Snow Lake Trail Halloween 2010

Some people celebrate Halloween with candy and costumes, but this year I decided to celebrate it with some much needed mountain therapy. After several months of Murphy's Law working against me, I needed an escape into the hills to let the brain reboot (multiple hard drive crashes, head gasket failure on the Soob's engine, crap-tastic tests, and the list is really long so I will spare you the details of all of my most recent fun). Sarah was able to get the day away, and we decided on a short jaunt to the pass above Snow Lake along with the side trail to the lake that is the headwaters of the South Fork of the Snoqualmie River.

We arrived at the trail-head this morning after driving through a torrential downpour... To our surprise the weather wasn't bad after we got out of the car. Actually by the time we left there was blue sky poking through the ominous looking clouds.


Sarah hiking up the trail.





Snow Lake

Eightmile Lake 7/25/2010

Sunday I met up with Makana who I haven't seen in ages and headed out to the Eightmile Lake trail-head outside of Leavenworth. The trail was a moderate to easy incline with a few flat spots all the way to the Lake Caroline cut-off trail. There was plenty of water the whole route, and the views through the huge burn zone of 1994 were awesome. The Lake was stunningly large and appeared to be fairly deep with how the shore sloped off fast in some areas.

I cooked up some meals that I was taste testing for lunch. More with that in a separate blog post though, I will say they were very delicious. After lunch we headed back to the car and drove to Gustav's in Leavenworth for some Enchantment Ales and burgers.

The Map
Elevation Profile
Views through the great burn of 1994.
The Lake Caroline jct "sign"...
Makana freaking out about cell service! (actually she had the map on the phone, and we were debating lake Caroline.)
More views of the large fire of 1994.
Eightmile lake with Eightmile Mountain in the upper right corner.
The ominous peak looming over the lake.
Looking towards the outlet from the lunch break...
Me on a rock looking over the lake.
Makana and I along the lake.
More views through the burnt forest.
The view from Gustav's in Leavenworth.

Snoqualmie Pass to Stevens Pass via the PCT Day 1of 5

It started off as an early Sunday morning drive north to meet up with Dicentra. I got a late start out the door to head north to meet up with Dicentra, but made it to her house on time, yet we still got a late start to the trail head. Dicentra's husband dropped us off at the trail head at Snoqualmie Pass so that we could start our journey. The plan was to hike an average of 15 miles a day to cover the 75 mile journey to Stevens Pass. I was really hoping to get a lot more fishing in on the trip, but in retrospect I wish I would of left the fishing gear at home... I would of saved nearly a pound of weight and the cost of the 5 sacrificial flies I lost to the bush gods...

We got on the trail around 9 am and started moseying up the climb to Kendall's Catwalk.

Dicentra and I at the trail head.

A pretty cool looking peak surrounded in the fog on the way up.

Entering the Alpine Lakes Wilderness.

We ran into this kind fellow Mr. Zip along the way up. He's hiked the whole Appalachian Trail and is segmenting the PCT 900 miles at a time, so that he isn't away from his wife near as long as he would be on a full thru hike. He had some awesome stories of his travels that were really motivating and after he passed us at Kendall's Catwalk, we'd be a couple miles behind him the whole way. Sadly we did not catch back up to him.

Dicentra in an opening on the way to the catwalk.

Some of the trail in the trees on the way up to the catwalk.
Me trekking along towards the catwalk.
One of the clear sections, with a lot of great views.



Where's Jared? Can you find me?

Just before the catwalk.
Red Mountain from the catwalk area.
Dicentra and I at the catwalk. Here we took a good long lunch and b.s.'d with the local day hikers. Talked to a couple people and a few previous Wonderland hikers. This was also the area that Mr. Zip passed us for the last time. From the catwalk we could see 90% of our route for the day, including the pass we had to cross to get to Parks Lake. As cool as it was to see the route as an all open traverse, it really made everything seem right there, but in reality it was so far away...

Heading towards Gravel and Ridge lakes.
Dicentra coming down into the Ridge Lake basin area.
Ridge Lake

Looking out and down the valley towards Cle-Elum above Joe Lake. The far right edge of this photo is the pass that we had to make it to in order to access the Parks Lake Basin. Just under the cliff bands is the traverse to the pass. An hour or so before we got to this spot we saw a Search and Rescue helocopter circling for a long time trying to get someone out of the area.
Taking a break for Salami and Cheese, and realizing that with the late start and the slower pace we'd be pushing into Parks Lake in the dark with our headlamps on...


Yeah... So we came around the corner and the trail shot straight up and turned into boulders. I won't even repeat what Dicentra said at this point...An interesting rock formation near Needle Gap area.
I was either taking pictures of something or trying to send a message out to say we are alive and well.
Shortly after this the sun was setting as we hit Chikiman Ridge above Parks Lake Basin. About halfway down we caught a stream and gathered some water. We rolled into camp under the cover of darkness with our headlamps blaring, while trying to find a suitable campsite. By this point Dicentra got sick, and was having a not so pleasant night. After we found camp I cooked dinner, setup the bivy and tied off the Ursacks to a tree and than I passed out. To be continued on day 2's page.