Wilderness Adventures: 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!