Rockwall Trail (Kootenay National Park)

Posted on October 12, 2025 by evejakubowski

Maybe skip the prose and just look at the pics, my writing is rusty and rambly. I have had some other trips this year, like Japan for a week to ski, several backcountry trips in SLC, one in Seattle, but between April and now I was mostly open water swimming with a dash of surfing here and there. But here we are! Summer is over and we are back to landlocked activities.

TL;DR don’t panic, there will be larches every day. For us personas estadounidenses, it’s like the PCT, it’s pretty gradual, you really can’t get lost because everything is very well signed, camp at designated campsites, and you should learn to convert kilometers to miles.

Distance: 33ish miles
Elevation Gain: 6k total? Elevation gain is easier in meters
Weather: Mostly raining but I’ve forgotten about that at this point
Commute from Seattle: 10+hr drive or $$$ flight
Did I Trip: No but I dropped Brad’s hiking poles on the regular because they don’t have straps and apparently I never actually hold my trekking poles

Nearly everything went wrong leading up to this trip. We had permits for four days in September, so that was our only window. Now let’s see:

I had to move back to Seattle for work (don’t get me started) literally that week
Surafel’s now wife got laid off so he bailed
Brad twisted his ankle
I had cold/cough/etc. Miserable.
Flight to Calgary was USD$612 ONE WAY! ONE. WAY. !!!!
Weather called for rain for like 70% of the trip
Westjet had IT issues and couldn’t check anyone in at JFK for over half an hour
Plane was delayed 3hrs on the tarmac. Turns out for international flights you’re allowed 4hrs, with a 45min extension if “there’s a reasonable chance you take off soon,” so we weren’t turned around. But let me tell you I was rooting for them to let us off after 90min in that seat, trip be damned

How Surafel was able to still join us. I don’t know why he decided to wear Ethiopian wedding garb the whole time

But my plane took off, I got to Calgary at 1am, “slept,” and slogged through the worst continental breakfast I’ve ever had (featuring maybe the best breakfast potatoes I’ve ever had?), neglected to consider Banff NP traffic or lines to get into the park, and then illegally parked to finally meet Brad at the hilariously overpriced IGA in Banff where I don’t want to know how much money I spent buying snacks for the four day trip. I forgot that some mountains are touristy, not stop-at-a-gas-station-and-find-a-remote-trailhead-where-your-car-might-be-burgled.

Our itinerary was amusing, booked under duress in January via Facebook Messenger after being let out of the virtual waiting room at 7am Pacific Time to take out shot at getting permits upon opening. I nearly booked the campsites in the wrong order (think A -> C -> B instead of ABC of CBA) but caught my error at the last minute. We couldn’t get the ever popular Floe Lake, so we settled for this:

Day 1: 12 miles, Floe Lake trailhead to Numa Creek. 12mi. Partly cloudy in the morning, rain in the evening.
Day 2: 4.5mi (hahahahaha) Numa Creek to Tumbling Creek. Rain in the morning, partly cloudy in the afternoon, rain in the evening. Also it did end up being just over 5mi somehow which felt more legit.
Day 3: 8.5mi, the money day, Tumbling Creek to Helmet Falls. Rain in the morning, partly cloudy rest of day.
Day 4: ~9mi, cry and leave and car shuttle from Paint Pot(s) to Floe Lake and cry more and get on a plane to Seattle forevermore. Weather doesn’t matter.

The only way to enjoy the views was to make your sleeping bag burrito portable

The hike up to Floe Lake was pleasant, a gradual gain for 6 miles through a wide open old burn zone. Most of the elevation gain was close to the lake. I looked up and said “that’s gotta be only like, 300ft” and Brad goes “yeah.. actually it’s like 300m, you’re only off by a factor of 3x.” Ah yes my uncalibrated city eyes complementing my tired city legs. Let’s just skip to the larches.

The lake itself was a mix of larches and evergreens, and by the time we got there it was cold, cloudy, and windy. There’s a warden’s cabin there (jealous). Unclear status of fish. We didn’t break for very long since it was cold and it was already 5pm and we wanted to get to the next camp 6mi away before dark. My legs were burning and I wanted to get the rest of the elevation out of the way. On to the larches! Larches, Legs, Lac Floe.

The larches got denser and denser as we climbed and suddenly we were on top of a wide open plateau with baby larches all around us and Floe Lake laid out below us beneath insane towering rock walls. This is where we started to realize maybe we were hiking the trail backwards because the views were always behind us. But anxious about getting to camp, and cold, we didn’t take much time to enjoy the views. Crazily enough, the elevation gain was pretty minimal, I think under 3kft for the whole day despite 12mi. But my city legs were tired.

Floe Lake below the first larch grove. You can HIKE (not climb!) those peaks from the other side. Insane

And we crested the pass and what did we see?! Was it more larches?? You bet your ass it was more larches. The trail snaked along the gravelly hillside (tease!) before turning straight into the next grove of larches. Trail optimized for larches.

Tease of blue sky but no sun. Doesn’t matter, found larch carpet

Once the larch grove was past us, losing that 3k elevation gain was kind of brutal. Switchbacks forever, and steep, and I had done a pretty good job of keeping my cardio up but nothing had prepared my legs for jarring downhill. But we saw a porcupine booty bobbing through the trees, I’ve only seen a porcupine once before. As it got darker outside I started bugging out about bears. Every switchback, every bend in the trail, every tree out of the corner of my eye, bears everywhere. Everybody had me psyched out. I felt like a dork carrying bear spray but everyone kept telling me ohhhh no the bears are the real deal there. I was guaranteed to run into a bear. But soon enough it finally flattened out, my legs relaxed, my brain relaxed, and we stumbled into camp. Far below treeline right next to a river. With no larches. And no views. Just trees and darkness and probably bears.

Uninspiring start to second day. This photo doesn’t even deserve to be here except to convey my disappointment

We set up camp pretty quickly and ate, finishing just before it got fully dark outside. Turns out every campsite has a designated camping spot and separate eating spot, complete with bear lockers. I just left my whole pack in there and crawled into my tent where I burrito-down in my sleeping bag and lay freezing and congested for the next 9 hours. At one point I stuck my head outside to blow my nose and was greeted with the first time I’ve seen the Milky Way in over a year. I lay with my head hanging out the door for a solid half hour marveling at every shooting star that passed. Crazy to go from counting planes in the sky to counting not just stars, but shooting stars in a span of 24hrs.

Ah yes if heaven were rainy this would be it

At 6am, it hadn’t started raining yet. I was optimistic. I started to get ready for the day. Contacts, change of clothes, oh you’ve gotta be kidding me is that rain? The rain had started. I went back to sleep. I finally got up around 8ish and had breakfast, paced around restlessly, gave up and sat beneath a tree that was thick enough to cast a dry spot for a few hours. Didn’t have a book or anything because luxuries aren’t part of my trip planning. I remarked to Brad that the pit toilet was phenomenal, could barely even smell it. “Or maybe you’re still sick.” Oh, yeah. Or that. Around noon we figured it wasn’t going to really clear up, we might as well move.

Crazy glacial moraine, lake out of frame

It had backed off to a drizzle. I strapped my soaking wet tent to the outside of my pack to spare everything on the inside and we took off. The first mile or two was stupid, generic slopes in the mist. And then we crested the next pass and hit larches and holy crap the glimpses we got were such teases. Toes of glaciers hanging down rock walls between larches! A huge moraine, with a lake I’d have demanded we hike to if it hadn’t been raining. The rolling slope to the east that we could have hiked up easily for better views, if we hadn’t been socked in by clouds. Oh man. But at least we only had to go four miles. Four miles of +2000ft and then -2000ft. Because of these below-treeline-only-campsites.

We got to camp around 3pm and did basically what we had done that morning, set up tents and sat in dry spots for as long as we could tolerate. 5pm was dinnertime, we huddled in a dry grove between trees. Nobody was using the official picnic tables, which were in clearings fully exposed to rain. I think I was in my sleeping bag by 6:30pm where I slept for 12 hours because there was nothing else to do in the rain and the cold and this was another campsite below tree line with no larches and no views and only trees and probably bears. I peeked my head out occasionally to see if clouds were moving. The one pro of camping below tree line is some of the trees are dense enough that they maintain dry spots so you can at least sit outside briefly. I barely survived the pit toilet. It smelled horrible. My head cold must finally be passing.

I woke up at 6am, truly believing in my deepest of hearts that it would. be. sunny. Narrator: it was not sunny. It’s amazing that you can believe so hard in something and have it not be true. Whatever. I guess free will doesn’t exist. Love isn’t real. Karma doesn’t actually come around. We’re helpless. Nothing matters. It started to dawn on me that the next day I’d be getting on a plane in soggy clothes with a pack full of soaking wet gear after four days in soaking wet weather that I busted my ASS to make happen. What can you do but laugh? We dined on stroop waffles heated over the steam from the water we boiled to drink, to various name-that-tunes: stroop, there it is. stroop, stroop ba doop, stroop ba doop. Like everything else, my existential crisis also doesn’t matter, not when faced with Costco snacks. We packed up once again and started off.

Great Jesus ray. That’s the father, the son, and the holy spirit telling me personally hey, we got some sun headed your way

When we were close to the first pass, which was only a couple hundred feet of elevation gain from camp (phew) the sun started making moves. Suddenly the larches were backlit and we were in a cocoon of yellow and IT WAS FINALLY HAPPENING our pace slowed to like 1/10th of a mile per hour and we started basking. This was what we had been hoping for. A trail above 6000ft that just clung to the side of a valley covered in larches, maintained elevation rather than going up 2,000ft and then down 2,000ft, just a beautiful traverse on a warm sunny yellow day. There was another warden’s cabin up there too, which isn’t even fair. I always joked I wanted to retire and be a park ranger but maybe now I want to specifically be a Canadian park ranger if that’s where they’re patrolling.

These peaks are absolutely giant. Totally different feel from the Cascades. We saw another moraine with a bright green lake behind it and looked at each other. Uhhh we need to go to this right? We need to go directly to this lake? We trotted off giggling through dense larches. Thank you, larches, for being so soft and not stubborn stiff evergreens that clothesline you when you try to rush through them. After some rambling we were able to get to the toe of the (very dirty) glacier and took a great lunch break in what felt like a foreign land. It’s truly like the rock walls of Moab meets North Cascades rock, with yellow aspen traded for yellow larches and the bonus of glaciers right next to you. Pictures will never do it justice, and I have to winder what this will look like in another 20 years of glacial recession and brush growth. It’s absolutely spectacular, will it be surrounded by trees in 50 years?

Straight from the toe of the glacier to feed future larches. Our cross country trail rejoined the real train in the largest to the left.

We took our sweet time from the lake up to the final pass. The land transitioned abruptly from glacial moraine to grassy meadow as if the moraine had been pushed onto the meadow just yesterday. The meadow travel was easy, small springs and bright red fireweed and yellow larches and blue skies. Brad has also developed a rare talent: the ability to sniff blueberries from miles away. I’d be walking a trail with seemingly no vegetation and I’d hear “wait. I smell them. blueberries.” and two minutes later “found them!!” and we’d have a small feast. Alpine super sniffer. I couldn’t believe there even were still blueberries.

I have never been so in love with fireweed

It is insane to me that you can’t camp here. I get it, it impacts a fragile environment, and I would hate to see this place get overrun like some places in Washington, but oof the individualist and explorer in me is tortured knowing I can’t just do what I want up there (I mean… who’s there to find me?). This was easily one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been and I want it to stay pristine, but I also want to see every inch, and doing that with a base camp several miles away and thousands of feet lower is tough. But in the meantime… kudos to you, Canada. OOOOO Caaaaa na daaaaa. If ooonly iii knnneeeeww moooore wooooords

The gradual hill to the pass was hell on my trashed city legs, it went forever gaining one foot per minute or something stupid like that. It was smoky, you could smell it, but the views were still elite. I’m used to cramped steep valleys in the Cascades, not these huge broad ridges and wide open valleys with massive mountains on either side. I was almost depressed rolling into camp knowing that was our one day of glory. Helmet falls took me by surprise – it’s hundreds of feet long. Not just a cute little thing in the forest. But yes, the campsite was yet another campsite well below treeline next to a river with no views. Only bears.

1ft per minute to the pass I was dying in the most beautiful land

Naturally, the last day was perfectly sunny, but we were just hiking 9mi out gradually in the woods. Paint Pots was really only one pot and it wasn’t very painted but everything pales in comparison to brilliant yellow larches. Brad beta sprayed me with all of the nearby community centers I could shower at before getting on the plane, I made the mistake of checking email and slack while still being on PTO thinking I’d feel better if it did, and soon enough I was in dark rainy Seattle as if nothing had changed over the last 12 months.

This larch march powered by Costco Brookies

Bonus pics I couldn’t resist adding

Somehow on top of the world but dwarfed at the same time. Valley 7,200ft~, peaks ~10,000ft

That awkward moment when you have 75 of the same image

Pasayten Larch Loop

Posted on December 4, 2020 by evejakubowski

This was a freaking amazing weekend. Buckskin Ridge is a decent hike by itself, and it was anticlimactic compared to the other three days of this loop. We had been planning it basically since our larch trip last year, and it was finally time. Four days was not enough, there is so much to explore back there. That said… I have some regrets about this trip. Remember when I started this blog? You probably don’t, it’s been a while, it’s okay I barely remember either. Six years, in fact, since I was unemployed and pasting photos into word docs until my roommate told me I was being stupid and should start a blog. Six years since I said no, that’s dumb, I’m not a blogger, bloggers are stupid and besides, I have no idea what I’m talking about. Well. In those six years, I have learned… apparently nothing about the mountains, and WordPress just changed their layout so also nothing about blogging.

Anyway, on to my mistakes:

Food: It’s training weight, right? Backpacking is easier than climbing (uhh..). 1lb cheddar cheese. 1lb summer sausage. 12oz M&Ms. 12oz crackers. 10oz cashews. 3 dehydrated meals. 8oz chocolate covered espresso beans. 8oz cashews. 10oz sour patch. And more. But I forgot mio, so that saved some weight.
Shoes: Oh shit, all my shoes are ripped. Better use these old ones! What size are they? Oh they’re from 2015 and were never labeled and you got them for free and never wore them? Yeah those will do.
Clothing: It’s definitely going to be cold. Better pack expedition weight long underwear, two hats, down mittens, and a big summit puffy.
Camping: Sweet, got my a 0 degree bag, a wool bag liner, and oh yeah bring the 4lb mountaineering tent.
Cameras: 3, because I didn’t think I’d be good with the new one, so I also brought my trusty point n shoot. Oh and an extra heavy sock to use as a camera bag, because I didn’t have a camera bag.

Spoilers: No, I can’t eat 10,000 calories a day, yes, I absolutely destroyed my feet within 5 miles, no, it wasn’t cold, it was like 70 and sunny the whole time, yes, I should have committed to one camera, and yes, I did immediately lose a camera lens.

Speaking of the weather, some trip stats for your pleasure:

Distance: 51mi
Elevation: 18k gain
Weather: 70 and sunny
Commute from Seattle: 4.5hrs
Did I Trip: Shockingly only once

We made it to the trailhead and got started around 10am. It was either cloudy or smoky or both. It felt like cheating because we were already at larches. We started to drop into the valley while I groaned that we weren’t “earning our larches” because we started so high. Oh, honey. If only I had realized my map was in 50m increments and gaining 5 contour lines meant 250m, not 50ft. “We can bag like, 5 peaks just between today and tomorrow!” Brad laughed. “I think you’re… underestimating the vastness of the Pasayten.”

Dropping to Lake Doris. This is where I’d put the sun if I had one

And regardless of the vastness, we had another problem immediately. I’m sure the valley was lovely but I don’t remember most of it. I had hotspots in my shoes within 3 miles. The trail was mostly a mild downhill, and the valley was far more humid and green than I expected for the east side, especially this time of year. Two miles later, I decided to suck it up and check out my feet and change socks. I avoid my problems because obviously if you don’t see the blisters then they aren’t really there, but with four days of this… I knew I was being irresponsible. So we took a quick break.

Too late, dummy. Already had four, mostly on the bottoms of toes (the second worst location). I switched toes, re-laced shoes, and we kept moving. My pack. Was. So. Heavy. Who wants cheese? Does anyone want cheese? I have two blocks of cheddar cheese if anyone wants some. What about some delicious summer sausage? No? Well fine, then you can just starve. Can you rezip my pack? I saw the look on Surafel’s face. The zipper had broken. Well, I have side straps, just wrap everything in the tent and someone walk behind me in case I start spilling all my pack contents. Good start. Maybe something heavy and unnecessary will fall out, like half of my food.

The 1200ft gain to Fred’s Lake felt like forever. The smoke (clouds?) were getting thicker, and we were still in the trees. I was so busy looking at my feet that I missed the first larch. But finally we reached the lake, and damn had we re-earned the larches! We snapped some pics and climbed above the lake up to the pass, which was spectacularly beautiful. We debated dropping packs and scrambling Rolo, but I wasn’t feeling it. I was feeling putting shredded feet in a cold lake and watching Surafel fish. Luckily, the lake is only ~15 min past the pass, and soon enough we were standing next to a perfectly circular lake surrounded by larches.

We pitched camp, had some snacks, and Brad proposed the idea of Rolo again. It’s been a while, but I think he said something along the lines of “well, I’m going to do Rolo” and my brain/heart/spirit looked in the mirror and said fuck you, you’re not sitting here while Brad does Rolo, so I found myself on my feet once again with a lighter pack getting ready to leave camp while Surafel trotted towards the lake with his fishing pole singing “here, fishy fishy!!”

We made it back to the pass and headed off towards Rolo. It was only a mile and like 1500ft of gain, so not bad. The first part was a sidehill traverse, which brad hated, and I hated, but I hated it less than going up-and-over because it was the downhills that were brutalizing my already clobbered feet, whereas “flat” i could hobble nicely enough. And talus was the BEST, because it’s like steps if you step right. There is this SUPER cool “lake” at the base of Rolo, completely dried up but the lakebed is still there and it is surreal standing at the base of it. I imagine it’s still full early season, but dries up by the end of the summer, because I didn’t see any obvious groundwater source. We started walking up talus on the other side of the lakebed, and soon enough came to some third class scrambling.

You know what’s great for tender feet? Using hands instead of feet. I have never enjoyed scrambling so much in my life. And despite what we had heard, it was actually pretty solid, enjoyable scrambling. I’d say there was a single fourth class move the entire time, and it was juggy, so not a big deal. There are two cool catwalks where you walk across a huge (slightly tilted) slab with a HUGE drop on one side (>1000ft) and moderate on the other side, and views of some super cool geology, which is nice because the smoke was too thick to see any ridges or peaks around us. It got better as we got higher, but it didn’t get…. good.

We signed the register, Brad took a leak to mark the summit as his and no one else’s, and we headed down. Sunset was spectacular, lighitng up this one patch of clouds bright pink, but I didn’t manage to catch it. We joked that maybe Surafel would have a fire and some fish ready for us back at camp. Long story short, after more tedious sidehilling we arrived back in camp minutes before we’d need headlamps, Brad checked the news at the pass and somehow kept secret the WHOLE TRIP that Trump had covid, and Surafel indeed had freshly cooked fish and a crackling fire ready for us. I did some blister surgery on my feet and went to sleep quite happy.

In the morning, we had a repeat of Rolo, except with Osceola. Brad has me figured out. “Well… I’m going to go do Osceola” and he starts packing his things. My brain: like HELL YOU ARE ok no wait wait for me let me pack my bag I’m coming braaad noooo waaait. Again, it was only like a mile with 1500ft of gain, maybe not even. I knew I’d regret sitting in camp. And before I knew it, I was hobbling up a second peak. This one was almost entirely a talus walk, with sweet camping spots along the ridge. The smoke was slightly better than the day before, but it still felt like I had exercise induced adult onset asthma. Brad made a comment saying something similar so I know it wasn’t just me. The smoke settles in your Iungs and they get all tight, and even a little burney at the bottoms if it’s really bad. think I left Brad at the top because I knew going downhill would be a painful affair and wanted the head start. He’d catch up. This becomes a theme for the weekend.

I think we got back to camp around 11 and left for Dot Lakes around noon. This seemed reasonable enough, we had another ~5 miles on trail to Shellrock Pass and another 2-3 miles cross country to Dot Lakes and no one needs 8 hours for 7 miles, that would be absurd. The first traverse to Shellrock Pass was underwhelming. Frustrating, even, because we were dropping elevation, getting glimpses through trees of how not close we were to the pass, and still losing elevation. At the valley bottom, the trail got a little squirrely. We found a mylar balloon. Should we carry this back? It is trash….. nah, too heavy. We left it where it lay. Did I mention I hadn’t taken a single pic with my fancy new camera yet?

The base of Shellrock Pass is a place of spectacular beauty in itself. Flat open meadows, peppered with larches and a beautiful shallow flat stream and views of Bulgers all around. It’s worth a night of camping, and I’d love to camp there if I go back for Carru and Lago. We lost the trail a few times until it started switchbacking up to the pass, and we started to marvel at Monument and Blackcap peaks. There’s so much to do in the Pasayten, and the approach to all of them is so long and tedious, it makes sense that everyone knocks these out all at once. I need some time to forget the trails to Shellrock. But it had finally gotten beautiful again, so we plodded along, up the yellow larch needle carpet trail with definitely more switchbacks than the map claimed until we were at the pass. I was toast. Emotionally, physically, mentally toast. But I knew we still had hours ahead of us. You know those situations where your body is only moving because you know you still have so much left? And if camp was only a half mile away, you’d be a whiny mess of a human being? That was me. The only thing holding me together was pride and knowing that I had a solid 4-5 more hours on my feet.

Base of Shellrock Pass, looking up as Osceola/Carru/Lago

We dropped down from the pass, traversing more talus and re-entering a a world of larches. Rejuvenation. Like quenching thirst again. And suddenly Surafel is running. And then Brad’s whooping. And I look up from my feet and realize we’re on a red carpet, surrounded by larches, with a freaking surprise lake right there!! “You can get a starburst shot!” Surafel shouted, and I fumbled around with my new camera for the first time before he came and solved my problem in about 30 seconds. That’s all it took to get a starburst shot! My first starburst!!! Pure. Joy. I’ve dreamed of this for years. No it’s not perfect but I’ll get better. After a frenzy of photos we remembered it was like 5pm, and we were still so far away from camp, and most of what we had ahead of us was cross country. Well, grab some blueberries for a snack and rally, time to get moving.

Beyond the surprise lake, we entered one of the most unique parts of the trip. A recent burn zone, so recent that there were still layers of ash on the ground, almost like walking through light mud. More elk (or deer?) prints than I’ve ever seen before. It was eerie, but also cool seeing tiny plants budding and traces of wildlife everywhere. We did lose the trail multiple times here (it wasn’t on a map either) but eventually found our way up to the ridge, where we dropped officially off trail (truly) to traverse to Dot Lakes.

The first part of the traverse was tough, we were first traversing through some nasty bushwhacking on steep slopes with fire damage and blowdowns and blah so we decided to lose elevation to where it was more flat. That was slightly better in that it was flat, but the brush was even more dense than it had been up high. We popped out onto a talus traverse (woo!) to the base of a gully (boooooo). Looking at this ridge from the first one we had just surmounted, I thought there was no way we’d get up it. It was astounding thinking there was an “easy” route to Dot Lakes, because it looked like a sheer cliff from where we were. But as we got closer, the weaknesses became more apparent, the gully appeared, and it looked like it would go. I think my brain has blocked most of this from my memory, but the gully was loose, and definitely felt harder than “second class.” It took an eternity to get up it. I assume I bitched profusely. We topped out just as it was time for headlamps, to a nice haiku:

eat a dick gully
if downhill were a person
i’d punch his dumb face

From here, it was a pitch black traverse to Dot Lakes. I popped some chocolate covered espresso beans that I had brought for use in times of desperation. They’re the final medicine before the hail mary emergency gu, which has like 140mg caffeine and I wasn’t willing to go that far. Good news: beans kicked in, barely any elevation gain, nice flat mostly open slopes, slabby rock for once was nice. Bad news: it’s dark, and it’s dusty, and I’m tired, and you can’t see larches in the dark unless they’re slapping your face. Brad led the way, and the route just kept going and going .We never had to divert around obstacles, it was amazing. We camped at the first flat area we found next to Lower Dot Lake, and it was all business. I prioritized boiling water and then setting up my tent and complaining that we were not, in fact, surrounded by larches. Surafel did tent first then water. Brad decided to start his campsite off with sneaky vomiting hopefully directed at the non-larches, which we didn’t know about until the next morning. I think he only told us because he was finally feeling better, and we were wondering why he had chili mac (or whatever questionable mountain house food) left over from the night before. Mmm, chili mac. I’m hungry.

In the morning, we got to enjoy some of the views, if you ignore the anxiety about having to go 16 miles through who-knows-what sort of terrain. Dot Lakes were AMAZING and I wish we had more time there! There was no one else there, and the lakes have some of the densest larches I’ve seen. We climbed to upper Dot Lake and then followed a talus gully up to the ridge above Dot Lake, bagged Dot Peak (talus walk) and then Ptarmigan Peak (also a talus walk, but a very long talus walk). The views were incredible, and made us realize what we had been missing the first two days. Ptarmigan has a super sheer face on one side, and we traversed to Tatoosh Buttes keeping that cliff on our right. We dropped a little too low and ended up sidehilling around to Tatoosh Buttes while going up and over the rolling hills coming down from Ptarmigan would have been much, much better. For the others, at least. For once I was okay with sidehilling.

Tatoosh Buttes were also gorgeous, and would have warranted a campsite of their own if there had been any water source nearby. More rolling meadows, thick clusters of larches, perfectly blue sky. I kept getting head starts after breaks, knowing they’d both catch up to me momentarily. We traversed over to where the trail was, and even found a social trail to help us out. There was a lot of pack animal traffic, at least going off the tracks that we saw. I was stoked because Tatoosh Buttes meant we were almost halfway to our campsite. It was another 4 miles down from the buttes, 1 mile along the valley floor, and 2 miles to Buckskin Lake.

Yeah.. that was physically. Mentally and emotionally, this was the longest stretch of the trip. The trail down Tatoosh Buttes doesn’t match the map anymore, and it just kept going, and going, and going. “4 more miles.” “Still 4 more miles.” 30min later: “..still 4 more miles? HOW?!” Endless dry burn zone switchbacks, sun (blessing and a curse), dusty, downhill forever, my achilles(es? plural?) were bruised, my toes were bruised, my blisters had their own blisters, and I was still carrying all that god damn cheese and summer sausage. I thought I was going to cry for at least a mile. Brad took a long break. Yes, head start!!! Go go go until he catches up! The valley floor looked so close yet never got closer. The trail didn’t match the map and went in the opposite direction of what I had hoped for (don’t worry, it switched back later). Brad caught up. I took a break on a log. “It’s only a quarter mile to the stream!” “Well, ~~brb dying~~ I’m breaking here.” Brad and Surafel kept going and I realized actually, it’s like… 100ft to the stream, if you trust the map. I caught up and flopped on the gravel bar in the middle of the river. I resisted putting my body in the water because I knew if I did I’d never start moving again. My feet only knew torture, if they learned anything else, they’d rebel.

Long slog up Ptarmigan, but tough to complain with those views!

Looking back at Ptamigan from Tatoosh Buttes

Across the river, we found signs saying the trail and river crossing we wanted was impassable. Or at least impassable for stock, dangerous for hikers. Well, shit. Didn’t think to research if or how the wildfires had changed the trails. We decided to give it a shot before trying the alternative, and I’m glad we did, because the crossing was a total nonissue. And I have no idea where else you cross that river, because it was like a chasm on either side of where we crossed, and the bridge had been washed out. But this is great. Valley floor, THREE MILES TO CAMP.

The valley floor was also cool, more burn zone with pencil sticks and regrowing underbrush. This was okay. I could handle this. We took a 5 minute break at the turnoff for Buckskin Ridge, and rallied. 2 MORE MILES. Breaks every hour or longer if you could stand it. I’d set a break time and then see how far past it I could get, unless either Surafel or Brad protested. I was fueled by summer sausage and pride and stubbornness and cheese and a desire to be lying on the ground and maybe a side of rage. And even better, the Buckskin Ridge trail was rated for livestock!! 7% grade, here we come!

We maintained a 2mph pace to Buckskin Lake. I’m not sure how, because in my head we were going like 4 mph, and in reality I figured we were going like 1mph. It was a surprisingly catwalky trail, and we had great views of how far we had come over the past two days. Upon arriving at the lake (in the dark, again), every campsite was taken, except for a site like 50ft above the lake. Aka we’d have to walk downhill to get water any time we needed water. God. Dammit. Well, I just had to go 10mi the next day, so this would be fine. Everything’s fine. Also there were no larches. Is that fine? That doesn’t seem fine. I didn’t come all the way here for green trees. Stupid trees. I didn’t really sleep that night, my feet hurt too badly so I just grumbled and midnight-snacked and overanalyzed whether i was slowly sliding downhill while I stared at the stupid green trees that weren’t larches.

In the morning, we got moving after the rest of the campers. Buckskin Ridge honestly was an anticlimactic end to the trip. Not many larches, though Buckskin Pass did have some. From there, it was meh. And a stupidly constructed trail. Flat, flat, flat traversing, traversing, sidehilling, traversing, lose 800ft of elevation in 1/4 a mile while hobbling and cursing the bastards who constructed this. Traverse valley bottom, climb up to another pass. Why. Couldn’t. We. Just. Traverse. All the way to the pass! AHH!! Trail for livestock, my ass. Stupid Pasayten, being all vast and beautiful and wild. But there were some surprisingly beautiful patches of red and yellow fall foliage, especially winding through the forest (Buckskin “Ridge”), and a beautiful side trip to a lake that was just off the main trail! We wouldn’t have gone, except we ran into another group, and one member of that group had apparently been talking about the lake for the past 48hrs, so… we had to go. And I have to admit, the trail system back here (besides the aforementioned extra stupid 1/4 mile) is incredibly well constructed.

We were back at the car by 3pm. The final traverse went forever. I ended up jogging some parts because it would get me to the car faster, and weirdly gave my feet a break from the blisters/bruises they had developed walking. Desperation delirium had set in. No breaks no food no shenanigans only completion. Brad laid in a river before the final 150ft gain to the car, I had my eyes on the prize and was fantasizing about laying on the road with my feet up on the rocks in flip flops and never touching these boots ever again. My brain decided I couldn’t have both, so I continued on to that last uphill and did exactly what I had been dreaming about for hours.

Lessons learned:

No new boots on overnight trips. Except easy ones.
Pasayten is not easy. In fact, it’s quite vast. And rocky.
I know you like cheese a lot, but do you really like it THAT much? actually yes, but I can sacrifice the sausage
Yes, you need band aids and moleskin and advil, always.
The road isn’t that bad, unless you’re on the side of the car with the steep drop. Put your buff over your eyes.
Don’t bring a filter because you’ll be too lazy/impatient to use it anyway
Get a camera bag for your camera, a sock is not an acceptable replacement.

Holy crap, what a trip. Dot lakes and the peaks above were some of the most beautiful terrain I’ve seen, and the larches were astounding. The wildfire last year seemed to stop JUST short of Dot Lakes, and I’m so glad it did. I wonder what that traverse looks like in the light. The Pasayten have SO much to offer, and I will absolutely go back there someday. I always thought to save it for larch season, but I think it would justify some earlier trips, too. Maybe via plane, so I can be dropped off with a surplus of various boots.

Three things are certain: death, taxes, and larch marches the first weekend of October.

Silver Lake on the way back via Buckskin Ridge

Carne Mountain

Posted on October 15, 2018 by evejakubowski

Brooke walking back down the ridge to Carne

Admiring floofs and larches

We’re back in business, baby! After a three month unintentional hiatus. I can’t really explain what made this fall through besides a repulsive number of hours spent in the office (I sent emails from too many glaciers and rock climbs), the eventual burnout that smacked me across the face, and the ensuing surf vacations that I thought would cure the burnout but really just left me sitting at my desk a week later on Monday with post vacation blues wondering how I was ever going to change my day-to-day to something more stomach-able and oh my god am I lacking vitamin D already and why doesn’t Seattle have an ocean and thank god I have cool coworkers.

Looking in every direction

Well, my shit is not yet together, but it’s consolidated in one place. And I’ve been getting out to the mountains this whole time, some trips more ambitious, some trips more lazy. I’ll backfill all of them slowly, even if it’s short words with a dump of photos. I mean let’s be real you’re probably only here for photos and blue-bag-of-poop jokes (there aren’t any in this post, you can stop reading here). Anyway, yesterday is what finally lit the fire under my ass to start writing again.

Last week was the most brutal week I have had in a long time. There are a few things that keep me sane.

Mountains
Running (neglected)
Vertical World (credit to Amber and Andi for putting up with my groaning at 6am)
~~Craig Kimbrel~~
Eating
Writing (neglected)
Cooking (neglected)
Hot Tubbing

Fall foliage in the forest

So we’re bringing writing back into the picture. Because it’s easy to forget how much I like writing. And I fucking. Love. Larches. Don’t even read the words just look at the larches!!!

Every year I set aside a larch weekend. This year I hadn’t done that yet. I went to Leavenworth. I went skiing. I have the hunger for climbing, right? I go crazy if I don’t climb or ski on a weekend, and every year I swear I’ll make time for larches next year and by the time larch season rolls around I’d rather be going up cracks in Leavenworth because I’ve forgotten how great fall foliage is. I thought I had missed the window. Seeing larches twice in a year is like a blue moon, and I knew they were out the past two weekends so no way was I getting this weekend. But the mountain gods spoke and there was one last chance! Brooke had a crazy week and somehow I convinced her (it wasn’t that hard) to come hiking Sunday instead of working. So we drove up to Carne Mountain.

Distance: 8 miles (11 total since we went towards Old Gib too)
Elevation: 3600ft gain, 7000ft highest point
Weather: 50’s and sunny
Commute from Seattle: 3 hours
Did I Trip: We both had majestic wipeouts. I lost my pants.

THE BASIN [Homer Simpson drooling]

Buck over the larches

First things first, the road. It’s really not that bad. I had heard so many horror stories. High clearance is probably a must, and so is a spare tire (not a donut tire, that won’t help you). But I’ll take deep ruts over washboard any day. Chiwawa River Road > Cascade River Road. We can barter rides. I’ll happily drive Chiwawa if you drive Cascade.

The trail is pretty relentless for a hiking trail (as opposed to a climb approach). It starts out in the woods, which had their own fall foliage if the sunlight hit the trail correctly. The difference between the way up and the way down was wild. On the way up everything just looked dead in the shade, but on the way down with the sun hitting the trail the colors lit up. The forest is probably a solid 3 miles with no larches, only green. I started to panic, as I do every year on the way to larches. What if they aren’t there? Maybe the WTA report lied. Maybe they all dropped all their needles yesterday. Maybe they’re suddenly brown today. Maybe they literally all disappeared and no one has realized it yet. Anything could happen.

Drowning in larches

And then you turn a corner and break out into the basin. Basically heaven. A suddenly flat meadow surrounded with larches on all sides and the yellow is overwhelming. Brooke laughed because we just kept gasping and shouting and it’s not coherent but you’re just so excited. You just want to lie on the ground and roll around with all the larches. Walking through larches is like walking through tangible liquid sunshine. Like chugging water when you’re thirsty, except for your eyes. Or like being wrapped in a cozy blanket in a cozy cabin with a wood stove and it’s raining outside. Everything is amazing and the colors are bright and oversaturated except it’s real life. I know everyone obsesses about larches. Allow me to add to the problem.

Maude and Icebox Ridge over larches

Buck over Carne Basin

We continued up the trail taking pictures in every direction. We hadn’t actually run into that many people, either, which was amazing. At the opposite end of the basin the trail regains its steep grade because you aren’t done just yet. We went left at the fork to follow the Rock Creek trail, and once we hit the ridge, we continued left to summit Carne (more steep rocky bits). The larches were more sparse here, but the mountain views were outrageous. Buck, Glacier, Maude, even a peek of Bonanza. I had never been to this area before, and it is just astounding.

We shut up quickly on the summit when it became apparent the other people were enjoying the silence. Once they left we snacked on sour vampire bat gummies (halloween is approaching) and decided to head over towards Old Gib, which appeared to have larches.

Multicolored moss

We probably should have done the Carne high route instead, but I didn’t think we had time. The trail to Old Gib is mostly a traverse instead of the ongoing steep grade of Carne, but it conveniently avoids EVERY PATCH OF NEARBY LARCHES. Larches high? Trail goes low. Larches low? Trail goes high. Arrrgh. So we turned around after a bit, knowing we’d at least get to experience the Carne basin larches all over again on the way down.

Admiring them all over again

And it was just as good as the way up. The light changed and even more trees were lit up now. We ran into Anita and Steven who I hadn’t seen in a month. They narrowly missed seeing me absolutely eat it wiping out in a patch of mud. I made up for that later when I did a classic faceplant tripping over a downed log. In my defense, it was because my flare leggings got caught on it, tearing two large stab holes. RIP my pants. I’m leaving the pun there. I’ll show myself out.

Getting back to the car was pretty quick, but it was a bit of a knee banger. The fall foliage in the trees was lit up more than in the morning, so we still got to admire fall. And on the drive out, we admired the bright yellow aspens that kept us distracted from the road. Except the ruts, which are legitimately enjoyable driving if you have the right car. The pointy rocks, however, can eat a dick.

One more of that fall foliage

P.S. My car is the color of a larch. I have great taste.

Green Mountain Lookout

Posted on November 1, 2017 by evejakubowski

Glacier Peak in the distance

Amazing for running!

Given the success of my hike the prior day, I figured I wanted one last easy alpine trip before calling it winter. Many of you know that when I first moved here and had no job and no friends and no family and nothing to do, I started hiking. That meant my hours of sitting were spend on WTA, learning everything I could about trails, discovering new areas, new views, new peaks (I didn’t know what Adams was!), new lakes (Lake Ingalls? Mind = blown), new adventures. So I started listing all of the hikes I wanted to do in a word doc. They were in order of driving distance, with notes like “this would be a good trail run” and “leave this for when you have more mountaineering experience” and “has lakes and rivers so good for cloudy days!” Many of them I have now knocked off as approaches to climbs, like Lake Ann or Heliotrope Ridge. But some are standalone hikes, and still deserve their own recognition. One of those on the list was Green Mountain Lookout. Finally hiked 10/29/2017!

Distance: 8.5 miles
Elevation: 3,300ft gain (6,500ft highest point)
Weather: 50’s and sunny
Commute from Seattle: 2:45 if you drive normally, 3:15 if you drive like a granny on gravel roads (me)
Did I Trip: Just a stubbed toe!

Fat grouse. Come be my dinner

My original hiking partner’s social life got a little out of hand, so I found myself waking up at 5am to go hike solo, which was actually fine by me since I needed the head space anyway. Green Mountain it was! Basically I drove like 6+ hours round trip just to hike for 3 but whatever, gotta get out. The Suiattle River Road sounds nice, but is actually a million miles of terrible washboard gravel road and it was a relief to get onto the Green Mountain turnoff, where the road became just rocky and not washboard. My car is awesome, but washboard absolutely destroys me. Apparently the term is “crabbing” where the car just skids sideways and it feels like the entire frame is shaking violently and falling to pieces. Potholes, get at me, rocks, you are my bitches, snow, meet my European mountain-snow-rated tires. Washboard…. ah, crap.

Let the foliage begin!!

After an eternity of skull-chattering road I parked next to the lone pickup at the trailhead, wolfed down a ton of peanuts, and started up. I had brought my hiking boots instead of trail runners expecting a bit of snow, and I wish I had brought trail runners. I did leave the axe and crampons in the car, so I didn’t look as foolish as the last trip.

The trail through the forest is a spectacularly smooth soft dirt trail and the elevation gain is quite mellow, or felt mellow compared to Sourdough the day before. The air smells wonderful, which I thought was a one-time thing when I was at Downey Creek back in June since it had been so long since I had been to mountains but I guess it’s just delicious regardless. And you aren’t even in the forest that long! After 1.5 miles you break out onto meadows slopes that dip in and out of trees, and I imagine they’re vividly green in the summer because the slopes were covered in ferns. But this time of year, it should be called Patchy-Red-And-Brown-Mountain, because there was no green to be seen.

“Green Lake”

I trekked up through dead and dying ferns, with occasional bursts of yellow and red foliage. The first slopes you see are not the slopes to the summit, but a lower-lying winding ridge that you could follow to the top if you so desired. But there was no snow, so I stuck with the summer trail. It wound past a small lake that had started to freeze over, which is where you get your first views of the lookout. And – blueberries!! It’s the end of October and there are freaking blueberries! They were mostly overripe, but there were a few gems in there. I alternated snapping pictures and stuffing my face. Glacier Peak hovers over you to the east for the entire hike, and Sloan, Pugh, and White Chuck decorate the horizon south and west. Pretty cool being able to say you’ve been up those (with the exception of White Chuck).

First glimpse of the lookout (center)

The trail traverses the slope beneath the lookout and then continues its switchback pattern beyond the basin, up and up to the ridge east of the lookout. You finally top out to spectacular views of the Downey Creek drainage, where my Patagonia jacket lies in a nest for whatever wild animal found it back in June. RIP. Dome looms massively one ridge over, and you can see all of the peaks of the Ptarmigan Traverse and the lesser known Buckindy Traverse (shh, don’t tell anyone about that one). The final hike to the lookout ends in what is remarkably similar to a sidewalk, except in the sky. It was windy, so I dropped my pack and huddled on the sheltered side of the lookout drinking in views of Snowking and Mt. Chaval, two peaks that are probably underrated just because you can’t see them from any major highways.

Ptarmigan Traverse peaks and Downey Creek drainage, RIP my jacket

Baker, Chaval, Shuksan, Snowking (cut off)

I whipped out my peakfinder app to confirm it was Mt. Chaval, and it turned out I had cell service, so I made sure to whine to everyone in the city about how I had forgotten my peanut butter snack and was stuck with salami and cheese. A lone female trail runner caught up to me and took a break by the lookout just as I started to head down, and a few minutes later I ran past yet another solo female hiker on her way up. Ladies, represent!! I hear so many people panicking about women hiking alone, or being concerned that I’m hiking alone, or being surprised to see me on the trail hiking alone, I get pumped when I see others. It’s normal, guys. I used to be scared of people on the trails and on the forest roads leading to the trails but it turns out it’s just a bunch of other Eves. Get out and enjoy the world, there’s so much to see!

Bad ass trail runner cresting the final ridge to the lookout

Buckindy group beyond the first ridge

I was back at the car about an hour after leaving the top, which was almost a bummer because it was such a beautiful day. I always feel like I wasted a day if I’m back before te sun sets. Should have traversed the ridges, or chosen a longer hike. But it was awesome to finally get to see something that’s been on the list since 3 years ago when hikes like Snow Lake or Kendall Katwalk blew my mind. You need to get back to your roots and remember why you hike, or why you climb, and I’ve spent a few months doing exactly that. It’s been a long time since I was excited for every corner, for every switchback, for every patch of color and every view even if it’s a view I’ve seen a million times. And that’s how the past few trips have been.

Looking back along the ridge from just below the lookout

Sourdough Mountain Lookout

Posted on October 29, 2017 by evejakubowski

Looking across Diablo Lake, Colonial group on right

Obviously we had to take advantage of the sunny weather. Everyone had evening obligations (ugh, halloween weekend) so that meant a one day trip. Or two one day trips because I refuse to miss a sunny day in the mountains. As usual, Surafel agreed to meet at 5am like most crazy people, and his friend Nick joined us. I figured anyone who agreed to be up by 5am had to be cool, so we found ourselves at the Lynnwood transit center bright and early with no coffee (Starbucks wasn’t open), vagabonds asking for rides to Seattle (sorry, we’re going north, no, we don’t care if you’ll pay for gas, sure, call me an asshole) and a two hour drive ahead of us (depending on traffic).

Distance: 10.5 miles
Elevation: 4,870ft gain (5,985ft highest point)
Weather: 50’s and sunny
Commute from Seattle: 2:30 without traffic
Did I Trip: I tripped twice, Surafel tripped ZERO TIMES, and Nick takes the cake with 3.5 (one was more of a short slip)

Old burn? Avalanche?

The drive went smoothly, we got gas station coffee and tea (Surafel somehow ended up paying for anything because Nick and I ~~suck~~ aren’t fast enough), and we started hiking just as the sun rose. Perfect timing, because we avoided needing headlamps. The “trailhead” is awkward, it’s just next to some tennis courts and storage/garage spaces in Diablo. The trail does not start near the sign, so we had to search a bit. We spent probably 10 minutes trying to find the start of the trail (that sneaky bastard), gave up and I pulled out the gps, and finally were on our way. With mountaineering gear, because I was under the impression there would be several feet of snow at the top.

Local riff raff

The trail goes up, and up, and then there’s a switchback and it goes up more, and some more, and another switchback, and more uphill. You get peek-a-boo views of the Colonial group, which looks spectacular with fresh snow. The trees had turned yellow, which was awesome, I had expected everything to just be dead by now. You break out into what looks like an old burn zone (if all the trees were bleached) but I can’t find anything on a burn besides maybe one on the north side of the peak. Maybe the trees area avvy debris, there were a few tree pileups that could have been from a long ago avalanche.

More wildlife

The national park boundary is around 4,200 ft, which was an important point because I thought we’d be taking the winter route. The winter route basically follows a ridge from the national park boundary up to Stettatle Ridge, and then follows Stettatle Ridge to the lookout if you so desire (but the ridge views I hear are just as good, if not better). But we got to the park boundary, and hadn’t even seen a snow patch. I looked like a fool with my axe and crampons. We had worn mountaineering boots expecting to be kicking steps up to the ridge and instead we were just beating up our feet on dirt trail. I had turned around just past the park boundary back in February 2015, thinking I was close to the ridge when in reality I was still hilariously far away.

Fall foliage!

We met several deer just after the park boundary. It’s like they knew they were safe just inside the lines. I NEVER see wildlife. Ever. I couldn’t believe we were looking at deer. Around 4,800ft, we did finally run into snow. But it wasn’t enough to worry about changing the route, so we plowed on ahead. If anything, it made the fall foliage even more spectacular, and like I said I hadn’t been expecting any fall colors!! I was just thinking snow, and instead we got brilliant colors and no slogging! Our pace slowed dramatically as the cameras came out and the blueberry bushes got brighter. It was weird, if they were between the sun and you they looked bright red, but if the sun was behind you and the blueberry bushes were in front of you they were a more dull reddish brown. Funny how the light plays like that.

Nick and Surafel, Davis Peak in the back

We crested the ridge, where the snow was anywhere from 1-3ft deep thanks to snowdrifts. Okay, so we had some slogging. The trail was covered but you could see a hint of where it went. But the trail was about a foot deeper than the surrounding ground, like a rut cut into the mellow ridge by stampeding feet. So I did my best to kick steps next to the trail, with the occasional posthole where I stepped into the trail, or a tree well, or slipped off a rock. Oh, and did I mention the crust yet? You kick the step, and then slam your shin into the icy crust. Nothing I enjoy more than bruising my shins in the name of alpine views.

The lookout!

The lookout finally came into sight and we hustled up there and plopped down on a few sunny rocks to enjoy the views. The lookout was closed, which was expected but still a bummer since I want to see what’s inside of it! There’s so much history to those buildings. This was one of the first ones built in the area, put up by Glee Davis back in 1917. Davis is a big name, there’s a peak named after the family since they had one of the first homesteads along the Skagit River. They had originally settled next to the Cascade River (Cascade River Road!), where their property was destroyed in a flood. Lucinda Davis was actually the first woman to summit Sourdough, as well as Pyramid Peak across the valley. The Davis family ran a Roadhouse that sheltered mine workers, and set up one of the first water flumes along the Skagit to provide electricity. Sorry, nerd alert.

Can we just move in here

Hozomeen left, Jack right

I can also see why Jack Kerouac was obsessed with Hozomeen, it looks freaking rad from the south and the ridges around it are all mellow rolling ridges next to its jagged four summits. Desolation Angels was written while he stayed in Desolation Peak lookout, which stares right at Hozomeen, even more closely than Sourdough. There were low clouds over Ross Lake, and Jack Mountain and Ruby Mountain looked spectacular. We got a peak of the Pickets over Stetattle Ridge, taunting me as usual. Someday.

Nick whipped out the pb&j sandwiches we had been hearing about since the start of the hike, and I snacked on my worse-than-Surafel’s salami (to be fair I got mine at Target, so my expectations should have been low to begin with). There was an alpine toilet(!) that I got excited about, only to be (as usual) disappointed by its tree-thicket location. You all care too much about privacy. There’s no one over on Colonial with binoculars looking for people shitting on Sourdough. Put the damn toilet on the ridge so we can enjoy the views!

Surafel coming up the ridge, Davis, McMillan and Prophet in the back

We reluctantly packed up our bags to head down, until Nick practically shouted “oh, I forgot I brought this!!!” He whipped out a fucking DISPOSABLE CAMERA. Half full of mystery photos from days past, so he needed to use up the rest of it so he could get it all developed and figure out what the mystery photos were. Ahhh! He spun the wheel and charged the flash and snapped a pic. And spun the wheel again. Surafel had never seen a disposable camera so we taught him to use it and everyone had a chance to take a picture. Apparently now WalMart has same-day developing if you drop off your film. Dream big.

Nick on the way down

We ran into a few parties on the way down, and gave encouraging beta since between the three of us we had trampled a pretty damn good trail to the lookout. Nick wiped out in rare form as another party passed us (aka great audience). I had slipped near the lookout. Nick slid down a hill trying to avoid a tree. Surafel maintained his composure and grace. I stubbed my toe (I guess that’s like 0.2 trips). The last two miles of the trail felt like they took forever, redundant pounding beating up knees and feet and toes as you lose 3,000ft in elevation over two miles. I think it was more pleasant going up than coming down, though I suppose we brought a little of that upon ourselves by wearing mountaineering boots, which are like walking on wooden planks.

Back at the car, I snapped a picture of the water wheel replica and subjected Nick and Surafel to my history nerd lecture. I read a ton about the Davis family back in the spring since the Skagit Journal has a fantastic write up including a 1955 Seattle Times profile on the family. The links are rabbit holes for dorks like me. They humored me because they’re good people. Awesome day, way surpassed expectations, and we were all back in time to prove we had social lives! Well, sort of. One of us was still in bed by 11. I’ll let you guess who.

Replica of the Davis flume

Edit: Surafel’s review of the hike: “It was a beautiful day to be up in the mountains but my toes have some choice words to describe the descent.”

Lake Ann, Fortune Peak, Lake Ingalls, and Longs Pass

Posted on October 20, 2017 by evejakubowski

Rainier from the top of Fortune Peak

A.K.A. “How To Avoid The Crowd at Lake Ingalls.” Well, sort of. We’ll get there. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that I moved out here for trail running, since I basically didn’t run at all this year or last year (sorta due to injury). The year before that was hit and miss. Well, I don’t want to jinx it, but the injury hasn’t been as nagging as it has been the past three years, and I’m taking advantage of it. So with all of the sun this weekend and only one day to play, I figured I should get my trail running ass back in gear.

Beautiful rolling trail to Lake Ann

I didn’t want to do the Enchantments again since I did it with Cooper last year around this time, and I don’t like repeats even if they’re awesome. And the Enchantments would be crowded. “But doesn’t Ingalls also mean crowds?!” you exclaim. Yes, but you can make a loop that avoids everyone and is still mostly on trail, which was another requirement because I am lazy. I didn’t want to deal with breaking trail or navigating cross country blah blah blah I just wanted to space out and run. So I strung together a loop in the Teanaways with a little inspiration from Jessica Kelly’s blog.

As usual, not much went as planned. The second leg took me far longer than expected due to snow, as did the fifth leg. This all meant I bailed on my original plan, which had been 20+ miles. And of course when I was back at the car by early afternoon it occurred to me I probably should have just done the full loop anyway, but I guess it’s good to play it safe. Oh well, more for next time. Run 10/15/2017!

Distance: 12mi
Elevation gain: ~5,000ft if you count the ups and downs (7,382 highest point)
Weather: 20’s and sunny to 40’s and sunny
Commute from Seattle: 2:30 (it’s shorter in my head)
Did I trip slip: Slip count, ~6; posthole count, ~20 million

Doesn’t look too snowy from here!

I got to the trailhead around 9am after being stuck behind pilot cars in every lane of i90. They’re painting the white stripes on the highway, which apparently requires closing 2-3 lanes and having trucks drive 5mph in the 1-2 “open” lanes. After much whining and bitching, I finally reached the trailhead and took off towards Lake Ann, eager to get moving. And also freezing cold. I had a puffy, a windbreaker, and a wool base layer. And fleece lined Sugoi wind resistant leggings from my winter Chicago running days. I haven’t worn them in probably two years. And mesh trail runners, armed with microspikes. No gaitors.

The start of the trail was pleasant. It’s a mellow trail without much elevation gain, and quite runnable. Snow and ice were patchy, and I didn’t have a need for the spikes until later in the morning. The trail became snow covered around the turn off from the Esmerelda Basin trail, and I started following footprints. I checked the GPS periodically, because can you really trust footprints? But they looked like they were from the prior day, and they were only in one direction, so they had to go somewhere.

Lake Ann beneath Ingalls Peak

The footprints dropped me off at the pass above the lake a bit further west than the actual trail, but a nice path of postholes led me to the correct saddle, where I met the most wholesome family ever. Two parents with their two kids. One kid was so proud of how they had broken trail in the snow all the way to the lake to camp the prior night, but then he “almost died of hypothermia because the wind was so bad in the morning!!!” The kids were having a blast despite the frigid temperatures and howling wind. They had camped at the lake the previous night, and no other parties had made it to the lake. So I guess I’ve discovered my parenting goals. I don’t know many kids who would be thrilled to break trail in snow all that way.

Deceptively deep snowdrifts

I turned right and carried on my way up the ridge towards Fortune Peak, unsure of what conditions I’d run into. I’d say I was awkwardly like one week too late and one week too early. A week prior it would have been a talus walk up. A week from now it’ll be a snowy walkup. But I got snowdrifts, and barely covered talus, and fresh tree and rock wells. Yuck. I found a bootpath that took me in and out of snowdrifts, which I started to go well out of my way to avoid. Thigh deep powder with a crust on top is not enjoyable. This meant some steep sidehilling and some steep snow (kicking steps in trail runners gets old on the toes) and some third class scrambling once I couldn’t feel my toes anymore and desperately wanted to avoid snow as much as possible. Also, my gloves were not waterproof, so my fingers were MIA after like three snowdrifts.

Ingalls Peak and Stuart from Fortune

And the wind kept howling. Every time I hit that ridge it was like being blown over. So would I rather stay on the shady icy side, or the sunny windy side? Shit, I don’t care, they both suck ass. I debated bailing but I didn’t really want to go back because I’d be at the car at like 10am and that’s a waste of the day. So I plowed on and I finally topped out after postholing into talus for what felt like forever. I yelled at the wind to just give me a second so I could take a picture with my numb fingers (it didn’t listen) and high tailed it down the Ingalls side of the peak as quickly as possible, which meant more postholing but I was out of shits to give, I needed to start moving. Yes, my brain wanted to go do South Ingalls Peak, but I had done zero research and my body would be dropping f bombs if it could yell at my brain.

Stuart above Lake Ingalls

I worked my way down to the basin, where the snow changed from crust over powder to slush. So now the postholes are wet and sloppy instead of “pull your leg up quickly and you won’t notice the snow” and I finally put on microspikes hoping they’d grip the mud under the snow if not the snow itself. It worked, they did. I stuck to rock as much as I could to avoid the surprises hidden beneath the snow, and finally was back on trail, where somehow no one noticed me appear out of nowhere.

Finally, back to running! I cruised through larches to the lake (maybe a half mile from where I hit the trail) and scrambled to the opposite side, which also took longer than expected because of the half melted snow and ice covering the scrambles. I had one nice wipeout in front of the entire state of Washington (because that’s how many people were at Lake Ingalls), who were admiring both the views of Stuart and of my arms flailing as I slipped down a sloping rock.

Larches! You can almost hear my feet crunching in snow

I merged with the Ingalls Way trail, which was tougher to find in the snow than expected (needless to say the snow slowed things down a lot). I found a sweet basin with a gnarly view of Ingalls that I’ve never seen before, so I took a break to snap a quick pic. The Ingalls Way trail is a beautiful mellow trail (my section was mostly downhill, too!) that runs for I think 17 miles if you follow the entire thing, but I jumped off at the Longs Pass junction. I had originally been planning on going further and bagging Iron peak and maybe Teanaway/Gene’s Peak, something I had done years ago, and connecting back to the road via the Iron Peak trail. But after all of the snow up high, I a) was not sure how much time it would take and b) did not want to get myself stuck breaking trail/navigating with zero hint of trail and I figured it was more likely that Longs Pass had seen traffic than the backside of Iron Peak.

The view of Ingalls Peak no one sees

Well, turned out Longs Pass hadn’t seen much traffic either. The trail was promptly covered in snow and every rivulet running down the side of the valley looked like it could be the trail. I started taking out the GPS every few minutes to make sure I was on track. Footprints appeared out of nowhere and stayed consistent until I finally broke above the trees, where they mysteriously disappeared again (not so mysterious, probably covered by windblown snow) but it didn’t matter because it was line of sight from there. Back to kicking steps. In knee deep snow this time. In my mesh shoes. With numb stumps for feet. On a snow slope that warranted an ice axe and would be avvy terrain real soon (I was banking on no glide avalanches because the dirt was talus). Just go fast, there’s not much you can do about it now. Roughly in order, I would have liked company (breaking trail alone blows), waterproof boots (my feet were MIA), waterproof gloves (my fingers… yeesh), and poles or an ice axe. Instead I had none of the above, so I wrapped myself in my surly eff-this-noise attitude and scowled at how beautiful the views were, as if they were mocking my grumpiness. And Stuart, that sly fox.

Looking back at Fortune Peak and the Ingalls group from above Longs Pass

I topped out and greeted a few folks who had watched my sufferfest. I headed southeast to bag a few high points along the ridge and enjoy the views one last time before cruising back down the Longs Pass trail, which was a phenomenal feeling. The trail is on and off an old road. I’m not sure how long ago the road was in action, but you can still see sections of it even when the trail leaves it. The trail is perfectly sloped for downhill cruising, all soft dirt and slush (kept the microspikes on until the car) and most people go to Lake Ingalls, so it’s pretty quiet until you merge with the Ingalls trail just a bit from the trailhead. I only got a few glares from parties I was passing, most people were happy and one person had even run into the guy I met on the way up Fortune Peak. He had asked if anyone had run into me! It’s a good feeling knowing others remember you and are watching out. You hope there are slim chances anything goes wrong, but you never know. So there I was, soaking in vitamin D and endorphins and knowing a random hiker had my back and I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. I forgot I liked trail running. It’s good to be back.

Except that now it’s winter and the best trails have to wait until July. Shit.

Obligatory pic of Stuart over Lake Ingalls

Sunrise & Cooney Lakes, Cooney & Martin Peaks

Posted on October 11, 2017 by evejakubowski

Me walking next to Sunrise Lake (photo credit Surafel)

Hug a larch (Photo by Surafel)

Most of my friends know how I feel about larches. Simply put, they are the best. The larches, not my friends.* They are the steak of the flora universe, the closest a plant can come to perfection. They are the only thing out here that rivals New England foliage. They are brilliantly yellow, and when set against bright blue skies and fresh white snow they are like candy for your eyes. It’s unreal. So once a year, I get admittedly manic about getting a sunny larch trip in, because these trees really have like a 2-week window (not even, 2 weeks only applies if you look at different areas) and one of those weekends I’m either busy or the weather is lousy and that means I only have one weekend of larches. I cannot emphasize how strongly I feel about this. I can climb any other weekend of the year but there is only one larch weekend. Getting a second larch weekend is like double cereal box prizes or a double-yolk egg or getting an extra bag of cheez-its cause the vending machine messed up. Except even better.

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A more huggable larch (photo by Brad)

So sometimes, that means suffering through a miserable (or in this case mildly uncomfortable, more of an annoyance than anything else) day to get the good day. It happened at Snowy Lakes two years ago, it happened in the Enchantments last year (but I was sleeping in a car), and it happened again this year, though it was more like a half day this time.

Distance: 23ish miles
Elevation Gain: Net 5100ft but lots of up and down (highest point 8375)
Weather: 20’s and windy and snowing, 40’s and sunny
Commute from Seattle: 4:30… but worth it. Avoid rush hour.
Did I Trip: Yes, 3 times, only one witnessed

What if there are no larches?!

We drove out late Friday night, leaving the Eastgate park n ride around 8 and getting to the trailhead just before midnight (yes!). I was going to be lazy and mooch off someone else’s tent because I didn’t want to unpack my pack but I sucked it up and put up my tent. Ugh. The forecast was for something like 55mph winds and precip up in the mountains, so I was happy to be camping low. We only got poured on for like 30 minutes. We woke up at 6am (I was the alarm – “ding ding ding ding it’s time for the morning!” because mine didn’t go off) and drove the rest of the way to the trailhead, where we started moving. This was it this was larch weekend!!

Lower Merchants’ Basin

The trail is unbelievably well maintained. It’s open to dirtbikes, mountain bikes, horses, hikers, and it’s just in such great shape I couldn’t believe it. The first 5 miles were through the woods with only sneak peaks of mountains, and I started to panic that we wouldn’t see larches. What if they’re all still green?? I don’t see any through the trees and the brush that usually turns red in fall is green and only getting greener as we get higher!! Gah!! After a few hours of me raving about larches and ranting about possibly not seeing them, we finally broke out into Merchants Basin, where we originally planned on setting up camp. Eric had given us the go ahead to cruise to Sunrise Lake and meet him back at the basin, so we carried on to the lake, which is a short 2mi (round trip) detour from the basin.

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This is your frame! (Photo by Brad)

A half mile up the trail from Merchants Basin to Sunrise Lake, we were suddenly surrounded by gold. We hit a switchback and Surafel had the quote of the day. “This is it!! This is your frame! Guys take pictures of me.” He didn’t have his camera out yet so Brad and I started snapping pictures. Brad’s pics won. I can’t even put it into words. Walking through golden larches in fresh snow and bright sunshine is just surreal. This is me, every single time. I was so excited I tripped. “ONE!” Brad shouted. I had counted all of his trips on Glacier peak so now this is a thing. Surafel didn’t trip at all, that coordinated bastard.

Surafel by Sunrise Lake (photo by ME!!!)

Also, let’s make something clear right now. These guys are the two best photographers I know. Yeah yeah you’re all great and it’s hard to take a shitty photo when you’re in places like this but Surafel and Brad have ridiculously good eyes for colors and composure and angle and all the variables I don’t know. Surafel can make fog in trees look cool and Brad took a picture of the milky way in like 20 seconds when we did Glacier Peak which I thought was like a 5 hour process. And then there’s me with my point n shoot. Pointing and shooting. It’s like when the parents carve jack’o’lanterns but let the kid make a crappy one and praise the kid the whole time because the kid worked hard even though she had no idea what she was doing and the jack’o’lantern doesn’t even look like a face. I’m the kid.

Brad and Surafel above Sunrise Lake

With all of the larches, we knew we were getting close. “If I was a lake I’d be RIGHT…. HERE” the excitement in my voice rose as we rounded the corner to what was definitely a lake basin. And the colors were absurd. Bright yellow larches, bright blue water, bright white snow on the partially sunny, partially shaded ridge in the backdrop. Brad had the great idea to go to the ridge above the lake which was just a hike, so off we went. The trails just keep going and going, it’s hard to turn around. I hugged so many larches. When I got back someone asked me “did you go all white girl ‘i can’t even’ and hug everything” and I laughed. Actually…. yes. Yes I did. I even took a larch selfie, which is second only to starbucks coffee duck face selfies.

Upper Merchants’ Basin (Sunrise Lake in the basin over the ridge)

Finally on top of the ridge we had views of the other side, and I got to revisit the feeling of being entirely surrounded by mysterious mountains. What’s that one and how do I get up it? I am completely unfamiliar with this area. I’m used to being a peak dictionary and here I didn’t even have guesses at what the names were. There was a wall of weather beyond the second or third ridge that I hoped wouldn’t come our way but we all knew it would happen. It was freezing, so we snapped pics quickly and started to head down when we heard a “woo!” from the lake. It was Eric! He had decided to join us! We hurried down and met him where we had stashed our packs, making sure to stop every 50ft to take pictures and hug larches.

Heading up Switchback/Cooney Peak, Sunrise Lake in the back

We were back at Merchants Basin quickly, and decided to camp at Cooney Lake instead because a) more larches and b) we had soooo much time left in the day. And it was a better jumping off point for Martin, which I wanted to do because I like peaks. We headed up through the basin to the pass southeast of Switchback/Cooney Peak as the clouds moved in and the wind continued to gust, and took a quick detour to the summit. Apparently some Bulgers are walk ups. Who knew? It almost ruins the appeal but I guess I can suck it up in the name of larches.

Brad on one of the many summit bumps of Switchback/Cooney

We followed a mountain bike trail to the ridge (Angel’s Staircase, which was not necessary, we actually overshot the summit) where we scrambled up the snowy talus to the summit. There was no survey marker, no summit register, and three solid bumps that could all have been the summit. “Do you think it’s the left or right one??” Brad looked back at me and laughed. “Both!” Better stand on all of them! We tagged each bump, I looked desperately for a summit register, and I finally gave up since my fingers were MIA and Brad had donned his overmitts meaning he wasn’t doing much better and we backtracked to the trail as nimbly as we could on snowy talus.

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Me on top of Cooney/Switchback (photo by Brad)

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Cooney Lake (photo by Brad)

On our way back to the pass we came across Eric, who had claimed he had no interest in Switchback but nonetheless was on his way to the summit(s). Eric is like a human summitpost. Or a walking caltopo of the entire state of WA. You name it he’s done it and he’ll know all of the secrets of the route. Cooney Peak was old news and yet here he was about to bag it again. We’ll see you at camp! We dropped down to Cooney Lake after chatting with a few mountain bikers (I’ll admit I was a little jealous) and started surveying campsites. Is this one big enough for four tents? Okay now everyone stand still until the wind gusts so we can see how well sheltered it is. We couldn’t feel fingers or toes and the gusts of wind were brutal. Re-adjusting to winter is always tough, summer makes you a wimp. We had originally planned on doing Martin Peak that day as well, but no one seemed in the mood, and it was in the clouds anyway, so meh. My motivation decreases exponentially as views decrease.

Fall foliage at Cooney Lake

We finally settled on a camp and pitched tents. I guyed the shit out of mine because I hate wind. I made a liter of earl grey tea and snuggled in my sleeping bag trying to get comfortable before venturing back out into the wind. Two mice and a chipmunk ran around a nearby tree, obviously scouting out my tent for their evening date with my snacks. Everyone was in their tents with doors unzipped just enough for faces to poke out. “I hope Eric just.. finds us” I said. I was resigned to doing laps around the lake to look for him. But immediately after I said that, we heard him shout! Yes!! Surafel shouted back and Eric made his way over to us. That could not have worked out better. And he didn’t see a register on Cooney Peak either, so I think there just isn’t a register. Someone bring one up!

Sunrise the following morning

Brad and Surafel coming up Martin, Cooney/Switchback Peak in the back

After a few hours of getting warm, the wind finally calmed down enough for Surafel to take a picture of larch reflections in the lake, which was the only thing that could coax Brad out from his tent. I followed, and we walked around to check out the rest of the lake. Some campers were having a bonfire nearby with a sweet dog who was in heaven in the snow and was a guaranteed space heater for whoever shared his tent. I like the idea of bonfires, but I also feel like a rotisserie chicken trying to get warm so in cold weather I’m not motivated enough to stick around. Clouds had settled on Cooney Peak, and naturally the wind picked back up immediately after we ventured outside, so I snuck back to my tent where I finally caved and put on long underwear. I avoided putting on the heavy bibs I had lugged all the way there. Gotta toughen up. Winter is here!

Brad nearly at the top of Martin

Dinner was quick. I reheated homemade sausage stew instead of bringing a dehydrated meal, which was a fantastic idea besides the fact that it makes the stove dirty. Brad had remembered gas and a stand and had forgotten the actual stove part of his stove (we aren’t going to let him live that down) so we all shared stoves. We went to bed fairly early given the lack of sun, views, warmth, meh. I did get to use my multicolored camp light that Kacie gave me a while ago, which rarely makes an appearance. I laughed flipping through colors just like she did when I first met her. I followed all of that up with a liter of hot chocolate, and finally went to sleep waiting for the aforementioned mice to ruthlessly ravage my tent.

Martin Lakes below, also a larch destination

Amazingly, they didn’t bother me. For once. Must have been too cold for small rodents, and they were all hiding in their burrows. Good. Perks of winter. I’ll leave some crumbs behind tomorrow as a thank you, sweet mice. I dozed in and out, never quite falling asleep despite my seldom-occuring tolerance of camping in the forest. My alarm failed to go off at 6am again (I must have dreamed that I reset it), so while Brad and Surafel thought I was being slow to get ready, I was actually just sleeping. Like that’s any better. I woke up to one of them walking around at 6:40ish with the sky lit up pink and purple and a huge moon over the saddle between Cooney and Martin. I made tea since Brad and Surafel seemed content taking pictures at the sunny lake. Yes, good weather!! I was glad we had saved Martin Peak for today.

Looking back at Cooney Lake and Switchback/Cooney Peak

Brad on top of Martin Peak

We started up to Martin around 7:30am and summitted in like 45 minutes. The larches by the lake were practically radiating liquid gold, and as the ground changed to dusted talus the views only got better. There wasn’t enough rime ice to be problematic, especially on the sunny side. We spent longer on the summit than we took getting to the summit. It’s another walk up (well, talus field), and damn the views were stunning. Larches in every direction. The clouds from Saturday had lifted and we could finally see all the topography to the west. There are so many incredibly mellow ridgelines here, it’s a trailrunner’s paradise. I can’t wait to go on a run out there. We somehow forgot to take a summit selfie despite my strong game the previous day.

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Toilet!! (Photo by Brad)

We cruised back down to the lake where we went to the opposite side to get reflection photos (or in my case, pics of people taking pics) and then went to meet Eric and pack up camp. We had decided to take the Foggy Dew Ridge trail back to the road since Eric was seeking peaks he had not yet bagged, and that meant we’d hike a mile of road (small barf) back to the car instead of backtracking our original route so it was a more adventurous hike. From Cooney Lake we followed the Martin Lakes trail until it intersected with Foggy Dew Ridge. We actually missed the intersection and had to do some bushwacking (more like rock hopping) but we found it quickly. And on the way, we found a spectacular backcountry toilet by Cooney Lake, brand spankin’ new. It’s probably not as cool when the larches aren’t yellow and it doesn’t rival Eldorado or Boston Basin’s toilets but hey it’s quite pleasant.

Braaaaand freakin’ new. Who wants to christen it?!

We found the most prominent high point on the ridge first, and picked our way up through white granite and black lichen and steep meadows. Naturally I topped out on what I thought was the highest point, only to turn to Eric. “Bad news…” He looked at me, not surprised at all. “Not the true high point?” “Nope. It’s like 500ft to the right.” Luckily it was easy terrain to go to the true high point, where the views of what we had climbed in the prior 24 hours were epic.

Photographers looking for photo ops at the end of Cooney Lake

The Foggy Dew Ridge trail does not match what’s on the map, more like it parallels the mapped trail a few hundred feet higher than the map claims. But it’s easy enough to follow thanks to mountain bike traffic. We went through rolling meadows, mellow larchey ridges, bright green mossy trees. The only bad part of this trip was how dusty the last few miles of this trail were. It would puff up all around you and god forbid you walk behind someone, it’s like driving on a forest road behind a truck spitting up rocks and obscuring your view with dust and then you breathe it all in and it sticks to you and you know you’ll look tan when you finish but it’s actually just dust. But it was totally worth it. Taking the ridge route back was far more interesting than retracing our route in, and rewarded us with some pretty sweet views.

Eric coming up to the most prominent point on Foggy Dew Ridge

We got back to the road around 4:30 and were back at the car by 5. Sweet!! We changed shoes and hopped in the car. We’re even going to be back in Seattle by a reasonable hour! And I was glad to have some daylight left – even if it feels like it means I haven’t utilized the day to its fullest potential, it meant I could see the drive down route 153, and for anyone who doesn’t know, I basically dream of getting property somewhere between Methow and Mazama on 153 or highway 20. Someday it’ll happen.

We stopped at Arby’s where I got a Meat Mountain which is literally 1.5oz of every meat that they offer in a bowl (or on a sandwich) with swiss and cheddar cheeses. Are you drooling? You should be drooling. It was amazing. I snuggled in my sleeping bag in the back seat of the car while Brad (MVP for driving) took us home.

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Selfie game on point (photo by Brad)

Awesome thanks to Eric for the location idea (I literally had only heard of Sunrise Lake, nothing else in this area) and Brad and Surafel for pulling it all together!! And for all of the insane pictures. I had never checked this part of the Cascades out before since it was such a long drive, but it was so worth it and I can’t wait to go back. It blows my mind that we have this type of beauty and it isn’t national park status. I even considered making the drive again this weekend just for a one day trip, but I think the larches are now past their peak. Larches are the best. Just gotta wait another 365 days for them to peak again in 2018, and maybe (definitely) I could be convinced to take a larch vacation.

*ok, my friends are okay too.

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One of the best photos of the trip. Awesome lighting. Photo by Brad.

Edit: Happy three year anniversary to the blog 🙂

Enchantments Trail Run

Posted on October 24, 2016 by evejakubowski

Upon reaching the top of Aasgard. Cooper running towards Isolation Lake with McClellan on the left and Little Annapurna on the right

Edit: Two year anniversary of the blog!! Well, two weeks late, but close enough!

So I have vacation days to burn. Like, a lot of vacation days. And it had been rainy for a week, and was supposed to be rainy for another two weeks, and my weekends were occupied with SAR training, visitors, and out of state trips, so I wasn’t going to be in the Cascades for a while. And that is the type of thought that keeps me up at night. But Tuesday looked promising, and I had a bucket list item to knock off. So I texted Cooper, my default trail running partner (see Hinman last year) who pretended like he had plans until Monday night when he realized oh shit, tomorrow’s Tuesday, wanna meet at the Snow Lakes trailhead tonight? Yeah buddy!!! 10/11/2016, time to get after it!

Distance: 19 miles? I think it’s technically 18, but I know we went further with all the excitedly running in circles that we did
Elevation: 4400ft, 7800ft highest point (all the way up Aasgard, then all downhill from there!)
Weather: 20’s and sunny up to maybe 30’s and sunny? I miss running in cold crisp weather
Commute from Seattle: Just over two hours with no traffic if you don’t drive like a granny
Did I Trip: ~~A stubbed toe, but no genuine wipeouts! Ha! Get at me!~~ Nevermind, I forgot I tripped 3 feet from the trailhead

Obligatory shot of Dragontail

So we met at the trailhead. I had an unfairly good night of sleep in the back seat of my car, which doesn’t quite fit a person but with some fidgeting and a willingness to sleep in a 3d diagonal position, you’ll be fine. I guess I’m getting used to it. Sorry mom. You should know I laughed inside when your immediate reaction to me buying an xterra was “please don’t sleep in it.”

We got up at 6ish, packed up, hopped in Cooper’s car, and drove to the Colchuck trailhead. I left my microspikes in the car. I had been told there was no snow on the trails, just the tops of the peaks. I TRUSTED YOU! And I traded my Smartwool socks for Farm to Feet socks like the traitor that I am (part of my job is working for Smartwool).

Tree tunnel walking towards Aasgard

We hit the trail a little after 7. Anyone who knows me knows that my calves are being problematic right now, and they were terrible on the way up to Colchuck. I forgot aspirin. They swelled up pretty quickly, the bastards. I am too impatient for this crap. Luckily Cooper was okay just hiking, and so we trekked up to the lake. We passed a group that had gotten stuck out overnight (one was wearing shorts!) but was in good spirits. We asked if they needed food or water, they declined. They probably just wanted to get the hell off the trail. I get that, I remember ripping Tony a new one because he wanted to make coffee at 6am when we had just spent a night rapping down Cutthroat.

Neat cloud play and a lone larch on the way up Aasgard

At the lake, we ran down to the boulders by the water to get the obligatory pictures of Dragontail over Colchuck. There was one pesky cloud in the way, but everything else was sunny. We ran into a few groups who had spent the night, all of whom said microspikes would be a necessity. I was torn – 50% of me said ha, bullshit, and 50% of me said EVE WHY’D YOU LEAVE THE SPIKES IN THE CAR. Cooper brought his yaktrax, we decided we’d split one and one if it came down to it. I mean, at the very least we’d end up with a good story about a ~~dangerous~~ hilarious slip with one yaktrak.

We got to the base of Aasgard, and it ended up being fine without spikes. If it was hard I’d make an ass-gard (see what I did there) joke but it was fine. Just know where to put your feet. Larches were scarce and more orange than yellow, but I was hopeful that the dusting of snow would make up for it. I had only seen the Enchantments frozen over last April, I had no idea what the lakes or terrain really looked like. We reached the top pretty quickly with only two ish points where microspikes would have been nice. I gotta give my Saucony Peregrines some credit, they keep passing my expectations.

Cooper running next to Isolation lake

Witches’ Tower, Dragontail, and another lone larch

Getting to the top was like reaching the freaking gates of heaven. My calves had loosened up halfway up Aasgard. When we stepped out into the sunlight at the foot of Dragontail and saw the turquoise Isolation Lake below Little Annapurna sparkling surrounded by fresh snow we starting running in every direction, like that dog that was supposed to ignore all the toys but instead went crazy and couldn’t decide which one he wanted to pick up. Crisscrossing paths, leaving footprints in fresh snow, hopping from rock to rock like the floor is lava and taking pictures with numb stiff fingers and tripping over surprise rock wells and snowdrifts with frozen eyelashes laughing with that feeling of wonder like a kid seeing snow for the first time. Pure fucking joy. I downed some goldfish and drank straight from the camelback since the hose was completely frozen. Who even cares?!? Look where we are!! Shit, I’ve been here before and I’m still being blown away! I’m not defined by my eight million hours a week with zero pay desk job, or how well I do hair and makeup in the morning, or whether I filtered my life on Facebook enough so no one thinks I ever deal with anything shitty. The past month had been brutal, but here I was. This is why I’m here. Because I like pretty things that are hard to get to. Like the highly esteemed Lloyd Banks of G Unit once said, “I ain’t here to save the world, just roll up a blunt.” Except it isn’t a blunt, it’s just the escapism of disappearing to mountains. Sorry guys, I guess I’m saying it took me 24 years to realize I’m a selfish bastard.*

Slippery slabs, yeah baby! Peregrines crushed it!!

We ran across a small divide between two lakes, and scrambled down some slabs off trail across from Little Annapurna. Microspikes be damned. I was disappointed at the lack of larches, but fresh snow against sparkling water made up for it. I got a picture of Cooper jumping across a river (okay, I might have made him do it a few times, but let’s be real, it’s awesome). We snacked on a rock looking at the back of McClellan, watching tiny hikers following the trail in the distance. There were more larches on this side, yellow against the snow, lit up in the sun. We dropped down to the trail and followed it down to the Inspiration Lake. I thought the Enchantments consisted of like 4 lakes. Every lake we got to I was convinced was the last but it just kept coming. Inspiration Lake was amazing. The larches were growing in density, and my mind was just exploding. Trail runs are awesome because it’s such a cool feeling, you move so quickly that everything is a flash and even 30 minutes later it feels like it was a dream. Were we just by Dragontail? And now we’re looking at this? It’s like having your mind blown while high on endorphins for 8 hours straight.

Come on it’s awesome

The view from our snack spot (hiker for scale bottom right)

We snapped more pictures running through trails of larches around Inspiration Lake and Leprechaun Lake. I barley recognized them. I tried to find where Tony and I had camped, but it must have been off the usual trail, or I’m just an idiot. I snapped more pics of my shoes. We came across a few guys who had jumped into the freezing cold water. I strongly considered joining, because who doesn’t want to jump in an alpine lake on such a beautiful day just for the sake if it. After 30 seconds, logic kicked in, and I realized it’d take a solid 10 minutes of wrestling with leggings with my bare ass sitting on snow covered in near freezing water to get leggings back on, so I’m gonna go ahead and veto that idea and revisit it later. We carried on, cruising over flat trail, greeting the few campers we saw, trail trampled enough that microspikes were not necessary. There were a few icy sections, but nothing that was a game changer. I don’t think we even had a true wipeout.

Prusik Peak over Inspiration and Perfection Lakes. I tried to save Prusik for larch season but it got too cold too fast this year.

#runanywhere McClellan over Perfection Lake

The larches went on forever, and I have zero complaints about that. It was a Tuesday, I could have been at my desk writing vlookups and macros and shit and instead here I was in the sun remembering why I liked running and why I moved to Seattle to begin with and wondering how I had managed to have such a freaking lazy September when all of this exists. Yeah, I know, cheese curds are delicious, and so are ice cream and hot pockets and mac n cheese but they don’t trump mountains. We ran across more slabs, more snow, more larches, still amazing. There was a flaw, though. We didn’t see any goats. I swear, wildlife avoids me.

Easily one of my favorites of Cooper

Larch madness!

At Lake Viviane I laughed reminiscing on my misery with Tony when we crested the ridge back in April and realized how much further we had to go. This time around, it was the opposite. All downhill from here! We pounded down some slabs (which, it turns out, I thoroughly enjoy running – why doesn’t that translate to rock climbing?!) and found the trail down to Snow Lake, snapping pictures of the last of the larches. Snow Lake was very low, with neat patterns of the water level in the soil. Cooper didn’t ask for a snack, he just…. decided. We popped out to overlook the lake and he sat down and declared “I am having a snack, right here.” Okay! I whipped out the goldfish.

More slab jogging down to Snow Lake

Snack break at Snow Lake, Temple in the background

We cut across the soil to the end of the lake. It was absurdly soft and springy and fun to run, though I know we broke some LNT principles. Shhh. We’re sorry. In a few hundred years when the lake fills up again it’ll wash away our footprints. Oh wait, there will be no lake at that point. Relax, the snow will take care of the footprints. I picked up a bunch of Gu wrappers and paper towels and stuff others had left behind, so it kind of cancels out, right?

Neat marks from the water level

Cooper let me set the pace (yay!) which makes sense since we all know he can outrun me. I came upon my second wind somewhere around the north end of Nada Lake, and it was all easy jogging from there. We passed a couple who had tried Prusik only to find it too icy to climb, which settled my disappointment at not getting around to it this summer. There was a rock slide across the trail at one point that made it tougher to follow (I get into the classic “zone out and run” state of being on trails and forget to pay attention) but we snapped back to clarity and found it quickly, and from there it was a matter of however many switchbacks it took to get back down to the Snow Lakes trailhead. The fall foliage along the trail was still pretty, and I couldn’t help but snap a few photos of climbers on Outer Space, an awesome 5.9 climb with a bomber 5th and 6th pitch that I will someday lead.

Time to say bye to shiny lakes and larches and that alpine feel

Yeah I know, why even post this now? Because we had a few hours of this remaining!

We started whooping at each switchback when we could see the parking lot (with my shiny yellow xterra standing out from a mile away as usual) and soon enough we had crossed Snow Creek. Like 50ft left to the car! “I’M GONNA RUN THE LAST UPHILL” I announced since we had been jogging nonstop for the past 7 or 8 miles. Utter determination. “EVEN THOUGH MY SHOE JUST CAME UNTIED.” Cooper laughed. “All the way to the car!!” “How funny would it be if I tripped over my shoelace just feet from the parking lot?” And with that said, I tripped over my shoelace, a mere 3 feet from the parking lot.

By the time we were in the forest, this was a dream

I tied my shoe, and ran into a guy asking if we had seen his friends. We had to think about that one for a bit, we had passed so many people. We decided that yes, we had. And then we ran the last 10 feet to the car. Success!!

We had a stretch break and looked up the valley, where nearly all of the ground we had covered was out of sight. I may whine about the hype around the Enchantments, but I gotta say, it’s a pretty sweet place. Just pick up the trash when you’re there. Go beyond LNT, because there’s enough crap up there you can definitely walk out with more than what you took in. And to all the runners, stop dropping your Gu packets. The bright colored tabs on top clash with the larches.

Cooper taking a pic of Little Annapurna

*Joke’s on you, I’ve been like this since I was 2.

Rock Mountain & Rock Lake via Snowy Creek

Posted on September 22, 2016 by evejakubowski

Rock lake from the ridge to Rock Mountain

Could you have a more genetic name for a peak? It’s like “Blue Lake” or “Round Lake” or “Mount Peak” (okay, the last one’s kind of funny, and in their defense, it was “Mount Pete” until a bunch of people screwed it up). And Rock Lake is kind of an oxymoron, it’s like naming a peak Water Peak. You can’t have a lake of rocks. It’d be weird. Anyway, enough Monday morning ramblings. Back after a few weeks without any new trails or climbs since Torment/Forbidden! Here are the stats.

Distance: ~11 miles

Elevation: 3600ft

Weather: 50’s and foggy, eventually sunny

Commute from Seattle: 2 hours

Did I Trip: No but (spoiler alert) I peed on a wasp nest and you can imagine how that went

Starting out in forest

We were originally planning on Lake Edna at my insistence (and I fantasized about tacking on some cragging since we’d be right off Icicle Creek Road), but decided halfway there that weather looked okay around Stevens Pass and we settled on Rock Peak, which Chelsea found on wta’s Hike Finder Map. My expectations were low. It was just a hike, pictures I had seen were mediocre, and I had wanted the alpine feel above tree line that I don’t trust Route 2 to deliver. But driving 2 hours instead of almost 3 was enticing, and I didn’t want to push it, so Rock Mountain it is! We decided to approach via the Snowy Creek Trail, which was a shorter and less steep(!) trail compared to the Rock Lake approach. We weren’t planning on a lake. In fact I didn’t even realize there was a lake there.

Fall foliage (credit: Chelsea)

The trailhead is 15-20 minutes past the Lake Valhalla trailhead, over a lower, lesser known Rainy Pass. My car got a wash scraping past all of the dewey slide alder hanging over the forest road. I hope you don’t care too much about your paint job. Amazingly, mine stayed mostly intact. We pulled over at the trailhead next to a car with a bumper sticker informing us that we should EAT MORE KALE! I’m working on enjoying salads and I’ve made a lot of progress in the last few months, but kale is… kale is still gross. Bleck.

The meadow! Hope those clouds clear

I wondered at where the rest of the road went, and we started hiking. It was wet at first, the past day had been pouring rain and everything was still wet. Rocking my yoga pants (yup), I wasn’t thrilled about the dew. Luckily the overgrown trail didn’t last long though, and soon enough we were in the woods. There’s a trail split with a sign a little over a mile in, and while I couldn’t entirely tell which way the signs were pointing, I can tell you that if you want the quickest way to Rock Mountain, keep going straight.

Fiery red plants. No idea what these are

We were soon dumped into a meadow full of brilliantly red plants and yellow grasses. It’s fall! Fuck, it’s fall. I started snapping pictures. The meadow is a tease, while you can see the ridge you’re aiming for across open grassy slopes, the trail dips back into the forest and starts to switchback up. Around the third southeastern switchback there is a wasp nest. We’ll return to that in a few hours. Also, some species of plant up there smells like poop. I suggested that it might literally be poop, but Chelsea wasn’t convinced. There can’t be that much poop around.

I believe that is Labyrinth Mountain… I could be wrong

Switchbacks usually annoy me, but not here. They were short and mellow, and gorgeous once you hit the grassy slopes. Up and up with surprisingly good views (Minotaur Lake and Labyrinth Peak look awesome!) and easy traveling with a party of two (the kale fans!) below us for scale, and eventually we hit the ridge, where the trail goes in both directions. Head right to get to the summit of Rock Mountain.

This is what the inside of a ping pong ball looks like, if it has a peak and a cairn

From the flattish ridge you can look down on Rock Lake, which was a surprise to me since I didn’t know it was coming. It’s surprisingly pretty, especially with the fall foliage all around it. The ridge heading east from Rock Mountain might qualify as dramatic too, sharp steep rock stark against the sky and the rolling hills of Route 2. Anyway, we went left to hit the summit, and just our luck: socked in at the top. Inside of a ping pong ball. We took a few great summit selfies and decided to head down since it was chilly in the wind. On the way down, the cloud(s) blew through, and everything was back in view. Hey, we got up here in 2 hours, want to head down to the lake? Hell yes! Chelsea’s awesome.

The best of the summit selfies (“where’s your nose guard?!”)

Heading to the more colorful end of the ridge

We went to the opposite end of the ridge where the trail switchbacked down the opposite side we had come up, through some ridiculously red foliage. We moved quickly, until “HUCKLEBERRIES!!!!!” I looked at my feet. Huckleberries everywhere! Holy shit I forgot about berries! We started double fisting berries left and right, someone has to starve out the bears right? We finally continued down to the lake, laughing at our purple faces and hands. Worth it.

Huckleberries!!! Go go go go go!

We arrived at the lake and set up to have snacks. I ran over to the side to attempt to get a picture with lake and fall foliage. We feasted on baked goods from Sultan Bakery, cheese, crackers, and happy corn mixed with chocolate covered pretzels which was a surprisingly delicious combo (and paired well with the surprisingly pretty lake). Eventually we knew we had to head back up, and stood back up ready to fight off the lactic acid in our legs. Ugh. And I had to pee, but wasn’t going to do it near running water, since I’m the idiot who often ends up drinking from that water.

Fall huckleberries! I considered filling a bag but realized none actually would make it into the bag.

Heading up was frequently interrupted by more photo breaks, more blueberries I MEAN HUCKLEBERRIES (Chelsea feels strongly about this: blueberries are east coast, huckleberries are west coast, get it right), debates over what was a squirrel and what was a chipmunk, and a family of very brave ptarmigans that didn’t give a shit about us. Back at the ridge we took one last look at the views and headed back down the switchbacks, hitting forest before we knew it. We stopped to delayer, and I remembered that I had to pee.

So I ducked behind a tree slightly below the trail, just next to the meadow. I heard the low hum of wasps, reminiscent of our beehives back in Boston. Ha, it’d be funny if you peed on a wasps’ nest. I looked around. No wasps, just a fat fly being a pest. I pulled up my leggings and walked off. It took about six steps before I felt the pinching all over my legs. Fuck. Definitely bees. I shot towards Chelsea, hopping on one foot while crushing bees with my bare hands. “Shit!!! Bees!” My fingernails were full of wasp gunk. Good thing I didn’t cut my nails MOM. “Chelsea!! Are there any left on my legs?! Tell me if there are any left on my legs!!” My three layers of windbreaker, sweater, and shirt were too powerful for wasps to break through. But my yoga pants were no match. My legs were toast.

Rock Lake

“You aren’t allergic right?” Chelsea asked, being responsible. “No, they’ll just get itchy and puffy and I’ll whine about it” I said. “Are you sure? Because one time someone told me they weren’t allergic and they ended up being very allergic.” I mean I don’t know I haven’t been stung by a bee since like middle school but it was never that bad? We’ll find out. I hobbled down the trail. The meadow wasn’t as impressive the second time around, either because we had seen so much better on the ridge or maybe because my brain was full of wasp venom.

Looking back across the lake at our snack spot, bottom right, and Rock Mountain, center right

The rest of the hike was less eventful. Neither of us tripped (Chelsea’s nimble, I just got lucky and paid my dues in wasp stings instead of stubbed toes and facefuls of dirt). We passed the kale fans on the way back, who were surprised to see us coming from behind. I was too happy to be back at the car where I could lay off the legs.

Oh, this gets to the other interesting part! We’re driving just past the Valhalla trailhead on the way down, and Chelsea starts gasping and pointing. Speechless. I look where she’s pointing and slowly brake the car. A huge. Fucking. Tree. Is slowly falling across the road. The entire thing was in slow motion, and it didn’t make a sound, it didn’t shake the ground, it’s like the whole world was suspended watching this monster snap and tip.

Timber! Chelsea for scale.

I was stopped in the middle of the road. Who gives a shit? We walked towards the tree. I don’t have tow straps, or a saw. I have straps that I use with my roof rack, we could try using those as tow straps? Or maybe with enough people we could roll it? Or, it’s soft enough maybe we can chip away enough to just make a ramp and drive over it. Everyone was brainstorming immediate ideas. The man in the truck behind us tried levering it with another branch. It wouldn’t budge, even with all of us.

Amazingly, at that instant, here comes a decked out pick up truck in the other direction. This guy’s gotta have something. He hops out of the car. “I have tow straps! We can move this.” Woo! He loops the straps around the log just beneath a knot so it doesn’t slip off, turns on the 4wd, and beautifully pulls the log out of the way. No hesitation, no directions needed, smooth as butter. The woman with him laughed. “This is probably making his day. He’s loving this.” I get it, I would too. Hell I’m proud just jumping other people’s dead batteries, wait until I tow someone.

MVP making sure we got home before dark and still had time to stop for dinner!

We all cheered after he moved it. We hopped back in the car. I was weirdly shaken, if I didn’t drive like a granny we could have been right under it when it fell. It’s unnerving seeing something so massive just topple like that without any wind or outside influence, it turns out it’s just dead on the inside and no one knew.

Happy to be back on hte highway where no trees could fall on me, we sped along Highway 2 and stopped at a Vietnamese fusion place for dinner. They had this amazing lychee drink, it’s worth stopping there just for that. I got a burger with guac and bacon, and it was delicious. Post hike/climb/falling tree survival meals are always amazing. I had even forgotten about my legs. I woke up the next morning and it looked like I had been peppered with paintballs from ass down, and my right eye (only my right eye) was swollen. Cool, let’s go crush it in society. Where are my sunglasses, and can I wear them indoors?

Update: Bee stings have turned purple. Either I have scratched them to the point of bruising (possible), or I am dying.

Looking back up at Rock Mountain and its rocky arm from the ridge

Gunn Peak

Posted on November 1, 2015 by evejakubowski

The three musketeers!

I wasn’t totally convinced about this hike, but I hadn’t made any of my own plans for Saturday, so I figured why the hell not. Rob and John are good company, so worst case scenario I’d get a good laugh and a bit of a workout. I ended up getting both of the above, as well as a pleasant reminder that stunning, untouched scenery can be found without driving 3 hours into the wilderness. Hiked the first weekend of October, 2015!

Distance: no idea. 9 miles? 7 miles? Short for how long it takes.
Elevation: ~4000ft gain, 6210ft highest point
Weather: foggy until we got above the clouds, and then 40’s-50’s and sunny!
Commute from Seattle: 90 minutes
Did I Trip: I was going to count everyone’s slips/trips/wipeouts on the way down but I forgot to keep track! But yes. And we had two twisted ankles, some muddy butts, and a very tired dog.

Tarns in front of Townsend

Now I’m writing this three weeks late (and posting four weeks late) because I’m ~~busy~~ lazy, so we’ll see how much I remember. We drove out in pouring rain. Halfway there, sitting in traffic (on Rt 2!) in the dark dreary wet weather I realized I didn’t even care, I was just happy to be getting out. We were listening to Reel Big Fish, who can’t be happy listening to that? We even stopped on the way to get steak and veggies for a campfire meal. I’ve never really cooked over a campfire before besides sausages and stuffed mushrooms and other wrap-it-in-tin-foil-and-go, so this was new.

We pulled up to the trailhead, still in pouring rain. I set up my tent and layered up for the weather, and we started grabbing big rocks to set up the fire. With some small miracles (and a starter log, or two) we had enough of a fire going to heat up food, and John cut up the steak while I handled veggies. I eventually admitted I had never made a shishkabob when John had to assist with the peppers. The only instructions were “make them a good size so they don’t fall off the skewer” which I apparently could not handle. For you other newbies, that means like ~1″ in diameter.

Post-shishkabobs, it was bedtime. Another rainy night in a tent built for snow, though at least I remembered to open the vents this time. We had alarms set for 5am, and soon enough, we woke up to… more pouring rain. The general consensus was that we’d keep sleeping, so I rolled back into my sleeping bag burrito after peeking out the door.

Ripley looking damn good on one of the first scramble sections

We got up for real around 7, and made hot chocolate and coffee. After about an hour, the mist started to brighten, and then clear, and we got a glimpse of blue sky. We had originally resigned ourselves to doing Barclay Lake or Mt. Baring, but… you know what? Eff it, let’s try for Gunn. Might as well. Summitpost said it might take around 9 hours, and we had 9 hours. We all had headlamps and were content coming back after dark if necessary, assuming we had good blazes. Sweet.

The trail is back down the road, maybe a tenth of a mile from the Barclay Lake trailhead. There’s a small dirt road that leads to a campground, and it’s right before the campground that you’ll find the trail heading off to the right. When we were there, it was nicely blazed with hot pink blazes. Rob had brought orange tape for us to use, though we didn’t need it in many places.

Up and up and up

The trail goes maybe 150ft through a forest before you cross the stream, which was easy enough with plenty of logs and stones to hop across. I imagine when the water’s higher, it’s a bit more tricky. Once on the other side, the trail continues along what might have been a logging road at one point. I couldn’t tell besides the flat grade, but when someone pointed it out, I could totally see how it might be possible.

Don’t get complacent. The trail starts to go up, up, and up after a quarter mile on the flat forest-reclaimed road. It was reminiscent of the Eldorado approach, except I wasn’t carrying 50lbs. Just lots of roots, steep sections, and eventually, something I forgot existed: scrambles in the woods! After pushing aside plenty of tree branches along the bootpath and constantly being showered by water, we reached a rocky cliff, at which point you turn right and pretty much hug the rock for a while.

I always associate scrambles with open views and exposed rock. But there are some that are surrounded by trees, moss, roots, all those foresty things. We had Ripley (John’s dog) with us, and he had brought her life jacket (it has a handle on the back) in case we had to do a doggie belay and carry her up some sections. The first scramble was just a very short “traverse” to stay on the path, covered in moss and dripping with water because of the previous night. A few minutes after this, we reached a section that is probably a beautiful waterfall on occasion, but was pretty dried up this time of year. Cross that and immediately scramble up to the left and back into the trees. Yeah, this hike makes you work for those views.

Finally getting above the trees and brush, Baring in the background

Eventually the trees shrink into bushes and brush, and it feels like you’re making progress. But the brush isn’t much better. It’s thicker, harder to push out of the way, and does a damn good job of obscuring the path. And since it was all still wet… it all rains down every time you squeeze between bushes. But thanks to those blazes and the fact that much of it was trampled, there were few spots were we had to guess. I honestly expected it to be much more of a bushwhack than it was, but I think this late in the season, enough feet have been up there that it’s a little more well traveled.

I mean there was some fall foliage

Despite it being early October, there was only one section with real fall foliage, but damn was it vibrant. Finally we were out of trees, out of tall bushes, and surrounded by low colored, blazing heather and blueberry bushes and some scrubby plants I don’t recognize. I stood around snapping pictures constantly, and since Baring was in full view standing over the clouds I couldn’t stop. I had NO idea that there were pics so dramatic so close to Seattle. I thought most of the hikes within an hour or an hour and a half were more “rolling hill” style, with rounded tops, below the tree line, things like that. Not the sharp, dark rock we were looking at here. It felt so much more remote than I had expected.

Looking back at everyone approaching the talus field, Townsend and Merchant in the background

There was a bit of a bootpath through the fall foliage. We reached a saddle between Tailgunner and Peak 5760 (which I admittedly might be confusing with Point 5760), just east of Tailgunner and just south of a small valley with a few tarns near the base of Peak 5760. We dropped down almost to the tarns but rather than take a pleasant dip we hung left towards the talus field. The route to Gunn Peak is effectively straight across the talus field to the highest clump of vegetation right below a prominent rocky outcropping on the south face of the peak.

Aim for that highest slanted strip of trees below the rocky outcropping in center frame

Rob on the 3rd class scramble

We each chose our own way across that, and rejoined below the cliff band, which is where the real scrambling starts. Ripley had been a champ so far, but the 3rd class scramble was a bit too much for a dog. Ben, Vazul, and Evan agreed to hang with Ripley and take her over to Tailgunner while Rob led John and I up Gunn. We agreed to meet back at our lunch spot on the ridge between Tailgunner and Peak 5760.

Rob scaled the scramble with ease, and I waited below for him to clear the loose sections. When he was out of sight and well beyond the trees, I went up. I will say that some people (such as Rob) are very graceful scramblers. I am not usually among those. But there was nothing too hard, and I was up and in the trees soon enough, trying to find Rob. I had been making fun of him for putting up blazes for the entire hike, and now I didn’t know where he was. Ooh look! A blaze, just beyond the trees! Yes, aim for that, he must have put it there!

Nope, just a leaf. God dammit. But I was back out on another talus slope above the trees, and saw Rob up ahead of me scouting out the path. I figured we should wait for the others, so we decided he’d scramble a little further to figure out where we were headed and I’d wait to see who else joined.

John on the way back across the catwalk

After 10 or so minutes of waiting, the two of us were ready to continue when we saw John pop out of the trees below us. Sweet! We waited for him to catch up. You keep to the base of the cliff, negotiating talus until a gully opens up on your left side. Follow the gully, path of least resistance, and cross a notch when you reach the ridge. On the north side is where you’ll encounter the catwalk. It’s not Kendall Katwalk, it’s much narrower with a harrowing drop of 1000+ feet. Don’t fall. Follow that ridge, and soon enough, you’re on Gunn Peak! Which, despite being only 6200ft tall, is #29 on the most prominent peaks of Washington list with over 3651ft of prominence. Wow.

We couldn’t find a summit register. And damn did we look. It’s either not there, or it fell off the cliffs, or some asshat buried it under too many rocks. Ugh. We took a few photos, cracked open beers, and Rob laughed and called us the three musketeers. The three who made it to the top of Rainier back in August, and now the three who made it up Gunn Peak. Kudos, guys, you’re fantastic climbing partners.

Rob soaking in the views: Townsend, Merchant, and Baring all visible

Back through the fall foliage, even more vibrant in the late afternoon sun

Just as we sidled up to the clearing, we saw the other three coming back down. Perfect timing! We had spent quite a while on the summit, and I thought the rest of the group would be waiting for us. We met up and took a quick break before heading back down. I thought the way down went faster than the way up, but I’m a bad judge of time. Vazul and Evan and I were flying, and I got into a nice steady downhill rhythm. We stopped occasionally to wait for the others. At one point we were convinced they were lost near the sometimes-it’s-a-waterfall crossing, between someone yelling to ask where we were, general shouting, and the warnings (“ROCK!!!”) and what sounded like mini rockslides everywhere. We sat on the steep trail and waited for them to successfully make it over to us, where we were solidly back in the trees on dirt trail with no scrambling left.

Evan on one of the foresty scrambles

In my head, I was comparing it to Eldorado, which had a bitch of an approach. Going down from Gunn, that’s what I was expecting. But the forested section was much shorter than Eldorado, and I was thrilled when we were on the flat what-once-might-have-been-a-road section. Poor Ripley was exhausted, but had kept up with us the whole time! Every time we stopped on the way down she sat on the ground and tucked her paws beneath her. But she didn’t seem to want to admit it, because she still looked damn happy.

We had been hearing gunshots for a while, and as we got closer to the river, we realized we were pretty close to the shots. I was unnerved, but didn’t think much of it. I think I’ve already mentioned I grew up in east coast cities, dealing with gunshots in deep, dense woods is not among my talents. Ben and John started yelling from the back, and Evan, Vazul and I looked at each other and said holy shit, we didn’t even think of that. Duh. Make lots of noise. The shots stopped, and John and Ben kept yelling periodically just to make sure. Within 15 minutes, we had crossed the river and popped out near the campsite, and apparently surprised the shit out of a few guys doing target practice, aiming across the river. Right where we were. But they had heard us, and had stopped, and I learned rule #1 of being close to gunshots while bushwhacking: make it clear you’re a person.

The best time of day for the woods

Up and down within 9 hours, never lost, no injuries, amazing weather up above the clouds, and we were back before dark. An unbelievable day, well worth the soggy night at the trailhead. Ripley was too tired to jump in the car, and from what I heard, spent the next few days mostly sitting and occasionally limping around the apartment.

Have Tent, Will Travel

Trail running, mountaineering, and the occasional wipeout

Category Archives: Fall Foliage