I'll say It was Fun Now but It Sucked at the Time

I’ve written about this sort of thing before. I’m as outdoorsy as the next Seattle person, maybe more so, but often I get into some sort of wilderness experience that is out of the Twilight Zone and I just want to be home and done with it. This happens quite frequently, come to think of it.

Like the poem by Robert Frost and taking the road and some roads are traveled and some aren’t. Let me tell you, there is a good fucking reason why no one takes the road less traveled—it sucks and you’ll find yourself bushwhacking through hell and then you have to go back through hell to get out again. You would think a guy would learn that when the trail going gets rough, the rough may get going, but the smart turn around and go have a beer in some nice bar in the mountains and watch the Mariners kick the crap out of the Red Sox.

I woke up this morning and saw that it was one of those perfect spring days—few and far between this spring--so I called a neighbor, threw some stuff in a pack, put on some boots, and headed out for the Cascades. I didn’t really have anything in mind other than a mild road trip through the Snoqualmie Pass (3022ft). After that I would just play it as it goes.

There is still plenty of snow at Snoqualmie, the lowest of the Cascade passes. This area is pretty familiar territory for me as I have been up here for hiking, climbing, and snowshoeing. We got a pretty early start so I thought we might make a big circle around the Wenatchee National Forest.

We stayed on I-90 east to 970, a little two-laner through some good looking high plains farm country. After a couple miles of post card country 970 meets up with route 97. I made a note to come back here with my racing bike as this is a beautiful road with light traffic. 97 makes an almost continuous descent from the summit to the floor of the Wenatchee river valley. Note to self: do ascent first then coast back down the hill.

97 heads due north to the little pseudo-Bavarian village of Leavenworth. On this weekend the Bavarian theme is pushed beyond the obvious alps-like setting to include a bunch of the townies dressed up in German traditional clothing for the May fest. We opted to skip the polka bands in favor of breakfast. I thought that we would try the Snow Lakes hike and any tourist stuff in town would cut into our daylight in the mountains.

I had been told that this hike is one of the most beautiful in all of the Cascades. This was from someone who has seen more of the state of Washington than most people. I have seen a bit and every hike for me has been spectacular--the scenery, that is, the hikes have all sucked. I have never been on a hike where I thought to myself, “I wish this hike would never end. I wish that I could just keep putting one foot in front of the other until I dropped dead.” Like I said, though, the scenery is always incredible.

We found the trail head, parked the car, shouldered our packs, read the trail report, promptly ignored it, crossed the bridge and began the hike. The report mentioned something about clear for three miles and then trees and snow blah, blah, blah. Trail reports are for soccer moms.

This side of the mountain was scorched by a fire several years ago and is mostly cleared of trees until you get close to the top. It was a nice change as the lack of trees affords a better view of the surrounding mountains. I have been on many trails in the mountains here that are completely under the canopy of the forest with almost no breaks below the treeline to view the area.

Even though this was a beautiful Saturday we only encountered nine other hikers the entire day. On some of the more popular hikes you’d think you were mall-walking by the crowds you meet. The truth is that this trail isn’t really fit for public consumption this early in the season, but we had a few miles to go before we saw first hand what was posted on the trail report.

As soon as the path moved from the area cleared by the forest fire to trees that were simply damaged by fire, but still standing, we ran into problems. The weakened, fire-damaged trees offered little resistance to the tremendous avalanches of this past winter’s heavy snowfall. We began climbing over, or ducking under, one fallen tree after another. In some parts entire swaths had been leveled, making it difficult or impossible to find the trail.

At first you think nothing of this sort of obstacle course--who would let a few fallen trees stop them? I could see above us that the trees were progressively less damaged and thought that the going would get better.

It didn’t get better. Climbing over fallen trees gave way to traversing steep snow fields where you alternated from sinking up to your crotch, to risking a slide down a few hundred feet to the pile of rocks below (ice axe left home for purposes of convenience). The trail was completely gone and I couldn't find any other footprints.

Deciding to bag a casual day-hike such as this one I get increasing insight into what leads climbers to lose their lives in pursuit of a summit. I know some hard-core types will scoff at my lame analogy but the mechanics are completely similar. A fixation with a goal can cause a person to lose track of their present situation. As they say, when you reach the top you are only halfway there. I knew that for every 100 yards of treacherous terrain I picked over that really meant 200 yards with the return thrown in. At times like this your quitter's instinct intersects with your survival instinct.

Maybe I am dating myself with this but, "It was Miller time."

Relatively large mammal spotted on this trip. He didn't want to get off the path and, for a minute, I wondered if I was going to have to butt heads.

P.S. Mariners 3, Red Sox 1.