One week!

Hike-a-Thon officially starts one week from today!  By this time next week I'll be somewhere on the Kettle Crest trail, starting H-A-T off right by getting in a huge mileage day.  The only bad news is that I'm still stuck on the bike.  I managed a ten minute run yesterday before the pain set in again.  I hate being injured, but I'm thankful that it's not an injury that affects my hiking.  I just fear that I'm not in good enough shape for what I have planned for next month.

Lake Estelle, Moose Lake, & Lake Darling, July 17-18, 2010

My calf is still not at 100%, so still no running for me; this meant missing out on Toaster Splash on the 17th, so I needed a hiking trip to make up for it.  I hiked Lake Estelle and Moose Lake on Saturday, and my calf and knee were both killing me.  I ended up cutting the hike a little short in order to spend some time knee-deep in the icy stream near camp.  This was a cool little hike, though.  I saw a lot of wildflowers, including some I had never seen before.
  

Pretty purplish-blue flowers

Mariposa Lilies

Alpine Laural

Avens

Cool rocks in the frigid stream where I iced my legs

On Sunday we hiked a loop to Lake Darling, Pend O'reille Peak, Lunch Peak, and then back to the car.  I have been trying to make it to Lake Darling for years--the first time I tried to go there was too much snow; the second time I tried to go there was a lightening-strike fire that closed the entire area.  Now I have finally been there!  And the best part is that my calf was feeling a lot better on this hike.

Elephant Head

Indian Paintbrush

Lake Darling from Pend O'reille Peak

Moose we spooked along the trail

 

Map Nirvana

I'm feeling a little sad because I should be in Chewelah right now, just finished with the 2010 edition of the Chataqua Challenge.  Instead I'm home in my pj's, still icing an achy calf and a crunchy knee.  Being injured is never fun, but I guess it's not quite as bad when injury coincides with ninety-degree temperatures; yesterday I filled up a kiddy pool, tossed in an ice pack, and created my own icy whirlpool on the front lawn. 


Since I can't be out running, I'm using my extra time to sort and catalog maps.  The Mountaineers have recently received two large map donations, and I'm the new map librarian.  There are topo maps, national forest maps, and green trails maps--hundreds of them!  It's a good thing I picked up a filing cabinet at a yard sale last week.  It's fun to look at all of the maps and get some new ideas about places to hike! 

Hike-a-Thon 2010!

It's almost time!  I am now registered for hike-a-thon and ready to start raising money!  Fortunately, I don't need to start counting my miles until August because I am spending more time with ice-packs than anything else right now.  My right calf is tight, and my left knee is hurting...so if I try to hike and favor one, I irritate the other.  I hope it starts to feel better soon--I really want to race in the Chewelah Chataqua Challenge this weekend.  It should be good by August anyway, and I am trying to hike 300 miles for H-A-T this year.  Follow the link at the top to check on my fund-raising status, and follow this blog to see how I'm doing on mileage! 

 A couple of pictures from last year's H-A-T:  The first was an attempt to look like I was walking on water.  The second is me sitting on a giant cedar stump along the road leading to the trailhead.  You can't tell from the picture, but the stump was hollow in the center.  I was about 6' up, and terrified I was going to fall into the stump and not be able to get back out!

Kettle Crest Backpack!

This trip just goes to show how things don't always go according to plan, but changed plans can be pretty fantastic, too!


The original plan was to drive to Sherman Pass on Thursday night to set up our shuttle, then carcamp at Deer Creek/Boulder Summit, and start hiking Friday morning.  We planned to hike about 23 miles on Friday an camp between Walpaloosie and Jungle Hill, then hike 16 miles on Saturday to end at White Mountain, and then finish up on Sunday with a 6 mile dayhike to the southern trailhead before returning the 10 miles to Sherman Pass.

Here's how it really worked:
Thursday--everything went according to plan.  It started raining as we were setting up camp that night.
Friday--it poured as we ate breakfast and packed.  It rained off and on as we hiked, and it started hailing when we stopped for lunch.  It warmed up a little in the afternoon--I was down to shorts and a tanktop for a little while--but then the wind picked up again.  We ran into downfall and snow on the trail at Copper Butte, and a lot of snow on the trail as we got to Walpaloosie.  When we reached the intersection of the Walpaloosie/Kettle Crest trails we decided to call it a day; we were less than a mile short of our goal mileage for the day.  The sunset up there was amazing (cloudy, little patches of sun on surrounding peaks, and a cool double rainbow); however, it was FREEZING (it even snowed for a little while--on the 2nd of July!).

Rainy day

Cool trees

 

 So pretty when it wasn't raining (or hailing or sleeting or snowing)

 Clouds+sunset=beautiful!

Saturday--we woke up to frost on the ground...brrrr.  We hiked to Sherman Pass, according to plan, but then decided to just carcamp Saturday night and only do a dayhike the next day.  The weather was just not showing any sign of improvement!  However, carcamping allowed us to enjoy a campfire that night and A LOT of s'mores [new s'mores experiment that was successful = toasted marshmallow between the wafers of an oreo cookie (with the cream filling)--amazing!]

Looking tougher than we felt at this point

Sunday--we packed up, returned to the trailhead, and hiked the Sherman Peak Loop plus the extra out to Snow Peak Cabin.  I made it home by 4pm; not bad!

National Recreation Trail!

More Roadless Areas

I have been neglecting this thing again...so to start with, here's an update on my roadless area visits:
1)Clackamas Mountain.   The day after I visited Twin Sisters, I joined one of Conservation Northwest's hike series events, a day hike to Clackamas Mountain.  This is an amazing area, and the trailhead is right on highway twenty and only eight miles out of Republic.  It isn't in any guidebook, and therefore it seems very lightly used despite its proximity to town.  

 

Shooting star

 

Dead snag (fire-killed)

 

View of Fir Mountain, across the highway

 

Cool rock formation seen from the trail

2) Rendezvous Weekend Hike #1: June 24th, King Mountain.  I showed up a couple days early for Rendezvous Weekend so that I could get some extra hiking in--school is finally out, so I really needed some hiking and camping!  I got a late start on the first day, so I picked the 6 mile route to King Mountain (and added a little extra for the hike out to Little King, the mountain with the view).  This route is open to motorized use, so I spent a lot of my hike picking up trash.  Frustrating.  I think I picked up about ten pounds or so.  The early portion of the hike is heavily treed with intermittent views, but the view from Little King is very good.  Not as spectacular as Clackamas or the mountains on the Crest, but not a bad hike either.

 

View from Little King (King proper has no view)

3)  Rendezvous Weekend Hike #2: June 25th, Profanity Peak.  For this hike I started at the Ryan's Cabin trailhead.  I hiked up the Ryan's Cabin trail to intersect the Kettle Crest, then out the Kettle Crest.  According to the guidebook (50 Hikes for Eastern Washington's Highest Mountains) there is no trail to Profanity; one must simply clamber over all the downfall to get to the top.  I wandered around off-trail for awhile, and gave up on the idea of going to the top; there was so much downfall off trail that it seemed dangerous.  I started to cut some of the downfall that was on the trail, heading back towards Ryan's Cabin--and then I discovered an old, overgrown trail that led to an open hillside and easy access to Profanity's summit!  This one is a gorgeous hike!

 

Clypso orchids along the trail

 

The old trail (not on the map!) leads to this open meadow for an easy hike up Profanity Peak

4) Rendezvous Weekend Hike #3: June 26hth, White Mountain.  This is one of the best views in the Kettle Range.  This one was a group hike for Rendezvous Weekend, and there were seven of us all together.  We started at the southern trailhead for the Kettle Crest, making it a six mile hike.  We met a trail contractor hired to bring the trail up to forest service standards; the Kettle Crest is going to be in great shape this summer!

 

Rocks, snags, and sky.

 

Butterfly!

 

View from the top

 

Writing letters for wilderness protection for this area! 

 

Hikers on the point, Edds Mountain in the near distance, and the Cascades in the background