Lake Ann, August 22 2009 (No, really.)

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