Thanks to the guy at Marathon Sports back home who made the logo! I think it’s going to have to stay here because I cannot for the life of me figure out how the hell to get it next to the title above. Eventually I’d like to have a few things added, like lists (everyone loves lists), hike of the month, and a few more categories, but for now it’s all about learning to hike, climb, and run. Elevation profiles are in the Strava links when provided, and if anyone would like a GPX file of my route, comment and let me know, I usually have one. Comments, blog suggestions, and recommendations for peaks are always welcome! Doesn’t matter whether it’s a hike, run, or climb.
Recent updates: I have started an instagram! have_tent_will_travel (because some bastards took havetent_willtravel and havetentwilltravel). Not much to it right now, but I figure it’ll keep things moving during the dreary winter days where we can all reminisce on that one time it was sunny for a record streak and we were sick of the sun hoping for rain.
Expectation: Pow on the Coleman Deming (expectation = met) Reality: Two of your friends were left wallowing behind down below, and actually you bailed on climbing ice on Colfax
Reality: yeeting your skis across creeks
You see the drone videos following a skier through a tight couloir. Or maybe it’s a GoPro on one of those sticks that erases itself like how you can’t see your nose. Or maybe it’s a professional skier following them WHILE FILMING because they can. Maybe there’s dubstep or reggae or even classical music in the background. The youtube compilations to music that makes you want to escape and hurt your heart when you’re sitting on the couch on a dreary Tuesday living the best life of a mushroom because that’s what living in Seattle is like, being a mushroom. The images in ads, in outdoor magazines, on the walls of REI and Patagonia and Arc’Teryx stores, and of course, all of the Facebook and Instagram posts that your friends are making with perfect snow conditions and great views and no suffering and no bails ever and it’s never rainy on their trips for some reason. Maybe your coworkers know when you’re stressed because they catch you staring forlornly at your desktop background, a rotating selection of the best shots of your top trips of all time. Maybe they think they’re default backgrounds or lock screens and that’s why they haven’t said anything (that’s what I tell myself).
Well let’s levelset here. Backcountry skiing is like 90% type II fun, 8% variable conditions, and 2% the best skiing and adventure you could possibly find. In fact, let me break that down into a more detailed visual based on the type of snow you can expect.
Note % of time spend in actual pow. Hot n heavy = unskiied mashed potatoes and ice could be further broken down into above/below treeline.
Okay, moving on to gear. Don’t pitch me on a she-wee, there are still many layers of harness/clothing to get through and nonzero risk involved. And if you’re a coffee aficionado, I wish you luck. You all know the feeling when you are finally geared up head to toe and NOW is when your body decides it actually does need to pee.
Pros of bibs: no snow up your back if you wipe out Cons of bibs: Bodily fluids stay in the bibs
Reality: gear malfunctions
Now that you have your gear situated and are (proactively) entirely depleted of bodily fluids, let’s get to the trip.
No, wait. By “having your gear situated” I mean… how confident are you, really? What if your binding breaks? Did you forget skins? Your boot could snap at the top of a couloir leaving you in walk mode for the whole ski down. You could drop a pole in a river. Snow could be sticking to your skins or even your skis if you’re lazy about waxing either and/or both (guilty). Multiply those risks by however many people you’re with.
Ok, I think we’re clear on the gear issues and the fact your downhill ratio will be higher (but not in a good way) if you suck at skiing like I did for years. So what are you going to be thinking about during this trip? What other skills do you need to hone?
On a great trip, you’ll spent about 85% of the time going uphill and 15% of the time going downhill. This is why I’d generally recommend learning to ski at a resort, because if you go straight to the backcountry like some of us, you’ll spent more like 50% of your time going downhill, and not in the enjoyable way you want. But assuming the 85/15 up/down (which honestly might be generous on the down) here’s where you’ll probably expend your mental energy.
I used to be hot headed and gung ho but now I spend more time in the 17% ready for beer
“Good thing it’s not bushwhack related because there’d be a #DIV/0 error” -Brad
Reality: friends are useless except for pics
F-bombs per capita per hour is fascinating because it covers both extreme ends of the success spectrum, the “ah fuck we’re fucking fucked” but also “this is the freshest fucking powder I have ever fucked with fuck yeah and even the satisfied “fuck yeah” with a fist bump at the end. There aren’t many in between, though, so the more calm you are, the fewer f bombs.
Then you have the excuses to take breaks and try to cope. A few ideas, if you need something to say that isn’t “I need to catch my breath” or “I need to scream into a jacket for a sec:”
“I need a snack/water” “I need to take a few pictures” “I need to check the map” “Oh shit I forgot to put my phone in airplane mode” “Wow look at that ice formation, that’s cool” “Wow weird how the snow changes right here” “Did you hear that” “Hear what” “No nothing”
Speaking of map checks, this is a terrible habit I have when I start to drag. Checking the map over and over aka watching my own progress 2 meters at a time because I can’t figure out how to put alpine quest into freedom units.
If I check 10 times a minute you know I’m dying
Bad ass pulling a sled.in a whiteout?
Did you see the tumblr a decade ago called “reasons my son is crying”? It’s a stream of photos of some guy’s toddler crying about ridiculous things (ex. “I told him he couldn’t eat the dog treats.”) I thought I should include a list of reasons you might find yourself crying on an adventure.
Or incapable of skiing more than 50ft?
1. You postholed hip deep/fell into a tree well for the 3758295th time 2. You are still. so. far. away. 3. Your bougie gifted chocolate-bar-on-a-stick is actually a block of hot chocolate powder encased in chocolate and not the delicious consolidated chocolate snack that you expected 4. You forgot a key piece of gear (crampons? skins? ski strap? water?) 5. The pass is snow and ice and driving sucks and you’re 15mi but somehow still 2hrs away from Taco Time
These are suspiciously similar to the list of reasons to laugh:
Yes we call this “backcountry skiing”
1. Your friend postholed hip deep/fell into a tree well for the 3758295th time 2. You’re so far away that it’s actually hilarious you ever thought this was possible 3. Your friend is in tears over their unexpected hot chocolate powder (not the pow we were hoping for, right?) 4. Your friend was a dumbass and didn’t bring skins or water 5. I’m sorry but Taco Time desperation is never funny. Get out.
If you have good friends, they’re going to do their best to interfere too. Sneaking rocks in your pack. Poking you while you try to do the rip-skin-without-removing-ski trick to knock you over. Telling you yeah you should totally ski that way only to watch you crash land off a surprise jump. Slowly undoing the straps on your pack. Seeing how long until you notice there’s a bonus branch hanging from your pack. Reminding you of your freshly ripped pants as you ski past the children sledding at Paradise and a mother gasps at your boldness.
What if we don’t even get to snow (spoiler: we didn’t)
And then there are the things folks don’t glorify on social media: The pine needles that cascade from your body when you finally get home and clog the shower. Starting at 1am. Sleeping in a Winco parking lot on the way back, or spooning their car tire next to the highway. The rainy days where you get soaked to the bone. The days where something spooks everyone (rockfall, avalanches, lizard brain protesting, ghost stories, fearless goats, aggressive mice). The days where someone (never me, no, never) fucked up navigation and you get off route and ran out of time, bonus points if other groups follow your tracks. Being told you totally have alpine cider at the tent so you stay mentally strong, only for your friend to confess at the tent that there is, in fact, no apple cider to be made. Sunburns. Disgusting clothing. Nosebleeds. Injuries. Mystery bruises. Blisters. Heat rashes. Dehydration. Resisting dropping that obnoxious guy in a crevasse and leaving him behind. Climbing hangovers!! I bet everyone who does this has been hungover because of dehydration on a Monday. Don’t ask me hard questions on Mondays, folks.
No green runs in the backcountry… even if it’s a green run
I mean they’re right, even on the worst days* (semi-rad)
Despite all of that, this helpful graphic from semi-rad keeps me motivated:
Amount of woo could be broken down further based on location, expectations, snowpack, number of people that I don’t want to hang out with taking all the lines, level of social starvation over the past 4 weeks, and whether my employer’s stock is doing anything interesting. But in general, skiing ice/scoured tree runs/luge tracks in the rain sure beats sitting at a desk, and usuallyl beats sitting at home wondering if you should have gone skiing, which, coincidentally, is what I’m doing right now. I hope it’s terrible out there.
Pow day if we had gotten high enough (we didn’t)
*I’m waiting until I’m senior enough at my job to have the balls to just set the semi-rad graph to my out-of-office auto response in outlook. I’m not there yet but someday. Mark my words.
It used to be a running joke that if you weren’t getting shut down 30% of the time in the Cascades you weren’t trying hard enough or chasing the right objectives. I realized a few years ago I never saw inversions anymore, and it’s probably because I didn’t attempt anything with a forecast of “partly sunny” aka socked in, but possible to get above the clouds (rare). The element of surprise is half of the reward of a trip. Surprise pow is always better than expected pow. Surprise views are always better than expected views. Surprise inversions are a freaking dream. You’ll never get them if you stop trying. Easy to say from the comfort of my couch.
At the end of the day, the suffering just makes those amazing days that much better. You pay your dues with some slogging in questionable conditions, rack up some karma, get really good at skiing crappy conditions, and eventually you really do land that waist deep powder day or that bluebird spring corn and raging endorphins oversaturate your vision and the views knock you over as soon as you crest the final ridge or the summit and then you get to giggle like kids the whole way down. And that’s what we’re chasing.
p.s. thank you to everyone who let me use pics of them wallowing and eating shit as part of this post. I am fortunate to have friends who still hang out with me despite me spending years saving up albums of wipeouts and misery and I expect nothing less in return.
Photos do not do justice to the density or vibrance of the flowers
Pretty river at the start
I know, it’s like I wrote one thing and now the floodgates are open and I can’t stop and maybe last summer wasn’t as much of a flop as I thought. Here’s another highlight of the year, a wild bike ride with barely any reviews on Trailforks that was easily, hands down, the best bike ride I’ve ever done and probably ever will do. I spent the few days before being SO anxious because I had never ridden anything of this caliber, especially after chickening out on some banked turns on a blue run the day prior. I’m happy to say I only walked like 10ft on the way down. Which probably means this should be a green trail if it weren’t for the distance and elevation gain but you know. Let me enjoy the moment okay?
Followed an old road bed for a while
Distance: 20mi for the whole lollipop loop
Elevation: ~4,000ft gain, ~9,500 highest point
Weather: 70’s and sunny
Commute from Seattle: Long, it’s outside of Big Sky MT
Did I Trip: Actually, genuinely, no
This loop is utterly spectacular. Ride it counterclockwise/backwards (climb 2nd yellow mule first, then go down 1st yellow mule). Go when the flowers are out. Bring a ton of water. Ok here we go.
Rich people watering hillsides improving views
It starts on a super popular hiking trail that’s basically paved. I was so worried about the distance and duration of this ride I went straight to the granny gear when we started climbing, ready to sandbag. In fact I titled my Strava record “bears hear my granny gear coming.” The trail cris-crosses some actual roads in the first few miles, reassuring me if I totally died (or, bears) there’d be an easy escape. Those soon disappeared though, and the trail started started feeling like true wilderness despite glimpses across valleys of construction for ski resorts and whatever the Yellowstone Club does with their land that us plebs will never see. And as usual my body started to perk up after the first mile or so.
CAUGHT WALKING HIS BIKE FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER
The climbing is pretty consistent on the way up (second yellow mule) but the views get better and better as you do. We stopped for a snack around an hour in, I was feeling great but Max not so much. I even caught him walking his bike, a sight never before seen to our usual biking crew. The trail was through sparse forests and mini meadows full of wildflowers, and as we got further out and higher up the trees gave way to more and more wildflowers.
Not the water you want to drink
I. Love. Wildflowers. Like, on par with prime larches and waist deep powder and smooth clean warm waves and a really good hand crack and a tickly 4-3 suspension in a song I’ve been enjoying. So the pace slows as the photos ramp up, which is good because suddenly Max is getting sick on the side of the trail.
Our experiences diverged as he trended towards miserable and I was in my personal heaven surrounded by rainbows and color and full of endorphins. We took a few breaks as he pushed through whatever was going on with his body, electrolytes/elevation/exhaustion we’ll never know. At this point it made more sense to get to the top ridge and bike the easier downhill rather than bike down what we had climbed up, so we carried on. And the meadows were getting more and more spectacular so not to sound like an unsympathetic sociopath or anything but I was flipping back and forth between being concerned and unadulterated bliss drinking in our surroundings. I will never complain about flopping down for a break in a meadow that looks like something out of a fantasy animation. I’m honestly not sure what I’d have done in his situation. I wouldn’t want to call SAR but not sure I’d have the guts to get through it either. You never know til you’re faced with it I guess, fortunately Max is a tough one. Suffering is a skill.
Let the bliss (and puking) begin
Back in the saddle
And we aren’t even at the ridiculous meadows yet
There are WAY worse places to be miserable
Looking back at Lost Peak which now has an 80 person gondola going to the summit which is insane
They’re STILL GOING THERE ARE STILL SO MANY FLOWERS
We haven’t even hit the lupine yet
We reached the ATV trail at the top of the ridge and took a break near a post (needed some landmark) where Max ran out of water. We hadn’t really passed any streams on the way up, and assumed there wouldn’t be any on the way down, and there certainly wasn’t any on the top of this massive mellow rolling ridge. I had already given him most of mine since I am a camel living in a perpetual state of dehydration, so at this point I grabbed both our camelbacks and took off cross country.
I figured there had to be some tiny snow patches lingering from winter on the northern slopes that would have some runoff at best or snow I could melt at worst. I apologized to every wildflower I trampled and suddenly came across our oasis, a 15×15′ snow patch with a tiny river trickling off its foot. I dug out a bit of a river and waited for the silt to settle and filled the bladders as best I could, jogging back up to Max through the disorienting featureless rolling grassy hills. Max is a crusher on the downhill sections so we knew as soon as we were done with the climbing he’d be fine getting back to the car and I’d be the one we had to worry about.
WE ARE SAVED
Water scouting mission successful, We hung out for a few minutes before biking the ridge to our turn off onto First Yellow Mule, where I immediately got off my bike and walked the first switchback downhill through a flood of “ah shit fun’s over” and “what have I gotten myself into” anxiety. I am not a strong downhill biker. I’m great at climbing, I got the endurance game down pat, but I’m a chicken going downhill especially after going OTB last year (did not inspire confidence). Max, on the other hand, was probably like “thank god” “fuck yeah” “fun’s just beginning.” Fortunately for both of us, the rest of the downhill was insane blissful cruising. Max had to wait but not THAT long since I was surprisingly comfortable on everything, probably because there were no drops or tight switchbacks. Again, maybe it’s a green trail if not for the distance and elevation. Shh.
crap, fun’s over, turns out I have to actually bike downhill
The main difficulty is that trail is extremely narrow and rutted, so it made sense to hop out of it and just bike raw ground for much of the descent. Which is terrible, there really should be some trail maintenance to prevent that, but the deep rut is nearly unbikeable. It’s extremely jarring trying to control a bike in a several-inch-deep single rut at speed. I will happily volunteer to help if someone tells me who to talk to. But ignoring that part, wow. Single track flowy downhill with barely any turns through ridiculous seas of wildflowers. I barely took photos because it was just too fast and fun. I have never biked anything like it and couldn’t believe it wasn’t more popular, but maybe Big Sky attracts more park type mountain bikers than cross country. I was legitimately disappointed when we got back to the intersection that would put us back on the popular/maintained hiker trail. I had lived a lifetime up on those mule trails and wasn’t ready for civilization yet.
No wait! I’m gonna be okay!
I still look back on this ride like it’s a dream I didn’t actually experience in real life. Did it really happen if you didn’t suffer at all? No type ii fun? And it didn’t even take us that long, under five hours so it was pretty much a half day trip given how quickly we were able to bike down despite all the breaks on the way up
. If it wasn’t for the pics I’d be thinking I glorified it in my head, I can’t believe there are barely any reviews on trailforks.. It was one of those trips where everything lines up too perfectly for a 10/10 experience. I know Max probably downgraded that to like 6/10 but I was on top of the world, ready to quit my job and just bike the wildflower-riddled west for a few weeks. Of course that didn’t happen, instead I worked from a dark hotel room all day the next day and had my recently re-discovered soul sucked back out of my body again immediately. But wow did that trip set the bar high for biking. And a huge thanks to Max for powering through the distress, I’m not sure I’d have been able to do that myself. Glad we were able to redeem some of the day on the way down!
“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
goofballs in their natural habitat
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.
“Ridge trail” snaking below Sloan
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.
Camp Lake with its ice float
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
Lake Byrne from above looking ABSURD
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.
Worth getting out of bed for
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.
Glacier Peak and the Painted Traverse from the pass Southeast of Lake Byrne. Not sure the lake has a name
Getting back into something is hard. I stopped writing, I stopped hiking biking climbing swimming surfing basically everything besides working this summer. Work had consumed my life, and not in a good way. So I think, to get back into writing, I’ll do the same as I did with every other hobby I have. I did some short pop culture hikes. I went on 2-3 mile runs. I sat on a surfboard for 90min and caught like two waves (I wasn’t sitting, I actually paddled a lot, I just ended up being every freaking wave). My first day back at the climbing gym I don’t think I tried anything harder than a 5.9. I couldn’t even do 15 push ups straight. But that was three months ago and now I’m running daily and climbing 5.10’s and the occasional 5.11 and can definitely do 15 push ups straight. And I’m on a new team at work! So time to get back to writing blog posts, starting with minimal words. The pictures are pretty, and they still say something about the trip. And eventually the rest of the words will come.
I can’t get enough wildflowers
Lookout Mountain Lookout, off Cascade River Road outside of Marblemount. This has been on my OG hikes list from moving here in 2014, except first I wanted to save it for an overnight, then I wanted to get up there in winter or early spring on skis, finally I gave up and Sarah was free and I convinced her to do this butt kicker of a hike even though neither of us were in the mental or physical shape to do it. She told me daily leading up to the hike that she might have to turn around. I’ve already turned around on this hike like three times for varying reasons (dog paw injury, friend’s knee, third time must have been my fault bc I’ve blocked it from memory) so a fourth bail wouldn’t be the end of the world.
Distance: 9.5mi round trip
Elevation gain: 4,500 gain (5,700 highest point)
Weather: 70’s and sunny, a bit smokey
Commute from Seattle: 2:30 without traffic
Did I Trip: I don’t remember, so I will assume yes, because I am a klutz
Tell me that’s not the biggest paintbrush you’ve ever seen
Here is what I remember:
It is steep
Sarah in her element. Avg page 0.25mph
We took like 800 pictures of a butterfly that was really hamming it up. Sarah was responsible for 793 of those. I took 7.
Sarah has an insane eye for color and lighting and notices things I’d never see myself but I think I’m getting better the more I hike with her
It was the longest 4.5mi to the top of any hike I’ve ever done
Definitely bring hiking poles, and lots of water. It’s 90% in the forest so sun was not a big problem. Sarah says that’s the only reason she had a shot at success.
Trail wrapping around a shoulder and taking the scenic route to the top
Finally!
There was paintbrush that was like traffic orange, I have never seen anything like it before. And I’ve seen a lot of paintbrush.
We made it to the lookout. 10/10, would return for overnight. Monogram Lake/Teebone Ridge better for skis.
10/10 would sleep
Sarah’s phone died, so I gave her mine for the way down because she was having artist withdrawals not being able to take pictures
Then she immediately took the best wildflower photo of the day, never mind my prior 230 attempts. Quality > quantity
We also spent probably 20min watching squirrels chase each other around a tree like we were in a Disney movie
Looking back on Rampart Lakes from partway up our gully
Adventure is out there!
I know I know I’m way behind on writing. Just going to jump to recent trips and maybe someday get caught up on past ones. I seriously think my job (heavy on documentation) is interfering with my enjoyment of writing despite wildly different styles and genres. But I’ve had the itch all week this past week, so here’s a good short report (more pics fewer words) to start reviving things! Rampart Ridge on July 3rd via Lake Laura/Lillian, considered the “back door” route.
Dog friend excited to fetch at Lake Lillian
Distance: 6mi
Elevation: 2,700ft gain, 5,800ft highest point
Weather: 60’s and sunny
Commute from Seattle: 90min (amazing)
Did I Trip: caught it
We were fresh off our friend Eva’s wedding, so I think we all felt varying levels of lethargic and lazy, but Brooke and Forrest were only in town for the next ~12 hours, and we figured we’d go for a hike. Forrest suggested Rampart Ridge via the backdoor route, which I had actually never done. I had been up to Rampart Lakes via Rachel Lake, but never all the way to the ridge above, and never via the shortcut. I have heard amazing things, plus it’s a shorter drive and shorter trail than the Rachel Lake route. Twist my arm, I’ll be there.
Rainier over lakes Lillian and Kachess
We got to the trailhead at a casual 10:30am (“bonfire start” as we call it, the opposite of an alpine start) and there were only four other cars. I thought Brooke and Forrest might need to hitch a ride based on reports of the road to the trailhead being heinous so I waited at the last turn before the road got narrow only to see them tokyo drift the switchback and carry on full steam ahead. They made it in their rental Honda CRV hybrid, for anyone curious, with only some minor body damage thanks to having to pass another car on the extremely narrow, overgrown road. I had to pass the same car (a Subaru) on some ruts I knew they wouldn’t want to reverse up, so I reversed maybe a quarter of a mile and pulled over in a ditch so they could go around me. So you don’t need high clearance per se, I would recommend an overarching lack of concern for your car’s paint job and aesthetic, and a decent pair of balls.
Beginning the traversing
Forrest is a mutant in the mountains and fresh off a trail marathon, so he took off at a pace I knew within minutes would not last for me, feeling more like an undercooked pancake of a person than an athlete. The trail to Lake Lillian is steep, more of a climber’s or fisherman’s trail than a hiking trail but that means you gain elevation quickly. We tromped up through trees over 3rd class roots and rocky steps I knew would be brutal on the way down. We took a detour to an awesome waterfall throwing rainbows at its base with a perfectly framed view of Rainier. It’s only a mile to Lake Lillian, but oh boy it felt LONG. At the lake we finally ran into people and made a new pup friend before carrying on to the ridge.
More traversing on well maintained trail, Hibox in the back
There are two routes to Rampart Ridge from Lake Lillian, an east and a west. We took the east route on the way up, keeping elevation relatively low and following clear trails wrapping around the shoulder of the ridge before dropping towards the lakes. Views of Hibox were amazing but to my surprise the meadows of avalanche lillies were already past prime. I exited trees onto a snowpatch and was ambushed by a snowball fight, and after more subalpine rambling we finally came upon the first lake.
Wrapping around one of many brilliant lakes
There are a million social trails up here, and what feels like a million lakes. How do we know which one to jump in? If we had more time, the answer would be “all of them.” But with a return flight to San Francisco hanging over our heads, we just had to trust we’d know it when we saw it.
Waterfall above a lake
We ran into a few campers, a snake, two frogs, 10,398 mosquitoes, and a fish. We never went far enough east to get a view of Rachel Lake, rather we stayed west and finally stumbled upon a really cool rock bridge (for lack of a better term) where we decided to take a dip. We were able to jump off the rocks into deep water, no time to think about what you’re doing or how cold it’ll be. The best campsite was right on the other end of that rock bridge, pretty much at the northernmost tip of the northernmost lake. The only downside is the established toilet (not qualified for a classic crap due to lack of views) is basically at the opposite, southern end of the lakes. Oh, and mosquitos. They were all babies, and only bit us while we were wet (weird? as soon as we were dry they stopped?) but damn they will be BAD in a week or two.
Snake at center left!!
Around 1:30 we decided Brooke and Forrest needed to be back at the car at 3:30, and we needed to head down. But first we were going to head up and see if we could tag the high point on the ridge. I was willing to bypass it but now that we were up there and it was just a tiny offshoot of the normal trail it seemed so doable. Rampart Ridge looks wild in the winter from the ski resort by Snoqualmie, it’s this 2,000ft rock cliff looming over the valley and yet it’s a simple walk up from the other side (mostly).
Can’t shut down the climber instinct (he was on top a split second later)
Rather than follow the trail, which would have been straightforward and efficient and logical, we chose a brush bash on the west side of the lakes to a gully of our choosing that we hoped would just go. We started out through slide alder and blueberries, getting a nice taste of the cascades. We eventually broke above the brush to talus along a waterfall where we found some bouldery scramble moves, drank straight from the stream, crawled up steep heather thanks to veggie belays, hit a headwall, traversed south, and broke out into rolling talus and grass a few hundred feet from the high point. I saw Forrest leap a small chasm between two cliffs. Brooke and I took the route that didn’t require any air time, just walking. Near the high point I dropped my pack and ran to scramble (maybe one 4th class move) to the top and back to meet Brooke and Forrest, knowing we were pushing it given they had to be at the airport at 5. Didn’t see any register of any sort but I also wasn’t looking too hard.
Brooke reconnecting with the trail
We took the west route on the way down, jogging where we could to save time and pausing only so Forrest could compliment frogs on the way. The trail again was very clear and easy to follow, though we missed a turn between Lake Lillian and the car without realizing until the trail suddenly started going up again, not down. “Do you remember it going up this way? I don’t remember this” I proclaimed. Everyone else agreed. I checked the map. We were headed towards Mt. Margaret, not the car. Reverse! Everyone backtrack!
We found our intended trail and were back at the car at 3:25, perfect timing despite our adventure route up to the high point of the ridge and our brief detour on the way down. Hiker beware: unsigned split on the trail that’ll take you to Mt. Margaret instead of Lake Lillian (or the car, if you’re coming downhill).
The drive out was tricky due to cars coming up late in the day, that is a tough road to pass other vehicles on. But friends made it to their flight successfully, didn’t get charged for the paint damage as far as we know, legs were tired and happy, and we all got a breath of the alpine for the first time ina while. And maybe worked off like 1/8th a slice of wedding cake. How lucky are we to have this as a short hike within 2hrs of Seattle?!
Hibox over one of Rampart Lakes
Southernmost Rampart Lakes
Cruising down from the high point on the ridge
Endless lakes and tarns! We kept finding more and more
After Courtney (haven’t written about it yet), Eric and I deliberated where to go. I had my eye on Slate Peak and Tatie/Grasshopper pass, but Eric was hoping to go out to the Tiffany Peak area. Tiffany actually was on my radar for some reason, we were already more than halfway there, and I had a willing and enthusiastic passenger, so… might as well make the drive now! Plus Eric had waited for me while I did Courtney, it was only fair to go get after his objective the next day. Eric is an incredibly quick conversationalist too. If there was someone to have in the car for a 5-6hr drive, it’s him. It is fascinating to converse with him, we could zoom though a thousand subjects without any gaps, catching up on the years that had gone past, the peaks flashing by the window, the wildfire smoke going up in the distance, the Mariners craziest moments over the past 30 years, Eric’s brain vs GoogleMaps (Eric won).
We made it to the Tiffany trailhead around 6pm or so, and hung out chatting about obscure Cascades objectives and swapping stories until it was too cold to sit comfortably outside. I called dibs on the book we had been passing back and forth, set up my tent, and Eric set up in the car. Something hoofed trotted by my tent. I had pangs of anxiety that it was a cow and I was about to be surrounded in my tent by grunting grazing cattle, but fortunately, whatever it was, it was solo. Once my heart rate dropped back to normal and I didn’t hear any clopping hooves I managed to fade into sleep. I like cows on my plate, not sniffing my tent.
Some needles still lingering
I was up around 6:30 and got my running stuff together. The skies were much less smoky than the prior day, thank god. My legs were tight and sore, but I hadn’t come out here to hang out, so I figured I could at least hike Tiffany. I told Eric as much. “You might beat me back to the car in that case,” he warned. I figured I had a book, food to cook, it was a beautiful day, I’d be fine. Eric had started the book the prior day while waiting for me. “Whoever gets back first gets to read the book!!” I wished Eric luck on his adventure across the road (the peak northeast of Spur Peak, Peak 6970) and started hiking up the Freezeout Ridge trail. Eric is an OG peakbagger and was aiming to climb 1,000 unique peaks, and had already done Tiffany and Clark. He was also dealing with deteriorating health due to a degenerative lung disease called pulmonary hypertension among other things, and was choosing simpler objectives, like this numbered peak that only gained ~500ft elevation off the road.
You’re starting at almost 7,000ft already, and pretty much above treeline. The area had burned decades ago, but the trail was clear, and I was crossing grassy fields within no time. The sun lit up the few larches that I could see, past prime but still yellow! The turn off to Tiffany Peak came up in about 1.5 miles and I quickly started up it, my legs complaining the whole time. It was reminiscent of the top of Maude actually, or Amphitheater. Broad grassy slopes, that ancient empty Pasayten feel. Finally I was at the top, looking down a sheer rock face drop down to Tiffany Lakes and munching on my pb&j.
Wall of smoke covering views
The lakes were surrounded by larches! I tagged both ends of the summit to snap photos. What a pleasant surprise! The larch groves had been burned in the fire decades ago, larch carnage everywhere. But those that remained were perfectly lit up in the sun. Across Whistler Pass from me was a beautifully dense slope of larches, so rather than backtrack, I jogged down the southeast side of the peak, stumbling across a trail that faintly, very faintly switchbacked from the pass up to Tiffany’s summit like some untouched high country adventure. What a treat. For a top peak by prominence this seems to get surprisingly few boots.
At Whistler Pass, I savored feeling like I had this whole plane of existence to myself, found the trail that would run past Clark, and jumped on that. Faint at first, it grew more and more defined as I went south. I couldn’t resist running. I headed off trail to get a good look at the larches, and noticed something sparkling at my feet. I was entirely surrounded by quartz crystals. This was a childhood dream. Magical. Who ends up standing on a pile of crystals? In front of larches? They were everywhere! I scuffed around for 30 seconds but didn’t find any perfect/clear pieces, and decided I should be on my way so Eric isn’t waiting for too long.
Upper Tiffany Lake
Lower Tiffany Lake
Clark Peak has a very clear saddle just to its northwest, I left the trail right below that and started hiking uphill. I aimed for the saddle and then followed the ridge to the summit. Or what I thought was the summit. I don’t know, there are like 2-3 bumps that all look similar so I just tagged all of them with some fun 10-15ft scrambles. Besides that, it was underwhelming. No larches over here though, they were all back on Tiffany. I ate my second peanut butter & jelly sandwich and figured I’d go check out Tiffany Lakes.
I dropped back to the trail, nearly overshooting it because it was so faint where I crossed it. Back to Whistler Pass, where I could see a barely worn trail heading down the ridge east of Tiffany. This became more defined as soon as it started to traverse the slope, and about halfway down I left the trail to hike up to the ridge. The larches here were insane, huge and still bring yellow. But the lakes looked soooo far away, and it was already 11ish, and I had planned on being back by noon, though I hadn’t communicated that to Eric. I knew he’d be fine waiting for me but I just really don’t like making people wait. Feels like I’m inconveniencing them even if they swear I’m not. Between that and feeling too lazy to go to the lakes, I turned around.
Faint, ancient-feeling trail
Crystals!!!
I cruised back to the trailhead, running most of the way. The air was clear and sweet, the grass lit up in the sun, scattered larches around the fields, and views of the northern Cascades beasts across the way. Tiffany has over 2,000ft of prominence, which (with no trees in the way) means astounding views. I could see the wall of wildfire smoke in the distance, obscuring half of the Cascades but far enough away my lungs didn’t notice it. I finally ran into another person maybe a mile from the trailhead. Amazing to have a trail like that all to yourself for 99% of the trip.
Back at the car, Eric was nowhere to be found. The book hadn’t been moved. I cooked some ramen to have for lunch and sat back reading in the sun. No sign of Eric for an hour, an hour and a half, two hours. Around 1:30 I started to get worried. I can see half the peak he’s climbing from here and it’s empty and silent, I should be able to hear or see him coming down. I decided at 2pm I’d start looking, first by driving down the road to see if he was coming down another side of the peak. If no luck doing that, I’d return to the trailhead, drop the car, and try to follow his tracks as best I could.
Larch carnage
Around 1:50, a car pulled up with Eric in the passenger seat. I jumped up from my seat. “Holy shit!! Eric! What happened?” Eric was all smiles and gratitude getting out of the car, thanking the driver who picked him up. He turned to me. “I way overdid it. Pushed myself way too far. Stupid, so stupid.” “Hey, you made it back to the car! What do you need, water? food?” Eric sat while I helped pack his stuff. Like I would discover a week later with my broken wrist, stuffing sleeping bags into stuff sacks is a surprisingly strenuous, involved activity. “I dropped straight down to the road because backtracking the way I came would have been impossible given all the blowdowns. I was too exhausted. And even then, when I got to the road I couldn’t walk 40 steps without taking a break. If he hadn’t driven by it would have taken me probably an hour to walk the half mile to the car.” Jesus. “And it was uphill!” “Yeah, I’m really lucky he came by, and was willing to give me a chance. I probably looked like a crazy person asking for a ride out here.”
Vast views despite the smoke
“How long would you have given me before calling SAR?” he asked. “Most people… most people I give to sundown or even the next morning depending on who it is. You? At this stage? Maybe 3 hours. You’re on a short leash.” We had a good laugh and got back in the car, planning to stop every hour or so so Eric could shake out his legs. “Well did you get the peak?” I asked. “You must have if you dropped down to the road way over there.” “I’m not sure, let me take a look. I was on top of something up there at least.”
As we were driving away, Eric looked out the window, pulled out his map, and chuckled. “Heh, that’s definitely where I was. Yeah I guess I did make it, huh.” He sounded pleasantly surprised, and pleased. 33 peaks to go to 1,000.
Eric would never make it to the 1,000th unique peak, or even the 968th peak. He passed away four days later at a UW hospital. Primary cause of death: pulmonary hypertension. I didn’t ask if anyone was with him because I was and am scared to hear the answer. His hydroflask is sitting on my countertop because I have analysis paralysis over what to do with it. I had a terrible feeling the day after I dropped him off, wondering how much time he had left, worrying about who would tell us if something happened to him, thinking maybe I should tell him to list me as an emergency contact since I live three blocks away. I figured it was part of processing how I felt knowing that a friend had a terminal illness and seeing the effects in person. I was just jumping to worst case scenarios and I’d leave it up to him, he had years left right I mean heck he just went on a bushwhack even if it was a short one. And life expectancy for his condition had jumped from 1-3yrs to 7-10yrs recently. Had I researched further, I’d have read that what I saw Sunday was textbook Stage 4, and Eric had probably been doing his best to remain upbeat and not let me notice how much he was struggling.
Larch madness
Eric’s Peak
I emailed him 15 minutes after he died thanking him for the company, the recommendation for Tiffany and Clark, the quality conversation, offered to drop off the book for him to finish now that I was done with it. For me, it was one of those extremely rejuvenating trips where everything comes naturally and seems to just click into place. Simple and liberating. But he never saw my thank you. He got the last word, he had sent me a big thank you on Sunday night (“and can i swing by to get my milk jug and water bottle back?”) and I took four days to respond because I was scatter-brained back in civilization. And it wasn’t for nearly three weeks that we noticed it wasn’t just me. Ed messaged. “Have you heard from Eric recently, Eve?” No… and he left mid conversation. That’s not like him. No social media activity. No one had heard from Eric in three weeks. I tried to sleep that night but my gut knew something was wrong. The next day I walked to his apartment a few blocks away and met his neighbor and landlord who immediately recognized my description of him, shared the news, and got me in touch with his family. I’m left with a water bottle, memories, and some amount of solace knowing he topped it all off with a peak on a surprisingly summery October day way out in the Pasayten nowhere.
It’s the people that matter (PC: Khuyen)
When I first moved to Seattle, I met a woman at a run club the day after I arrived. I ran into her a week later on a solo jog around Discovery Park, and we ended up running an hour together as she showed me around the trails. She was moving out of state the next day. “What really IS a friend?” I remember her asking. “I mean, we’re running together, but we’ve only met once and we’ll probably never meet again, does this count?” I think about that a lot, I use “friend” where many people would use “acquaintance” or even just “someone I met once.” I built a community out here from scratch. My friends span from 25yos living with their parents to people celebrating their senior discounts at Denny’s to people who are now dead. So I don’t know how to define “friend,” and my community may be non traditional. But it’s a heck of a community. These connections between people are what matters. And it sucks when one of those connections is snuffed out.
Eric’s memorial was a few days ago, bare bones but it came together last minute and was very cathartic. Friends from different decades and phases of his life, different jobs, different climbing goals. Crazy seeing how many people he mentored, even when he couldn’t keep up physically anymore. I can only speak for myself but the hours afterwards were the most at peace I had felt in a long time. Sometimes you don’t realize how much you’re treading water until you have the space to reflect.
I should have written this while the adrenaline was still pumping and my body felt great but alas, here we are a week later with a splint I can’t take seriously, a wrist that has hot pokers shooting from my elbow to palm, and a drugstore of painkillers i’m avoiding taking out of sheer stubbornness. An iron will is the only thing standing between me and buying the rest of the ice cream at the corner store and eating it until I have become an ice cream cone myself. Fortunately ambien is not in my drugstore selection or I’m sure I’d come around at 3am mixing a bathtub of ice creams.
Views are starting!! And larches!
Distance: Well… ~29 miles. 19 on a bike, 4 pushing/trying to bike, 6 running, 6 hiking. “Wow, weird combo” yeah well. read on.
Elevation gain: ~6k gain. 4500 on a bike 2500 hiking.
Weather: 50’s and sunny!
Distance from Seattle: 5hrs w/ the i90 construction
Did I Trip: technically no… over the handlebars of a bike isn’t tripping right? It’s flying.
I finally left Seattle around 6pm. I had a pretty mediocre week but I was stoked to get out with Matt and Anita for an awesome bike followed by awesome campsite. I messaged Brooke and Amber at 8pm sitting in dead stopped traffic on i90. Why can’t one thing go right. I can’t even complain about the traffic because someone probably died to make it this bad. Oh wait, it’s construction. I can bitch. I stopped to fill my gas guzzling climate destroying mountain polluting SUV for the second time. The fuel gauge has been broken for years, I rely on the odometer, which has been fine except these new gas pumps are so sensitive and turn off so easily I never know if it actually filled up or not. Last week I had to fill my tank in 1gal increments up to 13gal, cursing the fuel pump for thinking it was full. Don’t lie to me.
Cooney/Switchback Peak over meadows
Matt and Anita caught up to me on the forest road. I let them go since their headlights were blinding me and I could see my car’s shadow. This isn’t unusual, my headlights suck. Except when I parked, Anita said “you know a headlight is out, right?” No. No I did not. I pitched my tent next to my car and crawled into my sleeping bag, ready to have a weekend where the only focus was adventuring with whatever you could carry.
Cooney Peak over Cooney Lake with my finger in the way
Saturday morning we got moving around 8am. The plan was for Matt and I to bike while Anita hiked to the lake with all of their overnight gear, we’d meet her at the lake, I’d bike back to the car and swap bike for backpacking gear and hike back up to the lake. “Don’t feel obligated!!” Anita said. “Totally fine if you end up wanting to crash at the car or head home.” “Anita,” I said with 100% confidence, “the only thing that would stop me from camping with you guys is if I literally got injured on the bike ride.” We laughed, and Matt and I took off.
Larches still good
The trail at first is smooth and mild besides one rocky section. But immediately I felt like crap! Usually I’m so good at climbing but I was walking mild uphills. I felt like I was slipping off my bike seat, and my freaking lats were getting tired hanging onto the handlebars. I figured it was because I lifted the other day, maybe it was just DOMS and it’d clear up after a bit. My legs felt strong, just like I was biking through mud. For once I felt better on the downhills than the uphills! You do get a few stretches of super fun downhill after you take a left fork in the trail (twice). I finally pulled over and told Matt about the weird seat. Does this look off to you? He laughed. Yes, Eve, it’s like entirely leaning backwards, how long have you been biking like that?! He fixed it in like 30 seconds so it was pointing slightly downward towards the front of the bike. So now I know how it’s supposed to be. I sat down and WOW. It was comfortable, supportive, and I was actually over the pedals. I’m not sure it’s ever been that comfortable. Felt like a million bucks. Alright. This loop is happening!
So tired but so beautiful
Cooney Lakes larches were past prime but still spectacular. Last time I had been there was frigid, this time it felt like summer. Views started opening up, pace slowed as I wanted more and more pics. We took a break at the lake, I had a pb&j. We knew the unrideable hike a bike was coming up. I swear, that hike a bike above Cooney Lakes felt like one of the hardest things I had ever done. I was dying. I laughed when Stephen said on a scramble back in August that he was rescinding his theory that mountain biking was the only exercise you need, but maybe he just wasn’t doing the right kind of bike trips. This would cover anything. I remember announcing “this is where I need to hear Anita cursing from the wilderness in the distance” as I lifted/tactfully hucked my bike over a bona fide scramble move. It’s steep, you’re pushing a 30lb bike, it’s sandy and rocky and slippery and you have to pay attention to where you’re walking and where the bike wheels are going, and… oh, my rear wheel had loosened so it wasn’t rolling. Mechanical issue #2. Again, Matt fixes it momentarily. I’m learning, slowly but surely. If rear wheel is stuck, check the axle before checking the brakes. I also now know how to remove the brake calipers(?), though if there was a problem I don’t think I’d know what to do about it.
We finally got to the top of the saddle above Cooney Lakes. Oh my god. It legitimately occurred to me that was worse than anything I did on Challenger but I think I was being a little dramatic. “Do you think we’ll want to do this again, or is this a one and done?” Matt asked. I laughed. I had just been wondering that. We’ll find out after the downhill sections. I think it’ll be a statute-of-limitations type thing where I’ll want to do it again but not for like 7 years.
Merchant Basin, Sunrise Lake tucked away in the cirque
We rode a small section to get to Angel’s Staircase, took a break to snap photos, joked around with another group of bikers (hard to ignore a story when you overhear “I’m a man who shits himself a lot, so I just wanted to offer support and advice”), and started down. This was the part I was most anxious about but I figured if I took it slow I’d be fine. I had to walk some switchbacks, but I rode most of the straightaways, and Matt showed me how to “pivot” on tight switchbacks – put your inside foot on the ground and you can swing your bike around way more easily than getting on and off. I managed a few, albeit slowly, but still better than the alternative! I thought the exposure would freak me out but I actually felt fine, and got another tip from Matt – keep your exposure-side foot down, and you’re more likely to wipe out into the hillside vs falling down the exposed slope. I was feeling pretty solid.
Riding to the start of the staircase
The problem with downhill was the third mechanical issue. My dropper post, fully down for the downhill, would randomly shoot up like an ejection seat going over significant bumps. Not a problem on the uphill because my weight was often on it, but downhill, yikes. I had to randomly stop to put it back down, and I think I had an advantage here being female. We drained some air out of it (can do that with just a rock, I learned). Matt put a pebble on the seat and pressed the release lever, launching the rock several feet into the air to roaring laughter from the bikers around us. We settled on having it slightly less than full so I’d have to physically pull it up to adjust it, but that’s fine since the uphills and downhills are pretty committing/slow transitions are fine here, no need to be constantly putting it up and down.
Top of the world!!
Starting down Angel’s Staircase
Cruiser sections
The two miles between Angel’s Staircase and the turnoff to Boiling Lake were incredible. Almost flowy trail (some rock gardens and logs/roots), astounding views, you feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere. We stopped to take pics and noticed a silent man and donkey enjoying the afternoon sun and views. Where have I seen that before? I pulled off trail and asked if they were up around White Pass in August 2020. It’s entirely possible, do we look familiar? I laughed. Yes. Daryl and Lou, the ~30yo donkey. Lou butted his head into me looking for snacks. Sorry buddy, I don’t have anything worth sharing. But you’re so soft.
Lou living the dream
We carried on, cruising along the mellow trail through stands of larches and pine and meadows, my confidence building with everything I rolled over. I stopped to walk rock gardens, but small drops were fine. Even drops in quick succession. The bike was becoming an extension of my body, I was getting used to having my weight back to keep the front wheel up going over small steps boom boom boom until suddenly something pitched me forward right before a drop. I saw the handlebars slow-mo passing under my body before the front wheel even hit the ground. The only thought I remember is “hmm, not a good sign” and suddenly i was in a pile on the ground tangled up with my bike in dappled sunlight, flooded with adrenaline. Step 1: took inventory in a split second. Head not hit, nothing was horrifically wrong but holy shit my wrist. I grabbed the radio and called Matt. “Man down. Help.”
New friends helping get me water at Boiling Lake
Matt radioed back immediately/ “You okay? Need me to come back?” “I think I’m okay, but not sure. Yes come up.” Step 2, get heart rate under control, don’t throw up. Slightly more in depth physical, breathing is fine, head is fine, everything still moves, no significant deformations/bleeding. Bike fine too. Left wrist is bad. Hip and shin are enough to complain about but very much overshadowed by the wrist. Palp everything. Legs definitely okay besides soon to be big bruises and bloody cuts. Wrist… unclear. Point tenderness, immediate swelling, no crepitus. But fuck it hurts. And it’s so… weak? Like it wouldn’t respond normally to commands to move. My fingers could all move. Barely, but enough I was confident that tendons were intact. Must be a bad sprain.
I got up, picked up the bike, and started walking towards Matt. Walk it off. Great, legs were gonna be fine, we’ll see if the wrist pain wears off. “I think I would know if it was broken” I said, before realizing I had heard that line twice this summer and both times the bones in question were broken. I was mildly embarrassed and disappointed. The easiest section of the day. I got complacent and moved too fast, wasn’t ready for that last drop. Still not entirely sure what happened. Lost momentum abruptly, got thrown forward, and couldn’t correct quickly enough going over the last drop. Dammit, that’s like a half cup of water that’s going to inflammation and not hydration! Let’s just push bikes to Boiling Lake and figure it out from there. I told Matt to ride (of course) and I’d catch up but he was content to walk.
Sneak peaks of Boiling Lake
At the lake, we ran into the other group of bikers, and two named Victor and I think Jeff helped me filter water. I couldn’t even get the bladder out of my pack, nevermind open it up or pump water. I checked CSMs (circulation/sensation/motion) in my left hand, Matt grabbed tape and some fabric, and wrapped it. I was shouting as he wrapped it because it hurt so badly and he asked if it should be looser and I said no!! We need to get out of here, it needs all the support it can get! Keep going! We got it nice and tight and taped it up to hold it in place. Pretty solid for a backcountry bandage. No change to CSMs. Perfect. I took a single Advil. Matt had stronger things too I think but I wanted to start with what I knew. “I have some.. oxycodone if you want that?” one of the other bikers asked. We cracked up. That might be overkill. I do actually have to get back to the car. “Not to be a debbie downer but that wrist is gonna hurt a lot more tomorrow, heads up.” I knew he was right. Ugh. Oh, did I mention all of this is happening in one of the most beautiful locations in Washington? Boiling lake is ridiculous.
Up next was the second section of hike a bike, fortunately less steep than the climb above Cooney Lakes. Beautiful switchbacks. Matt had to help me clip my running pack because I had lost all fine motor control (swelling, not because of the bandage). He helped me lift the bike over a few larger rocks, but I soon figured out I could lift the frame with my right arm easily enough. “Hey Eve!!” I heard from several switchbacks above. It was the bikers who had helped with the water. “Do you have lights?!” I laughed. “Yes!! We do!” So insanely good of them to check in on us. They were camping at the trailhead too, and invited me to join them if I didn’t hike back up to camp so I wouldn’t be sitting at the car alone and injured. They were so freaking funny it was a tempting backup plan.
Boiling Lake had the best larches of the trip
On the ridge above Boiling Lake we got in touch with Anita via the radios and told her we were on our way, but I was potentially injured. We had tossed around some ideas, I could stay with Anita while Matt went to the cars to get my camping stuff and came back, I could take the bike out and car camp and head out in the morning, I could get my own stuff and meet them back at the lake.
I tried to ride coming down from the pass, but everything I rolled over that wasn’t smooth soft dirt sent fire up my left arm. I couldn’t grip or control the handlebars with my left arm. Matt rode slowly while I biked clear patches and walked the rest. “Get a pic of me biking” I asked Matt, thinking so if it’s broken I have proof that I tried. “Remember when we said this might be a one and done? Or a 10yr trip? I think we’re going to have to come back sooner as a revenge trip.” We stashed the bikes at the turn off to Upper Eagle Lake, and found Anita at a glorious campsite next to the lake. I figured I wasn’t driving back to Seattle that night, so I might as well camp and enjoy the scenery. And I so didn’t want to deal with the bike, getting it out would be slow. I decided on the third option. I’d run back to the car, grab camping gear, and hike back up.
We told her the story, had a quick snack, and I went on my way. It was 5:25 and I wanted to be back at camp by 10. I figured 90min to run to the car and then 3 hours to hike back to the campsite. Well, thanks to a well maintained trail with mild downhill the entire way and heaps of adrenaline and cortisol, I was at the car in under an hour packing up my overnight gear and my legs felt AWESOME. I was FLYING. I was originally going to do a trail run Sunday or climb Bigelow, but those were out of the picture so I took minimal gear back up to camp with me. I asked four hikers with headlamps if they had spare batteries in case mine died (I didn’t) and within ten seconds there were four outstretched hands with batteries in front of me. I swear these hobbies have the most supportive, helpful people out there. Zero judgement, just yes please how can I help and be safe out there! I was overflowing with gratitude.
Dropping down towards Eagle Lakes
The stars were out in full force. I lived a lifetime in the 3mi traverse to the lake after the last huge switchbacks. At Upper Eagle Lake I stumbled through three or four campsites before finding Anita’s, perched on a rocky knoll with the best views. She and Matt were half asleep, but not too sleepy to immediately try to help. “Do you need help with your tent? Water? I’ll get up!!” No no, I think I’m fine, I got it. Miraculously, Anita sleeps with a splint for her left wrist. She handed it to me. Something along the lines of “I’ll be fine one night, you need this more than I do.” Taking one for the team! I lost and re found the splint four times while setting up all my gear but finally put it on. I flopped into my sleeping bag, wet from sweat and freezing, hoping my clothes would dry from body heat. After 15min it was apparently that was not happening. I changed in the frigid air with my bum wrist. I think the worst article of clothing for an arm injury is a sports bra. It’s amazing I didn’t break my wrist in a second place trying to get the damn thing off.
Don’t need a wrist to run!
I woke up in the morning to a beautiful sunrise lighting the cirque up pink. I made my way to the campsite toilet, realizing I hadn’t gone to the bathroom in something like 16 hours. Body must have shut down all nonessential functions for a bit. I had a huge breakfast even though I wasn’t hungry. But then Anita gave me a vanilla scone that was the most delicious thing I’ve ever had. Sugar. My body wanted straight sugar.
We started packing up. Anita helped me pack my sleeping bag, which I couldn’t do 😦 And then she made a life saving offer. I figured I’d just hike out with her and push my bike while Matt rode down. But what if Matt took the heavy overnight pack, she wore the day pack he rode with Saturday, and she rode my bike out? I’m a bit bigger than she is so my bike might be too big, but there was a chance this could work, and holy crap I didn’t want to push the bike if I didn’t have to. And I really didn’t want to ride out of there. The trail from the lake was the easiest section of the ride by far with plenty of smooth dirt sections, but with an overnight pack and how badly the tiniest rocks hurt the prior day I had no doubt it would have sucked for me. My wrist at this point was visibly swollen from knuckle to halfway up my forearm. But here was Anita, getting excited to bike!! Heck yes! Take it! And the more you enjoy it the better I’ll feel too! Just tell me it’s amazing and I’d have loved it when we get down.
We hiked back to the stashed bikes, Anita took my helmet and hopped on my bike. I hiked ahead of them to get a head start and snap a few pics of Anita. Of course they caught up to me within minutes and it was off to the races! I ran/hiked the way out, running the soft sections that didn’t feel too high impact. I just wanted to be the fuck out of there at that point. I wasn’t enjoying the journey anymore.
Brilliant sunrise colors
Larch reflection
I popped out at the TH to Anita and Matt tailgating at the car with a camping chair and a beer ready for me! Waiting to make sure I was alive. “It was amazing, you’d have loved it!!!” I love taking a few minutes to chill at the car after a great trip, and this was perfect. I added some cheese to my crackers and cheese, had another pb&j, and half a beer. I had been fantasizing about a Subway sandwich (chicken bacon ranch w pepperjack and chipotle mayo on the cheesy italian bread) for like an hour at this point but knew I had to get back to Seattle. Matt and Anita helped get my crap into my car. I drove slow on the way out, turning sucked with my bum wrist. It’s not strong enough to hold the wheel in place, nevermind turn it, which means I need to get creative with the shifting/turning pattern while driving my manual car. Luckily highway driving was easy. City streets and tight turns were peppered with shouts and groans and strings of curses.
I started voice-to-texting people once I was back in cell service. Tell my family, tell my boyfriend, Brooke and Amber, Brad and Surafel, message a group of besties to look up what urgent cares did x rays and were open past 8 so I could try to get an appointment that night, are there ERs where you can wait outside or somewhere else so you don’t sit in a room of dying people feeling bad for taking up resources with your tiny injury? I struck out on all counts. I got home and called my neighbor. Hey Jeff, I think I broke my wrist, if you have five minutes can you help me get my bike out of the car? Everyone was so insanely helpful. I showered, made a grilled cheese (always tempted to say grill myself a cheese thank you archer), and decided it could wait til the morning. I swear if someone took my vitals in that moment they’d probably think I was dying anyway so might as well eat, hydrate, and rest, and then figure it out.
Can’t choose between larch reflections
I got x rays at 9am at urgent care. “What made you come in today vs Saturday or yesterday?” they asked. “Well… I was pretty far away, got back late last night.” I replied, not wanting to explain everything. “The radiologist will call later today with results.” Cool, I can wait. Five minutes later she came back in. “Actually, it’s pretty clearly broken. We’re out of splints but here’s an ace bandage and a referral to an ortho.” I went on my merry way and called like 40 orthos who were booked out for weeks until remembering OPA Ortho, who had helped with my sprained knee/potential tear years ago. An ortho way too good for my routine fracture could see me in two days. Sick. The rest is soon-to-be-history. I mean if there was a limb to hurt it’s my nondominant wrist, and if there was a time to do it, it’s right now when the weather is changing to crappy but it’s not ski season yet.
Anita ready to ride out!!
Things I will miss: climbing, gym climbing, surfing, lifting, swimming.
Things I think I can still do: hike, run, ski, lift with good limbs, and maybe I’ll go find a stationary cycle.
Daily things that suck: chopping food, typing, driving, washing hair, opening tupperware, opening jars, turning doorknobs, scrubbing Invisalign, sleeping, petting cats and dogs, putting on socks and pants, zipping jackets.
Things I’m grateful for: Matt and Anita for being awesome company and keeping up the good spirits, Matt being willing to take newbies out on adventures and being super chill with injuries, Anita for miraculously having a left wrist splint and riding my bike out and helping me pack, people who are excited to help in case of emergency, super wholesome hiking/biking communities, Andy and Esther for selling me a tv ASAP and moving furniture I can’t move myself, a family who naturally gives me 50/50 sympathy and sass, coworkers who understand putting health before work. And an ortho who can probably build a better wrist than I was born with if it comes to that. And the same coworker I frantically texted for my messed up knee years ago has had the same fracture… so he was, once again, a phenomenal resource!
My bike & I matching the larches (photo credit Matt!)
accurate recap of events thanks to Kyle P’s amazing and hilarious art skills
First flight off Whitehorse! What a freaking treat!
Brush brush brush
I had been stalling on committing to weekend plans until Thursday night when I got a 10pm text from Andrew telling me to drop what I was doing and join him and Stephen for Maude and Seven Fingered Jack. I also saw a post from Mike on FB saying he was considering Whitechuck Sunday. Mike’s great. And here’s the bonus. I had Mike’s cooler and box fan from a party weeks earlier that he was kind enough to leave behind since he left while there were still people here. Dude. Can I join for Whitechuck, and I’ll bring your stuff too? Heck yes!!
Distance: 4mi Elevation gain: 2100ft (6,989 highest point) Weather: 70’s and sunny Commute from Seattle: 2:30 Did I Trip: Almost ate it right below the summit but no one saw
Open forested ridge
Whitechuck had been on my list FOR YEARS but it’s such a short hike I was always reluctant to drive longer than the hike would take. And I had heard so many polarizing things about these “white slabs” from people that I wasn’t sure I wanted to go solo. Being the opportunistic hiking parter I am, Mike doing Whitechuck was the perfect incentive to go. We met up around 7:30am, aiming for the trailhead at 9am so we wouldn’t have to swim through dewey brush, which the trail is famous for. Around 7 I messaged Mike, voice-to-text while driving. Shit. Mike. I’m so sorry. I forgot the fan and cooler. I know I know I had one job, I’ll drop them off in North Bend I swear. I was kicking myself. This is like when I forgot to return Alexis’s power washer like actually four times until finally she said I’m coming to your house to get it. I wasn’t letting that happen again.*
False summit of Whitechuck
The road to the trailhead was in GREAT shape. There was one steep section to go up and down that may give some 2wd cars hesitation, but none of the rutted potholed hell we had envisioned. And the views are phenomenal on the drive! Holy crap! It’s going on my list of places to camp if I’m ever injured.
Wildflowers above treeline
The trailhead is notorious for smashed windows and car break ins. A car pulled up behind us and we started wondering. Suddenly Mike laughed. I don’t want to stereotype but… it’s a Subaru I don’t think they’re going to smash our windows. He scattered some junk in the front seat to make it look as unattractive as possible and we started hiking.
The trail stays left near the wall here. These are not the slabs on route! Bt they do go.
The trail first goes through brush, then open forest, then meadows. Bite size pieces of tons of different terrain. We were perplexed by the peaks to the North of us, it’s a perspective I’ve never had of the Cascades. We eventually figured out that Mount Chaval looks awesome from this angle. I whined about my sore legs from the prior day. This would be a good hike to get blood pumping, that’s for sure.
Suddenly beyond the meadow there’s a rock wall in front of you. And that’s not even the true peak. The trail wraps around the hillside south of it, taking you through wildflowers to a steep, dusty, rubbly trail where we caught up with some of the folks who owned one of the other cars at the trailhead. We passed them and immediately got off route scrambling up some slabs that we were sure had to be the slabby section until we found a trail through the heather above. Also those slabs were black not white. Ok, not at the infamous slabs yet.Â
Heather trail running along the shoulder
At multiple points, the heather trail diverged into two which both met up later. We avoided scrambling the ridge proper though I hear it is enjoyably spicy and stuck to the trail on the south slopes of the mountain, following the narrow tread through wildflowers and rocky outcroppings with insane views. It’s a classic Mountain Loop trail, reminiscent of the upper slopes of Pugh or Sloan. We must have taken a thousand pictures between the two of us, me clocking in around 250 and Mike accounting for the other 750.
We finally came across some awkward sloping white slabs covered in kitty litter. Okay, THESE must be the slabs. They certainly were negatively sloped, with no way around them. It was really only a few steps but it is definitely awkward. Beyond that, it was more trail to the notch, which had the most legitimate scramble move on the whole hike in my opinion. From there it was a short walk to the summit, where you are standing at the confluence of two enormous river valleys looking at ridges and ridges of peaks in every direction. The position of this peak is absolutely insane. The day prior I had sworn that the Chiwawa area/Entiats were my favorite part of the cascades. But now I was thinking no, it’s the Mountain Loops.
Dead/dying glacier on Whitechuck’s north face
The group next to us had three huge joints. I laughed. No way could I smoke that and then descend that mountain. Well I mean you all know my last weed experience. Behind us, a dog or maybe two made the scramble move at the notch. I couldn’t even watch because I didn’t trust that the pup was going to stick the landing but of course he was fine. And the final group.. well that’s where things got interesting. They were paragliders!
We descended from the summit, staging a few photos. marveling at views. There is a wealth of logging history here and you can see it on the slopes, the marks of old roads and the borders of where the forest had been logged and then regrown. Back at the saddle, the two paragliders were suiting up. We sat down to have a snack, and eventually the topic came up… what if we just waited to see what they did? Do you… do you want to just hang out and see what happens? We weren’t in a rush. Mike messaged his girlfriend to explain why his inReach wasn’t moving, and we chilled out. The paragliders, Chandler and Kevin, were discussing wind cycles, direction, laying out the glider in different spots to find the best angle on ground that wouldn’t snag the strings. The strings are absolutely tiny, like less than a millimeter thick, and there are seemingly hundreds of them. The whole system seems extremely fragile, yet it can carry you through the air for miles if you plan it right.
Narrow boot path on top of the world. You can tell that whole slope left of center was logged.
THESE are the slabs everyone talks about
We ended up waiting and watching for over an hour. I wondered if we were being rude by watching, but it was fascinating. When’s the last time you watched something with childlike wonder? The risk analysis and decision making was beyond anything I’ve seen with my low grade rock climbing. I learned that wind comes in cycles, like how surf comes in swells. You feel a breeze pick up and then die down, that’ll happen a few times and then there’s a bigger lull between cycles. The breeze would just tease the glider, ruffling the cells a tiny bit but not lifting it. When the breeze was finally strong enough that the glider first fluttered my heart fluttered with it. And after endless tries laying out the glider differently, it lifted up a few feet, Chandler pulled the strings taught and got it ~10ft in the air, and he said I’M GOING FOR IT and in a split second ran and jumped off the edge of the mountain. We jumped up and whooped and cheered. First flight off Whitechuck ever! Unbelievable.
Glacier Peak over Thornton Lake
That left Kevin, who put Mike and I to work after a few unsuccessful tries at catching the breeze. We helped lay out the glider, tried holding it up to catch the air, clearing small rocks and heather twigs that were snagging the strings. I felt like a kid helping an adult delegating simple tasks but the kid’s just so excited to be useful it doesn’t matter as long as they’re doing something. Omg, I’m touching a glider. A parachute. Look at these strings. Look at how insanely light this fabric is. Look how the cells eat the air.
After maybe an hour of trying, the wind started to shift and come from the opposite direction. After the sheer joy the instant Chandler took off, it was tough feeling the wind slip away as Kevin tried to catch a gust. He finally decided to call it and packed up while we headed down, thanking us for the chatting and the help. Back at the car we gave some blueberry muffins that Nicole had baked to the woman picking up Kevin (I can’t explain how good the muffins were, they were the best blueberry muffins I have EVER had) and headed back to town. Driving through Darrington we saw Chandler laying his chute out in a field and honked, he waved though I have no idea if he actually recognized us or not. We never actually talked to him, just Kevin after he had taken off. We were just so stoked still on having had the chance to watch them take flight and see how the entire operation worked.
The scramble above the notch
My half day trip had turned into a full day, but I have no doubt that was a once in a lifetime experience. Totally unexpected, filled my insatiable curiosity, and I was glad Mike was down to just chill and see what happened too. Turned out Kevin had some FAs on ice routes in the area I had read years ago when I had more ambitious climbing dreams, and had switched to paragliding as his climbing slowed down. Still getting after it and chasing adventure, just with a different sport. My future probably isn’t paragliding, but I am sure I and most of the climbers I know will have similar pivots someday. And never say never… once upon a time I swore I’d never rock climb and here we are. I swore I’d never blog and you’re reading it. I’m not sure what’s next but I’m not going to rule anything out.
*I did successfully return their cooler and fan the following weekend. Just so you all know. But there might be a risk of loaning me things if you don’t live within a mile of me.
Thursday night around 10pm I get a message from Alejandro. “I don’t know what you’re doing this weekend but you should probably cancel it and come do Seven Fingered Jack with me and Stephen.” Uh… actually… hold my beer, gonna I cancel my plans. Jk I didn’t have any plans, for once. See you tomorrow afternoon! I hadn’t done SFJ or Maude before, and it was an area I had wanted to go to for ages! I just never tried to rally people to go because I assumed everyone I knew had already done them, so I’d wait for an opportunity to do them solo, except I lack motivation for solo trips more often than not. I like company, and now I’d have GREAT company. Alejandro and Stephen might be two of the funniest people I know, and their sarcasm and wit is just perfect for enduro-suffering sports like backpacking, scrambling, and mountaineering.
Huge tree over the Leroy Basin trail
Distance: I don’t know. 5mi approach, maybe 3mi for both peaks.
Elevation gain: Saturday was ~6k, Friday was.. something less than that
Weather: 60’s and sunny
Commute from Seattle: Well it was SUPPOSED to be 3hrs
Did I Trip: No but both my climbing partners did
The crux of the trip was the drive. It took almost 6 hours to get from Seattle to the trailhead, despite leaving at 12:30. Midday. To beat traffic. Highway 2 had multiple accidents that had shut down both directions of travel. Alejandro, Stephen, and I texted sporadically when we passed bits of cell service. Alejandro left around noon. I left around 12:30. Stephen… well he left West Seattle Island at a reasonable time, got lost in the Bellevue REI for an unreasonable time, and then went through a space time warp while we wondered if we should order him a milkshake at the 59er diner or not. “By the way Eve, you should probably just do Maude while we sleep.” “I figured.” My circadian rhythms are offset from Alejandro and Stephen’s by like 6 hours. I’m in bed at 9pm. I wake up at 5am. One time Stephen replied to a message at like 8:30am on a Saturday and I wondered if I should be worried.
First pika I’ve seen all summer!
Quick side note: The 59er Diner, before I forget, is totally worth a stop. The diner burned down in a fire in 2016 and reopened in I think 2018 with the same old vibe they used to have. Great milkshakes, good burgers, don’t get the onion rings though they taste more like pancakes than onion rings. Curly fries were also great but I have yet to face a bad curly fry.
Marmot shocked I exist
Stephen made it in time for a milkshake, and we drove the final 70ish minutes to the trailhead. Stephen immediately bashed his head on the trunk door, drawing blood. Good start. We started hiking around 6:30 or 7, and I was hoping to be at camp by dark. It should have been an easy approach, 3mi on flat trail and then about 2mi on steep “unmaintained” trail to Leroy Basin where we’d spend the night. We loaded up on bug spray, and the first 3mi of trail were SO nice, especially after the brush bashes I had had the past few weekends. I hadn’t seen Alejandro and Stephen in months and was so stoked to catch up. “Oh, Eve” Stephen said. “Alejandro and I were thinking you should just climb Maude tomorrow morning while we sleep.” I laughed. We had independently all reached the same conclusion. Sounds good to me.
Clouds evaporating over Maude
The chatter dried up around the turnoff to Leroy Basin. “Unmaintained” is a stretch, because there has definitely been vigilante maintenance. But vigilante maintenance can’t clear the huge tree that fell whose root ball ripped up the path below it, or widen the trail where it’s overgrown with stiff tree branches. But at least there was a trail, which was an improvement over the freaking Bird Creek Bushwhack. But I swear you think you’re about to crest a knoll and get views and no, the trail goes left into the trees. Another knoll to crest, almost there, and no, the trail goes left into the trees. And again, and again.
Looking back at first light on Seven Fingered Jack
“Turns out mountain biking is not the only exercise you need” Stephen lamented after a year of swearing mountain biking is the only exercise you need. “It flattens out ahead” I told Stephen, by which I meant “caltopo doesn’t have it shaded so it’s at least less than… 27 degrees.” Yeah we never found flat. Until we were at the campsite. “That trail is penance for whatever you did in your past life.” Some dummies were camping with a bonfire next to us but don’t worry they didn’t burn the forest down. Alejandro was still nowhere to be seen, and it was officially dark. Our campsite was right next to the trail, so we figured he’d walk up eventually. Soon enough we saw his headlamp. He dropped his pack on the ground. “Those campsites down low… those campsites were like sexy sirens on rocks.”
Neat subalpine terrain
I went to bed and Alejandro and Stephen crossed the entirety of Leroy Basin on a 30min one way trip to get freshly flowing water from the opposite side of the meadow rather than the stream like 200ft up the trail from us. Only the finest, freshest, cleanest of water for them. I went to sleep, had weird anxiety dreams about sleeping over a hole and trying to cover the hole with dental floss to hold up my torso (idk), and woke up at 4:30 to go for Maude. And hit snooze. Like 6 times. I finally got moving around 6am.
Wildflowers in front of Maude’s summit
The trail traverses up and east for seemingly forever. The larches are underwhelming, I was relieved I hadn’t saved this for larch season. You finally get above treeline into sparse wildflowers and sandy choss, and up to a saddle south of Maude where you head almost directly north through slopes of snow or talus depending on the season. The snow was icy, spikes would have been nice, but I didn’t bring any so… step carefully. Icy Lakes looked GORGEOUS. Really want to camp there someday. South Spectacle Butte looked far more imposing than I had ever imagined. There are so many more peaks to be bagged in this area (and larches!). And I saw more small wildlife than I had seen all summer!
Final grassy slopes to the top
The final stretch to the summit was brutally windy and freezing cold despite being mid August. I was driven only by stubbornness and a flock of small birds flying in circles tweeting around me like Snow White except grouchier. To add disappointment to discomfort, there was no register on the summit, so I ate my PB&J sandwich and quickly turned around wearing every layer I had. I made quick time back to the saddle where a chipmunk threw pebbles at me and I was happy to duck out of the wind, thanks to the ridge in the way. I was back at camp around 9:30, and ready to go 15min later. Alejandro and Stephen were still having breakfast. “We thought you’d want like, a break, or something.” I was mostly basing my timing around highway 2 traffic. I either needed to be back on i5 by 1pm, or not until 8pm. So.. ok, I’ll aim for 8pm. Let me know when you’re ready.
It’s a chipmunk eating a flower!!! My heart!
We started up to Seven Fingered Jack around 10:30. It looks very cool from Leroy Basin. The trail is an obvious, well traveled left turn off the trail that heads towards Maude. You quickly gain elevation into an upper basin, this one chock full of larches. THIS is where you want to come in larch season. There were some campsites tucked away on a larchy knoll to our left, teasing me for a return a decade from now. We schlepped up grassy slopes to the left, then ascended a loose rocky talus field to a short little gully on the right that took us up through a break in the ridge system where there were some hints of a trail. The trail was more like heather steps, which we followed up to a second basin, with bits of pumice,* lingering snow patches, and a crazy neat mushroom boulder.
On the way to SFJ!
From the rocky basin, you take a talus fan up to your left that traverses below some sheer rock walls. Put on a helmet, this is where it gets loose. And stays loose. All the way to the top. It was a neverending slope of talus. Part of me is still up there side slipping around wobbly rocks. But the views just got better and better. Alejandro turned around after getting sick of the loose shit at the top of that narrow talus fan. I couldn’t blame him at all, and it didn’t get better from there. From there it’s a long time sidehilling on talus or kitty litter on sloped rock. Stephen and I continued, choosing our own paths up through the rocks. He went high in search of 3rd-4th class scrambling on more secure rocks, I stayed low taking my changes surfing uphill on scree. I occasionally turned around to see him poke his head above the rocks and then disappear again. We finally curved to the right again to gain “a ridge” (not a ridge, despite what the topo map says) and made it up the final (also extremely loose) gulley to the summit, where we texted sappy things to our SOs back in town and I crushed a second PB&J sandwich. Fortunately we both had downloaded GPX tracks, because I swear every gully looked the same to me on the way down and I would have been in for a lot of trial and error without them.
The basin no one tells you about
I was losing my mind going down the endless talus again. I am sure Stephen was too. At once point he said “I’m playing that game of -” [my brain autofilled the rest: “gambling whether a rock will hold my weight or not”] but his thought was cut short by the sound of falling talus and crumbling rocks and I turned around to see Stephen tumble head over toe, a literal full somersault like something out of a cartoon. My brain froze, paused at the first step of the “do I panic” flow chart. His fall concluded and he jumped up right away. I shouted something like “Stephen! Holy shit! All in one piece? Sit down and take inventory” though he had already found a place to sit and was almost doing the Atlas Thinking pose. We waited a few minutes for adrenaline to subside. “Ok, scratch here, deeper scratch there, got a band aid for this one… man, my elbow hurts.” “How bad? How’s your range of motion?” “Motion is okay and.. well I’ve broken it twice before so I think I’d know if it was broken.”
SO MANY LARCHES
Context: Months prior, our friend broke his ankle on a mountain bike ride, only for Stephen to announce and everyone to agree “yeah you’d totally know if it was broken.” To be fair, I did a brief patient assessment and also didn’t find any signs of a break, but my mistake was not firmly palping the ankle bone itself! Fast forward 48hrs, our friend’s ankle was definitely broken, and I’ll never miss a cracked ankle bone again because the shame of missing it still hasn’t subsided.
Followed this talus fan center of frame, curved right beyond the dark center outcropping
So, in response, I laughed. Of course that’s your answer. But hopefully you’re right. We got moving again. “This is my trip for scrapes” he sighed. “Starting at the car.”
Stephen marks our exit ramp
We made decent time getting back down to Alejandro back at camp. Stephen insisted on hiking down climber’s left, meaning I couldn’t get a dope photo of him in his bright orange shirt among the greenery. We watched the wildfire by Lake Wenatchee grow in size, or at least the cloud it was creating became huge throughout the day. Stephen and Alejandro were spending Saturday night at camp too, while I was headed out, but I took another break back at the tents before leaving. No rush now that I had to wait out the Stevens Pass traffic thanks to that stupid traffic light everyone knows sucks.
Camouflaged bug
I was jealous they had another day there and also sad to leave such hilarious company behind. The slog back to the car was going to feel long. The Leroy Basin trail went by quickly, but the 3mi of flat trail.. oh boy. I swear I had been hiking the flat section only for 2+ hours when I decided that it had somehow extended to 7 miles. Or I had died on SFJ and this was purgatory, forever hiking a forest trail that looks the same for ever and ever. Time warped in my brain. Was this a contest with the universe? Was I in some simulation loop and the only way to break out of it would be to check the map and that would snap things back to reality? Or was checking the map considered defeat, my poor human psyche collapsing under the weight of infinite flat redundant hiking? I was determined not to check. Maybe those thoughts broke the spiral, I don’t know. I finally saw a landmark near the beginning of the trail and knew I was close. I broke out of the trees into the parking lot at 6:15pm, less than 2hrs from when I left camp. The time warp was entirely in my brain.
Stephen coming across loose scree
A few miles down the dirt road, I came across a very out of place character standing on the side of the forest road waving me down. Soaking wet. Small day pack. Top hat in hand. Uhh, okay. Situations that ran through my mind:
More flowers
1. Ghost. Because who is dripping wet out here? It doesn’t add up. It’s a sunny beautiful dry day. Maybe you aren’t real.
2. Scam. You’ve all heard those horror stories about people who pretend to be dead in the road or like they need to hitchhike somewhere and then their buddies emerge from the trees to do whatever terrible things to you
3. Hitchhiker from another trailhead?? But the only loop that could conceivably connect my trailhead with the next one down the road is absurdly long and why is he soaking wet?!
Mushroom rock!
I rolled down my window and said something extremely not smooth, like “…what are you doing here?” Poor guy was still in good spirits and calm and collected. “Well i got lost, but I knew there was a road here, so I just aimed for this. How far is the Little Giant Pass trailhead from here? Is this the right direction?” “You got lost…from Little Giant Pass? How long ago?” “yeah.. well, what time is it?” “7pm almost” “Then about 4 hours ago, but not entirely sure, I dropped my phone in the river. And my map.” “Well, hop in, happy to give you a lift to the trailhead, save you 20min of walking.” “No don’t worry about it, I’m soaking wet.”
This guy had been bushwhacking down from the Little Giant Pass trail, forded the freaking river at the bottom of the valley, and then shwacked back up the opposite hillside to find the road. I do that shit voluntarily and it sucks, I can’t imagine it being involuntary. “Does this car look like it was built for luxury? It’ll survive some water. Plus it sounds like you have a good story.” I dropped him at his car a few minutes later, only to be passed on the highway by him an hour later because I drive like a grandma.
Now what do I need to do to get more last minute invites on Stephen & Alejandro’s trips? 🙂
*can confirm, pumice floats. At least for a while until it’s all waterlogged, then it sinks.
Image dump of the rest of the pics since narrative got ahead of everything I wanted to share. The views really are just absurd.
Really neat red dyke of rock on SFJ
Stephen coming up SFJ below Glacier Peak
Dumbbell and Greenwood over a lake, Bonanza back right
Northeast face of Maude
One of the Lake Wenatchee wildfires growing
White paintbrush in front of Glacier, Fortress, Chiwawa
Floofs, secret larch basin, wildfire, and Buck Mountain top right
Jon descending Flora with South Spectacle, Maude, and Copper in the bck
Devore creek trail between Bird Creek camp and Tenmile Pass
On to days 4 and 5! Here’s the trip header with links to the other reports. Felt like too much for one post so I’m breaking it into bite sized chunks because you know I’m a storyteller.
Day 1:Drive to Field’s Point Landing, express ferry to Stehekin, hike to Bird Creek Bivvy. ~10mi, 5000ft gain, 5hrs. Day 2:Bird Creek Bivvy to Tupshin summit and back. ~3mi, 3300ft gain, 10hrs. Day 3: Bird Creek Bivvy to Devore summit, Bird Lakes, and back, then move camp to Bird Creek. ~7mi, 3500ft gain, ~13hrs Day 4 (this post): Pack up Bird Creek camp, stash ovenight gear at turnoff for Flora, Flora summit and back to Devore Creek, move camp to Ten Mile Pass. 13mi, 7800ft gain, ~12hrs Day 5 (this post): Ten Mile Pass to Holden, ferry back to Field’s Point Landing. ~7mi, 200ft gain, ~2.5
PLOWING AHEAD with sparknotes:
This is the bushwhack but it closely resembles some sections of trail
Flora is a walk, a really long walk
Consider doing Flora during larch season if you’re into views, wow
Tenmile Pass from the Devore Creek side is 85% cruiser 15% blowdowns
Tenmile Pass to Holden is… decidedly not cruiser. 100+ blowdowns. PARKOUR
There is no water at Tenmile Pass, but there is water if you’re willing to hike ~5min down the trail towards Holden
The first mini basin
This was going to be a big day. There were a lot of unknowns ahead of us and we just had to trust things were going to work out and that moving slow and steady would eventually get us to where we needed to be. Most people who climb Flora do it from Bird Creek camp as an out and back, but we wanted to carry up and over Tenmile Pass and exit via Holden instead of hiking all the way back down the Devore Creek Trail to the Stehekin River trail, backtracking those stupid 3 miles to the shuttle, and taking the shuttle to the ferry. So our goal was to pack up camp, stash gear at the turnoff for Flora, climb Flora, repack our overnight packs, and hump all of our gear up to Tenmile Pass. Through trails that may or may not have received maintenance yet this year in the worst year of blowdowns/deadfall in recent memory. We had heard reports of 250+ blowdowns, 450+ blowdowns, and two brave volunteers going out to battle the brush a few days before we’d be there. Who knew how far they’d gotten.
Meadowy basin below the Enigma saddle. Talus gully approach out of frame to the right
Working our way up to the saddle
We were moving by 5:30am with no idea what to expect. The volunteer crew seemed to have stopped at Bird Creek Camp, because we immediately started running into blowdowns, but nothing awful. We were able to refind the trail fairly quickly and I don’t think they made us much slower than 2mi/hr. Soon enough we were at the flat ish spot to cross Devore Creek and start the bushwhack up to Flora. We emptied our packs of overnight gear, tied up spare food, and shared horror stories of people stealing cached/stashed gear. Taking food to eat. Taking snowshoes thinking they were lost/forgotten. Straight up stealing nice gear because why not? Fortunately we were SO far out there I couldn’t imagine anyone would take extra overnight gear to hump out 8 miles over blowdowns and ferries. I tied my food in some leggings (still don’t have a bear bag… shh) and tied those to a tree. Usually I use my sleeping bag stuff sack, but it was holding my sleeping bag, so I had to get creative.
Flowers are a good distraction
We crossed Devore Creek easily on some logs and began the bushwhack, aiming for the saddle south of Enigma Peak. It wasn’t as bad as the bushwhack up to Bird Creek high camp, but it wasn’t exactly open forest. Lots of spiderwebs, neck/head high blueberries and teenage pine trees. 50/50 hip high brush and annoying blowdown pickup sticks. We got a streak of like five walkable logs connected to each other and I announced it was the gift that kept on giving, letting us walk high above the brush. “We’re logging some serious elevation gain on these” “Ooh make sure to put that in the bLOG” the tree puns carried me for a hundred vertical feet. We broke out into a small treed basin with running water and cute flowers and took a short break. I kept thinking we were about to be above treeline and it just never came. The sun was lighting up the trees, the ground was getting flatter, but the trees continued. Until finally, we found a beautiful meadow (part marsh) around 7200ft, and finally, FINALLY we were in the alpine Stupid east side with their stupid high tree line. Our next break was brief as the bugs wreaked havoc on our bodies.
Flora from the saddle… so far away
Beyond the marsh, we continued up an increasingly steep and unstable talus slope to an obvious saddle to climber’s left, starting out with large solid boulders and progressing into classic softball/football sized rocks ready to tumble around your feet any minute. I had the Grocery Outlet jingle stuck in my head, which sucked, because it’s literally four words long. Gro-cer-y Ouuut. Leeeet. Bar-gain Maaaar-ket. I asked the group what songs you could get stuck in someone’s head just by saying a few words. Examples are:
– Bye bye bye – Shout (options) – The final countdown – What is Love – Take on me – Stop (hammertime? collaborate and listen? In the name of love? Too many options) – 867-5309 (no one knows the other lyrics though)
We came down the juggy ramp on the left
This and pockets of wildflowers carried me up to the Enigma-Riddle(?) saddle, where we had maybe the most annoying part of the day: dropping like 800ft of elevation to the meadows below on steep, also loose dirt and scree. Fortunately the loose stuff only comprised like 200ft of that, and the rest was on heather through larches until we got to the ridiculously beautiful Castle Creek surrounded by wildflowers and larches and I just couldn’t believe no one comes up here to camp in larch season. I know, I know, lugging all your overnight shit up there is unpleasant, but this had to be one of the most larchy spots I have ever seen in my life. Numerous and DENSE. We picked our way through them until we gained the rib that would take us up to a final basin below Flora. The rib was step (you can traverse further north to make it less steep) but we found game trails here and there to help, and finally got above trees once again.
Castle Creek valley being ridiculous
The final stretch to Flora’s summit was a talus walk. Also annoying, but easy, and the views were amazing. I really underestimated the scenery on Flora. Adorable patches of wildflowers, rock ranging from red to black to white, views of Lake Chelan and Domke Lake to Maude to Tupshin and Devore, glaciers may be missing but it’s a very cool viewpoint. At the summit we found some metal wire scraps, no idea what those are from. “I thought they might be holding the place together” a climbing acquaintance commented on Facebook a few days later. We did the normal summit routine again, I finally finished my cheez its and cheddar cheese, and we made quick work getting back to the first basin and then to Castle Creek.
Up and up and up talus forever
Getting back up to the saddle south of Enigma was about as painful as expected. Baking in the hot sun, dust kicked up by someone in front of you just sticks to your face, sometimes you take a step up and your foot just slides down to where it used to be. But we found the ramp we had used on the way down, took another quick break at the saddle, and soon enough we were back at beautiful bug marsh meadow where our break was equally brief because the bugs were somehow worse than they had been that morning. We got back onto the topic of music because my head had been liked a jukebox all day. Do you ever think about song lyrics like a decade later and realize how terrible they are? The song in question was Smack That by Akon. Smack that, out on the floor, smack that, til you get sore, smack that – wait, what?! til you get sore!? Akon, get out of my vanilla life, I’m trying to enjoy the scenery.
I don’t know what these are but they are my new favorite
My brain glazed over for the bushwhack down. It actually went decently, or maybe I was in a trance and just didn’t process anything we did. We were back at our overnight gear around 4pm and moving towards Tenmile pass by 4:30. Amelia and I started moving slowly thinking the others would catch up on the trail. We ran into a section of avy debris which was surprising. The slide must have been HUGE. Trees all down across the trail in the same direction, snow still frozen solid underneath them. Someone had cut all the branches off the logs which was very much appreciated. We went around both sections and refound the trail, wondering where the boys were until we heard their voices on the other side of the avy debris.
Talus talus talus
Crossing Devore Creek is your last convenient chance to get water before Tenmile Pass. We skipped it and grabbed water off a switchback, but that took 20ft of schwhacking to get to. I grabbed one of Jon’s spare nalgenes to fill up. I only need like 1-1.5L of water to get through a night but everyone else seemed super thirsty, so I figured carrying 3.5L meant others could use mine. And it was a good call, because it was all consumed by the next morning. Tim I think carried 5 freaking liters up to the pass! Tim’s tiny but that’s why he’s the gecko. Sticks to any slope angle and moves so freaking fast you look up and you’re like I saw him out of the corner of my eye but where’d he go?!
Lake Chelan and Domke Lake in a sea of peaks feat. Bug in upper left
Is there cryptobiotic soil up here? Because that’s what this reminded me of
The trail from Devore Creek Crossing to Tenmile Pass was blowdown free. You don’t see the pass until you’re right below it. I saw Jon on switchbacks above me and was determined to catch him. I pushed the pace for a few switchbacks before remembering he’s a fucking machine and I had no chance. Cresting Tenmile Pass, there were no clear established campsites, but there was a huge open clearing with minimal vegetation where we felt okay pitching tents given the circumstances. There are supposedly campsites a mile below the pass, but we never found them. Tim was next to arrive at the pass. “Are we camping here?!” he asked. “Yes, if that’s okay!” His face stretched into a huge smile and he threw his arms up. “THANK YOU!!!” I just started laughing. “I’m old and happy!” was one of my favorites from Tim.
Aster, Lupine, and something yellow
We set up tents, everyone checked on each other to make sure we had enough water and food and see if anyone needed help with tents or cooking. Everyone. Was. Wiped. I think we had the full spectrum of emotions between the six of us, from “don’t talk to me i’m exhausted” to “i’m pissed i’m exhausted” to “i’m happy but also exhausted” to “i’m relieved and exhausted” to just “i’m stoked to be here and exhausted.” Amelia trotted to my tent and dumped a bunch of electrolyte mixes in front of me. “I’m sick of my energy gels what food do you have that you’ll trade for these?” We bartered some stroop waffles and chia seed mixes for electrolytes. I think Andrew was on day 2 of his mashed potato diet. Tim had leftover vegan noodles he couldn’t convince anyone to eat. “Andrew, I can carry the rope tomorrow morning” I offered. “No! That’s CHEATING!” Hahaha! “You can’t carry the rope into Holden after not carrying it the past few days!” I had been carrying the trad rack (3lbs vs 7lbs for the rope) since he took the rope from me when I was dying Thursday night. Well. Fair point. Enjoy carrying the rope another day then!
Paintbrush in the Castle Creek valley
We made do with the water that we had, and the next morning we found water a five minute walk from the pass, maybe not even. So if you camp up there, there IS running water, you just have to look for it a bit. Not sure if it was a spring or snow, but there wasn’t much snow that we saw, so I’m thinking it’s a natural spring. There was also a LOT of wildlife up there. We were clearly encroaching on a deer’s favorite spot, he came around and snorted and clomped and sniffed out all of our gear. I had hazy dreams of a dear shredding my sleeping-bag-stuff-sack-turned-food-bag. Oh, and you’ll be camping on like 2″ of ash, so be careful what you touch and where you dig. Your tent’s going to be duuuusty.
Avy debris on the Devore Creek trail
We got moving at 5am to make sure we got to Holden in time for the 10:45am shuttle to the ferry. This was the stretch of trail we thought would have the worst blowdowns. The tenmile trail drops into the valley and connects to the Company Creek trail officially, but there’s also a connector trail to the Tenmile Falls trail out of Holden. It’s not on most maps for some reason. It does receive annual maintenance according to the rangers, but.. not much. The first ~2 miles down from the pass were cruiser: beautiful trail, beautiful switchbacks, beautiful burn zone scenery.
Gecko speeding over logs
And then we hit the junction with the Company Creek trail and the connector to Holden. And it turned into miles of parkour. Over logs. Under logs. Around logs. We crawled. We jumped. We scrambled. Amazingly, a volunteer crew had trimmed branches off all of the logs, which is an INSANE amount of work given what we saw. Hilariously, Jon had ripped his pants about an inch at some point, and with every log shenanigan, the rip grew longer, and longer, and longer until he had a 16″ rip from waistband to where the pants zipped off into shorts. RIP his pants (get it). But eventually, there’s a view to skiier’s left of a huge waterfall coming down from Tenmile Pass, and finally, FINALLY we started seeing fresh sawdust. Boom. We were where the volunteers had ended. Deer prints abounded. Guess we aren’t the only beings who appreciate a beautifully cleared trail. From there, it was a long but quick cruise to Tenmile Falls (pretty, but underwhelming after everything we had seen) and down into Holden Village.
Holden Village was more welcoming than the last time I was there, but THERE WAS STILL NO ICE CREAM. I don’t understand the economics of this. The tourists all have to leave at 10:45am to catch the ferry. Why. Does the ice cream. Not open. Until 1pm. That’s so stupid. Are you just making money off your volunteers? That’s cruel. Milk the tourists, guys, come on. TAKE MY MONEY. Getting breakfast was an event too, because breakfast ends at 8:30 but the Hiker Haus and Registration (necessary for any hikers to get access to buildings, like the building that has breakfast) don’t open until 9am. ONCE AGAIN. HOLDEN. DO YOU WANT. MY MONEY. OR NOT.
Tenmile Pass connector (PC: Amelia)
We split into two groups, I found someone willing to sneak us oatmeal but the others found someone who actually worked Registration and was willing to get us registered in time for breakfast. Breakfast was $10 for mostly oatmeal and toast and canned fruit. And apples! I ran over to Andrew, who was still wearing his headlamp despite being indoors at 8:30am. Andrew they have apples!!! You’ve been talking about them for days! I made toast and loaded it up with cream cheese. Except a few minutes later the cream cheese was melting and sliding down the bread… because it was actually butter. I had just taken like a half cup of whipped butter and everyone just watched and never said anything. In their defense, I still ate all of it. After adding salt, because it was unsalted. $10 for toast with unsalted butter. Holden. Come. On. No eggs no cheese no protein and NO ICE CREAM.
More fun on the Tenmile Pass connector (PC: Jon)
Holden had one redeeming factor for a nerd like me: the library. We couldn’t go in it last year, but it was open this year. Amelia and I darted inside. One of my favorite children’s books was front and center – Officer Buckle and Gloria! An adorable story about a policeman and his dog educating their community on safety. We read that and then started picking up reference books, reading about mining history, local native art, newspaper clippings from the early 1900’s, reading random trivia to each other from whatever we were reading. A guy who found a ton of gold by Mt. Stuart, only to have it buried literally that night in an earthquake. Two guys who escaped the Wellington avalanche that killled nearly 100 people back in 1910. Origins of lake and peak names from native languages. Pictures of miners 1500ft underground before the mines were shut down. Enough to easily keep me entertained for the hours we had to kill until the shuttle arrived.
I mean really in ~2yrs there will be no trees left to fall
The shuttle took us to Lucerne (where the ferry picks you up/drops you off for Holden) where we had over an hour to relax and swim before the ferry arrived. We all jumped into the fucking freezing water, which was amazing. The forecast had said 109 degrees but it certainly didn’t feel that hot. Either way, jumping in a cold clear lake after five days of layering sweat/sunscreen/bug spray felt phenomenal.
The best book
On the ferry, we ran into Matt and Anita, who had just hiked from Cascade Pass to Stehekin, and picked us up some surprise bakery treats from the Stehekin Bakery! Jon ran into an old college friend, and we chatted with Selena, Max, and Steven Song (his amazing blog here) who had just done Bonanza, Martin, and Copper out of Holden too. Small world. Party on the Monday morning ferry. We whooped at a jet skiier who was cris-crossing the ferry’s wake getting air cresting every wave. Looked like a total blast.
Brave chipmunk digging for his peach pit. Like the squirrel in Ice Age. No packs were harmed.
I can see why no one through hikes Stehekin to Holden or vice versa via Tenmile Pass and Devore Creek. Even aside from the 150 blowdowns in like a two mile stretch, the Tenmile Pass trail only has views thanks for the forest fire, and the Devore Creek trail doesn’t have much in terms of views at all. It seems to primarily be an access point for the three Bulgers we had climbed and not much more. But i’m a nerd, and it’s cool to get a glimpse of these less frequented trails, and it makes me appreciate that they’re still being maintained, even if minimal. Seems more and more trails get abandoned every year, and it’s not like we’re gaining new trails. Always makes me wonder how a certain trail comes into existence and what its use case was when it was first built. Recreation? Hunting? Transportation? Mining? Logging? I have no idea why Devore Creek or Tenmile Pass trails exist.
This was an incredible multiday trip with a really great group. Thursday solidified it, I can be a mess with that group and they’ll come together to support me. Hopefully me floundering like that is a rare occasion, but it’s really amazing being able to trust a crew like that. Good company, great views, awesome experience. There are still some peaks in that area I need to get but I think it’ll be a while before I feel like revisiting some of those bushwhacks.
Have Tent, Will Travel 