Ruth Mountain

Posted on June 18, 2015 by evejakubowski

Working on my gaitor tan

Wow, this is the longest I’ve taken to make a post. In my defense, I picked up a second job, and the transition has been very time consuming. Not hard, not stressful, just lots of hours with few days off and very little time where I sit down and think great, I have three hours to make a blog post! Which is about how long I expect this one to take, because it was so freaking awesome. Ruth Mountain, hiked 6/5/2015.

Distance: 13 miles
Elevation: 4900ft gain (7115 highest point)
Weather: 70’s and sunny
Commute from Seattle: just under 3 hours without traffic
Did I Trip: Yes

It was my last off day before a potential 19 day streak of work (yes, I’d love some cheese with my whine) with no off days, not even a half day. So I had high hopes that it’d be a five star day, and hopefully leave me sore and tired enough that I’d spend at least two or three days not concerned with hiking and running. As usual, it did the opposite. I got down, wasn’t too sore, and spent the next three days freezing the 1990’s-era computers at REI on my breaks because I had too many summitpost pages open. Oops.

Ruth at the end of the valley

The day was off to a rough start. I was running a few minutes late because I realized I didn’t have snacks. “Hey guys, I’m gonna be 5 minutes late – stopping at QFC!” to which Brian replied “no worries” and Kyle 15 minutes later “yeah… I’m going to be a lot later than that.” Okay, so I woke everyone up with my “5 minutes late” text. Great. I got to Brian’s, parallel parked my truck like a pro, had some frosted flakes, and waited another 45 minutes for Kyle. Finally we got on the road around 7. Ruth wasn’t that hefty of a day, so I wasn’t too worried, and frosted flakes are surprisingly delicious.

The drive was overall uneventful, except for the part when I heard a big sigh followed by an explosive f-bomb come from the passenger seat. I asked what was wrong. “Guys…” What could possibly go wrong? What’d you forget. A beer? Snacks? Your phone? “Guys I forgot my boots.”

I should have braked immediately and pulled over for dramatic effect but instead I cracked up. Kyle forgot his boots. On a peak we were planning on using mountaineering boots and crampons. Well I had a few hiking shoes and trail runners in the trunk at least (it’s turning into a mini hiking closet due to the abject lack of space in my apartment), and we had Brian pass them forward one at a time so Kyle could see if he could cram his foot into them. No dice. We figured we’d improvise, we were already two hours away and not turning around to get boots.

Starting off through the valley

The road to the trailhead was not nearly as bad as we expected. WTA.org had “ROAD CLOSED” in big red letters, but the washout was very small and plenty of low clearance vehicles had made it. While unloading, we ran into a friendly group of hikers, one of whom lent Kyle his trail runners. They were a step up from mine because at least they were men’s, and better to go too big than too small, but they were huge. Like two sizes too big. Okay, we’ll see how it goes.

I had Brian pick through my bag to tell me how I was overpacking. You mean I don’t need three liters of water? Or waterproof clothing head to toe? I know I’m only going to eat one avocado probably but what if I’m hungry enough for the second? I should probably bring the whole box of wheat thins too. At least I left my second puffy layer at home! After abandoning some of the food and water and extra layers, my pack was actually pretty light, and we got moving. I wore my mountaineering boots for the whole hike, and tossed some barefoot trail runners in there just in case.

Wildflowers and a river and Ruth way in the background

The trail is very pleasant for the first four miles. WAIT, I kid. Nettles! Effing nettles! I had never seen nettles before, or felt them, and I got demolished by them. Legs, hands, it’s like being stung by a million tiny bees except it only lasts for 30-60 seconds. But that didn’t stop me from bitching. Ignoring the nettles, the beginning of the hike is great. Pretty flat, amazing greenery and wildflowers, views of Sefrit peak and ridge, with Ruth way off in the backdrop and a creek running through the valley. We stopped to take pictures pretty frequently. Plenty of small creeks across the trail, reassuring me that leaving behind the extra two liters of water was probably a fine decision.

Hannegan pass came up quickly, and we stopped for a quick snack before heading to the right. We hiked over a small knoll and then fought through half melted-out creek beds and bushes up to a plateau beneath a high point. I left arrows in the snow for Kyle just in case, who was behind us since he had to run back and get the camera he forgot at our snack spot.

Traversing the dicey slope

We rejoined at the plateau (the only part of the trail where you got a glimpse of Baker) and pulled out the map to double check where we were heading. The route wrapped around the back of a small peak (you might have been able to go up and over but it looked like a lot of time and effort) and then followed the ridge up to the true summit, so we started across. The slope we traversed wasn’t long, but it was steep. If you fell more than 20ft, you’d hit an exposed, rocky slope that ended in a cliff, so… don’t fall. Kyle decided to wait for us at the plateau, since he didn’t trust his footwear and of course we didn’t know how tricky the route would be once we were on the ridge. The beta I got before this trip all came from a guy who wore trail runners to the top, but at least his weren’t two inches too long for his feet. And I gotta say, going up there I have no idea how the previous guy did it. I mean sure you didn’t need stiff boots or crampons, but they were nice to have, and I like having toasty dry feet.

Rejoining the ridge

Fortunately, after that slope, the rest of the route was clear sailing. We joined up with the ridge on the other side, where some parts of the trail were even melted out! From the base of the snow fields, it just felt like a steep hike. There is a glacier, but this early in the season, there were no crevasses to contend with. If you drop lower on the route (especially later in the season), it sounds like you’ll probably want to rope up. We took turns breaking trail, and eventually put on crampons. The snow was soft enough that they weren’t necessary, but I could feel the difference they made. But euuuuughh, I forgot how awful they feel on rocks. Scraping like nails on a chalkboard. Yuck.

I can pretend it’s a knife edge right?

At points, the ridge turned into a mini knife edge before climbing steeply, and it was one of those hikes where you have to try to not be distracted by the ridiculous views around you. I have to thank Brian for not complaining when I stopped to try and get pictures of him every five minutes. There’s too much to see! You’re standing on a snowfield but it’s 70 degrees outside and you’re surrounded by snowy peaks in every direction and contoured snow sculpted by the wind and so quiet and serene that you almost don’t even want to speak.

We were heading up to the rock (if you’ve been there, you know the one I’m talking about) and cut to the right of it. We weren’t sure whether the snow cap near the rock was the true summit or not. It seemed too easy, it couldn’t be that close. Cresting it, we realized we did indeed have a bit more vertical gain ahead of us, and five minutes later, we were on the summit!

Almost there!

Part of the summit was melted out, and some rocks had been piled up in small bivvy style shelters to protect from the wind. Wait, how is that the first thing that comes to mind? The views! Shuksan! Holy crap, Shuksan looked unbelievable. You rarely see it from such a great angle. Glaciers cascading, and a nice rocky cirque leading up to the peak. To the left is Icy Peak, a traverse commonly done from Ruth. A climb I’d love to do someday, but not when my buddy is waiting at the bottom of the trail. Glimpses of the north end of the Picket range (I’m obsessed) and of course, hundreds of peaks I didn’t recognize. And if you turn around, you have lush green valleys backed by Church and Goat mountains. Ridiculous. I used to say I’d prefer to go blind than deaf (I mean neither are ideal okay) but now… now I’m debating that.

Mt. Shuksan from the top of Ruth

Icy Peak with Blum in the background from Ruth

We spent half an hour or so taking a power nap (five star nap on a five star day with five star views) on the summit, and I managed to grab a time lapse and plenty of snacks and pictures. The summit register’s pen was dead! And there was only one sad little piece of paper. We finally got up to head down, and started off back towards Hannegan Pass.

On our way back down the snow field, we passed the group who had given Kyle the pair of shoes. We stopped to chat, and someone asked if we had made the arrows in the snow. I had completely forgotten! They laughed and thanked us, saying it was a confidence boost every time they came across one.

Heading along the ridge

We got back down to Hannegan Pass, and Kyle was nowhere to be found so we figured (hoped? We knew he could take care of himself and we had left him on safe ground so we weren’t too worried) he was back at the car. We knew the last four miles were fairly flat, so it should be a quick return trip. Brian turned to me and asked if I wanted to slow-jog the rest of the way back to speed things up a bit. I looked down at my chunky Nepal Evos, shrugged, and thought hell, if I can run in these boots then I shouldn’t have any issues climbing in them. So let’s give it a shot.

Jogging back along the flat trail

And we jogged the remaining four miles. I felt ridiculous, but it was beautiful and efficient and reminded me why I like trail running. The only thing that went wrong with the boots was that they untied about a mile from the end of the trail. I have to say, that was the LAST issue I expected to have running in fully insulated mountaineering boots. I thought everything else would go wrong first. Hot feet, shin bang, blisters, nope. Just untied laces. So I stooped to retie them, grabbed a drink from a nearby stream, and caught up with Brian and Kyle back at the trailhead.

We spent some time chilling by the river (which was a little sandy! Who knew!) to cool off and relax before the drive home. On the way back, we stopped at a the North Fork Brewery to get drinks and pizza, which were both delicious. I’d recommend the Thai pizza. It seems like a weird combo, but I think it was the best of the three that we got. And naturally we had to finish all of the pizzas.

Glimpse of Baker in the clouds

Oh, and then it turned out someone had left my trunk open for our entire dinner meal. Ironic, because as I was walking in I saw a Subaru with an open trunk and thought “wow, people are so trusting out here!” and upon getting back to my car, there was the wide open trunk with thousands of dollars worth of mountaineering gear. But nothing was taken! Unbelievable.

Peaks to the west of Ruth I don’t recognize

Damn, this was a great hike. Photos never do it justice. Strava map here if you want to see our route. Also, I want to give a shout out to Kurt Smith, one of the guys who offered Kyle his shoes. He’s got some breathtaking photos from Ruth (and a bunch of others in general). Here’s his blog, go check it out!

I’d love to go back here and do the Icy traverse. The whole area is just spectacular. It’s a bit of a drive from Seattle, but every time I’ve gone up north it’s been completely worth it. Unfortunately, I wasn’t sore enough to take my mind off hiking the next day. As usual, it had the opposite effect. Where do I go next? What peaks are like Ruth, mostly snow climbs where I can leave the crevasse gear behind but feel like I’m in a totally alpine place? This is why I moved out here.

Hibox Mountain

Posted on June 8, 2015 by evejakubowski

View northwest from the summit

After a slow start to Thursday, I figured I didn’t have enough time to tackle a brand new peak, so I went somewhere I was already pretty familiar with: Hibox Mountain. I hadn’t done it before, but the first half of the trail is the Rachel Lake/Alta Mountain trail, which was one of my first hikes out here and a personal favorite. I had seen the small spur that leads to Hibox last time, but had no idea what it was. Hiked 6/4/2015, this was my chance for an answer!

Distance: 7.7 miles round trip
Elevation: 3960ft gain, 6547 highest point
Commute from Seattle: about 1:20 without traffic
Weather: 70’s and sunny with a ridge-cloud-scare
Did I Trip: Yes but the plethora of veggie belays saved me

Forecast was “partly sunny,” and driving through Snoqualmie Pass I was expecting worse. Thick clouds everywhere, some drizzle, pretty mediocre. I decided to take my chances with Hibox instead of going all the way to Earl, since I didn’t feel like driving another hour. The road to the trailhead has recently been graded, and was much better than the last time I was there. Not a single pothole, you can cruise along at 30mph spouting dust and dirt behind you if you so desire.

Getting to the trailhead, I had the first casualty of the day. Actually the only casualty besides pride and disappointment (to be discussed later). The first casualty was my god. Damn. Shoelaces. Which ripped. And I didn’t have extras. Shoelaces, that is. I had three other pairs of hiking shoes, so I grabbed my La Sportiva Synthesis and threw those on instead. Shortly after my brief minute of stomping around and throwing shoes and laces on the ground and swearing, two people came up and asked me where the trailhead was. Ha! No, I can’t laugh, the first time I did Alta I couldn’t find the trail either. It’s across the gravel road from the parking lot. I directed them to it, packed up the rest of my things, signed in at the trail register, shook my head and grumbled about my boots, and started to put one foot in front of the other.

Hibox above the meadow

The first 2.3 miles of the trail are flat and very well groomed. This is why it’s a favorite trail run. The turn to Hibox is about 2.3 miles in, after you pass through the second big meadow with great views of Hibox above you looking nice and pointy and intimidating. I had heard the trail was doable, but this was another “okay, one step at a time and we’ll see what happens” hike. No one saw me leave the Rachel Lake trail. I snuck off to the sneaky Hibox trail.

In my head, I’ve divided the Hibox trail into three parts once you leave the Rachel Lake path. The first third is through forest. Steep, full of roots, it’s not really a trail. Even “bootpath” is a generous label. Lots of blowdowns, lots of veggie belays, lots of fighting branches and leaves and spiderwebs and ants only to pop out 15ft later with the “trail” somehow still in front of you. It’s a test of picking which logs have been stepped on the most and following those. There are a few clearings to cross and the trail attempts a few switchbacks, but overall it’s you vs the woods.

Rampart Ridge beyond the wildflowers

The middle third is meadows and some light scrambling. And meadows mean views and wildflowers! Rainier is finally creeping above the clouds in the distance, and Rachel Lake was sparkling in the sun. The clouds spilling over Rampart Ridge looked very neat, and I had a few brief moments of “FOMO” thinking about how awesome the ridge to Alta must be with one side in clouds and one side in sunny blue skies. I imagined it’d be like the ridge back at Mt. Townsend in January, just without snow (so not that cool, but close). But I focused on my own trail. Alta later, Hibox now.

And I mean, I can’t complain. The wildflowers were gorgeous. What’s that? You want me to climb up these slopes and rocks covered in yellow and red and pink and purple? Yeah I can do that. The trail through the meadow is very vague, but most of the social paths meet eventually, and just make sure you’re heading north, not quite towards the rocky summit. You’ll cut that way later.

Lemah and Chimney Rock (and maybe Bear’s Breast?)

The third part of the trail is rocky talus fields and a third class scramble. The talus fields have almost no trail – a few cairns, but one led me to the wrong side of the peak according to the map and I had to backtrack. Essentially, you want to aim for the right of the scramble, so gain the ridge east of the peak before starting up the boulders. As usual, you have one of those “whoa…” moments where you get to the saddle and soak in the views below you on the other side that you had no idea existed until you got there. The best feeling. And in this case, that meant Lemah, Chimney Rock, Summit Chief, ugh. One of my favorite ranges. A little more remote, and very rocky and alpine looking. Spiky and snowy and damn do I need to find buddies to come climb those peaks.

Clouds over Alta coming towards Hibox

There’s a 15ft tall chimney to get past, though it looked like you could skirt to the left of it if you aren’t a fan of up-and-over. From there, just follow the ridge to the summit. It’s definitely class three, but not as much exposure as I thought, and not as long as I thought either. Only the very last part is a scramble. I couldn’t find a summit register but I’ll settle for a USGS plaque, I guess.

The coolest thing about this hike was the clouds. Rampart Ridge and Alta had holding off the clouds all day, and now they were moving down along the ridge towards me. I could see them roiling and they hesitated around Nobox (a less prominent peak between Alta and Hibox) but the clouds on the right kept streaming east. At least, I thought they were, until I watched the time lapse! They were just writhing and roiling, not actually moving. That’s pretty cool to think about, though. I was so convinced they had covered another peak by the time I left. Time lapse of clouds over the Chimney group, which I refuse to embed because I still can’t figure out how to make it not automatically take up the entire width of this column.

Goat!

Finally I saw a bunch of mist rise from beneath me, and got a bit spooked as the clouds were finally overcoming Nobox, my last line of defense. I didn’t want to downclimb in thick fog, so I wrapped everything up and scrambled down damn fast. I took another break just below the talus field, since the rest would be easy navigation. And of course, the clouds never got me. They stopped just short of Hibox, and I bet I missed a damn good show up there, too! Regrets. I kept looking behind me to see if the peak was finally covered and it never happened. Interestinly, the summitpost page mentions that Box Ridge seems to keep the lousy weather on the west side “boxed out,” and keeps it from slipping onto the east side of the Cascades. This was a pretty good example of that.

Going down honestly wasn’t much faster than going up. Back through veggie belays, wishing I had stiffer, higher boots (damn LACES! Eff!) and scraping ankles and calves all along underbrush. Oh, are fire ants a thing in Washington? An ant got stuck in my pants and I didn’t realize it until it had bitten my ass several times. Yeah, you can laugh. I laughed a little, after I cried. I kid, I didn’t cry. I just swore a few more times. Something about the woods makes me more crass.

Section of the Rachel Lake trail

I was a little bummed to be back in the forest. If I had more time, I’d have tried to bag Alta too, with a quick dip in Rachel Lake. Or, you know, if I could teleport. Or if I had worn my trail runners. But alas, it was already 5pm, meaning I’d be back at the trailhead around 6, meaning I’d avoid Seattle traffic! Yes!

No one saw me come back from the Hibox trail either. I was hoping there’d be someone nearby, to exclaim “whoa! Where’d you come from!?” and I could be the ghost hiker who came out of the woods in the middle of nowhere. I actually didn’t pass anyone besides a girl taking her dog for a quick walk closer to the trailhead. There were tons of bugs in the fields and cottonwood seeds (I think? those cottony clusters that float everywhere that aren’t dandelion seeds come on I know what dandelions look like) hovering in the air, and they had settled on the surface of the river I had taken so many pictures of last time. The pussywillows were all leafy now instead of having their fuzzy pieces, but it’s pretty cool knowing what they are.

Hibox was a totally cool hike. Hibox Strava Map, and I have GPX files as well if you’re interested. It was tricker than Alta and I believe 400ft taller, and (okay, I haven’t been to Alta’s true summit just yet) I believe it has a better angle of my favorite sneaky ridgeline. I’ve been eyeing Three Queens, which has similar views, so we’ll see how feasible that is in the near future. But Hibox had views and scrambles and bushwacking and a little minor route finding, all while convincing myself I was on a secret trail. Pretty solid for a relatively close, afternoon hike!

Rainier poking above the clouds

Vesper Peak and Lake Elan (Vesper Lake)

Posted on June 4, 2015 by evejakubowski

My second straight day off (whoa, two days, I know) was another brilliantly sunny one, and I packed up to finally do Vesper Peak. This one has been on my list since October. I didn’t think I was capable of it alone back last fall, but I figured by now I could handle it. And it turned out to be pretty damn doable with some phenomenal views from the top: snowy peaks, a few clouds, a lake, and who knew the back of Big Four was so red? Hiked 5/28/2015.

Views from the top: Corner of Del Campo on the far left next to Gothic, Daniel and Hinman way in the center background

Distance: 8 miles (WTA says 9, Strava had me at just under 8 for the peak AND the lake)
Elevation: 4100ft gain, 6200ft highest point
Weather: 70’s and sunny
Commute from Seattle: 1:45 without traffic
Did I Trip: Probably at least once but no major repercussions

First half mile of the trail

I hobbled out of bed Thursday morning, surprised that I was a little sore from Round Lake. Eh, I’ll loosen up at Vesper, no worries. The drive was uneventful, just a patch or two of rough spots on the road and that was it. The lot was empty, which was fine with me. This was going to be a slow hike, so if anyone showed up, they’d probably catch up to me.

I got all of my things ready and grabbed my boots from the trunk. You know what’s gross? They were wet. As in, still wet from the previous day. Yuck. I could have planned that better. My other option was barefoot trail runners, and I didn’t think those would cut it in the snow, so wet shoes it was! Like a boss.

Bottom of the fern slopes

The trail starts out through forest. Not lush green undergrowth forest, but a darker, more spread out canopy type of forest. Flat, which was nice, it meant I did get a warm up before the serious part started. The few stream crossings had moss growing everywhere, and I quickly grabbed a stick to fight off spiderwebs. Without Vernon breaking trail in front of me, I was on my own with those damn weaving beasts. Trusty stick would have to hold me back.

About half a mile in, there’s a tricky river crossing. The Stillaguamish is in your way, and apparently for part of the year it’s just a trickle, but on Thursday, it was a small river. I had to head upstream a bit where I found a large log I could reach by hopping across some rocks, and the log dumped me off on the opposite bank where I could scramble up and rejoin the trail. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure it out (which probably means like 7 minutes, but it felt like forever). Finally I was across, and almost immediately hit the fern slope, where I remembered what summer hiking was like.

Hot, and sunny, and sticky and full of spiderwebs and lack of shade. I’m a summer person. I’m a sunshine person. Getting sunburned makes me a little excited because it means I’ll be tan soon and whiffs of sunscreen make me miss spending all summer on the beach. I always joked that I thrive when it’s 90 degrees with 85% humidity. And yet, I forgot about stifling heat when walking through dense greenery, or how much water I’d want, or how I wish my damn water was cold. So I revised my statement to the following: I’m a summer person, if there’s an ocean within reach. There are no oceans in the Cascades, so I will have to settle for some glacial lakes. I took a break to water and slather on more sunscreen (learned the hard way back on Daniel) before continuing on. Finally you get back into the woods, where the shade was a welcome relief.

First boulder field/talus slop – aim for the patch of trees on the right

The woods spit you out into Wirtz Basin, where you are soon faced with a talus field and an invisible trail. Basically, aim for the patch of trees slightly to the right. Cairns are the name of the game here. There were always two within sight, except for that time when I lost the trail for a solid 15 minutes. So let that be your rule of thumb: if you can’t see two, you’re probably off trail. Keep your eyes open and don’t head too far to the right (gaining altitude) too quickly! The trail has a few short switchbacks up through the tree clump before officially starting up to Headlee Pass.

Looking up at Headlee Pass

Which is a bitch. Yeah, you heard me. Headlee Pass at noon on a brilliantly sunny summer day was brutal. More sunscreen. More water. Getting to shade was good motivation to get to the top. Shit, is my left shoulder burning? But not my right? Even those lines out, girl. And have some water. Okay, keep moving. The switchbacks get narrower and narrower until suddenly pop! You’re at the top, staring at Vesper. Shit, that’s what I’m going up? And it’s snow covered, and so much taller, and were you overconfident on this one? Let’s find out.

Second talus slope

Down on the other side of the pass, you hit another talus slope, this time with a slightly more obvious trail. You almost directly cross the slope, and the next landmark is the outlet of Vesper Lake. Which I believe is actually called Lake Elan, but that seems to be an archaic name. If you’re aiming for Vesper Peak, cross the outlet stream as soon as you reach it, and continue straight up. There’s a noticeable ridge line (possibly more obvious because of melting snow), and that’s your route to the top. The trail was starting to melt out and was visible in several places, so I had that to keep me company. Again, aim for the trees. The snow had started in earnest, but once I got to the trees, much had melted out, and that section was essentially just a steep rooty trail.

“Shit, I’m climbing THAT?” (Vesper Peak is the snowy one)

Copper Lake and the back of Big Four (the red peak) with Three Fingers and Whitehorse in the background

Exiting the trees, it was snowfields for the rest of the way. I put on microspikes (don’t think they made much of a difference given snow conditions) and traded pole for ice axe and started up. There were a few rocky sections open, and I trended towards those until I was maybe 200 vertical feet from the summit. At that point I traversed to the left to reach the ridge early, and then followed that back right until the peak, where I found the trail again (ha!) and could scramble to the highest point.

Glacier (in the clouds) and Sloan behind Morning Star

Views are amazing. I was looking across at Sperry and Morning Star, with Glacier and Baker and Shuksan in the clouds, Sloan and Gothic and Del Campo staring back at you. Even the Stuart range! I looked down and saw the itty bitty glacier I had seen from Round Lake – it was there! I almost didn’t even notice the view to the left until I glanced up by chance, only to be greeted by Copper Lake and the back of Big Four with Three Fingers and Whitehorse in the background. Damn, Vesper. And after all this time, I had been expecting you to have pretty mediocre views.

Looking down at the tiny glacier

I had snacks at the top and searched for the summit register, which I never found. Sad! After a half hour or so I started back down, which as usual went much more quickly than I expected. I passed another hiker on the way up the snowfields, so there were two of us! Back at the outlet stream, I figured it was around 3pm, so if I wanted to avoid traffic, I had to kill another hour or so. That meant either a) bag Sperry, the peak across from Vesper, or b) swim and tan. Sperry looked a little daunting for my solo-hike taste, and I figured I’d save it for a day I had company. It’s just a scramble, but I wasn’t feeling up to it. To the lake!

Lake Elan/Vesper Lake

Outlet stream where I took a dip

Getting to Lake Elan is a simple scramble (if you can call it that – you’re crossing boulders, but it’s pretty flat). The lake was entirely frozen over with just the edges barely melting out, but still beautiful given the alpine backdrop. I lay on a rock for a bit, took a bunch of photos, the works. I wished I could go swimming, but the damn thing was all ice. Oh wait – the outlet stream! I ran back over to the clear half of the stream and hopped right in. Breathtakingly cold water and immediate brain freeze ensued, followed by a satisfied, refreshed feeling as I was putting my boots back on. Summer is here, guys, and every body of water is fair game.

Vesper Lake with Sperry in the background

Vesper Lake beneath Sperry

Back across the talus slopes to Headlee pass, one last look at Vesper, and then a knee-banger of a hike down. It didn’t look nearly as bad going down as it had looking up. Going back across the talus field in Wirtz Basin was easier than the way up, probably because I had more of an idea of the route than I had earlier in the day. Somehow the fern slopes were still sunny, and this time around the Stillaguamish was the most glorious river I have ever seen, full of cold revitalizing water that I could have laid in for hours after all that sun. Fewer spiderwebs on the way back. That’s right, spiders, I’m the apex predator here, you bastards. Don’t build webs on trails. They will be ruined.

Strava map can be found here, and the Summitpost page has both a map and a GPX file. I just learned that the peakbagger app can actually download GPX files and will show your position relative to the trail even in airplane mode. So for you cheap hikers out there who don’t want a legit GPS, if you aren’t doing anything too crazy I highly recommend peakbagger. It’s been a ton of fun to use.

Monte Cristos behind Del Campo and Gothic

Round Lake

Posted on May 30, 2015 by evejakubowski

Round Lake

Thoughts on keeping hikes secret? I had a big debate over it on the way back from this hike, which far surpassed my expectations. Yes, I like to share what I love, and I want to inspire everyone else out there to get out of the city and explore a bit. But at the same time, sometimes I come across a pristine, beautiful trail like this, and I’m not sure I want everyone to know. If everyone knows, that means more traffic, more trash, more dogs, more poop, more tents, and less of that remote, in-the-middle-of-nowhere feeling. But you know what? It was damn spectacular, so here it is. If you leave litter or poop or destroy the trail, I swear to god I will haunt your ass (after I passive-aggressively pack out everything you left and complain about it on my WTA trip report). But if you’re up for a challenging hike and are a professional leave-no-trace ninja hiker, put this one on your list. Hiked 5/28/2015.

Distance: 11 miles round trip
Elevation: 4300ft gain (5600ft highest point)
Weather: 60’s and sunny
Commute from Seattle: 2:30
Did I Trip: Yes, on the way down, on the soft trail. Complacency is my fatal flaw

Starting off through green forest

First, I just want to say that I didn’t touch-up any of these photos. None. This is just how it looked. I usually don’t work with any photos I take unless there’s a glaring error. Maybe when I’m bored I’ll play around and see if I can make them look better. But for now, just think how amazing the scenery and colors were.

A few people had bailed on our hike, but we decided screw it, we’re going. I picked up Vernon and we made out way out to the Mountain Loop Highway, where we were either going to hike Vesper Peak (if weather was clear) or Round Lake (if weather wasn’t in our favor). Clouds were still low when we got to the turn-off for Vesper, so we kept right on driving. Little did I know I had forgotten directions to the Round Lake trailhead and had no GPS or phone service to load them, so I whipped out the huge National Geographic map and did some old-school navigation to FR-41, which took us to the trailhead (which we passed several times before finally finding it). So, secret trailhead for a secret trail. Perfect.

Patches of wildflowers

The drive to the trailhead had already been gorgeous, and the sun was peeking out. It looked like it might clear up after all! We started out, and quickly reached a registration box. With fresh papers. We were the first ones to sign it. First official hikers of the summer season, baby. Beyond the registration stand, the trail was narrow and overgrown with gorgeous, bright green undergrowth and wildflowers and moss. And spiderwebs. I made Vernon go first. He’s not afraid of them. He picked up an entire damn web with a spider in it and said “oh sorry buddy here you go” and placed the web on some leaves off the trail. I’m the opposite. I swing a stick in front of me destroying each and every web in my path because eff that. Spiders, whatever. But build a web in my space and it’s all over.

Entering a Disney movie

Guys, the hike was already breathtaking. I don’t think I’ve seen so much green in my life. After about half a mile, the trail starts switchbacking uphill through a more open forest (open is debatable – the canopy was still pretty thick). The trail, allegedly unmaintained, is flat and soft and the switchbacks are long and gradual for the most part. You can just barely make out some snowy peaks through the trees, which is just kindling for your appetite for views. I wasn’t sure how long the sun would last, so I was eager to get up onto the ridge.

First glimpse of Sloan and Bedal from an avy chute

You cross a few avalanche chutes, full of overgrown bushes nearly hiding the trail and previews of the views to come. Some of the bushes are thorny, so be ready for some scrapes (I promise they’re well worth it) and fighting off branches. Entering the avalanche chutes is like walking into a Disney movie: from shady forest to glorious saturated green meadows. It’s like the Wizard of Oz, when everything is suddenly in color. That’s how it felt.

Bingley Gap comes up after about three miles. Supposedly there are views, but we didn’t see many. Clouds were still in and out, and the ridge is fairly forested. We followed the trail to the right, knowing the Lost Creek Ridge trail would take us to Round Lake.

I love ridges. The more exposed, the better, but even forested ones are pretty cool. Trails looks amazing with sheer drops on either side. We were in the trees for a bit, until suddenly we came over a hump and I ran to the left since there was a clearing and I figured we could get views – surprise! Round freakin Lake!

Aptly named, it is quite round

The basin was still covered in snow, and you’ll probably want an ice axe if you’re heading to the lake. I’ve heard good things about Breccia Peak (keep that one secret too guys) and wanted to do some recon in the area to see how feasible it would be. Breccia is the peak on the right behind Round Lake in the picture above. With clouds parting and views opening up, I was eager to continue along the ridge, so that’s what we did. Bailed on the trail and stayed high.

Sloan and Bedal beyond the off-trail slopes

We traversed a few very steep heather slopes, thankful for the ample veggie-belays that held us in place while we were drunk on the views. Sloan and Bedal are right in your face, with Glacier Peak ahead of you on a clear day (we could only see the base unfortunately) and Vesper, Sperry, Twin Peaks, and Big Four off in the distance behind you. Wildflowers were blooming, and I couldn’t believe how good rolling slopes with glacier lilies look with huge white snowy peaks in the backdrop.

Sperry and Vesper in the center (with a glacier!), Twin Peaks right in front of Big Four on the right

Off trail navigation skills are essential for this one. There were a few very old tracks, but with snow conditions so different from when the last people were there, we blazed out own trail. We crossed a few snowy slopes to get to Sunup Lake, and scrambled down to the shore to trek over to the base of Breccia and the unnamed peak next to it. The maps we had recommended heading up to a saddle slightly to the right of Sunup Lake and then wrapping around the back of the ridge to the true summit, but with so little snow on the peak, it looked faster and easier to go straight up the southwest ridge. Still steep, but the path up to the saddle on the map didn’t exactly look like a walk in the park either.

Coming down to Sunup Lake

Sunup Lake

Unfortunately, Vernon was silently suffering some leg cramps at this point, and we ended up turning around just past Sunup Lake. I wasn’t too keen on piggy-backing someone across all the steep slopes we had scaled to get here, and we weren’t about to practice our first aid skills. We scrambled back up to a small knoll along the ridge where we stopped for snacks. Vernon whipped out a foot-long sandwich and was about to take a huge bite when we heard the rumble of thunder across the lake, and I watched the hope and joy and excitement for his sandwich turn to a look of “oh, shit” as I threw my pack back on and said “Yeah that sounds like we should keep moving.” We dropped a little lower, and took a real break halfway across the veggie-belay slopes, where we could snack and look at clouds writhe over Sloan and Bedal. I have no idea how to make the movie a smaller size within WordPress, it always seems to blow them up and ruin the quality. Here’s a link to the youtube video. But check out the time lapse. I know, I know, I need a tripod. God dammit.

Brilliantly colored slopes

After an hour of relaxing on the sunny slope watching the clouds and peaks, we decided it was time to head back down. We couldn’t see the clouds behind Breccia, but they weren’t looking too fluffy or light. Going down always goes faster, and we marveled at how gorgeous the wildflower slopes were in the afternoon sunlight and how we couldn’t wait to be back, even though we were still there. We refilled water at a small stream along the trail, and like I said, it could have been a Disney movie. Or maybe I had died along the trail and this was heaven, I don’t know. Heaven wouldn’t have had thunder or clouds over Glacier Peak, though, and there would have been a five-star steak dinner at the top. With an ocean beach worked in there somehow.

One more pic of the trail

Back in the forest, wait for it – the trail was still amazing. This trail had everything. Small waterfalls, views, old forest, green underbrush, a lake, ridges, slopes covered in wildflowers, slopes covered in snow, ridiculous mountain views. How does no one go here?!

Trail to Sauk Falls

Before I forget, Strava map of our ridge explorations can be found here. Allegedly there’s a path up to Spring Mountain (west along the ridge) as well, but we looked for it on the way up and down and never found it. Maybe the map I had just shows where to navigate off trail. Since it was still light out (sunset at 8:55? The PNW is nuts) when we got back to the car, we made two quick stops at North Fork Sauk Falls and at Whitechuck Overlook. Yes, that’s right, we decided to just drive the entire Mountain Loop Highway. We had come in through Verlot, and left through Darrington. And it was totally worth it. And that extra bit meant we got to skip Seattle traffic. Hell. Yes.

Sauk Falls

The falls were spectacular. Seriously, for a hike that’s less than half a mile, you might as well stop. The falls were not very tall, but had an unbelievable volume of water crashing over them. We bummed around the falls for a bit and tried to rescue an abandoned Pepsi can, but the wet mossy rocks proved too tricky for us. White Chuck overlook was neat as well, the mountain was mostly snow free and Vernon picked up some toilet paper and wrappers that someone had left on the ground. Those people are why I want Round Lake to stay secret.

Mt. Pugh from the ridge above Round Lake

Here’s the other secret: the Lost Creek Ridge trail goes all the way to Lake Byrne, which is supposed to be one of the most gorgeous areas in Washington. It’s 24 miles round trip, I believe, with around 7000ft of elevation gain. It’s tough to find specific summaries and reports for it. So let’s keep traffic to a minimum, but if you need a short backpacking trip, Byrne is a great candidate. I know I’ll be back. Ideally twice: I want to run that ridge, and I want to spend a few days backpacking in the area. The best thing about living here is how easy it has been to discover new places. I was getting overconfident in my Cascades knowledge, and then this came along. A region I hadn’t touched, mountains I had never seen (Painted Peak, Black Peak, hell there’s a whole Painted Traverse) and that’s just barely scraping the edge of it. There are some pretty big chunks of untouched wilderness out there if you have the time to get there. I always need to remind myself that it’ll still be there in a month, or a year, or a decade. As eager and impatient as I am, I have a whole lifetime to get out there.

Admiring the green colors

Mount Daniel

Posted on May 26, 2015 by evejakubowski

Brian looking over Venus and Spade Lakes

After spending the weekend on a beach in NYC, it’s going to be a little tough to type this one up and get back into mountain mindset. I’m currently sitting on a plane nursing my multiple sunburns. Sunburns from Mt. Daniel, not from Breezy Point. The casualties on Mt. Daniel were my pride and my face, which is currently an awkward mottled blend of four or five skin tones ranging from pasty white to bright red to crispy brown. Regrets? None. Okay, maybe one: guys, just bring the god damn sunscreen. RIP my face, 5/20/2015.

Distance: 15 miles round trip (~17 if we had made the true summit)
Elevation: 5500ft gain (7900 highestpoint
Commute from Seattle: just over 2:30 without traffic
Weather: 70’s and sunny
Did I Trip: Technically no but we had some postholes and some buttplants

Photo credit Kyle Kohlwes

We had been planning this one for a few days, and you can imagine the look of sheer joy on my face when Kyle came up to me and said “There’s a small river across the road to the trailhead that we might have to ford. It might be too much for the Subaru. Maybe you should drive.” Oh hell yes. I get to drive across a river and then climb a mountain. Could there be a better day? Oh, and I was testing my new mountaineering boots: La Sportiva Nepal Evos, which I bought literally the night before. I made it through the purchase without puking at how expensive they were, which was about as mentally taxing as actually climbing Daniel.

Who needs poles to cross a creek

We got started at 4:30am. As much as I would have preferred to camp at the trailhead and get an alpine start, that just wasn’t in the cards. So bright (no wait, it was still dark) and early it was. We packed all of our gear into the trunk: packs, boots, skiis, helmets, the works. The drive went smoothly, and honestly the road is in fantastic condition besides the ford. Very few potholes, maybe a couple of washboardy sections and some rocky parts, but nothing requiring 4wd/high clearance. Except for the creek, which was maybe 9” deep. Piece of cake for the xterra. When we reached the trailhead, there were a few other cars there already. Some were low clearance, so that river is crossable in a smaller car, though personally I wouldn’t have had the guts to do it in my old Accord.

Squaw Lake

I was wearing my usual fleece lined leggings, which was a mistake. It was sunny and warm out, and everyone else changed into t shirts and shorts pretty quickly. In my head, Daniel was basically Rainier, and I had packed nearly everything I brought up Rainier last August. DAS parka, insulated boots, crampons, extra pants, waterproof shell and waterproof pants. I was ready for temperatures well below freezing, not temperatures pushing 80 degrees. And all that gear (and 2 avocados and the pound of cheese and 12oz of meatballs I had brought, can’t risk being hangry) made my pack heavy, though not as heavy as the packs Kyle and Suz, the resident skiers, were bringing up.

Mostly snow-free traverse

The trail starts out completely snow free switchbacking through the forest up to Squaw Lake. The lake was completely melted out, and it could have been summer. We stopped for quick snacks and carried on to Peggy’s Pond. There was snow up until you cross the ridge above Deep Lake.

Wildflowers above Deep Lake

We changed into skiis/mountaineering boots just beyond Squaw Lake, which ended up being far too early. But there was a pair of bright red Adidas shoes sitting on a rock, and we thought hey, maybe we’ll stash our gear with this guy’s stuff. As it turned out, the side of the ridge above Deep Lake where you traverse over to Peggy’s Pond was completely snow free. A half mile or so from the pond, the snow started again, and stuck around for good.

Trekking up slopes with Cathedral Rock in the background

We had maps of the summer route (southeast ridge) and though there were tracks across the opposite side of the basin, we chose to stick with what we knew. Check out our strava map here. Kyle and Suz decided to stay in the basin to get in some ski runs (and a nap, in Kyle’s case) while Brian, Shelby and I headed up to the summit. We agreed to meet back where we split up, or at least that’s’ what the three of us thought. I’m never sure how to feel about splitting up. In this case it felt fine since there were so many of us. I like to think to myself that if I’m ever too tired to go on or something like that, I’ll just chill along the trail and wait for everyone else since I don’t want to be the reason they stopped and I really don’t mind hanging out somewhere gorgeous. But if there were just two or three of us and someone I was with told me they were going to wait, I’d say hell no, I’ll turn back too. Thankfully I’ve never been in that position, unless you count when my friend showed up to a soggy February hike in trail runners with her friend in scrubs and no jackets or insulation or packs or gloves. I turned around with them. She owes me a beer for that one.

Looking along the ridge to the East Peak

Venus and Spade Lakes

Negotiating the ridge was tricky at points. It was gorgeous (my camera died, so half of the photos are lousy phone-camera quality), but there were several sections where we wished we had followed the tracks along the opposite side of the basin, which looked much more mellow. The ridge was steep at points. We stuck to rock when it was available, and traversed a few areas were we were fully planting our axes to self-belay. Despite the dicier areas, the ridge was absolutely worth it. Views were unbelievable. Venus and Spade lakes to the left, Daniel’s East Peak looming up ahead, the Stuart range behind us over Cathedral Rock beyond Peggy’s Pond, which was starting to melt out.

Shelby just below a cornice on the ridge

Shelby avoiding a cornice on the ridge

It really did have an alpine feel to it. We may have been below 8,000ft, but it felt like we were climbing a real mountain. Rock, ice, and snow, and that’s it. And you, with whatever you can carry. Roasting your face in the sun. I knew it was happening, too. It was already bad enough that I could feel the sunburn. On one slope, I looked up ahead and saw a small blue bottle lying in the snow. Huh. That looks like sunscreen. Could it be sunscreen? Man, I could use some sunscreen. We got closer and oh my god, IT WAS SUNSCREEN. Shit, this is fate telling me “Eve, you’re effing sunburned.” Thanks, world. I picked it up and slathered it all over everything. Too late to save my face, but hopefully soon enough to keep my arms from a lobstery fate.

The traverse we hoped to avoid

We tried to avoid traversing the east side of the ridge, which had snow sloughing off of it, but finally hit a section were we were forced to drop down to the traverse. We took a break to discuss. It was around 12:30, and we had already left Kyle and Suz waiting (or skiing, or napping, or eating, or whatever they were doing) for around an hour and a half. We didn’t want to make them wait too long. So we set an arbitrary 2:00pm turn-around time, and figured we’d aim for the East Peak since making it across to the true summit would take too long. It wasn’t as bad as it had looked, but I was eager to get across. Once across, heading up to the East Summit was steep but straightforward if you stuck to the rocks. The snow was very soft and Brian (leading the way) postholed all over the place, which encouraged me and Shelby to choose the rocks.

Summit picture

Avocado boots

I was wiped. 20 vertical feet from the summit, kicking steps up steep snow, I turned to Shelby (who had tons of energy behind me) and admitted that this was the hardest I had worked for anything in months. Totally worth it, but damn, I was exhausted. We reached the peak, whooped, and sat down to take a snack break. We could see an obvious path over to the true summit, but we weren’t sure how long it’d take. It seemed like the type of trek that looks so easy and short until you’re crossing the snow fields and realize it feels like it’s never getting closer. So we sat among the piles of ladybugs (who knew they bred that high, but they were everywhere) and ate.

Looking at Glacier Peak

We noticed four skiers on the second peak, and soon enough, a fifth skier joined us at our summit. They were with Snow Troopers, and the fifth guy was there to get some sweet pics of them skiing. He set up his camera and we chatted. He told us they wished they had taken the ridge instead of the side of the basin, and suggested we head back the way we came. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side. We took his advice and followed our tracks, but traversed the entire eastern side of the slope back to a small saddle on the ridge, whereas on the way up we had stayed high and dropped down to join the same traverse. Going down went much more quickly than the way up thanks to glissading with some very half-assed self arrest practice and some running. Snack break had really refreshed me. I need to eat more often.

Looking back across the basin at Cathedral Rock and the Stuart range

Cathedral Rock above Peggy’s Pond

But where the hell were Kyle and Suz? We shouted their names and hiked around the basin and Peggy’s Pond hoping to run into them, but no luck. There were fresh ski tracks heading out the way we came, but we didn’t think they’d leave without us. We were meeting at the pond, right? Where we had split up? We decided to sit and wait for a while to see if they were still in the basin skiing. We ended up sitting there for over an hour when the five Snow Troopers came past us, and told us they didn’t see anyone else left in the basin. Kyle and Suz must have left. So we started back, hoping they were ahead of us on the trail. Damn, with all that time we could have made it to the true summit and back and they’d have waited just as long. I chuckled a bit – I had been exhausted, but after snacks at the top, I had felt so ready to go. I think we could have made it.

Going back up to the ridge between Deep Lake and Squaw Lake was where I started having trouble mentally. I was tired, and breaking mountaineering boots in is no easy process. My feet were not happy, and my ankles and shins were even worse. On snow, they were fine, but crossing rocks and hiking along a dirt trail, they were just not having it. And those boots are damn heavy. I felt clumsy and bulky tromping along a well groomed trail in those things. I was ready to kick them off and hike in my socks. I don’t know if the others noticed my sudden stretch of silence or not, but I had a mental battle with myself for a solid 15 or 20 minutes, which is very rare for me. But it’s like someone told me – getting up is optional, getting down is mandatory. And if we had gone for the real summit, that mental battle might have been longer. But as soon as we hit snow along the ridge again, I was over it.

Ready to traverse!

We missed the area where we had turned from the ridge onto the trail to Peggy’s Pond, so we had a bit of extra navigating to do. Finally we were back where we had stashed our shoes, and boom: friends! Kyle and Suz were waiting. We changed back into boots, and were leaving just as the Snow Troopers caught up to us, ready to put their own shoes back on. “On a scale of one to ten, how sunburned am I?” Everyone laughed at me. “Very sunburned.” Crap. “Around your julbos, too.” Oh. Good. “Don’t worry, the raccoon burn is something to be proud of.” So I had that going for me. Kyle took off his hat, and I learned that I didn’t have the worst sunburn. I may be bright red, but Kyle’s hat had left a clear dividing line on his forehead between white and bright red sunburn.

Back at Squaw Lake, we took a quick dip into the frigid water. Unbelievably refreshing, and made me realize I hadn’t been immersed in water since the last time I was in Breezy in August. Damn, that’s crazy. I swore to myself last summer I’d jump in ever glacial lake I passed, but hiking here in the winter made me realize that was nuts. Sometimes you don’t want to hike out soaking wet, or freezing.

Brian along the SE Ridge in front of Cathedral Rock (in the shade) and the Stuart Range

The hike back to the car went smoothly. I swear everything looked more green than on the way there. Must have been the light. Shelby noticed it too, so I wasn’t the only one. Two of the Snow Troopers leapfrogged us again on the way down. Shortly we were all chilling in the parking lot, surrounded by camping chairs, skiis, boots, and beer. Perfect end to a great day. And lesson learned: sometimes you just have to wear the damn sunscreen. I have a job interview in two hours, and I look like Rudolph the Reindeer.

Goat Lake

Posted on May 19, 2015 by evejakubowski

Foggy peak behind Goat Lake

This one’s a shortie. I had the day off, felt like a trail run, and Goat Lake had been on my list since moving here. It’s funny, a lot of the hikes on my original list now pale in comparison to the things I’ve been discovering, but I still feel a need to at least check them out. Whether it’s for an “easy” day, or so I am more capable of answering customers’ questions, or so I can say I did it, it doesn’t matter. And this was finally the day to go to Goat Lake. 5/12/2015, and just sayin, it didn’t live up to its name: no goats to be found.

Distance: 10.4 miles round trip (to the lake’s outlet)
Elevation: 1400ft gain
Weather: 40’s and cloudy
Commute from Seattle: 2 hours without traffic
Did I Trip: Nope (but shout out to my hardship of the day: spiderwebs for lunch)

Upper trail, wide, flat, and green!

The road was completely clear, and actually didn’t even have many potholes. I followed a jeep most of the way there, until they pulled off by the Gothic Basin trailhead. Last time I tried to do Goat Lake, the gravel part of the Mountain Loop Highway had been unpassable in my Honda Accord due to several inches of snow. As much as I miss that car, I’d have made it to Goat Lake easily that morning in what I have now. I pulled up to the trailhead, only car in the lot as usual, and hopped out with my trail running pack. Soon enough, the jeep pulled up – a couple who wasn’t entirely sure where they were going. I remember when I was like that. I’d be lurking along the highway trying to figure out where the hell to go, and now here I am probably capable of drawing a map of the southern half of the loop from scratch. Who’s a dork?

Okay, now that I had the pressure of other people behind me, time to start running. I usually like to walk the first half mile or so (especially after driving for two hours), but it was straight down to business this time. At least until I was solidly ahead of them. So they wouldn’t see me walk/running. Yeah, I know. Back when I had calf issues, I’d plan my sad recovery runs along main roads that had lots of intersecting dead end streets so no one would see me walking if I had to.

Bleeding hearts!

I did stop to look at wildflowers and waterfalls, of which there were plenty. Bleeding hearts! They were one of my favorite flowers as a child, and here I was jogging through patches of purple bleeding hearts covering the ground left and right. I took the upper trail on the way to the lake, figuring I’d take the lower one on the way back. The upper trail is much more gradual and well-groomed. It’s an old road, apparently. Think wide, flat, not too rocky or rooty. Until it rejoins the lower trail. Then it gets a little steeper, and a little more rooted. And of course, spiderwebs here and there for your enjoyment. Not.

Small waterfall

About a half mile from the lake (slightly longer if you follow all of the switchbacks) you can go off-trail to a huge waterfall. I actually missed where the trail turned (I’m far more oblivious on my trail runs than on hikes) and was staring at the waterfall trying to figure out how to get across when I realized the trail probably just goes up to the lake. You can see on the Strava map where I farted around on the way up by the waterfall (I took the switchbacks on the way down).

Getting up to the lake is incredible. The first view you get comes if you sneak through some bushes to the huge log jam, which you can basically hop across right up to the edge of the lake. 10/10 would recommend. You can already see the snowy peaks from there, but I suggest going further along the left side of the lake, where the views are even better. It was mostly cloudy when I was there, but the sun snuck through the clouds for a hot second, and I sprinted to the shore to take a picture.

Foggy peak behind Goat Lake

On the way back, I took the lower trail. I passed the couple in the jeep (“Wait, you already got to the lake?! Wait, you’re RUNNING?? Oh man I’ll never be in shape enough to do that!”) just before where the lower trail and upper trail joined. Ugh, the lower trail had spiderwebs. A plethora of spiderwebs. My caloric intake for the day was probably 15% spiderwebs. You’re welcome, hiker couple, I ate all of them before you got there.

Narrow, windy lower trail

The lower trail is more narrow and windy with much more vegetation, and dips next to the river occasionally. If you like footwork on your runs, take this one instead of the upper trail. It was nice to mix it up, though, and it almost felt like a loop instead of an out-and-back. I was back at the car pretty quickly, and while my splits weren’t amazing, I felt pretty good (maybe the slower pace is why – shh!).

Strava screenshot

I can see why this trail gets so much traffic. The water would have been gorgeously clear and blue in the sun, and even in the clouds and wind, it was still spectacular. Something about the wind whipping across the water made me miss the ocean, and I was glad to have the lake all to myself. If you look real hard at Strava, maybe you can see how many time I ran in circles trying to get 10-second-timer selfies on the logjam. Perhaps you’ll have better luck.

10-second-timer log jam selfie

Yellow Hill & Elbow Peak

Posted on May 15, 2015 by evejakubowski

Another mediocre day on the west side of the Cascades led me to the Teanaways for my first “legitimate” trail run in months. I’m all about those ridgelines, and chose a short, hopefully dry, snow-free one to run. I also decided to give my pair of La Sportiva Synthesis a try since I have them for product testing. They’re technically hiking shoes, but might as well push their limits. Spoiler alert: don’t run in them. Anyway, here’s Elbow Peak, a nicely exposed ridgeline out on the east side of the mountains! Ran 5/6/2015.

Distance: 10 miles round trip (about)
Elevation: 2800ft gain, 5600ft highest point
Weather: everything
Commute from Seattle: 2 hours without traffic
Did I Trip: No, my issues were deeper than tripping this time around

Wildflowers along the trail

I had read some warnings about the 4wd trail beyond the trailhead, but it honestly looked easily driveable. It probably got pretty muddy in the rain, but anyone with any high clearance 4wd car should have a pretty straightforward drive. Most of it was pretty flat, but some areas were deeply rutted. Part of me wanted to drive the road, but I was there for a run, and I didn’t drive two hours to only run a few miles. It had to be at least 10.

There are little spur trails leading away from the road, though they all join it eventually. Once it officially leaves the road, the trail becomes one big rocky rut in sections, which made some stretches to run. Sunny blue skies at first made the wildflowers light up, and there were plenty. The trail was admittedly steeper than I had expected, so I walked pretty routinely on the steeper sections. Motivation to get in shape. Shady sections after about 2 miles in had patches of snow, but nothing that I felt required traction or poles. Which is great, because I brought neither.

Ingalls and the Stuart Range

Yellow Hill is a hike in itself. It’s about 6 miles round trip, and gives you a small glimpse of Stuart. From Yellow Hill you it’s a ridge walk over to Elbow Peak (about another two miles), and since that’s the part I was looking forward to, it felt like the adventure didn’t start until I was past Yellow Hill. I descended the slope and hit the ridge only to realize the sky was divided in two: crappy weather to the right, sunny weather to the left. Hmm. We’ll see what develops.

Looking towards Elbow along the ridge

I saw my first dust devil too. I heard a whooshing wind sound, and turned around to see dirt, leaves, and debris spinning in a small circle about 15 feet away from me, moving to the left. Freaked me out at first until it dissipated after maybe two minutes of wandering the ridgeline. Some areas along the ridge were rocky, and I dipped below to avoid scrambling since I was on a roll. I kept jogging up towards Elbow, and was there before I knew it. It’s an odd summit, I didn’t totally know where the top was so I tagged few high points and hoped I happened to stumble across the true summit.

Left to right: Lemahs, Chimney Rock/Overcoat peaks, Summit Chief, Bear’s Breast, Hinman, Daniel

And at the true summit, I discovered the Lemahs, Overcoat and Chimney Rock peaks, Summit Chief, and Bears Breast. That’s a skyline that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before, and I was intrigued. I’ve never seen Daniel out of the clouds either. Seems like the Lemahs are pretty remote, but I’ll find time to at least get close to them this summer, and I’ve already got plans for Daniel. I had no idea what the peaks were, so I snapped a few pictures and posted on wta.org hoping I’d get a response. As usual, I did – thanks LDistel!

Stuart range with weather moving in on the right

I turned back, and saw the weather moving towards my ridge. Great. I’m going to be running back through the rain. Might as well get it over with. It was still sunny where I was, so I figured it couldn’t be that bad. No one minds a warm drizzle.

I was wrong. Within five minutes it dropped 10 degrees and started hailing. I was still on the open ridge, which was fairly short. Which I appreciated, because as soon as I entered the trees, I heard the crack BUHBOOOOM of thunder. “GOOD!” I shouted and glared at no one, and kept jogging. Oh, did I mention that I don’t bring much when I run? I had some food, a liter of water, and a soft shell. No rain jacket, no puffy layers, nothing for my legs. Well, maybe it’d be motivation to not stop.

Where’d Stuart go!?

Also wrong. Not even a thunderstorm can motivate my lazy ass. Getting back up Yellow Hill had one steep sections (also rutted) which I walked. Again. I’ll whip my ass into shape eventually. First run back in the mountains I’ll give myself a few free passes. Even Denny can’t prepare me for that type of thing. The hail got harder and the thunder got louder and I finally got back to the road, which was straight, easy running. Except this is where the shoes get shitty. Mud tires on cars are designed to fling the mud off of the treads, right? Well no one thought about that with the La Sportivas. They clung to EVERY PIECE OF MUD I CROSSED until I was running with tractionless bricks on my feet. Misery. But I was surrounded by marble sized hail and thunder and all I wanted was my car and a lemon honey stinger waffle.

Mud caked shoes, waiting for pilot car

Made it to the car. The honey stinger waffle was pure bliss. I drove out of there quickly, had a few chances to appreciate my mud tires, and got back to the Teanaway road just in time to sit for 20 minutes waiting for a pilot car. Worth it? Yes. Did it ruin my dream of the Teanaways being the land of fun and sun? Also yes. Turns out even the east side gets some rain.

Strava map here. This was my first hike along a trail that was also open to bikes. Honestly, I’m not sure how I felt about it. The deep ruts were annoying as someone trying to run, but I didn’t encounter any bikers which was a relief. And probably had something to do with it being a Wednesday morning. Not a spectacular hike, but a solid run, with a few more ridges to follow had I had time to bag another peak.

Bonus question for any geology gurus out there. What causes the white streaks in the rocks? Is it quartz mixed in with whatever sort of rock the ridge formed from? Seems like they’re harder than the surrounding rock since they always jut out a bit, which I assume means the other rock is wearing down more quickly.

White streaks in the rock along the ridge

Edit: Looks like the white streaks are quartz veins. The minerals are deposited by very hot water (called “brine,” “hydrothermal fluids,” “and a variety of other sciency terms that I’m dumbing down to “hot water”) rising up through cracks in the rock. As the water cools, it precipitates the minerals out along the cooler rock on either side of the cracks. Sometimes it fills up, like what I saw, sometimes it leaves pockets, where you can see the jagged crystals forming. Thanks to Emanuela for putting me on track to do some research!

Bean Peak & Red Top Lookout

Posted on May 5, 2015 by evejakubowski

Glacier lillies in bloom

Good god I have been lazy. Usually writing these is a fun side activity, but I’ve been wiped the past few days. This hike is from almost a week ago. My first solo hike in a while, the forecast was rainy (crap) so I took off yet again to the land of fun and sun (yay!) on the other side of the cascades. Solo scamper up Bean Peak, here I come! Hiked 4/29/2015. Yes, that’s the day before my last post about Rachel Lake and Rampart Ridge. So many people were asking about that area that I

Distance: 6.5 miles round trip
Elevation: 3000ft gain (I think this is off), 6743ft highest point
Weather: 40’s and sunny
Commute from Seattle: 2:30 without traffic
Did I Trip: No but I fell in a creek

Trail next to Bean Creek

I got started earlyish in the morning. I hate sitting in traffic, so if I can sneak out at 6:30 or 7am and beat the Seattlites (who seem to wake up late compared to where I come from) then I’ll do it. I like to hit the highway, throw on some trance music, and enjoy cruising through the mountains. That’s how this went. Snoqualmie Pass was rainy, and when I crossed over into the sun, there was an enormous freaking rainbow in my rearview mirror. Even the road to the trailhead had been smoothed over! No potholes until the last mile, which turns off the main Teanaway road, that was rougher. I got to the trailhead around 9am, and took off.

Anyone know the name?

The first half mile of the trail is along an old road that leads to the Beverley campground. It’s marked with pink tape in case you somehow manage to lose a trail that’s six feet wide. When you come to an intersection between the “Beverley Turnpike” and the Bean Creek trail, take the Bean Creek trail. The trail follows alongside the creek, with glacier lilles and some other flower I haven’t figured out yet blooming all along the sides of the path. You listen to nothing but the river and birds chirping, a great break from the city.

Don't underestimate it. Or, don't be clumsy.

Don’t underestimate it. Alternatively, don’t be clumsy.

You can see Earl up ahead to the right for most of the hike, but Bean doesn’t come into view until you’re towards the end of the creek. There will be a few peaks that look important, but they turn out to just be shoulders of Judy. The first creek crossing looks easy but don’t be fooled. I dropped a pole and it nearly got swept away. And on the way back, I stepped on a rock that wasn’t as firm as I thought, and it rolled and dumped me into the water. I’m graceful.

Wonder how long it’ll be there

Keep following the creek until you cross it one last time and face a fork in the trail: the right takes you up switchbacks to Earl, and the left, temporarily labeled “Bean Creek Basin Trail” will take you to the basin, which you can follow up to Bean Peak.

Cairn leading you across the basin (Judi’s on the left, Bean on the right)

The trail was almost completely snow free until the basin, which had patches of snow here and there. If you look carefully, there are cairns leading you across the meadow, and a small boot path (lightly traveled trail in this case, not prints in snow) appeared on the other side. I followed this until it disappeared beneath patchy snow and rocky scrambles, and started to make my own adventure.

Looking west along the ridge to Judi’s

There was a small outcropping of rock above me, which I figured couldn’t possibly be Bean Peak. So I continued to traverse west across the slope, aiming for a huge, rocky snowy peak that looked imposing enough. I didn’t want to cross too many avalanche slopes, so I mostly snuck along rocks and gained a low point on the ridge. I did take out the ice axe for a few small snow fields, but they could have been skirted. Microspikes were completely unnecessary. Again, one of those gaining-the-ridge moments where suddenly you see everything below you, Ingalls on the left and Stuart to McClellan in front of you.

I turned around, and wait a minute – that rocky outcropping was huge. Shit. Was that Bean Peak? I found a flat (ish) rock along the ridge and whipped out my map. Yup. That was Bean, and I had been aiming for Not Bean Peak. God dammit. Okay, backtrack. I scrambled down a bit and went back across the snow slopes, and then climbed back up towards Bean from the west. I wasn’t sure what to expect since most approaches I had read were from the other direction, but it was very doable, though a bit steep and exposed at parts. The way back down on the east side was much easier.

The Stuart range from Bean Peak

Sneaky register! Yes!

I dropped my bag behind me and took a quick snack break at the summit to admire the views of the Stuart range as usual. I still wasn’t 100% convinced that I was on Bean. If only there were a summit register or a plaque or something. I turned around to grab water from my bag and look! A PVC pipe! That can only mean one thing. Summit register! I unscrewed it and the notebook was frozen solid. I lay it in the sun to dry, but of course it just got soggy. I tried etching my name in pencil, but I don’t think it stuck. My original goal of Not Bean Peak was actually Judi’s Peak.

Looking east down the ridge to Earl, Navaho on the far left

The clouds to the west were a little menacing without the rainbows of earlier, and they were creeping east. It wasn’t even noon, so I glanced over at Earl and debated walking the ridge to bag a second peak for the day. Given the clouds (and the fact that the wind had just changed direction and picked up) I decided against it. Going down was much quicker than going up, and I made it back to the basin in no time. Past the junction between the basin trail and the Earl trail, I ran into two happy hikers in shorts and sneakers with nothing. “Where does this trail go?!” I looked them up and down and suggested the basin, since they didn’t look like they’d be down to climb snow and rocks to bag some peaks. The basin is a worthy destination in itself. In fact, there are several peak loops you can do if you want to bag up to 9 peaks in a single trip, and the basin might be a good place to camp before starting. Here’s a map for five of them, and the others are Earl, Mary, Judy, and Bill, though you might have to get creative for some. Oh, and maybe run the easy parts if you’re aiming for a high number.

Looking down a scramble at the valley below

Getting back to the trailhead, I still had over 5 hours of daylight, so I thought I’d drive a bit further and check out Red Top Lookout. This peak had foiled me and a few buddies back in December. We wanted to go sleep somewhere under the stars on the east side for a meteor shower, and Red Top Lookout seemed like a good choice. Short hike, high elevation, we just forgot one thing: just because it hadn’t snowed in a week didn’t mean that there wouldn’t be ice. In fact, the entire road was beneath several inches of ice. I got as far as I could in my Accord and waited for my friend in her pickup truck, assuming she’d be able to get farther. Turned out her truck was rear wheel drive. Even worse for ice. We had to backtrack to find where she got stuck, and help push her truck all the way back down the forest road. Oh, I should mention it was about 1am.

Cloudy Stuart range from Red Top Lookout

So seeing the road in daylight was quite a change. If either of our cars had slid off the road that night, we’d have been toast. Luckily the road is now completely melted out. Still rough in places, but passable by any car that’s willing to take their time. You can see the lookout pretty much from the parking lot, so you know it’ll be a short hike. I got to the top within a few minutes and damn was it windy. The hike to the lookout is less than a mile round trip if you skip the agate beds. It was so windy that I wanted to just be done with it, so I took the short route. Of course the lookout was locked as well, but the views were spectacular. I could look back and see the Stuart range now in clouds, and the peaks I had been near in the shade. I chose a good time to leave. I’ll go back to Red Top to check out the geology in the area, since it sounds pretty rich (albeit a little picked-over by now, according to WTA).

Zoomed in pic of Stuart

The Bean Peak hike has it all. Creeks, wildflowers, waterfalls, snow, scrambles, views. Here’s my Strava map, you can see where I overshot Bean Peak and ended up on the ridge between Bean and Judi’s. Because of that, the mileage and elevation are slightly less than Strava says. You know when you have those days where you actually realize you’ve made progress towards something you’re learning? This was one of those days. Six months ago I’d never go off trail, or find my own way up to a peak, or scramble anything solo, nevermind a class 3 (okay, mostly class 2) area I had never done before. I didn’t even think twice about all of it until I was on my way home. It’s a good feeling.

Strava Map of Bean Peak

Rachel Lake, Rampart Ridge/Rampart Lakes, and an Alta Mountain Recon Trip

Posted on May 1, 2015 by evejakubowski

Looking up the ridge at a bump along the ridge to Alta

Getting up is optional, getting down is mandatory. That’s a phrase I try to live by on solo hikes. Yes, most of the time if I get up, I can get down, but I try to take everything into consideration. How tired will I be if I get to the top? Will conditions change? Will it take me just as long to downclimb this, or can I glissade and get back more quickly? If I’m tired at the top, will this be dangerous to climb back down? This ended up being a bit of a motto for this hike. Hiked 4/30/2015.

In addition, I don’t know what to do with all of these hours of daylight. The sun is already setting later than anywhere I have ever lived, and when I’m out hiking, I have this inherent need to take up every hour of sunshine and I’m finding that harder and harder to do! This means I will either need to a) take more breaks b) take longer breaks c) get more in shape and go farther. I like the last option, because with this ambitious hike, it was potential tiredness that made me head back earlier than necessary. But, I got way more done than I expected, which is pretty neat. And some great recon for the area that so many people have been asking about over the past week or two.

The west side of Alta's ridge. I made it to the point on the far right, true summit is on the left.

The west side of Alta’s ridge, viewed from Rampart Lakes. I made it to the point on the far right, true summit is on the left.

Distance: 11.3 miles (Rachel Lake trail up to Rampart Ridge, halfway up Alta, back to the edge of Rampart Lakes)
Elevation: 3508ft gain, 5900 highest point (Alta’s true summit is just over 6100)
Weather: 60’s and sunny
Commute from Seattle: 1:30 (4 hours on the way back since a few cars thought it would be a good idea to crash on the i90 bridge and trap everyone)
Did I Trip: I slipped in mud once. I got complacent on the way down from Rachel Lake since the hard part was over.

Sunlight caught in a waterfall

View from a meadow

We’ll start with Rachel Lake. I expected snow on the road because of the last few trip reports, but it was just about all melted by the time I got there, and the patch that remained could be skirted. I parked at the huge, empty trailhead (smirking to myself, last time I was here I was well on my way to being very late for work so I got butt naked and changed right there in the parking lot) and hit the trail.

Mossy creek bed

I actually forgot how beautiful this trail is. It alternates between forests, fields with views of Hibox (and pussywillows! I never thought about where they grow wild), waterfalls, and mossy creek beds. Even if you’re just going to Rachel Lake, it’s a gorgeous trip. The trail is flat for a little more than 2.5 miles, and then starts to gain elevation pretty quickly just past where the boot path to Hibox leads away from the trail.

The best game: where’s the trail? (answer in text)

The trail becomes very rocky and rooted, and doesn’t always look like a trail. It’s always there, you just need to keep an eye out for it and pay attention to switchbacks. That pic to the right has the trail on the right hand side, up and over all of those roots just past the rocks. Sneaky switchback, really. Back in October, a little birdy told me the way at one point. It landed on a branch and chirped and flew off down the trail when I was confused. Thanks, little guy! This time around, I was more familiar with the area.

The trail was mostly snow free besides a few patches until about a quarter mile from the lake. When you see the “campfires not permitted at Rachel Lake” sign (something like that) you’re close, and that’s where the trail disappears into snow. Right now, there are footprints in most of the snow to follow. You’re slightly east of the lake at this point, so head straight west and you’ll hit it.

Rachel Lake

The lake is starting to melt out, which will be gorgeous if the snow lingers a little longer because it’s a very light blue lake. There are a few areas to camp, though much of it is still covered in snow. To gain the ridge, head to the right around the north side of the lake. In the summer, there is a bootpath to follow, but this time of year, choose your own adventure.

Looking down on Rachel Lake from Snack Rock

There were some old prints that I stuck with until the ridge, where they headed up some steep snow and I chose to aim for the closest rocky area and scramble up to the ridge instead. I had postholed thigh deep – the snow caught me, my foot was just dangling in thin air, and figured I’d rather take my chances on rocks instead of snow.

It was a short scramble to the ridge, and I popped up next to an outcropping of rock that became my base camp of sorts. I dubbed it “Snack Rock.” It looked out over the whole valley with Rachel Lake to the right, so I set up and had my first snack break. I was planning on Rampart Lakes, but I was so damn close to Alta and it wasn’t even noon yet, so I couldn’t resist checking it out. After my run there last fall, I have a thing for Alta Mountain. Off I went.

Looking back at my footsteps on the way back from Alta

There were a few footprints to follow along the ridge at first, winding through trees along the flat section. I followed them up the first knoll, crossing snow fields and bare rocky patches. After about a half mile from Snack Rock, the footprints disappeared. I saw some heading to Lila Lake down below, so perhaps that’s where they went. I carried on along the ridge. I swapped poles for ice axe when the ridge became narrow and the drop off became steep. Snow conditions were still good at this point, even my steps weren’t triggering pinwheels. But it was warm and the sun was shining directly on the slopes, and I knew it wouldn’t last. I didn’t stop to take photos in any of these areas. Quick, focused moving was key.

Lila Lake and Alta tarns down below

Looking ahead of me, I saw what I thought was the summit of Alta. Could it be?! Heavily corniced, it already looked sketchy, but I saw a scramble route along the dry west side of the ridge that I could take. The cornice I was looking at was bigger than me, looming over the east side of the ridge, looking down on a steep avalanche slope. I have no idea how I forgot to get a picture. No chance I was crossing that. Getting up to the dry side of the peak, I saw that I was still about a mile from Alta’s true summit. Maybe with some friends and a huge pair of balls I could have scrambled along the dry side to get around the cornice and carry along down the ridge.

The “nice side” of the ridge. Cornice is on the right out of frame.

Or with friends, balls, and an alpine start, the snow slopes would have been fair game. But the snow was softening quickly, steeper slopes had snow sloughing already and my steps were starting to trigger pinwheels. Nope, not soloing any of that. I was anxious enough to get back across the avalanche slopes I had crossed just to get here. Okay, I’m out. I turned around and headed back along the ridge.

Rainier

The ridge is still stunning. Covered in snow, Rainier looming behind Rampart Lakes in the distance, and god dammit I realized you could see i90. I hate seeing highways. I blocked it from my mind and focused on the peaks in the other 320 degrees around me. And oh, Rampart Lakes! I finally knew where they were. I had assumed they were on the other side of the high peaks of the ridge, but they were just beneath them on the northwest side. Perfect. Descending to Snack Rock went quickly, and I stopped there to take a second break and debate returning, or going to Rampart Lakes.

Looking back along the ridge from the knoll

Looking out at the northwesternmost Rampart Lakes

For those of you who know me, it’s no surprise I ended up going to Rampart Lakes. Again, I had all day, and was about to start a 12-day streak at work, so I had to get my fill of wilderness. There were no footprints leading over to the lakes, so I blazed trail following the flat ridge until I got to some frozen, snow-covered lakes. There was a river running through the middle that was starting to melt out. I hiked past the first few tarns, and took a break on a rock overlooking the river. It reminded me of Gothic Basin, but with darker rock and more trees.

Small river going through Rampart Lakes

Knowing I had to get down that sleep talus slope was weighing on my mind. I wanted to be feeling physically pretty good when I had to head down, and crossing the river to get to the rest of Rampart Lakes looked more complicated than I wanted to deal with since I could either downclimb a steep snow slope and walk up the other side or walk around until I found a less steep option. I decided to head back. The lakes were all frozen, so I can’t imagine I would have had any groundbreaking discoveries out there. I took a slightly easier route back to Snack Rock (at one point on the way there I was bushwacking through trees and underbrush when snow would have been easier) and took one final break.

An Eve shaped space!

Like I said, getting up is optional. But you can’t avoid getting down. I looked down the slope I had come up, took a deep breath, and started down. Shockingly I didn’t need to crab-walk any of it like I expected. Halfway down, I breathed a sigh of relief realizing it wasn’t nearly as bad as I had made it out to be in my head. No, stop, don’t get complacent! I focused on every step. Finally back on snow, I stepped carefully, wary of my earlier posthole. I skirted that area, but no luck – I postholed chest deep. Okay, that’s not a posthole, that’s just falling into a boulder well. One foot landed on rock, I threw my arms out across the snow, and the other foot dangled in space. I spread my poles across the snow and managed to pull myself out, leaving an Eve-shaped space looking into darkness. Naturally I snapped a pic and continued on my merry way.

Tree over a quiet section of river

I followed my own steps back to the trail. No one else had come up even to the lake, mine were the only fresh prints. It’s too bad, because this is such a beautiful hike, and the lake is pretty accessible right now. Strava map can be found here. As far as gear goes, nothing special needed to get to the lake, maybe a map if you want to play it safe. Up on the ridge, Rampart Lakes was straightforward, but heading over to Alta you’ll want an ice axe. Never touched microspikes or crampons, though if you plan on summitting Alta, you’ll want to make more traditional mountaineering plans.

I will say, this hike is especially gorgeous in fall. As cool as it was yesterday, I couldn’t help but think back to all the fall foliage along the ridge in October. If you aren’t a fan of snow hikes, check it out in the early fall when the leaves are turning. Here’s my blog post from the fall, when I was still crappy at photography and writing. I will say, it’s definitely my favorite trail run so far. How can you walk along that ridge and not want to run it? I have to bring a buddy back there to get running pics next time.

The ridge back in early October

Gene’s Peak/Teanaway Peak and Iron Peak

Posted on April 27, 2015 by evejakubowski

Iron peak summit

Blog post #50, baby! I should probably be figuring out how the hell I’m going to introduce Scott Jurek to a couple hundred people at REI before his presentation today, but I was too eager to get started here. 50 posts, some good, some bad, some awkward, but all worth the time and effort. And if I may say so myself, I do suck a little less at photography now compared to my first few. So here we go. I had been worried because the forecast for the Cascades was pretty crummy, but we went off to the secret land of sunshine. A great day out in the Teanaways, 4/23/2015.

Ridge coming back from Iron

Distance: 7.3 miles round trip (both peaks)
Elevation: 3370ft gain,
Weather: 30’s-50’s and sunny
Commute from Seattle: 2:30
Did I Trip: I don’t think so?

Getting out of Seattle was a mess. Seattle traffic, an exploded pipe in Kayla’s bathroom, a park n’ ride with no parking spaces left, picking up water at a gas station, missing the exit off i90, I could go on. But we made it to the trailhead (De Roux Campground) in one piece. And promptly spent another 15 minutes trying to find where the hell the trail started. Long story short, there’s a small lightly traveled trail that brings you from the campground back to the road, and the real trail starts on the other side of the road. Finally, we were off.

Starting off along the trail

Everyone wore light mountaineering boots, and I tagged along in my barely-even-qualify-as-trekking-boots. They had never failed me before, and I hoped if it actually got tricky, I’d just go last and by the time I got there, they’d all have kicked nice solid steps for me. The trail switchbacks up along the side of the valley above Eldorado Creek, and was snow-free for the first mile or so.

Flowers starting to bloom

There were a few flowers starting to bloom, and everything is looking a bit greener than a month ago when I was along the same road hiking to Ingalls Lake. There was a light bootpath to follow as we started to hit patchy snow, and finally we were off the trail altogether.

Switching to loose dirt from snow

When we broke out above the trees, we swapped trekking poles for ice axes and aimed directly for the saddle. The snow wasn’t too deep, and it was compact enough that we didn’t have many postholing issues (a relief compared to what I slogged through back at Squire Creek Pass). We followed snow halfway up the slope, and switched over to some loose dirt for the rest of the way. Gaining the ridge, you have Gene’s Peak just a scramble away to your left, Iron Peak a ridge-walk to the right, and Bill’s Peak smack in front of you with the Stuart range behind it.

A quick bit of history: Gene’s Peak has been renamed Teanaway Peak for some reason, which is too bad because Gene’s and Bill’s Peaks were named after the two Prater brothers, who allegedly developed the first lightweight metal snowshoes. Bill’s Peak retained its name, but poor Gene got demoted. We’ll try to keep it alive for a while longer.

Starting down the ridge to Gene’s Peak

Kyle had been to Iron peak just two days earlier, so we went for Gene’s first. We had a choice: follow a bootpath up a steep section of snow, or scramble along the ridgeline. We decided that the runout on the snow didn’t look too good – short, steep, and rocky – so we decided to scramble. Fine by me, I actually love scrambles. I mean I’d be thrilled to do either, but something about scrambling just gets me excited. We walked along the ridge to the base, stashed the ice axes, and started up.

Brian and Kayla up above

Brian, resident trail runner, basically ran the scramble. He was mostly out of sight ahead of us, so I followed Kayla’s route as we tried to trail where Brian had gone. It was mostly a class 2 scramble, with a few class 3 sections. Lots of chossy rock (guys look I’m using my new vocab word) and plenty of rubble to try to avoid kicking down on those below me. At one point, Kayla’s gatorade fell out of her pack and ended up a few dozen feet below us in a steep, rocky gully. Man down. We weren’t sure we could get it, so we continued on.

Ingalls (left) and Stuart (right) from Gene’s Peak

The last stretch to the top was a walk. Brian beat us there by a solid 15 or 20 minutes. The top was pretty windy, so we snapped pics and set up just beneath the summit for snacks. Amazing views of the entire Stuart range with Ingalls and Daniel (mostly hidden by clouds) on the left.

I brought enough food for a small African village. I’m a walking grocery store. I like having enough food to share with everyone, and yes it’s heavy, but that means I’ll get more in shape, right? So I had a half pound of cheese, half a pound of salami, two huge avocados, an entire box of wheat thins, two unopened bags of chocolate covered blueberries and pomegranate seeds, a bag of parmesan crackers, what am I forgetting. Maybe the 3 liters of water. If we ever get stranded and I only donate one bag of snacks when we pool our survival stuff, you know I’m hoarding food. So I ate like a king. And the more I eat, the less I have to carry down, so no one has to feel guilty about sharing my snacks.

Stuart range from Gene’s Peak

Panorama from Gene’s Peak

Brian juggles while waiting for us, Iron Peak along the ridge in the backdrop

We headed back down to the saddle after maybe 20 minutes. Downclimbing wasn’t that bad. I’m flawed. I don’t have that inherent fear of heights that I imagine was advantageous from an evolutionary perspective. It never occurs to me “oh, I could die or seriously get injured if I fall here.” And when I do, it’s with a shrug of my shoulders, not a shot of adrenaline. I think I’m just too focused on footing to worry about it. At one point, I was standing near Kayla and we hear “ROCKS!!” and I look up (mistake) to see Kyle sheepishly standing above us with a bunch of small rocks spilling down the gully towards us. Kayla hit the ground and covered her head (she was pretty directly beneath the rocks) and I jumped out of the way, but let me just say looking up is NOT what you want to do. Waste of time. Just get down and cover your head as fast as possible. Whoops. But that was the closest thing we had to an issue, besides the rogue gatorade. Which Brian somehow retrieved before high-tailing it down the rest of the scramble and beating us to the bottom, despite his detour. I can barely run trails across talus slopes, nevermind a scramble. Time to work on my footwork.

Goats!

At some point, someone turned around and realized that goats had taken over our snack area at the summit. They came out of nowhere! I couldn’t get a great pic, but I swear the white lumps in this one are two goats. I’m sure our salty crumbs tasted delicious. I’ve actually only seen mountain goats out here twice now. The first time was at Lake Ingalls back in October, when the goats were just casually strolling around the trail with clearly no concerns about humans. Which freaked me out, so I skirted around them instead of taking 100 pictures like all of the people around me. These guys preferred to give us space.

Views along the ridge

At the saddle, Kyle and Kayla took a break while Brian and I decided to walk over to Iron Peak. Yeah, you know it, I’m becoming a peakbagger. It looked close and easy, and I couldn’t pass it up. We were right. It took us about 15 minutes to walk to the true summit, alone a ridge with small cornices hanging over one side and melted-out rock on the other. The summit had a register! Woo! We signed it, and noticed that most of the signatures from April and May of 2014 had notes about ski touring and snowshoeing in them. There probably wasn’t even enough snow to skin up the peak this time around.

Stuart range behind Bill’s Peak (from Iron Peak)

I swear Stuart looks bigger from Iron Peak, but it’s just the fact that it’s framed by Gene’s and Bill’s. After a few minutes at the peak, we ran back down the ridge, and I got to spend 90 seconds pretending I was Killian Jornet. It was just under 30 minutes from the saddle to the peak and back, so absolutely worth it if you’re looking for a good two-fer.

Cornices along the ridge

It was pretty windy at the saddle, so after more snacks Kayla and I headed back down to the tree line to wait for Kyle and Brian somewhere warmer. Plunge-stepping through the loose dirt (we skipped the steep snow) was much easier on the way down, and we sat on an outcropping of rocks to wait for the other. For what felt like an eternity. We heard a shout at one point, but couldn’t see either of them. How long should we give them before climbing back up to the saddle on a rescue mission? 10 minutes? Nah, they’d yell again if it was that big of a deal. Right?

Heading back down from the saddle

Soon we caught a glimpse of Brian running through the trees above us (of course) and shouted so they’d know where we were. They had taken a different route down from the saddle, so we waited at the bottom of the slope only to be pummeled by snowballs raining down from Brian and Kyle above us. I started running and narrowly avoided a snowball whizzing past my head. When was the last time I was hit by a snowball? It must have been four years ago. When did I get so old and boring?! I didn’t bother fighting back. My aiming skills are… sub par. I once missed hitting a tree with a papaya from about three feet away. If you want to look good playing catch, bring me along. I’ll make you look like an all star baseball player. But you’ll have to run for the ball a lot when I miss by 100ft. No, wait, can I throw that far? Okay, 15ft.

Following our footsteps back was straightforward, and soon enough we were back on dirt trail. I didn’t realize just how long the dirt section was . We were moving quickly, more quickly than the way up, but it felt longer. I whooped when we finally popped back out onto the road, and found our way back to the car. For once, I had remembered to bring a change of shoes so I didn’t have to sit around in my boots. Tip: Don’t forget socks. Like I did. Shit.

Red line shows our path up Gene’s (credit to Kyle)

Strava map can be found here, and above is a nice pic made by Kyle that roughly shows our scramble route up to the summit of Gene’s Peak. The snow field would have been doable as well, but I have to admit, I did enjoy the scramble.

We stopped for burgers at a fast food place where we demolished some huge double burgers and plenty of fries. I could not have asked for a better hike. Nevermind the 50th blog post, that’s just a silly stat. I just want to get out there and learn more often, and this hike was a perfect mix of snow, rock, and trail, with awesome views and an alpine feel to it. More, please!

Overlooking cornices on the way back from Iron

Have Tent, Will Travel

Trail running, mountaineering, and the occasional wipeout

Author Archives: evejakubowski

Ruth Mountain

Hibox Mountain

Vesper Peak and Lake Elan (Vesper Lake)

Round Lake

Mount Daniel

Goat Lake

Yellow Hill & Elbow Peak

Bean Peak & Red Top Lookout

Rachel Lake, Rampart Ridge/Rampart Lakes, and an Alta Mountain Recon Trip

Gene’s Peak/Teanaway Peak and Iron Peak