I made it to the trailhead after maybe a 4hr drive. I had been planning on doing Marmot Pass/Buckhorn mountain, and Amber and Andy would meet me later to trailhead camp. I just wanted to be not in the city, so I left early and read my book in my sleeping bag waiting for them. Andy was dogsitting Rudy, an adorable Australian Shepherd I figured would love a good hike. I don’t want to commit to a pet just yet, but I do like other people’s pets, and Rudy was a bad ass. And I love taking pictures of people’s cute dogs being bad asses.

Amber got a head start around 5am, Andy and I started around 6 (not like I gained that much extra sleep, though I do remember watching Amber’s calves walk off into the distance). The first few miles are pleasant forest, starting with wild rhodondrons and thinning out as you gain elevation on a mild incline (great for running). Rudy was perfect at staying on trail and walking right in front of us the whole time, with no interest in whatever was off trail in the woods. Which was a relief, you never know if they’re going to be tugging trying to dart off into the brush the whole time. But Rudy was content to trot alongside us the whole time like he was checking in on Andy to make sure his human was okay, and carrying the occasional small stick like a proud trophy hunter.

Finally you start getting breaks along alpine meadows, with wildflowers scattered across the hillside. And succulents!! I had just planted several species of sedum in my garden, and here they were in the wild! Turns out they’re very common on lower elevation rocks and cliffs in the Olympics. I had no idea, I always considered the Olympics mossy and jungley and there I was staring at older, thriving versions of what I was (and still am) desperately trying to keep alive in my garden. The last area with running water is a campsite around 5 miles up the trail, where we all refilled and gave Rudy (secretly a mountain dog, given how happy he seemed the entire time) a good drink before continuing on.

At Marmot Pass, the views opened up for real. It’s amazing and I want to run every single loop around that valley. The trails are nicely graded and just cruise along open rolling ridges, it looked incredible. We took a quick break for more water and Amber fed me her snacks because I brought next to nothing. I had stuff, just not appetizing stuff like peppered salami and cheddar cheese. Andy, Rudy and I went right at the pass and continued up some annoyingly steep scree (there’s a boot path for most of it but it doesn’t help with the kitty litter situation) to a broad, open ridge that we followed to Buckhorn. At first it looks like the east side (think Vantage or Ancient Lakes) and then it turns to reddish rock and starts to look like Mars. Someone had outlined a trail for the last section, probably to prevent people from taking random paths and eroding the hillside. The summit looks intimidating, but is almost entirely a hike with a single third class ish move where you might have to use your hands. We figured we’d play it by ear with Rudy and just bail if he wasn’t happy, but he basically led the way the entire time, skipping up the lone scramble move as if it didn’t exist.

At the summit I hopped onto the summit boulder while Andy poured some water for Rudy and pampered him with treats while he lay in the shade. That dog freaking LOVES Andy. If Andy was more than 10 feet away and Rudy couldn’t follow he’d whine with his huge (adorable) puppy eyes and nothing could distract him. We didn’t want to leave Amber waiting for too long, so we didn’t spend long at the summit. Rudy had no trouble going right back down and had an easier time on the kitty litter than we did (we joke that dogs have four wheel drive given their four legs while us humans have to stumble around on two).

It was Father’s Day, and we ran into an older man cruising up the scree. We stopped to chat and he said his son and grandson were carrying his things, and we ran into them maybe 10 minutes later. Life goals, guys. Three generations of outdoors on one trail, and apparently the grandfather was a pretty legit climber in his prime. We could see Amber back at the pass, and whooped to let her know we were almost back. I forgot how far sound carries out there, she had been able to hear our entire conversation for almost the whole way. I don’t think we said anything embarrassing enough that the entire valley heard.

Back at the pass, Rudy jumped into some shade while we poured him some water and had our own snacks (or ate Amber’s superior snacks in my case because I am a child). We chatted with some trail runners (jealous) and some backpackers (jealous) and I nagged everyone to get started back to the car, because I had to get back early enough to not hate myself hiking up to Royal Basin that night to meet a new round of friends for a climb. Rudy led the way down yet again (endless source of energy) though his paws were a bit sore from the rocky sections and he was definitely happier on the soft dirt trail. They’re like people, they have to build callouses and get into shape too. We definitely felt bad, but that tail was still wagging. I get it. I’ll go have the best day of my life and my body will be wrecked for the next day or two. I wonder if dogs get endorphin rushes like people too.

I high tailed it to the Royal Basin trailhead as soon as I was back at my car. I had wildly miscalculated the distance between starting points, thinking the usual marmot pass trail was just down the road from the royal basin trail. True, sort of – there is a trail to marmot pass from that same road, but it was not the trail to marmot pass that we had hiked. Ooooops. But I’ll save that story for the next post! For now, huge thanks to Amber and Andy (and Rudy) for kicking my week of funemployment off to a great start!