Week 30 Mar. 27 - Lower Lena Lake and the Valley of Silent Men

Total Distance: Approximately 8.0 miles
Elevation Gain: Approximately 2000 ft. 
Time: 10:30 am - 2:30 pm 
Weather: Overcast. Rainy at low elevation, wet slushy snow at higher elevations.

It took me a long time to decide what hike I wanted to do this weekend.  I usually have an idea mid-week, but this week had a variety of challenges.  Not to go into too much detail, but in addition to the week before Spring Break at school and house-sitting/dog-sitting for friends, a good friend of mine spent two nights in the hospital.  He is actually the good hiking buddy from work who goes on most of these hikes with me.  The good news, my friend is back to normal and he is out of the hospital, but the bad news, he will not be hiking with me for a few weeks.  While visiting him Thursday night, a friend of his that was there was telling me about good hikes in the lower part of the Olympic National Forest.  She mentioned the Lena Lakes, and a quick look in my snowshoeing book had a good little hike description for the lower lake and the valley above to the north.

I got up early enough, got some food, filled the tank up, and was on the road by 8:40 am.  I made it to the trailhead by 10:20 am.  I got out and was doing all the little things I do when I get to a trailhead now. I took off my house shoes and put on my rain pants, boots, and gaiters.  There were 3 people hanging around their car with big packs, and being the chatty person that I am, I began talking with them.  They were waiting on the other 6 hikers that were in their party that camped out the night before.  I was asking some questions like, "will I need my snowshoes," or, "how long does it take to get to Lower Lena Lake?"  Got my answers (yes and about 1 and half or 2 hours), then gathered my pack and hit the trail.  

I guess it was about 15 minutes into the hike, I realized I forgot my camera.  Luckily, I had my phone recording the gps track, so I could use my phone for a few pictures.  Bummer though, because my camera takes much better pictures, and I usually take more with my camera.  The hike was good, a lot of switchbacks and uphill walking.  I enjoy hiking by myself more than I ever thought I would before I began this commitment.  I did pass a few people coming down, but I have started to notice that when I am walking in the woods my mind will actually stop for these brief moments.  I just am thinking about my next step, the trail ahead of me, or the beauty around me.  There are times when I am literally not thinking about anything else except the moment I am in.  It is these moments I crave, moments when I am only focused on the present.  

Around 11:20 am, I starting hitting patches of snow on the trail.  I could keep walking in boots through these, and I kept waiting to put on my snowshoes.  After a solid hour and a half without stopping, I got to the lake, still having not needed to put snowshoes on.  I was immediately struck by the beauty of the lake while the snow was falling.  I took a few pictures, but cell phone cameras never capture landscapes well.  Rarely do digital cameras do nature justice, but it is a little better.  I walked around the west edge of the lake crossed over to the north end, and continued up the trail towards "The Brothers."  The Brothers is a pair of peaks about 6800 ft tall.  I was not going to summit, but I did walk up the trail as if I were, and this took me into the Valley of Silent Men.  Walked for about 45 minutes, and got stuck in a dead end.  I saw the trail on the other side of the river, and I went to backtrack to find the fork.  I found the fork in about 2 minutes, but I decided to head out.  

I was back at Lena Lake around 1 pm.  I ate lunch, took another picture, and began walking back to the car.  I was in the parking lot at 2:30 pm.

Orchid: Seeing the Lake for the first time.

Onion: Not needing my snowshoes.

Picture:

Google Map

Week 29 Mar. 19 & 20 - Cape Alava, again

Total Distance: Approximately 7.0 miles
Elevation Gain: Approximately 500 ft. 
Time: 11:30 am Sat. - 12:00 pm Sun.
Weather: Mostly cloudy with rain off and on Saturday.  Beautiful sunny morning on Sunday.

Yes, I did the same trip this weekend that I did two weeks ago.  The only difference was I had one of my best friends from high school with me.  It was the same friend that got me to go on a hike 29 weeks ago right before he flew out.  This last weekend, he was coming up to start his spring break.  The options were for either us to hang out at my house, but I suggested we go camp out overnight somewhere.  When I was describing the overnighter I did two weeks ago, he said "let's go there." 

He flew in late Friday night, we went to the store, packed our packs, loaded the car, and were asleep by midnight with our alarms set for an early departure.  Woke up and hit the road, we were in Port Angeles by 8:30 am and had a delicious breakfast at Traylor's. After breakfast, we went and picked up our permit, and by 9:30 am, we were back on the road.

We got to the trail head at 11:30 am.  The hike was great.  We were moving the whole time, and my friend was enjoying the beauty of the forest.  We were on the beach by 1:00 pm, right as the high tide was hitting the beach.  While I was here two weeks ago, I did not remember the tide getting as high.  It was pounding the drift wood right near the campsites.  After watching the waves for a bit, we got camp set up and took two hour nap.

We got up and walked south down to Wedding Rocks.  There were lots of people around on the beach.  There were groups of high school age kids and a big group of boy scouts.  We climbed up on the big rock and had a good snack break.  We walked around and found what we think were some of the petroglyphs in the area.  We walked back north and continued past camp.  I did not head far in this direction two weeks ago, so it was really nice to see different parts of the coast.  Just north of the border of of the National Park and the Ozette Indian Reservation, the coast opens up to this cove where the vastness of the ocean stretches to the north and parts of Canada were visible.

We go back to camp around 5:30 pm and fixed dinner.  Right around the time dinner was ready, and we were getting our campfire going, it started raining. We fought the rain for the next few hours.  Luckily it wasn't a very hard rain, but it did require us to work hard for our fire.  Around 9 pm, the rain stopped, and we stayed up to await the full moon that was closer than any other in the last twenty years.

Finally saw the moon, but it was behind the clouds.  We got in the tent around 10:15 pm, and I think I was asleep in less than 5 minutes.  We got up around 9:15 am and fixed breakfast.  We had packed up by 10:30 am and hit the trail by 10:40 am.  We booked it back, it took 1 hour and 5 minutes.  Unfortunately, my friend had a flight at 7 pm, and we had to get moving back home.

Orchid: Spending the night with my best friend in one of my favorite places.

Onion: Short trip/visit with my friend, time goes too fast.

Picture:

 

Google Map

Week 28 Mar. 12 - Packwood Lake Trail

Total Distance: 13.9 miles
Elevation Gain: 3676 ft. 

     Min: 1700 ft.  Max: 2885 ft.
Time: 12:15 pm - 5:00 pm 
Weather: Cool, overcast, and rainy with short periods of freezing rain. 

Well, I had a great time snowshoeing because anytime snowshoeing is a great time. But, there were a lot of things hat made this a tough, bittersweet outing in the woods.

First, the plan was to go with a friend on Sunday, but she backed out Friday evening.  Looking at the avalanche danger rose for the weekend on Friday evening, Saturday was the safer day.  I went to bed with alarms set, but I was still not 100% committed.  I finally got up at 8 am, after my alarms had gone for a few hours.  And it took me until about 9 to get out of the door, plus I had to stop and get gas.  I knew it was a long hike with a long drive, and I was getting a late start.  This was the first mistake.

After driving for a good two hours, I finally get to Packwood.  I had my snowshoe route book with me, and it said to get to Packwood and "turn right after the Ranger Station." Well I was looking for a Ranger Station as I drove out of town.  I found a place to turn around, went back to a gas station and asked where the road was.  I looked up the directions the night before on my laptop and iPad.  I could have easily gotten the name of the road the turn was on, but I didn't.  This was the second mistake.

The trailhead is 6 miles of WA -Highway 12, and at mile 3.5, I could not get my car through the patch of snow.  I got turned around and would begin my walk on the road.  I took a second to get geared up: boots, gaiters, poles, strapped my snowshoes to my pack, rain gear on, and started walking, fast.  It was about 12:15 pm, and I knew if I was going to get to the lake I would have to go quickly.  In about 10 minutes I came across two big down tress, so I would not have been able to drive much farther from where I parked.  This was also when I realized that no one else was on the trail ahead of me or I would have seen their cars.  I was excited by a day alone on the trail.

As always, I was over dressed, especially with my pace, and soon I was sweating.  I waned to power through the road section, so I just kept going.  After about an hour, I was ready for some water.  And then it hit me, mistake number three, this one was the BIG ONE.  I left all three water bottles in my car.  I had almost left them in my house.  Running through the house right before I left, I saw them by the sink.  When I grabbed them, I just through them in the front seat.  When I parked and got out of the car, I completely forgot them.  It was too far to turn around and get them and still make it to the lake, so I thought I could just grab some handfuls of snow as I got thirsty and let it melt in my mouth.

I walked and walked. I rarely stopped, only to take pictures or use the bathroom.  I was constantly checking the time, nervous about no water and a potential late evening.  I also kept weirding myself out.  On the trail there were tons of elk, deer, and coyote tracks.  With the lack of noise being made and my rain gear making soft, subtle sounds, I started to mentally spiral into fear.  I would turn around quickly an expect to see something, but I was alone... every time.

Finally at 2:30 pm, I turned around to head back to the car.  I was a little sore, but more nervous about the lack of water and the sunset seemed impending.  I was out a little quicker on the way down.  I was back walking on the road by 4. Around this time, the sun started peaking out a bit.  Around 4:30 pm, a black tail deer came out of the trail about 100 feet ahead of me.  It was across the road so quick, I wasn't able to snag a picture.  I was back at the car at 4:55 pm.  I walked around front and saw two huge elk.  I turned off my cell phone tracking app.  When I got cell service again, I got the map downloaded behind the track, see it here.  I was less than a mile from the lake... 

Orchid: The walk down from 4 until about 5 pm.

Onion: Leaving all my water in the car forcing me to turn around not knowing how close I was to the lake.

Picture:

Google Map

Week 27 Mar. 5 & 6 - Cape Alava

Total Distance: Approximately 5.2 miles
Elevation Gain: Approximately 500 ft. 

Time: 11:35 am Sat. - 12:05 pm Sun.
Weather: Partly cloudy with some magnificent sun breaks.

So this hike started has an Outdoor Club trip, but getting back to school on Wednesday and going back out on Friday was just too unreasonable for the kids.  As a result, I decided to cancel the school trip and instead go out myself.  

I got up at 6:30 am on Saturday and drove to the trailhead.  I was there around 11:30am.  The walk to Cape Alava from the Ozette Ranger Station is 3.1 miles.  I began the walk at 11:35 and was at the beach by 1:00 pm.  A pretty good pace, i thought, and by the time I hit the beach the sun was out.  I set up camp, and packed a small day back and walked down south to Wedding Rocks, about a mile away.  Apparently there are petroglyphs here, but I could not find them.  I spent time sitting and reflecting.  I love the wilderness so much.  I thought this hiking commitment would have satisfied my appetite for wild places.  I fear the appetite is only growing and becoming harder to satisfy.

Anyway, after searching in vain for the petroglyphs for about an hour, I went back to camp.  Got back around 5:45 pm and made dinner, watched the sun set into the Pacific and put all the little things away before heading into my tent.  I was going into my tent to read, but it was 7:15 pm and I could not keep my eyes open.  I laid my head down and was asleep by 7:30 pm.  I woke up the next morning at 8:30 am.  It was the best sleep I have had in years.

I had my oatmeal and coffee, put camp away, and started the walk out by 10:20am.  I was at the car at 11:53am.  All I could think about was how I wish I wasn't leaving.

Orchid: First solo night in the wild.

Onion: Leaving Sunday morning.

Picture:

Google Map 

Week 26 Feb. 27 - Dark Canyon

Again, more to come but a quick cell phone update.

Sunday was day 6 of a 7 day 6 night backpacking trip in Dark Canyon. We set up camp Saturday where Lost Canyon runs into Dark Canyon. Sunday morning we followed Dark Canyon 5 miles down to where it runs into the Colorado River.

I have hiked every weekend for half a year! Only 26 hikes left. How will I top this one?

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Total Distance: Approximately 9.5 miles
Elevation Gain: Approximately 1000 ft. 

Time: 10:15 am - 4:30 pm.
Weather: Cold, mostly cloudy, a little rain and a few sun breaks.

There is not much else to say.  I love this wild place.  It is primitive.  It is untouched.  It is natural.  It is one of my favorite places in the world.  I cried on the last day out looking back into the canyon.  I will return again, but not soon enough.

Orchid: The Colorado River.

Onion: The thought of leaving this magnificent place.

Picture:

Google Map

Week 25 Feb. 20 - San Rafael Swell and Valley of the Goblins

More to come later, but a quick update from my phone.

I had an amazing hike through Little Wild Horse canyon and Bell Canyon. Came back to camp and my best friend from work, who is my co-leader, and I took a little hike to the valley of the goblins.

Great times, tomorrow I descend into dark canyon for 7 days.

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And here is more...

Total Distance: Approximately 11 miles
Elevation Gain: Approximately 1000 ft. 

Time: Forgot to check.
Weather: Brilliantly sunny and a bit cool.

This week's and the next week's hike were hikes I did with twelve students and two other teachers at the school I work at.  We have an awesome program that gives teachers a maximum of 12 days to plan unique course offerings.  The minimum is at least a 5-day classroom time experience.  Some kids do class blowing, local community service work, or building an Adirondack Chair.  Other teachers use the mid-winter break before the program starts to design trips ranging from Japan, Italy, China, The U.A.E, and backpacking trips to Southeast Utah.

We started the day at the Hanksville Inn, run by Ed, an awesome dude. If you are ever in the area of Hanksville, UT I recommend staying here.  We drove into Goblin Valley State Park and set up camp in the campgrounds there.  We spent one night car camping and taking day hikes in the area.  After getting camp all squared away, we drove about 15~20 minutes out of the park on dirt roads to the west to a the trailhead in the San Rafael Swell area that would take us into Little Wild Horse Canyon and Bell Canyon.

The hike was a little lolli-pop loop.  We walked out and hit a junction and took off to the right through the Little Wild Horse Canyon.  This was a fun walk through a slot canyon.  It was straight out of 127 Hours.  The sun in the mid morning was rarely shinning directly through the canyon, so it was a bit cold.  The water that rushes through to cut these slots has revealed layered colors in the rock that were simply beautiful.  There had been rain in the area a few days before, so some parts of the trail through the canyon were totlly submerged in two areas almost thigh deep some of the kids discovered. I did my best to climb up the sides and push against the both sides of the canyon walls with my feet and hands to move over the water.  It was totally sweet.

After a few fun slots, we did come out into more wide open parts of the canyon.  After a lengthy lunch break, we walked about another hour before we hit a dirt road and followed it back to the west. Shortly, we hit the trailhead for Bell Canyon.  At this point, I found myself in the back which became my customary position this trip.  Yes, with all the hiking I have done, I still hike like a slow old man.  The hike was good, it hit back to the junction where we went left into Little Wild Horse Canyon.  We started to see more traffic on the trail at this point.  Some older couples, then a group of about 5 young men, college aged to early 30s.

We got back in the cars and drove back to our camp.  It was about 3:30 pm, my best friend and I took off on a walk to the Valley of the Goblins.  This was great.  Just me and my best friend from work.  When we got to the valley, I was left almost speechless at the beauty of the hoodoos.  I could see how late in the night, it could look like Goblins.

Orchid: Walk to Goblin Valley.

Onion: The kid who argued about why iPods should be allowed in the backcountry.

Picture:

Google Map

Week 24 Feb. 13 - West Tiger Mountain 3, 2, and 1

Total Distance: Approximately 10 miles
Elevation Gain: Approximately 2600 ft.
     Min: 386 ft.  Max: 2806 ft.
Time: 9:30 am - 2:30 pm 
Weather: Sunny and cool, mostly cloudy.

This week was the first time in 5 weeks I was not going out to snowshoe.  It was a crazy weekend.  I flew from Tacoma down to San Francisco on Friday night, spent all day Saturday in San Fran, flew out at 7:00 am on Sunday, and had a my buddy from work, whom I have hiked with more than anyone else ever and he has been on 10 of these 24 hikes so far, pick me up and drive me straight to the trailhead.  He took me to the airport on Friday, and I left my pack and boots in his trunk, and I had packed hiking clothes to wear for the hike.  I did not want to mess with the logistics of a snowshoe trip so we planned a hike only about 30 minutes from the Sea-Tac airport.

There was a great network of trails in the West Tiger Mountain Park, so we were confident we could walk around a lot. We got to the trailhead around 9:30 am and I noticed my phone only was at about half power.  I tried to use the GPS tracking app, but my phone died on the hike.  Here is part of the track: West Tiger Mt.  I did have a full charged camera though.  Anyway, we geared up quickly and hit the trail up to the summit of West Tiger 3.  This was about a 3 to 3.5 mile hike pretty much all uphill.  Immediately, I was struck by how much I love hiking in the woods.  I love snowshoeing, but it had been awhile since I had walked on a forrest floor of dirt covered in dead leaves and being surrounded by  trees, but ferns and rhododendrons.  Hiking is magical and awesome.

We made great time and were at the peak of West Tiger 3 by 11 am.  And there were at least 30 people around here, no joke.  It was a great day, by PNW standards, for February and many people got out to enjoy it.  We sat around to eat a snack and plane what to do next.  Just about everyone else went back the way we came up, and I was almost positive there was a trail that continued to West Tiger 2.  We found the trail and continued on.  Soon we were at the next peak, which had a big power transformer or cell phone tower surrounded by chain link fence at the top.  We continued on down a dirt road for about 30 minutes and found the next trail sign confirming we were on our way to West Tiger 1.

After a short, but steep walk up another dirt road we were at the summit.  While there was another transformer/cell tower thing, the view of the valley below was spectacular.  We could see part of Rainier below the clouds, the fertile farm land of valley below, and the buildings of downtown Seattle.  There was a trail leading back into the woods just to the left of all the chain link fence surrounding the transformer, and we choose to take it and see if we could loop around the peaks.

As we descended into the woods, it got eerily dark in the tall trees.  Eventually we came across another hiker and confirmed we could loop around back to the trail.  His directions were to turn left then right then we would get back to the trailhead.  We followed, but after the right turn we felt we were heading deeper into the forrest.  We turned around and stayed left.  We came to another intersection, we went right and then the same thing happened.  It looked like we were heading back up the mountain.  We turned around and took another left.  This trail was marked the West Tiger Mountain trail and we had seen signs for this trail earlier in the day, so we were finally confident we were at least heading back to somewhere we had been before.  Sure enough, after about an hour we were back on the main thoroughfare and back among the crowds.

We walked down and spent a total of about 5 hours walking in the woods.  We took very few breaks and other than the snack break at West Tiger 3, the breaks were short and only to hydrate or take off a layer.  I am confident we did at least 10 miles.  It felt great.

Orchid: Walking in the woods with one of my best friends.

Onion: Too good of a weekend to have an onion.

Picture:

Goggle Map 

Note about the next two weeks: The next two hikes are already planned.  Next Sunday night, I will be in Goblin Valley State Park in Southeast Utah spending the night with 12 students and 2 other teachers.  On Monday, we are going into Dark Canyon in SE Utah.  We will spend the next 7 days and 6 nights backpacking in the canyon.  The next two blogs will be posted, on or before Tuesday March 1.  There is a chance that next week's blog can be posted on Monday Feb. 21, but I make no promise there.  No worries about me and my integrity, I will be hiking in the backcountry the next two weekends for hike 25 and 26.  I am so pumped to have my half year mark in one of the most remote areas of the lower 48!

Week 23 Feb. 06 - Mount Rainier, Paradise

Total Distance: 3.02 miles
Elevation Gain: 1204 ft. 
     Min: 5357ft.  Max: 6229 ft.
Time: 10:45 am - 2:00 pm 
Weather: Cold, foggy, overcast, and rainy.

Another walk in the snow this weekend, but this was a little shorter than usual and also with the Outdoor Club I helped start at the school I work for.  There were eight of us today, 5 students and 3 teachers.  We began the day early, meeting near school at 7:45 am and getting on the road by 8.  We were in Ashford by 9:30, where we picked up another teacher.  We also rented snowshoes for one kid from the nice people at Whittaker Mountaineering.  I love this store.  There are really nice, knowledgeable people who know a lot about the area, and there is a really cute woman who works there too.

We were back on the road shortly and reached Paradise with no problem on the roads at all.  We geared up and took off.  I set my phone GPS right when we began, and I remembered to end it when we were done hiking.  As we started walking the weather was really crummy.  I personally try to not complain about weather.  I have noticed that hiking every weekend means that you will get all the weather this area of the world has to offer.  The conditions did mean, limited visibility.  

The original plan was to go up past Glacier Vista, up to Panorama Point, and down onto Mazama Ridge to play.  What happened was a blind walk into the white nothingness and everything-ness ahead, finding and designing some crazy fun sled runs, and cold windy conditions the higher up on the mountain we walked.

It is always fun to be out, but this was some tough weather.  We wanted to head down and find, hopefully, better conditions below.  A lot of the students brought sleds, and on the way down they found lots of places to have fun.  We stopped on this one hill and made several runs.  It was still rainy and cold.

When we got back down, we went into the visitor's center to warm up.  It was only minutes later that we were eating and warming up inside.  After a healthy feast, we were talking about our plans.  Up at the top, we said we were going to go down to Reflection Lakes, but that was another 3~4 mile roundtrip.  It was obvious the kids didn't want to, so we made the choice to head out.

A great, albeit short, day in the backcountry.

Orchid: Sled runs on the way back down.

Onion: Crummy weather...

Picture:

Google Map