Week 77 Feb. 19 - Capitol Reef National Park

Total Distance: Approximately 10.5 miles
Elevation Gain: Approximately 2000 ft.
Time: 9:30 am - 3:00 pm
Weather: Cool, mostly cloudy, light snow early, sunshine late, and very windy.

I'm in Utah again this February with 12 students and the same 2 other adults from my school as last year (one of which is Creighton). We are doing the same 7 day 6 night backpacking trip into Dark Canyon, but that didn't start until Tuesday the 21st. We flew into Salt Lake City on Saturday, bought all of our groceries, and drove south to Torrey, UT. We spent the night in a hotel, and the plan was to day hike in Capitol Reef on Sunday.

We were up and on the road by 8:15 am and in the Visitor's Center of Capitol Reef by 8:30 am.  After watching a short video which detailed some of the history and unique geological features of the park and a stroll through the gift shop, we were back on the road to go see some roadside petroglyphs.  These were amazing.  After that, we jumped back in the vans, and were at the trailhead for Navajo Knobs and Hickman's Bridge by 9:20 am.    The kids and Creighton took off for Hickman's Bridge while my other co-;leader and I were still fiddling with our gear.  We got moving around 9:30 am.

The trail starts right next to the Fremont River.  We walk along the river for about 60 yards, then we turn to the left and start a small climb into the park.  The trail climbs slowly, then it reaches a junction: left to Hickman's Bridge right to Navajo Knobs.  Creighton was waiting here for us, when he saw we were on the right track, he ran ahead to the kids.  My other co-leader and I took off to the bridge, and the overcast skies started dropping a light snow.  We had a nice mile walk to the natural bridge, as the little snow flurries were dancing all around us.  As we came around a bend, the bridge came into view, a beautiful, natural arch the stretched across the small canyon we had hiked into.  We walked up to, underneath, and past the beautiful bridge.  Amazed, moved, and excited, we took off back to the junction to head up to Navajo Knobs.

Our hike up to the knobs began with a crazy flurry of big snowflakes.  As one of my hiking buddies likes to say, "it is like we are walking in a snow globe."  Luckily the snow was short lived, but it did remain overcast, windy, and chilly.  The hike was a steady up hill that curved and bent around the rim of a plateau.  The hike was fun and beautiful, but as I write these words, it is a few days after the hike, and the memories have begun to fade.

Orchid: Rim overlook on the way up to Navajo Knobs.

Onion: My feet were sore at the end of the hike.

Picture:

Google Map

Week 76 Feb. 12 - Rampart Ridge, kind of

Total Distance: Approximately 10 miles
Elevation Gain: Approximately 3000 ft.
Time: 9:45 am - 4:15 pm
Weather: Mostly cloudy, cool, very little periods of light snow.

My buddy, Creighton, and I had talked during the week at work about hiking together this weekend.  We went to see the Upper School's winter musical Friday night and chose Sunday.  It was supposed to be the better weather day, and we both had work to do this weekend.  We talked late Saturday night and settled on snowshoeing up to Mount Margaret, only 90 minutes away and only 9 miles round trip.  We had no problems getting to the trailhead.  We were there by 9:30 am.  We geared up and took off by 9:45.

The hike starts off on a snow covered road that parallels I-90.  We carried our snowshoes for about 15 minutes, then as we made a turn up the slope, we stopped to put our snowshoes on.  We climbed up the road and it switched-back a few times.  We got to a left, right split, and we had read in the trail book to stay left.  Looking at Google maps when I got home, this was the "wrong turn."  The road curved around the south and west of the ridge that makes Mount Margaret.  We continued walking along, when we saw the road continue up, and a trail curve around to a ridge that separates Mount Margret from Gold Creek.  I asked Creighton if he wanted to just try and walk up to the top of that ridge, and he was up for it.

We came around the south-east side of the ridge, climbing gradually.  We then came out on the west side and had an amazing view of Keechelus Lake and the other peaks to the west.  We began climbing up the south aspect of the ridge, and in no time Creighton was topping out, while I was left slowly kicking steps up.  We got to some great views, and kept climbing.  As we came around to the north side, we were greeted with great views of Kendall Peak, Alaska Mountain, and Snoqualmie Mountain.  Creighton suggested we climb a little further, and before I knew it, I was alone slowly trying to get up the mountain.  When I got near the top, Creighton was hollering from up a little ways further.  He said it was not very nice where he was, so I stopped right where I was and took a nice long break.

I was drenched with sweat.  My shirt and pullover were soaking wet.  I took off everything but the shirt and put on a down jacket.  We took a snack break and after about 30 minutes took off back for the car.  The first 20 minutes of the decent was tough.  We were in the trees and the snow was icy and hard.  When we came out of the trees, we found the snow a little softer from being "in the sun" for the day.  We bombed down many a steep slope, back the way we came.  We were back at our car about 2 and half hours after we began the decent.

Orchid: Great day with my friend, Creighton.

Onion: Not managing for sweat, and not having a spare shirt for the hike out.

Picture:

Google Map

Week 75 Feb. 5 - Carbon Glacier, again

Total Distance: Approximately 17 miles
Elevation Gain: Approximately 1640 ft.
Time: 10:30 am - 5:30 pm
Weather: Partly cloudy, cool, occasional sunbreaks.

I was up late with again no plan on where to go.  I was hiking alone, and I wanted someplace close, and I wanted to be out on Super Bowl Sunday while most people were inside.  I settled on the Carbon Glacier, the lowest elevation glacier in the lower 48.  It used to be a good 7 mile hike from the Ipsut Creek trailhead, but the road to the Ipsut Creek Campground washed out years ago.  Now there is a 5 mile road hike just to get to the trailhead.

I got to the Carbon River parking lot at 10:15 am.  I forgot my gaiters, and I did not want to take my snowshoes.  I was geared up and walking by 10:30 am.  As I took off, a ranger stopped me and asked where I was heading.  I said to the glacier and he asked if I was running.  I said no, just not going to take a lot of breaks.  He encouraged me to be carful and not get into any dangerous situation.  I thanked him and told him I had a turn-around time to be back at 6pm.  I walked off, and calculated the time I had to turn around so I would be back by 6 pm.  I figured if I was not at the glacier by 2:15 pm, I would have to turn around.

The beginning of the hike is on a road, but through old growth forest.  I was loving the sunshine streaming through in the mid-morning.  It was a beautiful day, and I had the whole place to myself.  About 2 miles up the road, the snow started to be a constant.  Like last week, the snow was packed down and crunchy, so my snowshoes were not needed.  I was at the Ipsut Creek by 11:50 am.  The hike becomes a trail here, and the snow was still packed enough to make walking easy without snow gear.  An hour later I was crossing the Carbon River.  There are glorious views of Mt. Rainier as you cross here.  The sun was out, the sky was blue, and the wilderness seemed empty except for me.  As I climbed up the north side of the river, I hit the trail marker that indicated I was 1.5 miles away, and it was only 1:02 pm.

This was the toughest stretch of snow.  the snow was deep enough in places that I was post-holing occasionally, sometimes thigh deep.  The last stretch was the worst, where I actually was crawling on my knees to disperse my weight and sink less.  I made it to the glacier at 2 pm.  The glacier was magnificent, covered in snow, below Mt. Rainier, shining in the mid-day sun.  I enjoyed a 15 minute break, said goodbye to the glacier, and walked out.  The walk out took 15 minutes less than the walk up.  I made up that time on the 1.5 mile stretch from the river to the glacier.

Orchid: Setting a pace, and making my goal.

Onion:  No gaiters means wet socks and feet after post-holing.

Picture:

Google Map

Week 74 Jan. 29 - North Fork of the Skokomish River, again

Total Distance: Approximately 8 miles
Elevation Gain: Approximately 1000 ft.
Time: 9:00 am - 12:45 pm
Weather: Overcast, cool, light rain with periods of heavier rain.

Another weekend had me not dreading going out on a hike but terribly excited either.  I should have gone on Saturday too, and I knew it.  But Friday night had me out for dinner with a friend, then stopping by and seeing others, and I didn't get to bed until late.  I slept in and thought considerably about ending my streak at 73.  Later that day, hanging out with my same friend from the dinner the night before, I was kind of complaining about how I had to go hike the next day.  She mentioned she had thought about asking to join me on a hike for the last year or so but never had.  Needing a reason to plan a hike, I eagerly agreed and began thinking of where we could go for a hike.  I thought a walk up the North Fork of the Skokomish out of the Staircase campground near Lake Cushman would be a nice gradual trail up a lower river valley, and we wouldn't have to worry about snow.  It is about a 2 hour drive, and we both had stuff to do in the evening, so we were on the road at 7 am.

We got to the National Park entrance around 8:50 am to find the road closed.  That left 1.2 miles of road to walk before we even got to the trailhead.  The road had good grooves from park vehicles, but there was still a good amount of snow.

By the time we got to the trailhead, we were walking on snow.  Thankfully the snow was packed down and pretty hard, so we did not need snowshoes (which neither of us had).  We walked up the river in the pouring rain.  We made it, to what I think was Madeline Creek about a mile below the turn off to Flapjack Lakes.  We turned around and began our walk out.  We stopped at an opening on the way down, and I looked out at what was truly a beautiful scene.  I closed my eyes and heard nothing but the wilderness.  For a brief moment, I was reminded why I love hiking and was so happy to be out in the woods.

Orchid: Hiking with a good friend for the first time.

Onion: Weather and lack of motivation to hike prior to the hike.

Picture:

Google Map

Week 73 Jan. 22 - Rainbow Falls State Park

Total Distance: Approximately 3 miles
Elevation Gain: Approximately 200 ft.
Time: 9:00 am - 10:30 am
Weather: Overcast, cool, periods of light rain.

Wow, if there was ever a week when I thought the streak of hikes might end, this was it.  It all started on Tuesday evening when we had a ton of snow dropped in the lowlands of Western Washington.  The snow ended up canceling school on Wednesday.  Then we were treated to freezing rain the next evening and all day Thursday, canceling school for a second day in a row.  Then the predicted warm up late Thursday afternoon never really came, and a few down trees left my school without power and a third snow day.  All this time off was great, but I was not very excited to leave my house.  The roads were bad, and tree debris was everywhere.  By today, most everything was gone off main roads, but since when are trailheads off main roads.  I was not particularly enthused to go get out in some nasty conditions.  I heard on the weather reports that the snow was not as bad to the south, so I got on wta.org and looked for a hike down south.  I found a good 15 miler called Bell's Mountain about 3 hours away.  This morning I was early enough, but I did not want to drive 3 hours.  I looked again on wta.org and settled on Rainbow Falls State Park.

Took a little over an hour to get there, but about 30 minutes finding out where to park and where to hike.  If you follow the signs to the park, you wind up on the north side of the Chehalis River.  The park was covered with down limbs, but it appeared some state workers had already cleared out the major blowdowns.  I found the hiker parking lot where another truck had just arrived.  The two men were looking to hike too, and the saw that the foot bridge across the river was not there any more.  The seemed to know that it had been out for a while.  I geared up anyway, then drove around back to the south side of the river to park on the side of the road.  The side of the road had parking but was packed with debris and snow.  I managed to get parked safely from the flow of traffic.  I crossed the highway and found a large picnic area.  An obvious trail went south up the hill off to the right of the covered picnic area.  I read online all these trails loop around to the beginning and the falls were at the end.

As I turned from the picnic area up, I was immediately shocked by the amount of downed trees and limbs.  The snow was covered with green limbs, and several blowdowns had fallen over the trail.  I began walking then would stop and climb over or crawl under downed trees.  The hike was a real bushwhack.  I found a trail junction and went left.  This trail looped back around eventually to the sam picnic area.  Not wanted to be done quite yet, I went back up along that trail, took a right at a junction I had passed earlier.  Walked up for awhile, then I hit the same trail I had been on to start with.  At this point, I was wet, tired, and sick of bushwhacking.  I never found the falls for which this park is named, but I did wander through an old growth forest that somehow wasn't chopped down in the early part of the 20th century.  The biggest trees, seemed to be find holding on with all the snow and ice.  I took a left and came back down the way I had begun the day.

Orchid: Having the park to myself.

Onion: Not wanting to hike at all.

Picture:

Google Map

Week 72.1 Jan. 16 - Putah Creek, Blue Ridge Loop Trail

Total Distance: Approximately 5.5 miles

Elevation Gain: Approximately 1300 ft. 

Time: 10:30 am - 12:45 pm

Weather: Clear and cool, warm in the sun; great hiking weather.

Since our hike on Saturday was cut short (and because I think my friend wanted to prove to himself that Saturday was a fluke), my buddy and I went for a hike in the coastal range west of the Sacramento valley on Monday.  The drive was only about 30 minutes, and when we got there, the lot was almost full.

We took off to an old homestead about a mile off Highway 128 up a creek drainage.  We stayed on the east side of blue ridge and climbed up the southeast corner ridge.  My friend was in the lead the whole time kicking my butt up the hill.  We climbed about 1300 ft over the course of a mile and a half.  We then walked north along the ridge.

It was an amazingly beautiful day.  We had views across the valley to the east, where we could faintly see the Sierras.  We had great views to the west, where we could see Lake Berryessa.  We began the walk down around noon.  The decent switched-back along the northeast side of blue ridge and was in the sun almost the entire time we went down.  It was great to bask in the sunshine on a beautiful hike.  We were back down at the road around 12:45 pm.

Orchid: A successful hike with my good friend.

Onion: Not managing my layers and being too sweaty on the ridge.

Picture:

Google Map

Week 72 Jan. 14 - Pyramid Peak attempt

Total Distance: Approximately 1 mile
Elevation Gain: Approximately 100 ft. (almost 7000 ft in the car in a 2 hour drive)
Time: 8:00 am - 9:30 am
Weather: Cold and clear morning, a beautiful sunrise over a ridge.

I flew down to California to see my buddy who was on the first hike of these 72. He lives in Davis and we have not hung out in almost a year. He is a big runner and hiker, and we had plans for a big day, climbing to almost 10000 ft.  We drove east from Davis towards South Lake Tahoe, but around Kyburz we turned north and drove 4 miles up a mountain road to our trailhead.

The hike was 6 miles out one way with 3000 ft. of elevation gain. That means our trailhead was a little less than 7000 ft.  It was cold. We geared up and began walking around 8am.  The trail starts nice and wide through an open area with lots of little campsites.  Soon the trail narrows and begins meandering through the Eldorado Forest. We were walking for about 15 minutes when my friend said he needed to take a break. I turned around and saw a shade of green in my friend's face that is never a good indication. As he described how he was feeling, the only thing that made sense was altitude sickness. We spent about 30 minutes hydrating and snacking lightly, and he still felt awful.  The only smart choice was to turn around and get back down.

We walked back slowly and made it to the car around 9:30 am. I figured we walked about a mile. I took his keys and began driving down. On the way out, my friend got worse. We pulled over to let his stomach settle down.  After about 10 minutes he felt a bit better, and we continued the drive down.  Once we got to the highway, he was feeling more like himself.  We drove to Lake Tahoe and had a delicious breakfast.

Orchid: Getting back to the highway and seeing my friend doing much better. 

Onion: Being worried about my friend when we were back at the car and things were getting worse. 

Picture:

Google map

Week 71 Jan. 8 - Panorama Point and beyond

Total Distance: Approximately 11 miles
Elevation Gain: Approximately 3000 ft.
Time: 10:00 am - 4:30 pm
Weather: Beautiful and amazingly perfect!

Another week has me blogging well after the hike.  This is always unfortunate as the memory of the hike fades.  A few quick things about this hike that will stay with me.  I sent an email to a lot of my colleagues at work whom I know like to snow shoe.  Many of them (5 of them to be exact) all said "yes" to joining me on this hike.  My friend, the woman who has gone to Dark Canyon with Creighton and me, suggested we go to Rainier.  As avid wilderness wanderers in the PNW, I think we all feel a connection to certain places.  Rainier is such a place for many of us, and after the terrible tragedy that happened with the murder of Margret Anderson, we wanted to be on the mountain.

We did almost the exact same hike I did almost a year earlier (Week 21).  This time went north from Paradise to Panorama Point.  Then we climbed a bit higher past.  We came back along Mazama Ridge.  We then traversed west until we found the trail down to Reflection Lake.  We then came up the road into Paradise.

Orchid: The amazing weather and friends.

Onion: Hurt my ankle around 1 pm sledding around.  It hurt walking out on...

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Google Map