2010.9.3-6. Dosewallip River - Enchanted Valley - LaCrosse Pass loop

9.3. Friday. Sunny. Drove to Staircase ranger station (~2 hrs), was told that the trail to the loop was closed due to fire. Rerouted to Dosewallips trail head. The road was in good shape, but stops ~5.5 miles (~2 hrs) to the trail head. A big landslide, probably 10 years ago, cuts the road short. A very pleasant walk, next the roaring West Fork Dosewallips River. Took too many water photos. The camp grounds at Elkhorn and Dosewallips are completely abandoned and overgrown with vegetation.
This trail is full of bridges, big and small. All nicely done. Passed a fork to Grey Wolf @1.5 mile (~1 hr), Big Timber camp (~1:15 hr), Diamond Meadows (~1:15 hr), arrived at Honeymoon Meadow (3527 ft) in another 1 hr @7pm, finally more or less out of the trees. All camp sites are to the left of the creek, without a good view of the meadow. Total ~14 miles.

9.4. Saturday. Blue sky with increasing clouds. 1.5 mile (~1 hr) reached Anderson Pass @4464 ft. A 0.9 mile side trail to the north and up a huckleberry hill leads to a blue tarn in front of Anderson Glacier. Beautiful. One tent was pitched at a smaller pond. Encountered 3 groups, 9 people.

1 hr later, reached the junction to Enchanted Valley trail (~3010 ft). From here is a 3.2 mile, ~1000 ft drop to the valley floor. Many waterfalls along the way. The valley is large and flat, grassy, many elder trees. Idyllic. The chalet is locked, except one room. Saw 2 couples. Back to the junction, headed south for ~35 minutes, camped above the White Creek meadow, good view to the northwest.

9.5. Sunday. Blue sky, with increasing clouds. My favorite day. Above tree line most of the time. Flowers covering the slopes. Saw 5 bears, one of these was a little guy scared and ran up a tree in a second. Headed over to O'Neil Pass @4950 ft, ~4 hrs. Saw a father and son below the pass.

Marmot Lake is ~1 mile east, a few camp sites with bear wire, not close enough to water. The lake itself is a bit disappointing. The area is nice: lush meadows dotted with the last summer flowers. Headed north ~0.5 mile, up ~500 ft, to the junction of Hart Lake / LaCrosse Lake. Found a very nice camp site in the lovely heather meadow close to the junction, above a tiny pond (not close enough). Good view over Mt Duckabush. Hart Lake is 0.4 miles west. Big, deep blue, very nice, good camp sites close to water. LaCrosse Lake is 0.8 miles north, not as great as Ira Spring claimed, camping available (no bear wire). By now, the clouds were rolling in in mass.

9.6. Monday. Clear sky and stars before midnight, then rained all night and all day, lightly. Every leaf turns into a picture, coated with water beads. ~3.5 miles and close to 2000 ft drop, a bad water crossing, to the junction with Skokomish river (to Staircase trail head, ~2 hrs). A difficult water ford immediately after the junction. Then it's an easy walk of 1.7 miles to the junction with Duckabush river @2600 ft (~1 hr). Now it's 3.3 miles up to LaCrosse Pass @5566 ft (~2.5 hrs). Ran closely into 2 bears just below the tree line, and another 2 north of the pass. The scenery around the pass is very nice, lots of flowers, but LaCrosse Mt is shrouded in cloud. 3.1 miles and 2000 ft later, reached junction with Dosewallips river (~2.5 hrs).
Ate dinner at Honeymoon Meadow under the rain. Not tired, but my waterproof shoes are completely wet. I was determined to end the misery today. So walked another 14 miles to the car (~5 hrs). Arrived ~11pm, completely stiff and sore. That made a Marathon: ~26 miles. The only human saw today is a couple at Diamond Meadow warming next to a fire.

Practicality: Dosewallips trail head is almost 3 hours drive from Seattle. ~20 minutes left of Hwy 101. Ferry might be faster. (Staircase trail head is 45 mins closer if driving from Olympia.) Total distance without side trips: ~51 miles. Adding all side trips (without backpack): ~63 miles. Lowest elevation ~700 ft, highest ~5566 ft.

2010.9.2. First Thursday Art Walk

First Thursday at Seattle Art Museum. Picked up my temporary membership card. A tall man made entirely of green bottles (beer?) stands by the staircase. The new exhibition of Andy Warhol and Kurt Cobain are, in my humble opinion, trash. A small exhibition of James Ensor's etching is rather fun, especially his Alimentation Doctrinaire. Due to the popularity of the Twilight saga, there's a small exhibition of Quileute tribe. Apparently, quite some research has gone into this. Some terms were even displayed in the tribal language. A hallway is dedicated to Amy Blakemore's photos. The best I could say is that everything is slightly out of focus. Subjects are of no interest. It makes one wonder the definition of art.

2010.8.28-29. Boston Basin - Sahale Arm crossing

Only 3 vehicles at the trail head. Boston Basin trail is unmaintained, STEEP, overgrown with vegetation. 3 miles took almost 3 hrs. First bushes, then trees. Once emerged from trees, the view is stupendous. Vast open space, jagged peaks, green slopes, crisscross creeks lined with bright green moss, moraines full of broken rocks, squeaking marmots (saw a couple of little ones, extremely cute). ~30 minutes later, reached lower camp (~5700ft, 3 sites close to each other). One group was already here, another coming on this Saturday for climbing. Closer to Quien Sabe glacier (Sharkfin Tower, Boston Peak, Sahale Peak). Unfortunately thick clouds on Sunday forced them to give up. The upper camp (~6200ft. 3 sites next to each other) is another 45 minutes' hike. Closer to the Forbidden Peak, flatter surface, easier access to water. Both equipped with a compost toilet! Both have great view, and enough vegetation + flowers. Lovely sunset. Clouds were rolling in.

Sunday. Foggy. Cross to Sahale Arm - Cascade Pass. Took a lower trajectory towards the south most ridge. Without a map, no trail. Scrambling over moraines, loose rocks and ice, quite dangerous at times. Ups and downs, from time to time had to wait for the fog to clear up a bit. Even hailed a bit. Painfully slow. Saw a bear close to the ridge. Much easier after the ridge: big huckleberry meadow from here to Sahale Arm, home to a mom bear and 2 cubs. The crossing took over 2 hours. Came out in the middle of Sahale Arm. I was happy to see people and trail. Very windy here. Clouds get thicker, eventually rained. From now on, it was easy, maybe 5+ miles to the trail head of Cascade Pass (~20 cars), which is only 0.7 miles to the trail head of Boston Basin. 3.5 hrs. Quite some flowers left. Johannesburg glacier looks more impressive at the trail head.

It's also possible to cross via Quien Sabe glacier to Sahale Glacier. Camping permits at the foot of Sahale Glacier for Saturday were all gone. More were climbing there.

On the drive back on Hwy20, shortly east of Baker River road, there was a herd of elk.

Direction: Hwy20 until Marblemount, go straight to Cascade River road, cross the bridge, at 21.7 miles (mostly good dirt road), ~3200 ft, a small parking area on the left. 3.5 hrs from Seattle. There's a national park wilderness center right at Marblemount (Sun-Thur till 6pm, Fri-Sat till 8pm), where backcountry permits are issued, and bear canisters are lent for free.

2010.8.24-25. Elfin Lakes

Elfin Lakes in BC's Garibaldi Provincial Park.

The drive here is spectacular, overlooking Howe Sound with the backdrop of Tantulus Mountain. Arrived ~noon Tuesday. The parking lot was almost full (close to 30 vehicles). My heart sank, because the shelter has only space for 33 people. Felt better and better after 30+ people came down. Must be pretty crowded Monday night. Started hiking ~12:45. Took almost 5 hrs to reach Elfin Lakes' Shelter, with multiple breaks and even more whining from the kids. (11Km, ~650m gain + 200m loss, could be done in 3 hrs.) Gentle slope, wide logging road. The first 5Km is shaded, tall trees, boring. Red Heather Shelter offers 2 tables, 2 burners and a winter only stove. A nice lunch stop. From here, heathers overtake trees. At the fork, we took the hiker only trail (the other one is for bikes and service truck). In less than an hour, started Paul Ridge. Views get progressively better, and heathers progressively dense until the whole slopes were carpet in pink. There was a small patch of snow, before the slope goes down. Another hour later, the two deep blue Elfin Lakes came to view. Small. A ranger station sat right next to the smaller lake (for drinking water). The slightly larger one is for swimming. Water is not too cold. But lots of mosquitoes. At night, bright full moon reflects in the lakes, many shining stars.

The shelter is very nice. Downstairs has 2 large tables, equipped with propane and 4 propane burners. Easy to use. A couple of large pot to fetch water with. Dish washer and wash sink. Upstairs has 11 wood bunks and some benches, bottom bunk is double, top is single. Very warm due to the cooking downstairs. This night, it was less than half full, and I had a double bunk to myself. Toilet is in another structure, smells of toxic paint. 1Km further is the camp ground on a nice heather meadow by a small creek, with a view to the west mountain ridge. No seclusion though.

Got up around 6:30am. Took some pictures of the morning reflection. Then I embarked on the Opal Cone trail all by myself. Ran into dad few minutes later. Opal Cone is a volcanic remnant. 6.5 Km one way. Not for the faint heart: a couple of slopes are rather dangerous. Some creek crossing, one nice bridge, quite some lupines. Well marked. At 6Km, a left fork goes up to the cone, while the continuation of the trail leads to Rampart Pond and Mamquam Lake. The fork to Opal Cone is very nice, a short ridge full of flowers, view of the half melted (with blue ice) ice fields below, and Bishop Glacier in front. Diamond Head's eastern face seems within arm's reach. Absolutely beautiful. Some scrambling is required. Didn't see a single sole during the entire hike except one person at the top of the cone. I didn't bring a camera, so no record. ~2 hrs one way.

Back to the shelter, packed, and left ~noon. Arrived at the car by 4pm. Again, much slower than average. Lots of people coming up this day, at least 3 on bikes.

Practicality: 16Km east of Hwy 99 on Mamquam Rd (~10Km is good gravel with potholes at times), 4 Km north of Squamish. ~1.7 hrs from Vancouver. $25 shelter fee at Elfin Lakes per family per night, or $10 pp, or $5 for camp site, parking included. Mamquam Lake has camp sites.

2010.8.21. Mt Rainier in clouds

Saw it only along the drive in the morning. Paradise in completely foggy. Sometimes the visibility is only 10 meters. An interesting effect, at least it blurred the thousands of visitors. Very strange weather this year. Colder than when I came early March this year. Lots of flowers: avalanche lily together with bear grass, heather and lupine. Took the shuttle up from Longmire. Caught the 2nd last coming down.

Comet Falls is tall and loud. A very pleasant hike for 1.6? or 1.9? miles. A little over an hour of steady slope, a good short workout. The grade tapers off after the bridge. Starting from the cute Christine Falls, shaded, all along many water cascades, and one bridge. Tumbling 320 ft over a cliff, water splashing onto the meadow across, lots of white flowers. On a hot summer day, it would be lovely to get closer.

An uneventful 0.6 miles later, the trail forks left to the Rampart Ridge Trail. Continue straight for Van Trump Park. View opens, and flowers emerge in earnest. Winding up in the meadows. Steep at time. 2200 ft gain total. The trail continues long after the sign of 'end maintained trail'. Lots of flowers. Much less people. Saw only 2 groups. No running water. One couple camped by some snow patches. Turned back there. (Looks like just a bit further up is Mildred Point, which I didn't know. Maybe next time.) The weather cleared a bit around 5:30. Some mountains close by showed up. Mt Rainier is still in hiding. Too cloudy to see Adams or St Helens. It was a wonderful view last summer when I came (but forgot to bring camera. This time, I almost lost my camera.) Total round trip: 3.5 hours (including breaks).

Went to a buffet place on the way back to Seattle. Probably gained more calorie than what's spent during the hike.