Off To The Olympic Peninsula
Even before I moved to Seattle in the fall of 2000, I had set my sights on a long hike up the beach on the northwest coast of Washington but 6 years later and I haven't been north of Long Beach.
It occured to me yesterday while watching the Seahawks squeak by the Cowboys that I have a unique opportunity to do some exploring and shouldn't pass it up. So starting in a few hours, I'm taking the first Edmonds to Kingstong Ferry and am hitting the Peninsula. The plan is to not have a plan. I have no idea where (or even if) I'll be sleeping, or where I'll go. For safety reasons and to keep my family from freaking out and calling the coast guard at noon today, here is my rough draft:
1) Monday: Rialto Beach to Hole in the Wall (low tide is at 9:54 am), will likely stay somewhere in Forks
2) Tuesday: Point of the Arches & Shi Shi beach
3) Wednesday: Ozette Loop?
4) Thursday: Crescent Lake?
The weather? I'm not looking for a sunny day here. Meteorologists are expecting a pretty good storm to roll in off this part of the coast tomorrow afternoon and I'm hoping to see some pretty impressive surf. Other than mist, most of the rain forms between the beach and the Olympic Mountain foothills 20 miles inland, that being said, I'm still expecting to get extremely wet.
Point of the Arches from the air
I'm taking my good cameras and hopefully there will be some decent pics here in a few days.
Burroughs Mountain
My Dad and Stepmom came in for only about 36 hours last week and on the one day we had together, I mistakenly suggested we drive up to Sunrise in Mt. Rainier National Park. After all, it was the only touristy thing they hadn't done in Seattle since I moved here in 2000 and we would get a pretty early start. I totally underestimated the mileage and missed the White River entrance to the park and to make a long story short, we ended up turning around halfway up Chinook Pass on a fabulous day. So my interest was piqued and I made a mental note to myself that I wanted to return on the weekend.
I got up early on Saturday (Hell has frozeth over) and drove up to Sunrise, deciding to do the Burroughs Mountain hike on the way there. It was a bit chilly out and I'm glad I took one of the many jackets I have in my closet, it would be needed since I would get above 7,500 feet. The hike itself was unremarkable but I'm pissed that I had just missed the 4.6 magnitude earthquke by about 20 minutes. Apparently, the trail I had just walked was damaged and the road up to Sunrise has some significant rockfall. I had actually considered hiking the route in the dark (a full moon was out) but I was a little apprehensive since I wasn't familiar with the terrain and was alone. I hiked a little past Burroughs 3 and my GPS said the round trip was a little over 7 miles (I took some detours). On a weird note, on the way down back to Paradise, I met two park rangers and I made a remark about how fragile the trail seemed to be and how much it would suck to have an earthquake or major lehar up there. Heh.
I took a bunch of pictures but most of them were trash since I had to play with the exposure do to hiking westward in the evening. The salvageable ones can be seen in my Flickr gallery.
Mason Lake Hike 6/9/2006
Sorta out of order chronologically, but I thought better late than never as this was a really fun hike...
The trail through the clouds to Mason Lake and Bandera Mountain
I received a call around 6:30 Thursday morning from my Dad saying his plane was having engine troubles and was not able to take off in time for him to make his connecting flight to Seattle. This was a bigger bummer than usual as I wanted to take him on some cool hikes I had discovered since he was last out here in 2005. Dad and I had planned on moving my fence (extending it into the rest of my yard- long story) on Thursday and then do a hike on Friday and possibly Saturday. I had pre-selected Bandera Mountain for the hike which I'd never done before but was supposed to have great views.
Dad didn't make it out but there was no way I was giving up my days off work. I slept in until 1-ish and lounged around all day on Thursday. On Friday, Bryan and I went to Bandera. It was cloudy out but we hoped we'd be above them. Nope. As we climbed higher and higher, the clouds got thicker and thicker. There weren't any views (visibility was maybe 50 feet above 3,500 feet) to speak of or photograph but I really enjoyed the hike. Call me crazy but I actually prefer hiking in the clouds. As much as we enjoyed the hike through the clouds, we decided at the trail junction to Mason Lake that it would be better to come back and do the summit to Bandera on a better day. The summit trail is pretty steep and not so easy to follow, hardly worth a long scramble when there's no view. So on to Mason Lake we went where we still found some snow on the 200 foot descent to the Western lake shore.
You can see the pictures in my Mason Lake Flickr photo gallery.
Bryan's trip report can be found HERE and his pictures of the same hike HERE.
Stats:
Distance: 7.2 miles
Time: 2 hours 32 minutes
High point: 4,849 feet
Elevation gain: 2,096 feet
Getting There:
Take I-90 to Exit 45 turning left on Forest Road 9030, cross under the freeway, and continue straight for one mile. At a split, go straight on road 9031 to the trailhead.
Taylor River 6/10/06 and a Birthday
After last week's disastrous Talapus Lakes hike, I had wanted to buy Amy some real hiking boots and trekking poles in hopes of getting her to come out for some more hikes with me. After Bryan and I did the Mason Lake hike (which I will post about shortly), I convinced Amy to forget dinner and go to REI.
First mistake, I forgot my debit card and driver's license in my pack. As we decided on boots, I took her on an extended shopping spree where we picked up socks, poles, bras and water proofing gear. Though I had forgotten my debit card, I had decided to just put it on my Amex and pay it off later. I had a $10,750 credit limit and new I had a $0 balance since paying it off last October. Big mistake. At the register, I suffered my first humiliating credit card decline since college. Embarrassingly, I turned to Amy for help and she paid with her debit card. I immediately called Amex where I learned my account had been suspended and limit reduced to $100 (apparently paying off a balance of over $5,400 in one fell swoop is VERY, VERY bad) due to of a returned statement since I hadn't changed the address since I paid it off. I called, cleared it up and they wanted reply to reapply for any credit at all. "No thanks, I've been a customer for 11 years without paying late once so please close my account", I requested. They did without question. Lame. So I owe Amy $398.94. Who cares, I'm gonna have a kick-ass dividend this year!
Amy's new Zamberlan boots
Amy had asked for a relatively short, zero elevation gain hike to break in her boots and I scoured my monstrous stack of Western Washington hiking guides for such a hike that we hadn't already done. After hours of late night decision making, I decided on the trail that parallels the Taylor River in the Snoqaulmie Valley.
On a seemingly easy-ass trail, I broke down. i just couldn't make the pace Amy and Sally were keeping. I didn't feel well and sheepishly suggested that we should just turn around. I asked Amy to take Sally's leash and I instantly began to lag behind the pair. Way behind. Instead of being a hundred or so yards ahead, I began to devise about schemes to gain time and catch up to the hike leader. I tripped. For no reason at all, I thought about the date. June 10th. 0610. AHH, a component of so many passwords and the birthday of a really good friend.
I struggled to keep up in the heat and Amy probably regretted having me along. I know Sally did! Turns out, we did 6.57 miles with a whopping 257 feet of elevation gain (thank God for GPS).
West Tiger 3-2-1 in 1-2-3 on 6/6/6
The summit marker for West Tiger # 3
The summit marker for West Tiger # 2
The summit marker for West Tiger # 1
Sweet Jebus that was a hard hike. Possibly the hardest 2 1/2 hours of my life. After work, I drove home, changed and headed to High Point Way for one last training hike up Tiger 3 before my Dad gets here on Thursday. West Tiger 3 is a doozie, especially the shorter but steeper unofficial "cable-line" trail.
Something possessed me tonight and I managed to make it to the summit of West Tiger 3 in 49 minutes. I wasn't in good shape though. I had caught two girls (much younger and at least 125 pounds lighter than myself) about half a mile from the top and went all out in a futile effort to pass them. When I got to the somewhat exposed East side near the top, I was spent. Sweat dripping in my eyes had made my vision blurry and my heart rate was in the 190's. One last push and I ashamedly beat them to the top by inches. Since I didn't want to act like I had given my all, I decided to go on to Tiger 2. Most hikers stop at the summit of 3 and I knew I'd have some peace and quiet to recuperate from my effort. When I got to the top of summit 2, I said, "hey, I haven't been over to summit # 1 (also the highest of the 3 elevation wise) and made a dash for it. While descending 2 on the way over to 1, some trail runners passed me. Not wanting to look like a loser, I (and again, ashamedly) started trotting along with them. Though they beat me to the stop of 1 (good lord, that's a long stretch to the hut!), I finished only seconds behind. And damn near lost consciousness. I had made it from outside the Tradition Lake trailhead to the summit of West Tiger 1 in 1:23:00 (3-2-1 in 1-2-3, lol). We chatted for a bit and I explored the "hiker's hut" at the summit while I pondered my trip back down in the dark.
The "Hiker's Hut" at the summit of West Tiger # 1
A good training hike, indeed. You can see more pictures in my Flickr Tiger 3-2-1 photoset.
Trail data:
Total distance: 7.6 miles
Elevation Gain: 3,930 feet
Time: 2 hours 39 minutes
Getting There:
I-90 exit 20, High Point Way. Turn right and follow this road until it dead ends at the Tradition Lake trailhead. Gate closes at dusk so if you're going to be on the mountain after dark, I recommend parking in front of the gate and walking the half mile to the trailhead.
