Cake Walk 2010, August 1, 2010

This is the best possible way to kick off my Hike-a-Thon campaign--43.55 miles on the Kettle Crest Trail!

We set our shuttle Saturday night, camped at the White Mountain TH, survived the late-night thunderstorm, and hit the trail at 5:38am on Sunday morning.

My marker of authenticity at the southernmost point on the Kettle Crest Trail.

The wildflower displays were fantastic this year.  Normally the flowers would be gone by now, but with the cool spring and lingering snow in the high country, now is the optimal time for flower viewing.

Near White Mountain

Near White Mountain

 We also found that the rain that fell at the trailhead was hail on the ridge.  It looked as though it had snowed.

Between White Mountain and Barnaby Buttes

More wildflowers.

I noticed the following sign at Sherman Pass.  I'll use this for my "English Wall of Shame" at school, but in a way the sign is fitting.  We had just finished the 13.31-mile southern portion of the trail, and the "trial" was about to begin--the northern section is 30.24 miles.

At the "trialhead"

I arrived at the pass at approximately 10AM (so I was only twelve hours from finishing my hike!).

the description of where we had been

the description of where we were going

From the pass it was time to start climbing--the high point of this route is Copper Butte, elevation 7,140'.  It's the sixth highest mountain in Eastern Washington.  The wildflowers were fantastic at the top.

Near Wapaloosie Mountain

Indian paintbrush smiley face?

The wildflowers on Copper Butte

This is also an area that has been shaped by wildfire--the most recent near Copper Butte was 1994.  The standing snags are stunning.

Snags between Lambert & Midnight Mountains

The live trees are also spectacular.

The standing snags that were not killed by fire are covered with moss:

In the late evening a thunderstorm moved in; we spent the last hour or so walking through the storm and rain-showers.  I finished just after 10pm, so it was 16.5 hours of walking to complete this 43.55 mile day-hike--my biggest day-hike ever! 

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

My Roadless Area!

I finally visited my roadless area!  I was able to go up to the Kettle Crest over Memorial Day weekend, and on May 28th I visited the Twin Sisters Roadless Area.  We went in from the east side access point off the Deadman Creek Road.  The access road ended in an old gravel pit, and then instead of a trail to the Twin Sisters it was more of an old roadbed.  It was very steep in some places and there were obvious signs of erosion (including a stream running down the trail/road in one place).  We later found a motorized access map and saw that the trail/road we walked is open to all motorized vehicles.  Here is the way motorized routes are different from nonmotorized routes:

 Not that I never find trash along hiking trails, of course.  It's just that this is 75% beer cans and probably close to ten pounds of trash total on a hike that was probably only five miles round trip.  Hikers sometimes drop a cliff bar wrapper, probably accidentally, maybe on purpose--but I can't remember finding very many beer cans on non-motorized trails.  I also don't like the thought of running into drunk ATV-ers in the woods (that could end up being literal instead of figurative).  I later found out that there is another access point for this trail (from the Albian Hill Road).  I'm going to try that one next, and hopefully I'll find that it hasn't been abused quite so much. 


I was disappointed to see the motorized access and trash, but I was also impressed by the trees higher up.  These were the most impressive trees of all:

These are actually two huge western larch that are so close to each other that they have grown together at the base.  There are many trees up there that are the size of these two and larger.

The other cool sights today:  we saw a newborn fawn with its mother, and we found out that the North Sister was at one point the site of a fire lookout.  The cinder blocks and steps are all that remain now, but there is a fantastic view from the old lookout site.

Morel hikes & summer plans

My hiking time has been devoted to morel hunting for the past few weeks.  I haven't found nearly as many as last year, but it has been fairly good this year.  I found the first few on April 9, so the morel season has been a lot longer this year than it has been in the past.  The woods have been so dry that I haven't found morels in the usual spots. 

 

These are the April 9th morels.

 

This was taken April 17th.  

I didn't find any morels this weekend,

but I did see this black bear and two moose.

 

These were the morels I found on May 1st and 2nd.  I also found this antler while I was out.  This one is not a shed--it was broken off.  My brother thinks it happened when two bucks were fighting.  Ouch!  This is the second antler I found while looking for morels this spring, and the fifth antler I found in total (so far!).

Then for the summer plans!  The Mountaineers Kinni deadline was Friday, so I have been working on my summer hikes.  I have two backpacks and two day hikes planned, and three of those events are slated for August (Hike-a-Thon!).  I also have a non-Mountaineers hike tentatively planned for August 1st.   If everything works out, I'll start Hike-a-Thon with a forty-five mile hike!  Time to start training!

Spring break

March 30th -- I tried to go to Emerald Lake, but the gate was still locked at the Trout Lake access road.  Instead, I hiked along the shoreline of Lake Roosevelt.  Then I camped out that night and spent the 31st hiking old logging roads and scoping out likely areas for morel hunting in a few weeks.

 The clouds looked ominous all day, but the rain held off until after I made it back to the car.

This bald eagle was sitting on shore when I walked up.  At first I thought it was sick or injured, but I guess it was actually just taking a nap!  When I approached, it flew--fortunately, I had the camera ready!

Not hiking, but cool nonetheless:  I was on my way home from work on March 18th and the elk herd was out in my neighbor's wheat field.  I quickly grabbed my camera and ran out to take their picture:

Columbia Mountain

I still haven't been able to go to my roadless area, but I did finally make it to the Kettle Crest this weekend.  There was a new layer of snow and everything was so bright!  It was great to finally be outside--I was sick earlier in the week & I feel as though it has been ages since I have seen sunshine!  

 

Rock formations along the Kettle Crest trail.

 

View of Sherman Peak & Snow Peak from Columbia Mountain.

  

View towards Republic.

  

Crossing a meadow.

  

This spruce grouse charged us from along the side of the trail on the way back down.

I have adopted a roadless area!  Now I just need to plan a trip to go visit it and take lots of photos.  Check out the map below:

Fall trail running on Mount Spokane

I would probably hardly run at all if not for trail running, so whenever I have a chance I go up to Mount Spokane to run on the trails up there.  In the summer the mountain trails allow me to escape the summer heat.  This time of the year they allow me to escape the monotony of the roads (the trouble with coaching high schoolers is that we're stuck running around the school every day), plus I get to watch the changing of the seasons.  This year I kept returning to the mountain to capture the changing larch trees.

I started out too early for much color.  This was taken on October 17th on Horse Mountain.

This was taken the same day; the color was a little better on the other side of the meadow, but not much.

The color had really improved by the time I ran trail 110 on October 25th.

By November 7 the colors were really spectacular.  This one was taken from near the lower entrance to the Mount Kit Carson Loop Road.

However, by November 8 everything was looking pretty much the same color!

Trail run in Riverside State Park

The team did a waterstation for the Spokane Marathon as a fundraiser (the Bloomsday Road Runners Club donates the proceeds from the marathon to the local high school xc programs -- pretty cool!).  We were stationed along Centennial Trail near the military cemetery, and we were done with the water station by 11am, so I went for a nice run out on the rock trail by the river.  It was like the good old days.  I miss having such easy access to the trail system out in Riverside State Park.  It was also pretty cool to be running along on the trail with no one around but hearing people cheer for the marathoners on the other side of the river. 

Hike-A-Thon

I found out how I did for this August's Hike-a-Thon:  I raised $469.38, hiked the most total miles at 252.5, hiked the 2nd most miles in a single day at 28.6 (the most was 62!!!), and hiked the most miles on a trailwork party at 20.3 (although for some reason it's only showing as 9.1 on WTA website).  

I wish I knew how some of the participants raised so much money.  The most was $3,465, and he had 59 sponsors!  I need to brainstorm some ideas for doing better next year.  The hiking part is easy.  I'm contemplating parts of the PCT through Washington and the Wonderland Trail in addition to my usual trips to the Kettle Crest and the Salmo Priest.  I have also been thinking about doing a long trailwork party for the last couple of years.  I'd like to take the Shedroof Divide out to Little Snowy Top, then drop down the trail that leads to the Upper Priest River (I hear it hasn't been cleared in several years), then follow the Upper Priest to the trail that leads back up through Cabinet Pass and back to the Divide.  It would be a long trip, and I fear that we'd encounter so much downfall that would wouldn't be able to finish it, but it would be a really good hike.  As for the money part, I think I'm going to start by asking people to pledge a penny or a nickel per mile.  I bet a lot of people would be willing to pledge that much, and then I'll just hike so many miles that it will yield a good total.  I wonder how hard it would be to hit 500 miles?   

This picture is of trailwork

on Crowell Ridge, August 2009.

This is where I got the majority

of my trailwork miles for Hike-a-Thon.

Five people hiking/clearing 16.7 miles in three days -- not bad!

I started this thing two years ago, then got sidetracked and didn't even bother to finish the information on the initial trip I was writing about. However, then I did the WTA's Hike-a-Thon during the month of August and had a lot of fun keeping track of all my hiking trips. I think I'm going to try to revive this thing. Not that I'll have very many cool trips in the next month or two; cross country & work & my procrastination with Pro-Cert are all going to get in the way of getting outside. However, I'll do what I can, and then by next summer I'll be ready to keep track of all the trips I plan.