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

Russet Lake and Overlord Mountain (BC)

Posted on August 2, 2024 by evejakubowski

In stark contrast to flowers, this is where we started our journey

Yep, you heard me. I finally left the country. I had done Watersprite Lake as a ski trip years ago (never wrote about it) and entered North Cascades National Park from BC years ago too, but this was my first summer endeavor, and let’s just say I can’t believe it took me 10 years being out here in the PNW to go venture across the border in the summer.

Let me set the scene. Sarah and I were wild-fired out of our original plan. We were driving back from a sunset hike the weekend prior, it was like 2 in the morning, every trip she proposes is something I’ve already done, I’m looking for novelty, and suddenly she says “well what about BC?” I’ve done practically nothing in BC. BC might as well stand for [I] Barely Care [because there’s so much to do in Washington] [and also the idea of an entire country of peaks is overwhelming so I avoid it because it causes anxiety]. She pulled up their national park website to see what camping permits existed. “Well, there’s…. one permit for Friday, and that’s the only permit in any park in BC until…. September.” “What’s it for?” “Russet Lake? Do you know it?” “Nope. Take it.” And then and there, she grabbed us the last remaining permit for campsites in BC all summer, and I guess we had plans. i5 was a dark desolate corridor save for two women cheering in a bright yellow SUV.

One of the few variations in the approach trail

I looked up Russet Lake on caltopo, and saw the dotted trail to Overlord Mountain. If a trail is on Caltopo that usually means it’s decently popular and well traveled. Trip reports for both Russet Lake and Overlord were underwhelming. Russet lake looked like it was just in a barren rocky basin, there was a hut right next to it which bothers me even though I know it’s amazing, and Overlord looked like a choss pile of a walk up, and there were no wildflowers to be seen. And the hike started at a ski resort. Whistler. Yuck. Spoiler: I was oh, so, so, so wrong.

Distance: 21mi including Overlord (something like that)
Elevation gain: 8500ft including overlord. 5500 for Russet lake if you do it backwards. Like 3500 if you do it as recommended.
Weather: 60’s and sunny
Commute from seattle: 5.5hrs? Oof.
Did I Trip: NO SIR

We rolled up to Whistler after one of the most casual starts I’ve ever had to any trip ever. Sarah was extremely patient with me during my hellacious work week when my socialization window was like 8:54-9:02pm, but I was 100% committed to taking Friday off and made it happen. Whistler was PACKED. Thumping music, mountain bikes everywhere, full face helmets on everyone, turns out it was CrankFest. We parked in a day lot and I paid for what I thought was 24hrs. I was jealous of anyone and everyone and felt like a dork with a backpack in the middle of the cool kids. We got in line for the gondola thinking we’d save ourselves mileage and elevation. $104??? For one trip up the gondola?! We laughed and started walking, looking for the Singing Pass trail. Yes, up through the mtb festival. It was signed, but I still felt SO out of place. Finally we were in the trees and not walking on an exposed road, though the “trail” was definitely still mostly a road. But that was nice because we could walk and talk easily. The trail gradually narrowed into a trail. We found a surprise outhouse maybe 3 miles in. We were perplexed by the zipline, thinking it was bikers, no, drones, no, zipline?! We walked below the peak-to-peak gondola. We admired the shades of green in the forest, and how perfectly graded the trail was, and how badly I wanted to be above treelike, and how boring this would be on the way out. At one point I realized why parking had been so cheap. It was free from 5pm to 8am. AKA I only paid for an hour, and would have to re-up in the morning, because it was a day lot, not an overnight lot. Well, shit. Worst case we pay the ticket I guess.

Finally we hit wildflowers. And then more wildflowers. Heaven. Two hikers came down from the upper route (called Musical Bumps) that the gondola takes you to. “Are there more wildflowers that way?” we asked. “Eh, more like this” they shrugged. Well… they sound underwhelmed, but we’re stoked, so I guess we’re hiking out that way tomorrow. We carried on into subalpine, wildflowers and heather and massive glaciated peaks in the distance. Does everybody who has hiked this trail just suck at taking photos? Are you trying to keep it a secret? They must be trying to keep it a secret.

A short 2mi from the intersection with Musical Bumps and we stumbled upon one of the most dense paintbrush meadows I have ever seen in my life just before the lake. I mean the prior weekend was dense but I barely had time to frolic, this was just insane with bright yellow paintbrush that had yellow streaks and flowers of every color sprinkled in between. We dropped down to the lake knowing it was almost dark, and struggled to find a decent campsite. There’s a great one near the toilet but we missed it (and didn’t want to listen to people pooping all night). There’s a rack to hang bear bags, but we just buried our food in rocks in the boulder patch instead. Sarah asked “did you think we’d get here in daylight?” I laughed. “NOPE.” “Me neither. Funny we were both thinking that but neither of us said it out loud.” I was so happy with our timing. I had a scone for dinner and fell asleep pretty quickly, though I wouldn’t say I slept well.

We were up around 7 the next morning, which is LATE for me (and even later for Sarah). Sarah had a leisurely breakfast and set up painting, I decided to “zip” up Overlord Mountain. Which I sorely underestimated. Prior trip reports said to expect 6-7hrs round trip from Russet Lake, but my famous last words were “it’s like 3.5k gain and 3mi, how long could it possibly take?” as I pranced off into the distance leaving Sarah to her art. I wasted time trying to traverse high rather than drop down to mellower terrain on the traverse from camp to Whirlwind’s ridge. I paid for the full day of parking with the shockingly strong cell service I had. When I saw the ridge to Whirlwind across a small valley I had an “oh shit, that’s where I’m going?” moment, but it comes up quickly and it’s not as steep as it looks. There’s also a trail nearly the entire way starting at the base of this ridge, which expedited things after my cross-country bumbling for the prior mile. There was a little tarn that I bet is beautiful when it’s melted out, and crystal clear streams gushing through the rocks off of the base of the glacier.

On top of the first ridge, peaks started growing in the distance as I gained elevation. I nearly broke out into the Canadian national anthem I was so astounded by the beauty. I was making slow but steady progress, less than 2mi to Overlord but I knew the last mile would be the trickiest terrain. Whirlwind was really just a long slog, I snapped a few pics at the top before dropping down to the first of two saddles between Whirlwind and Overlord. I was waiting for the 3rd class scramble sections. After the first saddle, I hiked up and over another knoll, knowing that Refuse peak (something like that) was between me and Overlord. Refuse pinnacle? I can’t be bothered to look it up. Either way, it was almost entirely class 2, I maybe had to use a hand to balance once. But the ridge is fun, with huge views in every direction. After Refuse Pinnacle, it’s a walk on this really cool shale that sounds like walking on glass, like tinkling music (tinkling sounds like pee but you know the sound I mean), and then a long slog of a talus field with some snow patches to the top. O Canada kept morphing into the US national anthem in my head, and honestly I can’t think of worse songs to have stuck in your head. There is a climber’s trail the entire way from Whirlwind to Overlord. It’s sparse in parts but if you are used to boot paths you’ll find it.

Looking up at Overlord (left) from Refuse Pinnacle

The summit was broad and welcoming, I had some quick snacks and chatted with two other climber who were ahead of me before quickly turning around to head back down knowing Sarah was waiting for me. I had taken just over 2hrs to the summit, and was hoping to be back in 3.5hrs total. The way down went quickly at first, until I was just past Refuse Pinnacle and saw all of the other parties on the way up. I stopped to chat with each one (uphill has right of way so… yeah) and reassure some folks who were worried about the scrambley part. Finally past the people, I realized how much of a delay that had been and texted Sarah that I wasn’t going to be back until 12:40 despite an ETA of 12. I desperately hoped I was underpromising/could overdeliver and be back way before that.

Looking down on the Overlord glacier from the top

If you zoom in there is a blue dot, that’s another party headed up (Overlord summit behind the knoll)

Halfway up the saddle I turned around and saw the other parties. One woman waved to me and whooped which made me so goofy happy. I was DRAGGING. Coming over the knoll and realizing there was another 300ft of gain to the top of Whirlwind was crushing. But once on top of Whirlwind it was soft enough I could start jogging, and I knocked out the remaining 2mi in around 30min, getting back to camp at 12:15ish right as Sarah texted something politely conveying “I’m bored, hurry up, I’m ready to leave.” I packed up my stuff as quickly as possible and we were off to the paintbrush meadow. 6-7hrs round trip from camp my ass. Good to know I can still knock that out. I question my fitness constantly these days (which most people who know me are probably rolling their eyes at).

I cannot in good faith recommend going up Cowboy Ridge above Russet Lake where the meadow is because it is impossible to do without stepping on wildflowers. They are EVERYWHERE. There is no trail up there but the flowers are absolutely astounding, and I hear the lakes on the other end of the ridge are great for swimming, and the end of the ridge has a good view of the Overlord glacier. We did not have enough time to hike the full right, which is okay with me given the impact it’d have had on flowers 😦 Guilt quickly kicked in for me and we zipped back to the trail after just a few photos.

SARAH’S PAINTING omfg I freaked out when I Saw it. Will link to her site once it’s up. She did that at camp!!

We retraced yesterday’s steps to the junction between Musical Bumps and the Singing Pass trail, and started up Musical Bumps. Let me be clear: we were doing this whole trip backwards. You’re supposed to take the gondola up to the top, then hike DOWN musical bumps to the lake, then hike DOWN the trail from Singing Pass back to Whistler. But we were banking on nobody checking for gondola passes because we’re cheap. And we were also banking on the gondola being open until 5.

The wildflowers continued to be absolutely phenomenal going though Musical Bumps. We are NOT fast hikers when flowers are involved. We probably looked like two off kilter toddlers chasing butterflies. I started collecting beta from passing hikers because we didn’t entirely know the way to the gondola, and my phone was dying, which meant no navigation soon. My legs were also DYING after knocking out Overlord and now this. Flat was fine, downhill was fine, uphill was tough. Getting the gondola was going to be tough at our speed. I made a joke to a passing hiker. “Yeah we’re trying to catch the last gondola out of here, gotta go!!” They lit up. “The gondola’s running until 8! There’s dinner at the restaurant so they’re keeping it open late!” Sarah and I burst out laughing. YEs!!!!! How was this working out so well in our favor? Spirits newly lifted knowing we could take our time, we plodded on through all of the gondola-carried tourists hiking with tiny day packs, envying their light loads (maybe that was just me).

It truly just kept going. Insane numbers of meadows.

Even within ski resort boundaries the terrain is gorgeous. I wasn’t as annoyed by the lifts as I expected. That last mile to the gondola though was one of the slowest of my life. It just. Kept. Going. Every time I thought we had to have gone a half mile we hadn’t. I was soooo happy to finally get to the lodge. We popped into the bathroom, sought out concessions (specifically Diet Coke, which we did not succeed in finding), and got in line for the gondola. 5min later, we were in a gondola, high fiving because nobody had checked for a pass.

Nearly back at the car, I said out loud “this HAS to result in a ticket right? I mean everything else has gone so perfectly… there’s definitely going to be a ticket on the windshield.” NO TICKET. We dropped our packs, chugged some diet cokes from the village, and headed back to Squamish to get ready for a day of dragging.

I cannot recommend Russet Lake enough, or Overlord behind it. Two extremely beautiful objectives, well maintained trails, incredibly accommodating campsites (the hut I think is $50 per night?). I am truly shocked I had never looked into any of this. I got exactly the novelty and adventure that I had been missing, with great company, and a trip that way surpassed expectations. Definitely hope to be spending more time in BC in the future.

Has anyone seen the movie Nope because that weird cloud is in like a dozen of my pictures from Overlord

Huckleberry Mountain

Posted on July 13, 2024 by evejakubowski

Looking at Huckleberry from South Huckleberry. No more trail from here sorry!

I mean this was the worst hike I’ve done in years. I realize I barely hiked last year so that doesn’t say much, and most of the years prior to that at least had good views, but oh man this was WAY more of a grind than I expected. I was overdue for a crappy hike, something had to cancel out with how surprisingly awesome Davis was two weeks ago. Seriously I should have bailed like 2mi in to save myself the trouble but you know how far stubbornness can take you. And to boot, I had bailed on this trail way back in maybe 2016, with one of my weakest bail reasons: spiderwebs. I never should have come back.

Distance: 13mi ALLEGEDLY. you can increase this by losing the trail 43598 times.
Elevation gain: 5200ft, highest point 5860ft. you can increase this too if you are clever
Weather: 70’s and sunny
Commute from Seattle: 2hrs
Did I Trip: no but like everything else went wrong

HOW IS IT ONLY 5,680FT TALL I don’T UNDERSTAND how it can take THAT MUCH EFFORT AND still be SO LOW. Ok so to get to the point.

The things I hated:

1) I forgot about the fire. Ok that’s my own fault. The first ~5mi through burn zone have had a LOT of impressive work done though and are actually not that bad in terms of burn fallout.
2) Swampy sections
3) Stinging nettle
4) No open views until like the last half mile
5) Minimal flowers
6) Past the burn zone, the trail is disconnected at best and nonexistent at worst. And the bushwhacking isn’t great. All waist high brush ready to shred your legs
7) I wore shorts (see points 3 and 6)
8) The longest switchbacks I have ever seen. I’m not on a bike just get me to the top come ON
9) Spiderwebs. The fire did not destroy their real estate, those fuckers
10) oh also i forgot maps of any kind

The good things:

1) Not kidding about the work done on the trail up to a point. The lower few miles were actually brushed (as in someone trimmed the brush on either side nice and short) I should have counted recently sawn logs (hewn?). Someone’s putting in some serious effort and I hope they continue to the top. I am convinced no trail ever existed between South Huckleberry and Actual Huckleberry. (edit: I’M NOT CRAZY)
2) Blackberries? The non invasive kind? They were small, but utterly delicious.
3) Burn zones are cool, and this one had a TON of variety and fascinating boundaries between severe burn and fresh green growth
4) The few views up there are pretty good
5) Great workout
6) No people (WONDER WHY)
7) Alki bakery makes great scones and I had one (I almost put this on the bad list bc I ONLY had one, but let’s practice gratitude over my default state of gluttony)
8) The Suiattle River Road is in great shape and drives REAL nice right now

Aaaand now to the actual conditions. You enter the burn almost immediately. Stages of intensity (and how much has regrown) vary widely. I was thrilled to see that the trail had been brushed out and was way wider than the last time I had been (the fire helps with that too). Fewer cross-trail places for spiders to set up shop. OH WAIT. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. I fended the worst ones off with poles and a prior hiker had taken down a few for me. The prior hiker was a steady old guy who said it was great when I ran into him on his way down around 9:30am, which I took as encouraging at the time, before eventually realizing he must not have made it all the way to the top, or he has the gift of human flight.

This was in the open forest burn zone. There were patches of fireweed, but most had not bloomed yet and was just green. There was also dark desolate feeling burn in the forest, a stark contrast to the fireweed/nettle/grasses combination. The easy moving was a relief. Every swampy step or brush with nettle or spiderwebs had me cursing GET ME BACK IN THE HARSH BURN ZONE. Since I did not have any maps, I had no idea how far in I was, and assumed I was way further than I actually was, so I persevered. The somewhat burned zones turned into a completely desolate burn zone around 5mi in after entering the GPW (needs a new sign). This is where the trail started to disappear. It survived most of the burn, but can be tricky to follow. Fortunately a tiny glimmer of cell service had come through and I had loaded two maps.

The next half mile is a crazy mix of desolate burn and thick green brush with zero gradient, just a 0-100 type swap within an inch of ground. The contrast is crazy. The trail is on a super steep slope and has been eroding, so you’re walking on some 6″ at BEST tread mostly under brush. I imagine this will be shoveled/widened/rebuilt in time once whoever is crushing the trail building down low gets to it. After this mildly tedious traversing you break into a meadow (with no flowers, add insult to injury) and probably promptly lose the trail. Welcome to the wilderness. The meadow is easy. Walk straight across and up the shoulder and you’ll recatch a section of trail along the edge of the trees above you. In another 100ft you’ll lose it. Drop some elevation to skirt obvious cliff bands. Maybe you’ll hit a flat meadow with a meandering stream, maybe you won’t. It’s a good landmark though. At the meadow start to re-gain elevation, you won’t find a trail anywhere so just look for the path of least resistance, which will be knee-to-thigh-high huckleberries (that don’t have berries yet). They aren’t bad, unless your legs are already covered in stinging nettle burns because your dumb ass wore shorts.

A brief patch of trail in the meadow. Don’t get excited it dies out soon. But hey, views, finally!

Stark line between growth and burn (and yes that is the trail)

You’ll finally break out into another meadow, which you can walk straight up again, scouring for a trail but never finding anything besides short stretches that are probably just game trails and one suspicious short switchback just below the summit after hundreds of feet of nothing. Oh and the summit has trees. Great views to the north and west but the south is blocked. By trees. But there was a lookout tower there from 1935 until 1962, so someone could peer over the trees, maybe. It was burned down in 1962, not for any official reason, just people being mean. You can still see some lookout remains. The usual shattered glass and some metal wires.

At this point I was nearly 90min later than I expected to be, so I snapped pics, contemplated my life choices that I would have to relive again on the way down, and started off. In like 15min I was back just above the meadow with a stream, and I started to regain elevation. Except I gained it trending too far right. And ended up over some cliffs. I tried to scramble down, but it got too mossy and sketchy so I climbed back up. I thought I could go up and over this knoll, but 15min later I found myself cliffed out in three directions. Tucking my tail between my legs I lost the few hundred feet of elevation I had gained fighting through shrubs and dropped back to the meadow, relying on the map to show me the way. I thanked every landmark I remembered. Thank you, downed tree. Thank you, nice flower. Thank you, snow patch I rubbed all over my body. Thank you, stupid meadow with no flowers. Oh hi butterfly fluttering by.

I was so happy to get back to the burn zone where the trail was suddenly a miraculous highway I could cruise down, plowing through spiderwebs and nettle and shin deep mud. A deer even followed me for a while, freaking me out. Shouldn’t she be scared of me? I was so done with nature at that point I just yelled at her. JUST LET ME BACK TO MY CAR! I KNOW IT’S A NICE TRAIL I DON’T WANT TO GO OFF IT EITHER BUT YOU’RE NOT GONNA WIN THIS I am glad she seemed too dumb to charge me bc I’m sure I’d have found a way to be the first hiker killed in a deer attack in the history of hiking.

The last bit of trail to the car was the stupid cherry on top of a stupid day. It like swirls like a MTB trail rather than taking you to the car. I was dying.

I did just find out the trail is intended for horses. At least until the bushwhack? But that explains the absurd switchbacks. Ohhhh my god. Just go if you have a horse or donkey then you’re above the nettle and swamps and the horse will take care of spiderwebs.

That is all.

View of the Buckindy Traverse from the top of Huckleberry

No wait one more thing. From an old drafted post that was never published about my first trip to Huckleberry :

“Well, this day was rock bottom. I was solo. I wanted elevation gain. I decided to go check out Huckleberry off Suiattle River road. I started hiking. I had forgotten poles. I ate a spiderweb. Cool, breakfast. And then another. And then a third. And then they were all over my face. And getting in my hair. And wrapping around my wrists. I started dry heaving with every one that touched me. I battled them with sticks, but you can’t actually hike 8 (did this used to be only 8mi? no way) miles waving sticks around, that’s ridiculous. And feeling the resistance against a 5′ long 1” thick stick means they’re legit webs. And finally, after a particularly thick, yellow, stick face level monstrosity that blew onto my face in the wind despite being wrecked with my branch small tree, I waved the white flag. Fuck you. I hope no bugs frequent this trail. I hope another braver, stronger, fearless hiker comes and ruins all of you. But in the meantime, I guess I’ll go hike Sauk Mountain, where I know the masses have already destroyed every web.

Davis Peak (Salmon La Sac)

Posted on July 1, 2024 by evejakubowski

Holy cow what a surprise. Davis had been low on my to do list for years, looked like a good workout but nothing very aspirational. WOW was I wrong. Nobody told me this is a wildflower paradise! I stumbled into a fairytale! And almost entirely by chance.

Distance: 10mi
Elevation gain: a nice clean 4000 (6400ft highest point)
Weather: 60’s and everything
Commute from Seattle: 2hrs eastbound, 3hrs westbound as i90 gets more crowded
Did I Trip: no

I left Seattle very lazily around 7:30, maybe 8am. I stopped in Roslyn for bakery treats and a second earl grey tea. I wondered why I didn’t do more casual weekends staying in a small town and enjoying breakfast and doing day hikes in the area. My objective was Paddy Go Easy Pass, a more casual 6mi jaunt, an excuse to get out of the house. It was raining in Seattle, cloudy and raining all through the pass. Roslyn was sunny, but the mountains north looked socked in. I could see Davis fully, but every other ridge was socked in as I drove north on Salmon La Sac road.

I turned off the paved road onto the dirt road. Oh boy. I was still 30+min from the trailhead, and driving on the one road condition my car cannot handle (barring sheer ice). Washboard. Even in 4WD the tires spin, the car crabs, and I’m left steering into fishtails as if I were on sheer ice, except with shaking and rattling and a general feeling that the car is about to fall apart beneath my legs. Oh, and my fresh earl grey? Yeah that was immediately all over the center console. I nearly threw a fit. The Davis trailhead was the next trailhead I’d pass, and I pulled over and said eff it, I’m doing Davis. Not driving another 30min of this shit just to potentially be socked in anyway.

Ready to start a rampage with no plan (fortunately I did have a map, somehow) I stomped off towards the trailhead. You have to walk down a road more! You turn off the main road, head downhill, pull over in a small lot, then walk down the road further to a campsite where the trail starts. There is a sign so you won’t be completely lost. You cross the big river on a bridge, and then… heads up, you don’t see water again until you’re back at the bridge on your way down. Bring plenty.

Wildflowers haven’t regrown much here yet

The trail is like 1000 short uphill switchbacks forever. My grouchiness dissipated as I had to focus on trucking uphill. However, the scenery changes every mile or so, keeping you interested. Open forest (I took no pics of that), then burn zone but with tall bushes, then BOOM DISNEY PRINCESS WILDFLOWERS I was bewildered! I had NO idea this was even a wildflower objective. I giggled at one switchback realizing it meant I’d get to go right back through an enormous field of flowers. I was in disbelief. A friend pointed out years ago that part of an awesome hike/climb/anything is being surprised by the scenery, and how that makes a 7/10 trail a 11/10 because you didn’t see it coming. This definitely fell into that.

Forest and flowers eventually gave way to a more open recovering burn where not much regrowth has happened yet. A few baby lupines, not much else. But this section was followed by a rocky right with some short grasses and a smattering of more wildflowers!

After a few minutes on the ridge, the trail drops down into the forest to the right. If you start heading up a steep rocky “trail” trying to maintain views you’re probably off route. There are branches blocking this trail, but I thought they might genuinely just be blow downs given it’s early season. Nope, they were intentional. Fortunately I figured this out before wasting too much time, refound the trail, and headed into the forest trying not to be too disappointed I was about to lose views. And I hate to say it – if I had not heard voices below me, I have no idea how long it’d have taken me to realize I was definitely off trail. The WTA descriptions clearly mentions this, I just… didn’t read it thoroughly.

If you get this view, turn around because you missed a turn

The forest basin section goes quickly, and soon enough you’re switchbacking up another knoll, breaking out at a lookout site ALSO ridden with wildflowers! Two women asked if I wanted them to take my picture, I said no thanks and plowed ahead before realizing wait I should offer to take their pic (of course they said yes). I explained I was just so in the zone I was not thinking socially. They laughed. “We’ve all been there.”

More awesome meadows next to the lookout site

Trail to the true summit follows the left ramp

The last half mile to the true summit crawls along a ridge line with almost a scrambly feel. The actual summit probably has spectacular views on a clear day, but all the big peaks were shrouded in clouds. You finally get a view of some lakes. It is the Alpine Lakes Wilderness but 99.9% of this hike had NO LAKES. I had an amazing lemon jam pot, didn’t even know what that pastry was when I bought it but WOW is it delicious. Shout out to Red Bird Cafe.

Oh theeeere are the lakes. And where the views should be.

The way down was uneventful. The wildflowers blew my mind all over again. I watched rain squalls threaten to come over but only got drizzled on once. It was really like Davis was in a patch of dry and occasionally blue sky, and everything in every direction was getting rain. It couldn’t be perfect though, I sat in dead stopped traffic on i90 for like 35min. WA’s highways can’t handle weekend traffic, i90 and 2 are both shitshows. I swore after this that for the rest of the summer I’d only do hikes north via i5 or highway 20, no more i90/highway 2. We’ll see how long that lasts.

Wildflowers with Hawkins in the background, where I just was earlier this month!

Hawkins Mountain

Posted on June 8, 2024 by evejakubowski

The itch to blog. It’s been rare lately, partially due to a combination of my job involving far more writing than it used to, and partially because content has been scarce. But it actually hasn’t been that scarce, I’m sitting on at least six reports from last year, I’m just so sick of computer screens and writing documents by the end of the day why would I go home and write more? But I forget that writing these is nothing like my work docs. I can swear. I can add pretty pictures. I can make fun of friends. I can reread them later when I am bored or want to pull up a cool photo. I have something like 12,000 photos on my phone and it’s getting bad. Blogging forces me to back them up somewhere and select only the best.

AND SO. Here’s a shortie. Today I hiked Hawkins Mountain. I say hiked, but that’s an understatement, there are plenty of places to get off trail, confuse game trails for the trail you want, fall off a cornice, fall down some rocks, or even get sucked into going down the wrong ridge. Or end up with a flat tire on your car, or a 34th dent from backing up into a rock (I did one of those two things). But there was nobody there, the views were spectacular, and the trail/route is interesting the entire time.

Distance: 10mi round trip
Elevation: 3,300ft gain (7,100ft highest point)
Weather: 60’s and sunny
Commute from Seattle: 2 hours
Did I Trip: There were no witnesses…. but no, no I did not

Sneak peek… of a sneaky peak? I’ll show myself out

I started later than I planned because the cat was out overnight. She finally rapped on the window at 7am and went straight to sleep like an unruly teen. I was out of there at 7:30 and at the trailhead by 9:45, moving by 10. The road to the trailhead is sketchy after the last intersection (~1/4 mile from the trailhead). Better to park there if you are in a sedan, or don’t want to deal with a parking area that fits 2 cars with barely enough room to turn with a deadly drop all along one side. I think it could fit 3 if everyone was there to coordinate.

The trail at first is a bike trail that’s nice and clean and well graded. After about a third of a mile, you turn sharply left on a… bootpath at best. It switchbacks (switches back?) up to a ridge, wrapping around downed trees, intermingling with game trails. Some areas are easy to follow but it’s also easy to get off route if you aren’t paying attention, especially on the way down. It’s quite bipolar really, from areas with downed trees or rockslides and you have no idea where exactly it goes but you find it on the other side to stepping over a log only to find someone nicely built rock stairs on the other side to make the step smaller. Fortunately it’s all very open easy terrain, albeit steep. I was surprised at how many off grid (I assume) cabins were back there, including one on a knoll directly across from the trail. No idea how to get there, but wow what a spectacular location.

You eventually gain this rocky outcropping with a great view of Davis and the Goat peaks across the valley before the trail takes you further up to a legit ridge, where you follow the ridge for the remaining few miles. The trail comes and goes, but you’re following a ridge so no biggie. Most of the snow was melted out save for a few patches, but I could see the upper ridge developing massive cornices in winter, though I bet the area would be a phenomenal backcountry ski. I skirted as many snow patches as I could to the right before finally being forced left to gain the last ridge before the summit, where I scrambled mostly on rocks unless forced onto the snow. I didn’t come up here to be that solo hiker who was present for the one freak cornice breaking way far from the edge.

Looking back along the ridge to Davis and Goat Peaks

I was at the top just over 2hrs from the car, eyeing a pile of rocks suspiciously for the last final steps. You look like where I’d hide a summit register, if there were one here. There was! An old school brass one, too. I took a nice 20-30min break, crushed a surprisingly amazing scone from Alki bakery, and decided to pick my way back down.

As usual, going down was way easier and faster than up, except for when I stayed too far left and nearly descended the wrong right. I was plunge stepping down snowfields and soft easy scree thinking to myself wow I don’t remember so many untouched fields on the way up…. wait a minute. And looked to my right. At the ridge I was supposed to be on. Fortunately they hadn’t fully separated yet, so with some quick sidehilling I was back on track, but yikes. Hope the two women I saw an hour later didn’t follow those tracks.

Looking north up the Salmon La Sac Valley

There were 10,000 deer prints. I followed them most of the way to the top, in fact, that’s how consistent they were but didn’t see a single actual deer. The only wildlife I ran into was a ladybug, two grouse, and what appeared to be a weirdly fat lizard with a stumpy tail (still not sure about that one).

Stuart dominates the horizon to the east over a dying cornice

There were no water sources besides the snow, there was minimal shade, this is the time of year for this peak. Or late fall. It’s going to be reeeal hot and reeeal dry real soon.

You could be biking somewhere in the alps

Lost Creek Ridge/Lake Byrne

Posted on February 17, 2024 by evejakubowski

You can understand why I fell off the trail later

“It’s just a backpacking trip” “we’re just camping at a lake” “it’ll be a piece of cake once we get to the ridge” “we’re not even climbing a peak how hard can it be?” Hard enough to shove your elitist climber attitude up your fat out of shape ass while you undulate along a beautiful stunning ridge for what feels like a decade of your life wondering if you actually died and are meant to meander this ridge for infinity. But if there was a twilight zone to be stuck in, this is probably up there in my top choices.

Distance: ~22 miles
Elevation gain: >10k (Brad: “I mean we might as well have just climbed Rainier”
Weather: 80’s and sunny
Commute from Seattle: 2.5hrs
Did I Trip: Briefly forgot how to walk and fell off the (forested) trail

I don’t remember much about this trip either, which is what you get for taking 6mo to write about it and not taking any notes during the trip. What I do remember:

I THINK we skipped Cinnabon at the pilot gas station, probably because Surafel cooked us breakfast like spoiled children. I do remember the hike to Bingley Gap taking what felt like ages, and thinking we’d break above treeline and it would mellow out after that. That’s false. Bingley Gap is very much still wooded and the elevation gain continues beyond it. “Mellows out” per WTA is a lie. You could argue it’s mellow relative to the switchbacks, but it’s very much up and down and not exactly running a high open ridge like you might hope. I had been saving this for a trail run someday, thank god I didn’t attempt that.

Hardtack Lake and Glacier Peak peeking out

That said, Sloan and Bedal are STUNNERS. I have a hundred near duplicate photos of these two towering across the valley over meadows because they just continue to blow your mind every time you turn around. A group warned us that the last drinkable water was in about a quarter mile and there’d be nothing between there and the lakes, but we found that verifiably false; they must have higher standards for running water than we do.

Eventually you do gain the ridge, only to immediately drop down onto a long wandering bench (miles long) on the north side. The trail that drops down is like a mountain bike park trail where they fit in as many tight windy turns as possible into a small distance like a tapeworm of a trail so you get the biggest bang for your buck except I don’t want bang for my buck here I want efficiency. Finally it goes straight to the right, where you ~~wrap around~~ lose elevation and then gain elevation again and then lose it again and then gain it again until you’re cursing the OG trail builders for making this the way that it is.

You traverse above Hardtack Lake which looks like a great place to maybe be a tadpole, and then wrap around more shoulders and eventually arrive at Camp Lake, allegedly one of the coldest lakes in the Cascades, reinforced by the presence of icebergs. Never one to back down from a challenge, Brad starts getting ready to jump in, I can’t sit there doing nothing so I follow, and Surafel walks in up to his knees, shouts “I’m from AFRICA” and bails back to dry warm land while Brad and I see who gets brain freeze first. Like a whole new person, I pack up my stuff and climb the final elevation gain to “Little Siberia,” a stretch of beautiful subalpine with Glacier towering above you dwarfing all of the surrounding peaks. There were numbers spray painted on some of the rocks, never did figure out what they meant.

Leaving Little Siberia, Surafel standing out against Glacier Peak looking bare

We got a great view of Lake Byrne below (omg it’s still that far away?!) and dropped down only to see the first campsite taken by people hiding in their tends to avoid the bugs. Very well we’ll take the second one. We dropped gear, jumped in the lake, Surafel started fishing but the fish were too smart and full of mosquitos (thank you fish). I found the remains of a pit toilet, RIP and thank you for your service. Brad and I hiked/schwacked to the pass on the southeast side of Lake Byrne to check out the Painted Traverse, which may legitimately have been easier than backtracking Lost Creek Ridge. I headed back to camp where I had a delicious dinner of cheesy pasta I assume and fell asleep at like 7, until Brad suddenly was like HEY GUYS GET UP SUNSET IS RIDIC and I clambered out of my tent to the most spectacular show of color on Glacier Peak I’ve ever seen. It was literally rainbow, I just about lost my mind. And then I went to bed and slept like a rock for the first time in probably months.

We got moving early to beat the heat, knowing midday would be brutal and there weren’t really any lakes to jump in on the last half of the hike out (at least not without dropping a ton of elevation to Round Lake). I don’t remember much of the way back, so it probably was a sufferfest that wrecked my legs.

Oh wait no we did find a porcini that was past prime for eating, Sloan and Bedal were still amazing, Brad sat in the creek where we got water (this is why you filter your water folks), and then back in the forest proper I straight up slipped on some pine needles and fell like 15ft off trail. Surafel watched my leg swell up from a distance, I did a mini PAS on myself and decided nothing was broken so… let’s keep hiking I guess? With my new egg shin? Sucked so bad but functioned fine. I was quite happy to be back at the car and appreciate my brain dumping a few hours of suffering down switchbacks in a forest from my memory to make room for more fun things. And glad someone else drove so I didn’t have to.

For a total flop of a season in terms of my usual hobbies, this was a 10/10 trip and one of the highlights of my summer. It might have been the only overnight trip I did, actually. I can’t believe it didn’t get me back to writing immediately, but I do so much writing for my job I assume it just wasn’t feeling fun anymore, not to mention no free time. But the fact I remember more than a few bullet points obviously means it was GREAT.

Have Tent, Will Travel

Trail running, mountaineering, and the occasional wipeout

Tag Archives: Hiking