, cold, foggy, and windy, so we aren’t doing the hike regardless of how I feel.
We went into Glacier to find some geocaches. I found one of them, and in the process I discovered where kids go to huff spray paint. I didn’t find the other two because my GPS unit was being a giant butthead and consistently pointed 20-70 feet in the direction I just came from. There’s too much interference from the trees.
However, when I got up this morning and drove up to the trailhead, it was raining, cold, foggy, and windy, so we aren’t doing the hike regardless of how I feel.
We went into Glacier to find some geocaches. I found one of them, and in the process I discovered where kids go to huff spray paint. I didn’t find the other two because my GPS unit was being a giant butthead and consistently pointed 20-70 feet in the direction I just came from. There’s too much interference from the trees.
Sitting around, August 20 2009
Yep, that’s mostly what I’m doing. Sitting around. My knees ached when I got up today, so we’ve been taking it easy. We went to Nooksack Falls to find a geocache, then up 542 a bit for another, then further along to the White Salmon ski area for a third. From there, we headed up to Artist Point and wandered a bit on the trails near the parking lot, plodding along with the other tourists. Then we came back here, got the Growler, and headed to the Beer Shrine. I got the Growler filled with their Hefeweizen and ordered a large White pizza with no mushrooms but with added roasted garlic. And here I am. I finished my book, and the only channel on TV is 101. The pizza box is too big to fit in the fridge. I think that pretty much covers my day.
Beer bottle #30: “I’ve had so much to drink and it hasn’t even afflicted me.” Better have a double.
Hey, why is Marmot Creek Brewing Company NOT named on my beer labels? Dude, you gotta put the brewery name on the bottle labels!
At one of the geocaches I found something I couldn’t identify, so naturally I took it. I think, upon further inspection, that it is an eraser of some sort. I’m going to forget to look this up by the time I get home, so someone tell me what a Staedtler Rasoplast is. I don’t have internet here, remember? I can’t Google or Bing it right now, and by the time I get home my goldfish brain will not remember that I want to know what this is.
Beer bottle #29: “C’mon, let’s go drink ‘til we can’t feel feelings anymore.” I’ll drink to that.
Duncan has repeatedly approached Wiggles. The cat doesn’t react terribly, but she has hissed and swiped at him once or twice. Duncan takes the hint and walks away, so what does the cat do? She follows him so that he goes back to her! Cats are psycho. They remind me of some people I’ve known.
I finished reading “Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal,” by Christopher Moore. Now I’m starting on the short stories of Vladimir Nabakov. Good thing I downloaded it on my laptop while I was supposed to be working one day or I would have had to find a different way to entertain myself for the rest of the night.
Wow, I wish this place had a vacuum cleaner. There’s dog hair everywhere. Glad it isn’t my carpeting. HA!
It is now about 10 pm and I just stepped out to take a pizza box out to the garbage. On a whim, I walked out into the street to look at the stars. It is so dark here, you can see the Milky Way, which makes it a little difficult for me to pick out the few constellations I recognize. While I was looking up to Cassiopeia, I saw a meteorite. Or maybe it was a Quagaar. I hear this is the time of year they visit.
Beer bottle #30: “I’ve had so much to drink and it hasn’t even afflicted me.” Better have a double.
Hey, why is Marmot Creek Brewing Company NOT named on my beer labels? Dude, you gotta put the brewery name on the bottle labels!
At one of the geocaches I found something I couldn’t identify, so naturally I took it. I think, upon further inspection, that it is an eraser of some sort. I’m going to forget to look this up by the time I get home, so someone tell me what a Staedtler Rasoplast is. I don’t have internet here, remember? I can’t Google or Bing it right now, and by the time I get home my goldfish brain will not remember that I want to know what this is.
Beer bottle #29: “C’mon, let’s go drink ‘til we can’t feel feelings anymore.” I’ll drink to that.
Duncan has repeatedly approached Wiggles. The cat doesn’t react terribly, but she has hissed and swiped at him once or twice. Duncan takes the hint and walks away, so what does the cat do? She follows him so that he goes back to her! Cats are psycho. They remind me of some people I’ve known.
I finished reading “Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal,” by Christopher Moore. Now I’m starting on the short stories of Vladimir Nabakov. Good thing I downloaded it on my laptop while I was supposed to be working one day or I would have had to find a different way to entertain myself for the rest of the night.
Wow, I wish this place had a vacuum cleaner. There’s dog hair everywhere. Glad it isn’t my carpeting. HA!
It is now about 10 pm and I just stepped out to take a pizza box out to the garbage. On a whim, I walked out into the street to look at the stars. It is so dark here, you can see the Milky Way, which makes it a little difficult for me to pick out the few constellations I recognize. While I was looking up to Cassiopeia, I saw a meteorite. Or maybe it was a Quagaar. I hear this is the time of year they visit.
Nooksack Cirque, August 19 2009
I wanted an easy hike today to give my knees, my feet, and my Duncan a chance to recover from the harder hikes of the last three days. Poor Duncan was really dragging after yesterday.
It was a little hazy this morning when we got up, so I decided that we could get a late start in hopes that the haze would burn off. (The irony in this statement is not yet evident.) We got to the trailhead at about 9. First obstacle: the Ruth Creek crossing. There are two ways to do this crossing; the easy way, and the hard way. From the trailhead side of the creek, the obvious way to get across the log jam also happens to be the difficult way. Coming back to the car, you can see the easy way. Naturally, we took the hard way one direction and the easy way the other direction. Just to be helpful, I added three small cairns to the logs that are the easiest to follow across in hopes of sparing further idiots the hard route. Duncan made it back and forth repeatedly while I was contemplating exactly how to place my feet. He has awesome ninja skills.
The trail to the river is boring. It is as though someone put a treadmill in my front yard. Miles of nothing but standard Pacific Northwest foliage and ferns. The most interesting things along the way were the tree fungi.
We got to the Nooksack River and were immediately assaulted by bees. They were everywhere. They were landing on me, and for that they were dying hideous deaths by crushing. After about five minutes of no respite from bees landing on me, getting tangled in my hair, and harassing Duncan, we went back into the trees. The bees did not follow. I sat down, drank some water, ate a snack, fed Duncan, and eventually tried the river route again. No luck. More bees. I managed to get three pictures of the river in between hysterical swatting at bees on me, then left.
In other words, we did not go up the river valley to the glacier. It turns out that this was the right decision anyway, because there’s a shiny new wildfire upriver and the smoke was obscuring the view of the glacier anyway, so we saved ourselves the extra two miles of walking on sandbars and river stones for nothing. I thought all that haze was just from the heat and humidity. This is what I get for not having internet access this week so that I can check on things like this. Normally you can see the glacier from where you reach the shore of the river, but all I could see was white. Totally not worth it.
Beer bottle #32: “This is bottle number 42 of 40.”
We got back and I turned on the telly. It no longer works. It was fine this morning, but now all I get is a message: “Your smart card does not currently have authorization to view or purchase this program. Please wait or channel up or down.” Whatever that means. I was watching Good Dog U on Animal Planet and I turned off the TV when we left. Now I got nothin’. Good thing I brought a book and my iPod, huh? Also, I’m getting laundry done. That’s always a good time.
Beer bottle #31: “Beer: The 11th Essential. A shower is the 12th.”
So now I’m contemplating tomorrow. I figure I have two choices. I can either try to do a hike, or we can take a day off. In light of the fact that I’m having trouble navigating stairs right now, I think that means that my knees are on strike and I need a day off. If I try to go hiking, I’ll probably give up in agony and humiliation and go home. But if I take a day off to lounge around, drink and take pain killers, maybe go geocaching, and check out the “social trails” at Artist Point, maybe my knees will allow me to do one last hike before I bail out for home. Lake Ann is on the agenda. Mt. Shuksan is my favorite, so I really want to get as close to it as possible and do a little alpine worshiping before I go home. I think I have just answered my own questions about what I’m doing tomorrow. I think it is safer not to push it too much.
See, when I said that I was in the worst shape I’ve ever been in, I wasn’t joking. A year ago, I could have done hikes with 1,000 feet of elevation gain per mile for four or five miles, and now I’m not sure I can manage 500 feet per mile for more than two miles. Distance I can do, as long as there’s not much elevation gain, like Ptarmigan Ridge. That’s what I get for sitting around all winter, wrapped in my little grey blanket of Seasonal Affective Disorder. I need to be more careful about that this winter.
In fact, that’s something I’m worried about. Normally I can tell when the Seasonal Affective Disorder recedes. I’m not sure it did this year, which means my seasonal low may now be my norm. How lovely is that?
There’s someone lurking around outside. I can hear them walking around in the dark. That’s a little creepy. I’m sure they feel that way when I’m out there with Duncan. I’ll be sure to stick to the well-lighted areas.
Let’s talk about my sunburn for a few seconds, because it amuses me. I was wearing a ballcap while hiking, as is my wont, so my forehead is the normal color. The right side of my face is more burned than the left side. My right arm is also burned, and my neck is burned in that fabulous V that you get when your chin casts a shadow over part of your neck and allows the rest of it to burn. Also, I was apparently smiling a lot while I was frying (this was at Ptarmigan Ridge, you see), so I have these nice little white crescents on my cheeks that didn’t burn. It is all very attractive, I assure you. In spite of all of this, my skin looks healthier than normal. I guess getting out of the office is good for things other than my mental health. It hasn’t faded much in two days, which seems like it might be a bad thing. If nothing else, I’ve learned that the moisturizer I used that day is not an effective sunscreen. I’ll use the other one from now on. (Why do I have two moisturizers to go hiking? Because I’m a girl.)
Speaking of lurking in the dark… did you know that a Great Dane drinking from a stream in the dark looks an awful lot like a mountain lion from a certain angle? You’re welcome. I thought you might need to know that.
Nooksack Cirque, August 19 2009
It was a little hazy this morning when we got up, so I decided that we could get a late start in hopes that the haze would burn off. (The irony in this statement is not yet evident.) We got to the trailhead at about 9. First obstacle: the Ruth Creek crossing. There are two ways to do this crossing; the easy way, and the hard way. From the trailhead side of the creek, the obvious way to get across the log jam also happens to be the difficult way. Coming back to the car, you can see the easy way. Naturally, we took the hard way one direction and the easy way the other direction. Just to be helpful, I added three small cairns to the logs that are the easiest to follow across in hopes of sparing further idiots the hard route. Duncan made it back and forth repeatedly while I was contemplating exactly how to place my feet. He has awesome ninja skills.
The trail to the river is boring. It is as though someone put a treadmill in my front yard. Miles of nothing but standard Pacific Northwest foliage and ferns. The most interesting things along the way were the tree fungi.
We got to the Nooksack River and were immediately assaulted by bees. They were everywhere. They were landing on me, and for that they were dying hideous deaths by crushing. After about five minutes of no respite from bees landing on me, getting tangled in my hair, and harassing Duncan, we went back into the trees. The bees did not follow. I sat down, drank some water, ate a snack, fed Duncan, and eventually tried the river route again. No luck. More bees. I managed to get three pictures of the river in between hysterical swatting at bees on me, then left.
In other words, we did not go up the river valley to the glacier. It turns out that this was the right decision anyway, because there’s a shiny new wildfire upriver and the smoke was obscuring the view of the glacier anyway, so we saved ourselves the extra two miles of walking on sandbars and river stones for nothing. I thought all that haze was just from the heat and humidity. This is what I get for not having internet access this week so that I can check on things like this. Normally you can see the glacier from where you reach the shore of the river, but all I could see was white. Totally not worth it.
Beer bottle #32: “This is bottle number 42 of 40.”
We got back and I turned on the telly. It no longer works. It was fine this morning, but now all I get is a message: “Your smart card does not currently have authorization to view or purchase this program. Please wait or channel up or down.” Whatever that means. I was watching Good Dog U on Animal Planet and I turned off the TV when we left. Now I got nothin’. Good thing I brought a book and my iPod, huh? Also, I’m getting laundry done. That’s always a good time.
Beer bottle #31: “Beer: The 11th Essential. A shower is the 12th.”
So now I’m contemplating tomorrow. I figure I have two choices. I can either try to do a hike, or we can take a day off. In light of the fact that I’m having trouble navigating stairs right now, I think that means that my knees are on strike and I need a day off. If I try to go hiking, I’ll probably give up in agony and humiliation and go home. But if I take a day off to lounge around, drink and take pain killers, maybe go geocaching, and check out the “social trails” at Artist Point, maybe my knees will allow me to do one last hike before I bail out for home. Lake Ann is on the agenda. Mt. Shuksan is my favorite, so I really want to get as close to it as possible and do a little alpine worshiping before I go home. I think I have just answered my own questions about what I’m doing tomorrow. I think it is safer not to push it too much.
See, when I said that I was in the worst shape I’ve ever been in, I wasn’t joking. A year ago, I could have done hikes with 1,000 feet of elevation gain per mile for four or five miles, and now I’m not sure I can manage 500 feet per mile for more than two miles. Distance I can do, as long as there’s not much elevation gain, like Ptarmigan Ridge. That’s what I get for sitting around all winter, wrapped in my little grey blanket of Seasonal Affective Disorder. I need to be more careful about that this winter.
In fact, that’s something I’m worried about. Normally I can tell when the Seasonal Affective Disorder recedes. I’m not sure it did this year, which means my seasonal low may now be my norm. How lovely is that?
There’s someone lurking around outside. I can hear them walking around in the dark. That’s a little creepy. I’m sure they feel that way when I’m out there with Duncan. I’ll be sure to stick to the well-lighted areas.
Let’s talk about my sunburn for a few seconds, because it amuses me. I was wearing a ballcap while hiking, as is my wont, so my forehead is the normal color. The right side of my face is more burned than the left side. My right arm is also burned, and my neck is burned in that fabulous V that you get when your chin casts a shadow over part of your neck and allows the rest of it to burn. Also, I was apparently smiling a lot while I was frying (this was at Ptarmigan Ridge, you see), so I have these nice little white crescents on my cheeks that didn’t burn. It is all very attractive, I assure you. In spite of all of this, my skin looks healthier than normal. I guess getting out of the office is good for things other than my mental health. It hasn’t faded much in two days, which seems like it might be a bad thing. If nothing else, I’ve learned that the moisturizer I used that day is not an effective sunscreen. I’ll use the other one from now on. (Why do I have two moisturizers to go hiking? Because I’m a girl.)
Speaking of lurking in the dark… did you know that a Great Dane drinking from a stream in the dark looks an awful lot like a mountain lion from a certain angle? You’re welcome. I thought you might need to know that.
Nooksack Cirque, August 19 2009
Ptarmigan Ridge, August 18 2009
You know what I would like to do with the rest of my life? I would like to do this hike every day or so (weather permitting) and chat with people who ask me about Duncan. Because that was the best day ever.
We did not, as planned, go all the way to the end of the trail. Instead, we dropped down to the tarn to the south of the end of the trail. It was fantastically beautiful. The weather was great, and nobody else was there. Let the masses have their Camp Kaiser or Kiser Camp or whatever the book you have is calling it. I’d rather have an opal-like tarn at my feet.
This trail is great. You start high and in the open. No messing about in the forests. You can see a very long way. In fact, you can see the three-mile mark from the trailhead. There’s a nasty snowfield visible from the car, and you can see the trail across it. I was smart and went above it like nearly everyone else did. The three mile mark is just to the left of the end of that snowfield. There were other snowfields that were easy to cross and that allowed Duncan a chance to catch snowballs and roll around in the coolness.
The entire trail is out in the open, so you can see forever. All the mountains around, the valleys, the changing sky. It is hard to get your head around how big it is until you see another person in the distance. Pictures do not do it justice.
Duncan and I were both very tired after that since it was 10 miles, so we fell into the car and retired for the day. I managed to roll my right ankle about half a mile from the car, so I’ll be icing that and taking something for it very soon.
People in this building seem fond of sitting out on their balconies while speaking loudly on their phones about how important or adventurous they are and how they need things faxed to them. I’m ever so fascinated with them.
Beer bottle #34: “No wine-ing! Drink beer; be happy.”
Oh my god. I have a sunburn. How did that happen?
It is now time to eat the other half of the giant chicken burrito from Graham’s. Dang, they make a killer huge burrito.
Beer bottle #33: “Beer is about community, camaraderie, and collaboration.”
We did not, as planned, go all the way to the end of the trail. Instead, we dropped down to the tarn to the south of the end of the trail. It was fantastically beautiful. The weather was great, and nobody else was there. Let the masses have their Camp Kaiser or Kiser Camp or whatever the book you have is calling it. I’d rather have an opal-like tarn at my feet.
This trail is great. You start high and in the open. No messing about in the forests. You can see a very long way. In fact, you can see the three-mile mark from the trailhead. There’s a nasty snowfield visible from the car, and you can see the trail across it. I was smart and went above it like nearly everyone else did. The three mile mark is just to the left of the end of that snowfield. There were other snowfields that were easy to cross and that allowed Duncan a chance to catch snowballs and roll around in the coolness.
The entire trail is out in the open, so you can see forever. All the mountains around, the valleys, the changing sky. It is hard to get your head around how big it is until you see another person in the distance. Pictures do not do it justice.
Duncan and I were both very tired after that since it was 10 miles, so we fell into the car and retired for the day. I managed to roll my right ankle about half a mile from the car, so I’ll be icing that and taking something for it very soon.
People in this building seem fond of sitting out on their balconies while speaking loudly on their phones about how important or adventurous they are and how they need things faxed to them. I’m ever so fascinated with them.
Beer bottle #34: “No wine-ing! Drink beer; be happy.”
Oh my god. I have a sunburn. How did that happen?
It is now time to eat the other half of the giant chicken burrito from Graham’s. Dang, they make a killer huge burrito.
Beer bottle #33: “Beer is about community, camaraderie, and collaboration.”
Damfino Lakes and Excelsior Pass, August 17 2009
We got to the trailhead at 6:50. It took an hour to drive the 17 miles because the road is nasty in bits. They’re working on it. In fact, the road is closed from 6:00 a.m. to noon every day for construction according the sign, but they weren’t working when I was on my way up.
Anyway, the lakes are named more or less appropriately, except for the “Lakes” part. Rumor has it that someone asked a ranger the name of the lakes, and the answer was “Damn if I know.” The more appropriate question would be “Why would anyone hike to these lakes?” They’re tiny, shallow, marshy, bug-filled, and totally without a view. They’re so close to the trailhead that they aren’t even worth stopping to fill up your water bottles. They’re more like ponds than lakes. If you continue past them (as you should), you get up into the meadows and have a multitude of options from there.
The stupid thing is that when you reach the junction with the signs, there’s a sign that very clearly points left for High Pass and Welcome Pass, and it points straight ahead for Excelsior. So what do you think we did? We went straight. We were at the pass already. The sign is clearly misleading. It points to the Excelsior trail, not Excelsior Pass or Excelsior Peak. If you go straight, you go down into the Nooksack River drainage and highway 542. We lost a hell of a lot of elevation before I decided that this stupid trail was not what I wanted to do, and we turned and headed back up to the pass. I decided I didn’t care to go up to the peak and we headed out. The views on the way up and from the saddle were enough for me for the day. We got back to the car at 11, so it was a short hike. We saw one guy on the whole trail, and if we’d been five minutes later we would have missed him, because he was taking off on the side trail to the other ridge.
For giggles we headed to the burgeoning metropolis of Maple Falls to get some stuff, like expensive gas and cheap Asian noodle bowls. Hey, they have green curry paste and popadums! Woo! Both are very hard to find at Safeway in my town.
Duncan met the little black cat that has been hanging around outside. Duncan was very excited to meet a new friend. The cat wasn’t, but I figure if they meet another time or two they’ll be buddies. The cat seems quite amenable to the idea, but a little cautious. We’ll see.
Beer bottle #36: “A møøse once bit my sister…”
So, it seems as though I’ve kinda broken my camera. I popped the memory card out and then couldn’t get it back in. When I looked down into the slot, two pins were bent and the mechanism to push the card out of the slot hadn’t gone back down to where it belongs. With a steak knife and a toothpick, I got the pins back into place and got the eject mechanism back down where it belongs. (Tools of the trade, you know. Be prepared, I always say.) I tested the camera and it works, but now I have a morbid fear of popping out the memory card. The reason this is bad is that I have two memory cards, one regular and one high-resolution. They plug into different slots at the same time, but to access the high resolution card from the computer, I have to take out the regular card. Unless I can figure something else out, anyway. Maybe something will occur to me.
It turns out that there are two black cats here, and both are a little fascinated with Duncan. The kicker is that one looks like Bagheera and one looks like Chloe. I believe that they were sent here to make me feel guilty for leaving my cats at home alone for a week.
Beer bottle 35: “Mynd you, møøse bites kan be pretti nasti…”
It is now time to eat a giant chicken burrito from Graham’s.
Cat update: The cat that showed up on the balcony is named is Wiggles and she terrorizes Luna the Cattle Dog, who lives in the corner unit. She just watches Duncan run right up into her face without any reaction. Duncan, of course, runs away immediately or just won’t make eye contact, suddenly finding something very interesting on the ground to examine instead of looking at the cat. He’s clearly not a threat to her, so she’s curious. This is fun to some of us.
Damfino Lakes and Excelsior Pass, August 18 2009
Anyway, the lakes are named more or less appropriately, except for the “Lakes” part. Rumor has it that someone asked a ranger the name of the lakes, and the answer was “Damn if I know.” The more appropriate question would be “Why would anyone hike to these lakes?” They’re tiny, shallow, marshy, bug-filled, and totally without a view. They’re so close to the trailhead that they aren’t even worth stopping to fill up your water bottles. They’re more like ponds than lakes. If you continue past them (as you should), you get up into the meadows and have a multitude of options from there.
The stupid thing is that when you reach the junction with the signs, there’s a sign that very clearly points left for High Pass and Welcome Pass, and it points straight ahead for Excelsior. So what do you think we did? We went straight. We were at the pass already. The sign is clearly misleading. It points to the Excelsior trail, not Excelsior Pass or Excelsior Peak. If you go straight, you go down into the Nooksack River drainage and highway 542. We lost a hell of a lot of elevation before I decided that this stupid trail was not what I wanted to do, and we turned and headed back up to the pass. I decided I didn’t care to go up to the peak and we headed out. The views on the way up and from the saddle were enough for me for the day. We got back to the car at 11, so it was a short hike. We saw one guy on the whole trail, and if we’d been five minutes later we would have missed him, because he was taking off on the side trail to the other ridge.
For giggles we headed to the burgeoning metropolis of Maple Falls to get some stuff, like expensive gas and cheap Asian noodle bowls. Hey, they have green curry paste and popadums! Woo! Both are very hard to find at Safeway in my town.
Duncan met the little black cat that has been hanging around outside. Duncan was very excited to meet a new friend. The cat wasn’t, but I figure if they meet another time or two they’ll be buddies. The cat seems quite amenable to the idea, but a little cautious. We’ll see.
Beer bottle #36: “A møøse once bit my sister…”
So, it seems as though I’ve kinda broken my camera. I popped the memory card out and then couldn’t get it back in. When I looked down into the slot, two pins were bent and the mechanism to push the card out of the slot hadn’t gone back down to where it belongs. With a steak knife and a toothpick, I got the pins back into place and got the eject mechanism back down where it belongs. (Tools of the trade, you know. Be prepared, I always say.) I tested the camera and it works, but now I have a morbid fear of popping out the memory card. The reason this is bad is that I have two memory cards, one regular and one high-resolution. They plug into different slots at the same time, but to access the high resolution card from the computer, I have to take out the regular card. Unless I can figure something else out, anyway. Maybe something will occur to me.
It turns out that there are two black cats here, and both are a little fascinated with Duncan. The kicker is that one looks like Bagheera and one looks like Chloe. I believe that they were sent here to make me feel guilty for leaving my cats at home alone for a week.
Beer bottle 35: “Mynd you, møøse bites kan be pretti nasti…”
It is now time to eat a giant chicken burrito from Graham’s.
Cat update: The cat that showed up on the balcony is named is Wiggles and she terrorizes Luna the Cattle Dog, who lives in the corner unit. She just watches Duncan run right up into her face without any reaction. Duncan, of course, runs away immediately or just won’t make eye contact, suddenly finding something very interesting on the ground to examine instead of looking at the cat. He’s clearly not a threat to her, so she’s curious. This is fun to some of us.
Damfino Lakes and Excelsior Pass, August 18 2009
Skyline Divide, August 16 2009
As planned, Duncan and I hiked Skyline Divide today. We left the condo at about 6. On the way up the road, we had a sudden surprise with a giant boulder in the road. My guess was that it had rolled down from the slope the night before, because the dirt around it was a different color than the dirt of the road, and there were no tracks passing it on the right. I was the first to pass the boulder in the road! Yay!
We left the car at about 6:53 and headed up. The trail is mostly in good shape with the exception of about 10 feet of deep, reddish mud right at the beginning. Two miles, up and up. And up. Then suddenly, we broke out onto the ridge and there was Mt. Baker. Sure, it seems close from there, but we headed onward just to see how much closer I could get before I got tired. The magic number is two more miles. We passed the first big knoll, then the second, and headed to the third for a fantastic view of Mt. Baker.
Mt. Shuksan, on the other hand, was being a big fat butthead. It was very hazy toward the north and east, so I didn’t get any decent pictures.
On the way up, my GPS unit wasn’t working well. My track log said I had gone only .4 miles and gained only 100 feet of elevation, but I knew that couldn’t be right. Suddenly, in a clearing, my altitude reading went from 4300 feet to 5500 feet, so I’m guessing that I had no reception at all until then. So I actually have no idea how far I hiked today, but I think it was about 8.1 miles total. Once I got to the 2 mile mark, it started working fine because there was no tree interference. First I headed south, then when we got back to the junction at the two mile mark, we headed east to pick up a geocache. I didn’t find it at first because there was some muggle hanging out on the other side of the trees, so Duncan and I headed down the trail to the knoll overlooking the Canadian border mountains. I found the cache on the way back.
I saw only 10 other people on the ridge, and we left at noon. Everyone else on the trail was still on the way up.
One of the people on the ridge was Becky. Poor, poor Becky. Suckiest life ever. She is forced at gunpoint to hike up to Skyline Divide every day and stand there with that view and help people with questions. It must be horrifying to stand there, daily, and look at that skyline. Becky confirmed the overnight appearance of the boulder on the road. It wasn’t there at 4:30 the day before.
I got to the ridge in one hour and twenty three minutes. Is that good, or should I be ashamed of myself for being fat, old, and out of shape? It seemed really steep to me…
Other things of note: the bugs were not biting. I had a few land on me, and a few ran into my face, but no bites, and no DEET usage. Hallelujah. That could have something to do with the fact that it was only 48 degrees on the ridge when I got there at 8:15ish. Maybe the chill was too much for them. On the other hand, it was also very windy, so maybe that helped keep the bugs down.
As previously noted, we left the ridge at 12:08, and got back to the car at 1:07. Lots of people. I counted 27 parties of two or more people and numerous dogs, two of which were rather aggressive and shouldn’t have been on a trail with so many other dogs. (Stupid owners.) We hopped in the car and started down. About halfway down I saw something small and fluffy looking in the road, so I slowed down. I thought it was a rabbit, but it turned out to be a grouse or a ptarmigan. It was just lying in the road, sunning itself. I actually pulled up next to it and talked to it (well, I talked at it) for about half a minute before Duncan realized he wasn’t the center of attention and jumped up to investigate. The bird and two that I didn’t even notice in the bushes took off. We continued down, passing the boulder and its new tracks in the shoulder. I went to Graham’s for a burger and we came back here to eat, drink, cake (is “cake” a verb?) and take painkillers in preparation for tomorrow’s hike.
Beer bottle #37: “Relax. Don’t worry. Have a homebrew.”
I’m amazed at how many of my pictures have UFOs shaped like mosquitoes and flies.
Skyline Divide, August 16 2009
We left the car at about 6:53 and headed up. The trail is mostly in good shape with the exception of about 10 feet of deep, reddish mud right at the beginning. Two miles, up and up. And up. Then suddenly, we broke out onto the ridge and there was Mt. Baker. Sure, it seems close from there, but we headed onward just to see how much closer I could get before I got tired. The magic number is two more miles. We passed the first big knoll, then the second, and headed to the third for a fantastic view of Mt. Baker.
Mt. Shuksan, on the other hand, was being a big fat butthead. It was very hazy toward the north and east, so I didn’t get any decent pictures.
On the way up, my GPS unit wasn’t working well. My track log said I had gone only .4 miles and gained only 100 feet of elevation, but I knew that couldn’t be right. Suddenly, in a clearing, my altitude reading went from 4300 feet to 5500 feet, so I’m guessing that I had no reception at all until then. So I actually have no idea how far I hiked today, but I think it was about 8.1 miles total. Once I got to the 2 mile mark, it started working fine because there was no tree interference. First I headed south, then when we got back to the junction at the two mile mark, we headed east to pick up a geocache. I didn’t find it at first because there was some muggle hanging out on the other side of the trees, so Duncan and I headed down the trail to the knoll overlooking the Canadian border mountains. I found the cache on the way back.
I saw only 10 other people on the ridge, and we left at noon. Everyone else on the trail was still on the way up.
One of the people on the ridge was Becky. Poor, poor Becky. Suckiest life ever. She is forced at gunpoint to hike up to Skyline Divide every day and stand there with that view and help people with questions. It must be horrifying to stand there, daily, and look at that skyline. Becky confirmed the overnight appearance of the boulder on the road. It wasn’t there at 4:30 the day before.
I got to the ridge in one hour and twenty three minutes. Is that good, or should I be ashamed of myself for being fat, old, and out of shape? It seemed really steep to me…
Other things of note: the bugs were not biting. I had a few land on me, and a few ran into my face, but no bites, and no DEET usage. Hallelujah. That could have something to do with the fact that it was only 48 degrees on the ridge when I got there at 8:15ish. Maybe the chill was too much for them. On the other hand, it was also very windy, so maybe that helped keep the bugs down.
As previously noted, we left the ridge at 12:08, and got back to the car at 1:07. Lots of people. I counted 27 parties of two or more people and numerous dogs, two of which were rather aggressive and shouldn’t have been on a trail with so many other dogs. (Stupid owners.) We hopped in the car and started down. About halfway down I saw something small and fluffy looking in the road, so I slowed down. I thought it was a rabbit, but it turned out to be a grouse or a ptarmigan. It was just lying in the road, sunning itself. I actually pulled up next to it and talked to it (well, I talked at it) for about half a minute before Duncan realized he wasn’t the center of attention and jumped up to investigate. The bird and two that I didn’t even notice in the bushes took off. We continued down, passing the boulder and its new tracks in the shoulder. I went to Graham’s for a burger and we came back here to eat, drink, cake (is “cake” a verb?) and take painkillers in preparation for tomorrow’s hike.
Beer bottle #37: “Relax. Don’t worry. Have a homebrew.”
I’m amazed at how many of my pictures have UFOs shaped like mosquitoes and flies.
Skyline Divide, August 16 2009
2009 Hiking Week Begins!
It is Saturday, August 15th. I left home this morning at about 6:30, running late by about half an hour, to meet with Guido to pick up the keys to Guido and The Goober’s condo up near Mt. Baker. They graciously offered me the use of their condo for the week so that I could do some good, old-fashioned, North Cascades hiking.
When I arrived at their house this morning, Guido handed over a ton of stuff. Some of it was for my use at the condo, some was to leave at the condo for them, and some was for me. One item was a carrot cake, which I’m assuming The Goober made for me, in light of the fact that Guido doesn’t seem to cook anything that isn’t either lasagna or barbecue. It is wonderful and completely lacking in raisins, for which I’m eternally grateful and quite enthusiastic. If the frosting had any nutritional value and a lower calorie count, I could live on it. Another item (or items) was 40 bottles of Jennifer’s 40th Birthday Celebration IPA, a Super Limited Edition beer, made just for me. All of the labels are different, and like the geek that I am, I am going to peel each and every label from the bottles and keep them in a notebook I brought with me, because they amuse me. Bottle number 40 says “Holy shit, it’s hard to write 40 of these damn things!” I’ll relate more of those as I drink them. Not that I’m going to drink all 40 bottles. I’m here to hike, not to wreck my liver.
So, yes, I’m here to hike. I’ve not done many of the hikes around here. I think Skyline Divide and Yellow Aster Butte are pretty much the extent of my North-of-Mt.-Baker hikes. I’m going to do Skyline Divide again, but I think the rest of the hikes I’m going to do over the next week will all be new ones for me. I have quite a list, but I’m going to need to pare it down to five or six over the next few days. I have four that are must-do’s, the rest are a little in flux. We’ll see how I feel by day four.
Did I mention that I had a bottle of beer already? Yep, it was #40. I figured that was fitting. Unfortunately, I drank it on a totally empty stomach, and now that I don’t drink much I’m a total lightweight. I’m a little lightheaded, and I am afraid to drive into town for lunch. Maybe in an hour. Also, I had the carrot cake after the beer. So, that was my lunch. Beer for lunch, carrot cake for dessert. Yay for vacations!
Incidentally, the beer is great. Nice and crisp and hoppy. I can dig it. I just need to not drink it all in one place.
Beer bottle #39: “Grab ball. Throw ball. Grab beer. Throw… Noooo!”
For the past five years or so, I have taken a week off for my birthday to do one big, long hike. And every year, I have suffered crappy weather on a Biblical scale. I decided this year that since I had a huge amount of vacation time, I’d take one week off in July and one in August and just do dayhikes on the nice weather days, if there were any. (That leaves me three weeks of vacation and sick time for illness and long weekends. I need to get sick on Fridays and Mondays more often in the summer and fall.) I actually figured that I’d get crappy weather as usual and just spend the time doing projects around the house that I need to finish (the shed, some yard stuff, recaulking the tub, stuff like that). But wow. The week in July was a heat wave, setting record high temperatures all over the region. No rain there. And this week is supposed to be verra nice. I’m a little stunned. So hiking it is. The shed and the yard and the tub can wait.
So here I am, with a list of hikes and quite possibly the weather to make it worth taking some pictures. Today’s not great, but today I’m just organizing and relaxing in preparation for the week. Today the weather can take a hike. HA! I crack myself up. I’m going to head into “town” at some point to check stuff out and get oriented. Maybe hit the visitor center. That kind of thing. In the mean time, I’m typing silly girl thoughts on my new work laptop, which is a very pretty, shiny, sleek, black Dell Latitude E6500. It looks like the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. I feel like I’m evolving already.
Also, I have a headache. I blame my sinuses. They’re killing me. My brain rattles around in my skull when I move my head too fast. My neck is unusually loud. Everything’s kinda sparkly. So I stole three Excedrin Migraine from the medicine cabinet. Sorry, guys. I had to.
10 Things I Hate About You is on TV. For some reason, I’m watching it. It amuses me. I’m beginning to appreciate Heath Ledger for some reason.
Why is that picture sideways? Is that the Tower of London?
Beer bottle #38: “Grab beer. Grab ball. Grab Duncan. Mayhem ensues!”
So, I left the screen door open for about five minutes to let Duncan investigate the balcony, and I ended up brutally murdering an invading force of roughly 847 bees. Ok, it was three bees. Still. BEES! I managed to shoo another one out the door. The screen door is now closed. And locked. Bees are wily.
The first hike of this year’s hiking vacation is going to be Skyline Divide. I’ve done it before. I had a (gasp!) film camera, so it was definitely a long time ago. I think it was in 1996 or 1997. I’m used to getting up at some ungodly early hour and driving forever to go hiking, but from here it is only 14 miles to the trailhead. I’m a little overwhelmed by how easy this is going to be and how much gas I’m not going to use by staying here to do all of these hikes. I had no idea I was this close to the trailheads at which I’m aiming. It is going to be so fantastic to not have to spend hours trapped in tourist traffic to get back after a hike and take a shower. And eat. And have a beer. Or two.
Is it weird that I just put all of the beer bottles in number order and I’m going to drink them in backward order?
North Fork Beer Shrine. Beer. Pizza. Wedding Chapel. (I’m not making this up.)
I could eat this pizza until they had to remove me from my house with a forklift. Meat pizza, no mushrooms. Heavenly. Hefeweizen on tap, lovely.
I just took Duncan out for a walk. We headed to the right from the front of the building to an RV park sort of place. From there, we went to the left down a dirt track that ended next to an old, trashed RV. We followed a footpath past that for a short way, which ended at a rope tied between the trees. Next to that was a pile of clothes. A hat, pants, a sweat shirt, a pair of shoes. I wonder where the body is.
Duncan just got attacked through the screen door by a black cat that looks exactly like Bagheera. Why that cat was on this balcony, I have no idea.
Next up: the first hike of the week.
When I arrived at their house this morning, Guido handed over a ton of stuff. Some of it was for my use at the condo, some was to leave at the condo for them, and some was for me. One item was a carrot cake, which I’m assuming The Goober made for me, in light of the fact that Guido doesn’t seem to cook anything that isn’t either lasagna or barbecue. It is wonderful and completely lacking in raisins, for which I’m eternally grateful and quite enthusiastic. If the frosting had any nutritional value and a lower calorie count, I could live on it. Another item (or items) was 40 bottles of Jennifer’s 40th Birthday Celebration IPA, a Super Limited Edition beer, made just for me. All of the labels are different, and like the geek that I am, I am going to peel each and every label from the bottles and keep them in a notebook I brought with me, because they amuse me. Bottle number 40 says “Holy shit, it’s hard to write 40 of these damn things!” I’ll relate more of those as I drink them. Not that I’m going to drink all 40 bottles. I’m here to hike, not to wreck my liver.
So, yes, I’m here to hike. I’ve not done many of the hikes around here. I think Skyline Divide and Yellow Aster Butte are pretty much the extent of my North-of-Mt.-Baker hikes. I’m going to do Skyline Divide again, but I think the rest of the hikes I’m going to do over the next week will all be new ones for me. I have quite a list, but I’m going to need to pare it down to five or six over the next few days. I have four that are must-do’s, the rest are a little in flux. We’ll see how I feel by day four.
Did I mention that I had a bottle of beer already? Yep, it was #40. I figured that was fitting. Unfortunately, I drank it on a totally empty stomach, and now that I don’t drink much I’m a total lightweight. I’m a little lightheaded, and I am afraid to drive into town for lunch. Maybe in an hour. Also, I had the carrot cake after the beer. So, that was my lunch. Beer for lunch, carrot cake for dessert. Yay for vacations!
Incidentally, the beer is great. Nice and crisp and hoppy. I can dig it. I just need to not drink it all in one place.
Beer bottle #39: “Grab ball. Throw ball. Grab beer. Throw… Noooo!”
For the past five years or so, I have taken a week off for my birthday to do one big, long hike. And every year, I have suffered crappy weather on a Biblical scale. I decided this year that since I had a huge amount of vacation time, I’d take one week off in July and one in August and just do dayhikes on the nice weather days, if there were any. (That leaves me three weeks of vacation and sick time for illness and long weekends. I need to get sick on Fridays and Mondays more often in the summer and fall.) I actually figured that I’d get crappy weather as usual and just spend the time doing projects around the house that I need to finish (the shed, some yard stuff, recaulking the tub, stuff like that). But wow. The week in July was a heat wave, setting record high temperatures all over the region. No rain there. And this week is supposed to be verra nice. I’m a little stunned. So hiking it is. The shed and the yard and the tub can wait.
So here I am, with a list of hikes and quite possibly the weather to make it worth taking some pictures. Today’s not great, but today I’m just organizing and relaxing in preparation for the week. Today the weather can take a hike. HA! I crack myself up. I’m going to head into “town” at some point to check stuff out and get oriented. Maybe hit the visitor center. That kind of thing. In the mean time, I’m typing silly girl thoughts on my new work laptop, which is a very pretty, shiny, sleek, black Dell Latitude E6500. It looks like the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. I feel like I’m evolving already.
Also, I have a headache. I blame my sinuses. They’re killing me. My brain rattles around in my skull when I move my head too fast. My neck is unusually loud. Everything’s kinda sparkly. So I stole three Excedrin Migraine from the medicine cabinet. Sorry, guys. I had to.
10 Things I Hate About You is on TV. For some reason, I’m watching it. It amuses me. I’m beginning to appreciate Heath Ledger for some reason.
Why is that picture sideways? Is that the Tower of London?
Beer bottle #38: “Grab beer. Grab ball. Grab Duncan. Mayhem ensues!”
So, I left the screen door open for about five minutes to let Duncan investigate the balcony, and I ended up brutally murdering an invading force of roughly 847 bees. Ok, it was three bees. Still. BEES! I managed to shoo another one out the door. The screen door is now closed. And locked. Bees are wily.
The first hike of this year’s hiking vacation is going to be Skyline Divide. I’ve done it before. I had a (gasp!) film camera, so it was definitely a long time ago. I think it was in 1996 or 1997. I’m used to getting up at some ungodly early hour and driving forever to go hiking, but from here it is only 14 miles to the trailhead. I’m a little overwhelmed by how easy this is going to be and how much gas I’m not going to use by staying here to do all of these hikes. I had no idea I was this close to the trailheads at which I’m aiming. It is going to be so fantastic to not have to spend hours trapped in tourist traffic to get back after a hike and take a shower. And eat. And have a beer. Or two.
Is it weird that I just put all of the beer bottles in number order and I’m going to drink them in backward order?
North Fork Beer Shrine. Beer. Pizza. Wedding Chapel. (I’m not making this up.)
I could eat this pizza until they had to remove me from my house with a forklift. Meat pizza, no mushrooms. Heavenly. Hefeweizen on tap, lovely.
I just took Duncan out for a walk. We headed to the right from the front of the building to an RV park sort of place. From there, we went to the left down a dirt track that ended next to an old, trashed RV. We followed a footpath past that for a short way, which ended at a rope tied between the trees. Next to that was a pile of clothes. A hat, pants, a sweat shirt, a pair of shoes. I wonder where the body is.
Duncan just got attacked through the screen door by a black cat that looks exactly like Bagheera. Why that cat was on this balcony, I have no idea.
Next up: the first hike of the week.
Surprise Lake, July 29 2009
Stupidest. Hike. Ever.
So, for starters, I totally underestimated how long it would take to get to the trailhead. It was four and a half hours of driving. Each way.
I had two sets of driving directions to get to the trailhead. Both were wrong. One said to turn right on Clear Lake Road (FS Road 1200) from highway 12. The other said to turn right on South Fork Tieton Road (FS Road 1000) from highway 12.
1. There is no Clear Lake Road.
2. South Fork Tieton Road does not intersect with highway 12.
Also, one of them said to turn after Hause Campground, which also doesn’t exist, or there are just no signs for it.
After taking a few turns that turned out to be wrong, I gave up and decided to hunt for a different hike in the area. While driving up and down highway 12, I noticed that Tieton Road intersected highway 12 twice, so I turned right on it and decided to just follow it back to the other end and see if there was anything interesting along the way. First thing I saw was FS Road 1201. Thinking that maybe FS Road 1200 would be next, I continued on. The next road was FS Road 1202. Then 1203. I decided that I’d had enough of this crap and decided to just go home. It was getting a little late to start a hike in that heat anyway. Thirty seconds later (if it was even that long) I ran across South Fork Tieton Road. Hey, it turns out that Tieton Road IS FS Road 1200!
So I drove down the road to the parking area. Finally something was going right.
Then it got really fun.
The trailhead is not at the parking area. You have to walk up the road, go around a gate on the right, go left, cross two creeks, hang a right, and walk forever through a gigantic cattle-grazing area to a logging road. From there, the directions say to go left and take the first right. That’s supposed to be the trailhead.
I got to the logging road. I went left. I took the first right. No trailhead. I checked my GPS unit, which said I was pointed in the right direction, so I just kept following the road. It kept splitting. After one brief and disastrous foray off on a left-hand fork, I kept going right, going directly toward Surprise Lake, staying near the South Fork Tieton River, which we had crossed. Did I remember anything in the directions about crossing the river? No. But my memory sucks.
Then the logging road turned into a very nice little boot path. Ah, this I remember from the hiking book. I just thought my time on the logging road would be shorter. So all was well, right? Uh, no. Because the trail ended. I stood there, staring at the river. I had to cross it. I couldn’t see a trail on the other side. I was damn well not going back.
I crossed the river. No problem, it was reasonably shallow. Duncan waded and drank, I just plowed across without taking off my boots. (It was so hot, they dried out almost immediately.) Once on the other side, I pondered. I had been thinking the whole time that I was on the wrong side of the river. Now I was on the right side of the river. Right? So if I just kept heading off to the right, I’d cross the real trail, right?
Yep. It was about 50 yards away. So we were finally on the right trail, after 3 miles on the wrong trail. We followed the trail to the lake without incident other than the terrible bugs. Also, no views of anything. Just trees and dirt. Also, it is a horse trail, so I had that tasty, crunchy dust made of dehydrated horse shit and ash from Mt. Saint Helens.
The lake was pretty, but not fantasic. Just a little green lake surrounded by trees. No view of the mountains. Nothing. That was the 6.2 mile mark of the trail.
Hey, wait! The book said it was only an 8.5 mile round trip! I knew I couldn’t have added that much mileage on the logging roads, so it occurred to me that they were saying it was 8.5 miles only if you don’t count the mile and a half to and from the trailhead from the parking area.
So we turned around and headed back. What a waste.
Did I mention cattle grazing land? Yeah. Lots of cattle. Some skittish. Some bored. Some a little pushy. All hot, stinky, dusty, and chewing on stuff. Duncan behaved pretty well after he realized he was not there to herd them. One cow got a little stompy when Duncan startled a calf and I had to use a harsh tone to get her to back off, but other than that (and the creepy way they stare) there were no cattle issues.
We got back to the real trailhead, then back to the logging road. I saw a trail that I think I was supposed to have come out onto the logging road from on the way in. If I had come out on that trail, then the book’s directions would not have lead me wrong. However, there were so many trails across the cattle land that I took one that landed me on the logging road in the wrong place.
Since it was hot and dusty, I took Duncan back to the river to cool down, rest, and fill up on water. It was just a few yards down the road, so we didn’t have a lot of backtracking to do. Duncan waded and drank while I drank without wading. While we were resting, I noticed a cloud over on the horizon. It was the only cloud, big and puffy. I thought it looked a little odd, all by itself over there. So I took a picture.
After that, we got back on the trail with just 1.5 miles back to the car.
On the way back across the cattle land, I heard a noise I couldn’t identify. My first thought was farm equipment, or a really bad-sounding truck. We popped out of the trees into a big meadow and I glanced off to my right. Hey, look at that. A giant wildfire. That was totally not there on the way in that morning. (Another idiot hiker/camper/hunter strikes again. Or maybe lightning. Who knows. I prefer to blame idiots.) Flames twice as tall as the trees. Right there. I could walk right up to it if I had a death wish. That was the source of the odd cloud we’d seen earlier. Still further on, we ended up stopping to wait for the helicopter to get out of the way. They were using the cattle grazing land as a staging area to air-lift supplies to the firefighters.
Eventually, I made it back to my car. My GPS unit said we did 12.5 miles. That’s a bit longer than 8.5. Stupid hiking books.
Surprise Lake, July 29 2009
So, for starters, I totally underestimated how long it would take to get to the trailhead. It was four and a half hours of driving. Each way.
I had two sets of driving directions to get to the trailhead. Both were wrong. One said to turn right on Clear Lake Road (FS Road 1200) from highway 12. The other said to turn right on South Fork Tieton Road (FS Road 1000) from highway 12.
1. There is no Clear Lake Road.
2. South Fork Tieton Road does not intersect with highway 12.
Also, one of them said to turn after Hause Campground, which also doesn’t exist, or there are just no signs for it.
After taking a few turns that turned out to be wrong, I gave up and decided to hunt for a different hike in the area. While driving up and down highway 12, I noticed that Tieton Road intersected highway 12 twice, so I turned right on it and decided to just follow it back to the other end and see if there was anything interesting along the way. First thing I saw was FS Road 1201. Thinking that maybe FS Road 1200 would be next, I continued on. The next road was FS Road 1202. Then 1203. I decided that I’d had enough of this crap and decided to just go home. It was getting a little late to start a hike in that heat anyway. Thirty seconds later (if it was even that long) I ran across South Fork Tieton Road. Hey, it turns out that Tieton Road IS FS Road 1200!
So I drove down the road to the parking area. Finally something was going right.
Then it got really fun.
The trailhead is not at the parking area. You have to walk up the road, go around a gate on the right, go left, cross two creeks, hang a right, and walk forever through a gigantic cattle-grazing area to a logging road. From there, the directions say to go left and take the first right. That’s supposed to be the trailhead.
I got to the logging road. I went left. I took the first right. No trailhead. I checked my GPS unit, which said I was pointed in the right direction, so I just kept following the road. It kept splitting. After one brief and disastrous foray off on a left-hand fork, I kept going right, going directly toward Surprise Lake, staying near the South Fork Tieton River, which we had crossed. Did I remember anything in the directions about crossing the river? No. But my memory sucks.
Then the logging road turned into a very nice little boot path. Ah, this I remember from the hiking book. I just thought my time on the logging road would be shorter. So all was well, right? Uh, no. Because the trail ended. I stood there, staring at the river. I had to cross it. I couldn’t see a trail on the other side. I was damn well not going back.
I crossed the river. No problem, it was reasonably shallow. Duncan waded and drank, I just plowed across without taking off my boots. (It was so hot, they dried out almost immediately.) Once on the other side, I pondered. I had been thinking the whole time that I was on the wrong side of the river. Now I was on the right side of the river. Right? So if I just kept heading off to the right, I’d cross the real trail, right?
Yep. It was about 50 yards away. So we were finally on the right trail, after 3 miles on the wrong trail. We followed the trail to the lake without incident other than the terrible bugs. Also, no views of anything. Just trees and dirt. Also, it is a horse trail, so I had that tasty, crunchy dust made of dehydrated horse shit and ash from Mt. Saint Helens.
The lake was pretty, but not fantasic. Just a little green lake surrounded by trees. No view of the mountains. Nothing. That was the 6.2 mile mark of the trail.
Hey, wait! The book said it was only an 8.5 mile round trip! I knew I couldn’t have added that much mileage on the logging roads, so it occurred to me that they were saying it was 8.5 miles only if you don’t count the mile and a half to and from the trailhead from the parking area.
So we turned around and headed back. What a waste.
Did I mention cattle grazing land? Yeah. Lots of cattle. Some skittish. Some bored. Some a little pushy. All hot, stinky, dusty, and chewing on stuff. Duncan behaved pretty well after he realized he was not there to herd them. One cow got a little stompy when Duncan startled a calf and I had to use a harsh tone to get her to back off, but other than that (and the creepy way they stare) there were no cattle issues.
We got back to the real trailhead, then back to the logging road. I saw a trail that I think I was supposed to have come out onto the logging road from on the way in. If I had come out on that trail, then the book’s directions would not have lead me wrong. However, there were so many trails across the cattle land that I took one that landed me on the logging road in the wrong place.
Since it was hot and dusty, I took Duncan back to the river to cool down, rest, and fill up on water. It was just a few yards down the road, so we didn’t have a lot of backtracking to do. Duncan waded and drank while I drank without wading. While we were resting, I noticed a cloud over on the horizon. It was the only cloud, big and puffy. I thought it looked a little odd, all by itself over there. So I took a picture.
After that, we got back on the trail with just 1.5 miles back to the car.
On the way back across the cattle land, I heard a noise I couldn’t identify. My first thought was farm equipment, or a really bad-sounding truck. We popped out of the trees into a big meadow and I glanced off to my right. Hey, look at that. A giant wildfire. That was totally not there on the way in that morning. (Another idiot hiker/camper/hunter strikes again. Or maybe lightning. Who knows. I prefer to blame idiots.) Flames twice as tall as the trees. Right there. I could walk right up to it if I had a death wish. That was the source of the odd cloud we’d seen earlier. Still further on, we ended up stopping to wait for the helicopter to get out of the way. They were using the cattle grazing land as a staging area to air-lift supplies to the firefighters.
Eventually, I made it back to my car. My GPS unit said we did 12.5 miles. That’s a bit longer than 8.5. Stupid hiking books.
Surprise Lake, July 29 2009
Dewey Lakes trail, July 28 2009
Duncan and I stupidly headed for Dewey Lakes today. Both the WTA website and the Best Hikes with Dogs book list it as OK for dogs. Oops. Dogs are allowed on only the first half of the trail. The rest of the trail passes through National Park Service land. No dogs allowed.
We followed what appeard to be a game trail that stayed in the William O. Douglas Wilderness Area, but it petered out before we made it to the lake, so we turned around and went home. It was already 89 degrees at 9 a.m., so that was probably for the best. Yesterday Duncan got a rather severe haircut to keep him cool, but the poor guy was still really hot.
The wildflowers are going insane up there right now, so it was worth it in spite of the fact that we did not reach the lakes.
Dewey Lakes, July 28 2009
We followed what appeard to be a game trail that stayed in the William O. Douglas Wilderness Area, but it petered out before we made it to the lake, so we turned around and went home. It was already 89 degrees at 9 a.m., so that was probably for the best. Yesterday Duncan got a rather severe haircut to keep him cool, but the poor guy was still really hot.
The wildflowers are going insane up there right now, so it was worth it in spite of the fact that we did not reach the lakes.
Dewey Lakes, July 28 2009
Noble Knob, July 25 2009
Yesterday, Duncan and I hiked up to Noble Knob. It's a pretty easy 7 mile round trip to the top of the Knob at 6011 feet. The wildflowers are still blooming up there, but the wild strawberries have yet to bear fruit. It was a very nice hike. And there's a geocache at the top!
Except that I picked exactly the wrong day to do it. It turns out that there is an annual "fun run" of 50 miles that runs along part of the trail. So for 2 miles, I had to deal with 200 trail runners. I kid you not. That's how many people signed up. I was leaping off the trail constantly to get out of the way. If it wasn't for them, it would have been a very nice hike. I saw only 4 other hikers and a group of maybe 6 mountain bikers. The weather was nice, but not too hot.
Oh, and I dehydrated myself. There was no water anywhere along the trail, so I gave most of my water to Duncan. I was fine when I got home and I ate lunch and drank quite a lot, but it was too late. Barfing ensued. I've got to be more careful about that. I've had more than enough to drink today to make up for it.
Noble Knob, July 25 2009
Except that I picked exactly the wrong day to do it. It turns out that there is an annual "fun run" of 50 miles that runs along part of the trail. So for 2 miles, I had to deal with 200 trail runners. I kid you not. That's how many people signed up. I was leaping off the trail constantly to get out of the way. If it wasn't for them, it would have been a very nice hike. I saw only 4 other hikers and a group of maybe 6 mountain bikers. The weather was nice, but not too hot.
Oh, and I dehydrated myself. There was no water anywhere along the trail, so I gave most of my water to Duncan. I was fine when I got home and I ate lunch and drank quite a lot, but it was too late. Barfing ensued. I've got to be more careful about that. I've had more than enough to drink today to make up for it.
Noble Knob, July 25 2009
Beverly Creek and the County Line trail, July 19 2009
Duncan and I headed up to the middle of nowhere today. This was not intentional. I had a specific destination in mind, but we didn't make it.
The hiking book had what seemed to be a pretty clear description of the trail, but it didn't tie much to reality after about a mile away from the trailhead. I got there OK only because the same parking lot is the jumping off point for 2 other hikes I've done. After that, the rest of the description was off. The elevations and distances they provided were totally wrong. The description says to follow a particular trail, but you should only follow that one for a short time and then turn onto another trail.
I managed to turn onto the correct trail in spite of the book not saying to go that way, but since my elevation and distance were off from what the book said (by 500 feet of elevation gain and about a mile of distance) I decided that I might be on the wrong trail, so I turned around and went home. It turns out I was in the right place, and I had another mile and another 1,000 feet of elevation gain ahead of me. No thanks to the hiking book.
It is a nice area, and the view was good, but the bugs were even worse than last week. (How do mosquitos breed when there's no standing water for miles?) They bit my face so much that my temples of my glasses are digging into my face. It isn't pleasant.
Wildlife sighted: chipmunks, possibly a marmot or groundhog, and a lot of cows. Other hikers saw bears, but I didn't. I also saw elk and deer prints in the dust, and lots of butterflies and moths. One great thing about hiking on a trail used by horses is that when the horse poop dries out, it turns to dust and you get to inhale it and get it stuck in your teeth.
I saw one person on his way out, and only six hikers on their way in. That's the kind of population I like to see on my trails.
Beverly Creek and the County Line trail, July 19 2009
The hiking book had what seemed to be a pretty clear description of the trail, but it didn't tie much to reality after about a mile away from the trailhead. I got there OK only because the same parking lot is the jumping off point for 2 other hikes I've done. After that, the rest of the description was off. The elevations and distances they provided were totally wrong. The description says to follow a particular trail, but you should only follow that one for a short time and then turn onto another trail.
I managed to turn onto the correct trail in spite of the book not saying to go that way, but since my elevation and distance were off from what the book said (by 500 feet of elevation gain and about a mile of distance) I decided that I might be on the wrong trail, so I turned around and went home. It turns out I was in the right place, and I had another mile and another 1,000 feet of elevation gain ahead of me. No thanks to the hiking book.
It is a nice area, and the view was good, but the bugs were even worse than last week. (How do mosquitos breed when there's no standing water for miles?) They bit my face so much that my temples of my glasses are digging into my face. It isn't pleasant.
Wildlife sighted: chipmunks, possibly a marmot or groundhog, and a lot of cows. Other hikers saw bears, but I didn't. I also saw elk and deer prints in the dust, and lots of butterflies and moths. One great thing about hiking on a trail used by horses is that when the horse poop dries out, it turns to dust and you get to inhale it and get it stuck in your teeth.
I saw one person on his way out, and only six hikers on their way in. That's the kind of population I like to see on my trails.
Beverly Creek and the County Line trail, July 19 2009
Greenwater Lakes, Quinn Lake, Lost Lake; July 10 2009
Last Saturday, Duncan and I headed up to Lost Lake. It was an 11-mile round trip to a relatively pleasant lake. I'll probably never do this one again.
1. Mosquitos. They bit me through my clothes. They got in my eyes. They even bit the palms of my hands.
2. The first 2 miles of the hike are really easy. This draws too many people. Loud people. People who have no trail etiquette. People who shit two feet from the water sources the campers use and then leave their used toilet paper in plain sight. Boy scout troops. People with off-leash and/or aggressive dogs.
3. The last couple miles are fine, but right now there are about two dozen blowdowns, some of which are hard to get over, under, or around. I got to exercise my mad ninja skilz and walk down the very long trunk of one of the trees blocking the trail, but that was pretty much the highlight of the route. Lost Lake is pleasant, but the bugs were murder. Quinn Lake was prettier, but still, too many bugs. There's no view of anything along the entire trail, unless you count the bugs in your eyes.
If I ever bother with this one again, it will be only as an early season hike, or to go to the alternate Echo Lake, or to do the Noble Knob loop. It might even make a decent snowshoe trip.
After 10 miles, Duncan took a break.
1. Mosquitos. They bit me through my clothes. They got in my eyes. They even bit the palms of my hands.
2. The first 2 miles of the hike are really easy. This draws too many people. Loud people. People who have no trail etiquette. People who shit two feet from the water sources the campers use and then leave their used toilet paper in plain sight. Boy scout troops. People with off-leash and/or aggressive dogs.
3. The last couple miles are fine, but right now there are about two dozen blowdowns, some of which are hard to get over, under, or around. I got to exercise my mad ninja skilz and walk down the very long trunk of one of the trees blocking the trail, but that was pretty much the highlight of the route. Lost Lake is pleasant, but the bugs were murder. Quinn Lake was prettier, but still, too many bugs. There's no view of anything along the entire trail, unless you count the bugs in your eyes.
If I ever bother with this one again, it will be only as an early season hike, or to go to the alternate Echo Lake, or to do the Noble Knob loop. It might even make a decent snowshoe trip.
After 10 miles, Duncan took a break.
Lake Melakwa, July 3 2009
July 3, 2009 - Friday
Lake Melakwa, July 3, 2009
The Dunkman and I headed up to Lake Melakwa today. We started up at 6:15 and got back to the car at about 1:30. It took longer to get down than it took to get up because I spent 1.5 hours walking the 1.5 miles from Keekwulee Falls to the car because I had to step aside every 5 feet to let groups of 4 or more with toddlers in tow on their way up to the Waterslide.
Note to "hikers" on this trail: if you have to ask how much further it is to the Waterslide, you have a problem. See your doctor. It is only a mile from your car, you shouldn't be breathless and fatigued 100 yards from your car.
Anyway, depending on your information source, Lake Melakwa is either 4 or 4.5 miles from the parking lot. You gain a couple thousand feet of elevation, so it is a nice climb. Right now, there's not much snow on the trail, but the lakes are still mostly frozen, so the very hot hike up was rewarded with the opportunity to make snow angels in the 88 degree heat.
Lake Melakwa, July 3, 2009
The Dunkman and I headed up to Lake Melakwa today. We started up at 6:15 and got back to the car at about 1:30. It took longer to get down than it took to get up because I spent 1.5 hours walking the 1.5 miles from Keekwulee Falls to the car because I had to step aside every 5 feet to let groups of 4 or more with toddlers in tow on their way up to the Waterslide.
Note to "hikers" on this trail: if you have to ask how much further it is to the Waterslide, you have a problem. See your doctor. It is only a mile from your car, you shouldn't be breathless and fatigued 100 yards from your car.
Anyway, depending on your information source, Lake Melakwa is either 4 or 4.5 miles from the parking lot. You gain a couple thousand feet of elevation, so it is a nice climb. Right now, there's not much snow on the trail, but the lakes are still mostly frozen, so the very hot hike up was rewarded with the opportunity to make snow angels in the 88 degree heat.
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