Lake Serene hike (6/28)
Jul. 8th, 2003 06:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eubFor calibrating future hikes: 8 mi round trip, 2000 ft up (not including the side trip to the falls?). Maybe 3 hr up, 2 down, <1 on the side trip.
We went up to Everett, and east on 2, through Sultan and Gold Bar. The hike is up the base of Mt. Index, to Lake Serene, which is as far up Index as you can go without switching over to rock-climbing.
(About the "Northwest Forest Pass Required" sign in the parking lot, and what's up with the anti-pass demonstrators found at REI: why one fellow doesn't like the pass.)
From the trailhead you start up an old road for a mile and a half. A couple of times you come to forks not mentioned in our book; I think at each one the correct branch is rightwards. The roadbed runs by streams and damp areas, through jewelweed (I have decided) and then salmonberries. Salmonberries taste something like a mulberry without any mulberry flavor or acidity, just the barely rank undertone. At points, at we twist through gullies, it seems we must have left the roadbed, but it's back by the time the trail veers off to the left, near the road's end.
Almost immediately there's a signpost for the side trip up to the falls. We chose to save that for the way down. (Since the falls are on the easterly side, sometime I'd like to see them earlier in the day, in direct light.) Soon there's a bridge crossing the brook below the falls, from which you see them in the distance. (Looking downstream you see a dinosaur with a pillow.)
A little ways further, a side branch of the brook spatters down a face of rock, catching the sun from behind, and another spills down stepped slabs.
Now the trail strikes upwards, on stairs, stairs, and stairs. What it was like before this civil engineering work I don't like to imagine. Mid-day on a fine Saturday, we were passed by a fair parade of people going up, and a few eager beavers coming down. The light on leaves was as always.
A couple of hours up, we cleared the tree cover, coming out into a brushy slope of littered rock (I'd not be surprised if it was kept clear of trees by avalanche), with a view of the peaks of Index. Are we there yet?
Finally we came to Lake Serene, in a pocket of the mountain. The trail runs a little around the lake: on a log bridge (with one handrail) over a loose raft of bare timber, up stairs (we'd thought we were free and clear of them!), and to a glacier-scoured boulder. I scuffled down a crack, to the water. The water is pale jade-green under the skin of reflected sky, misleadingly clear, deepening to aquamarine. Diacaustics danced on the bottom.
We were hungry. We ate lunch on a log in the shade, then sat in the sun on the scoured rock, snacking further on Brie with crackers.
Across the lake: the peaks of Index, snow patches, scree down to the water. Towards the left you see an angular block, which I'd guess was two-three stories high. People sunned themselves, and jumped from it. The scale of things was difficult to get a fix on; the scree-rock looks like gravel, but that pocket of pines is full-sized, and the scattered rocks are bigger than the people standing on the beach.
We saw how people were going around. It was no real trail, and soon led along obscure footholds at the base of a slab that plunged into the lake. On average we felt that was a bit much. Probably this was virtuous in hindsight, since the area was crowded and shouldn't have to take all that off-trail traffic.
To swim was tempting (on average), but we hadn't thought to bring suits, so we had the question of how much clothing to wear into the water and then hike home dripping in -- especially as the lakeside was crawling with audience. We queued up for a rock that sat out from the shore (behind me); when the current party was done with its turn, we waded out, left on it the clothes to keep dry, and tried to stare down the chilly water.
I jumped in. The chilly water we had waded through was the warm surface layer; below this was numbing cold. I tried to remain all coplanar in swimming, to avoid dipping arms and legs below the shallow thermocline. Megan stood with her feet in the deep cold until her feet wouldn't stand any longer, and she had to bring them back to body temperature. Then she lowered herself in slowly, baring her teeth, but without stopping. I came out onto the rock and rewarmed, went back in, and repeated the cycle. When I'd had enough I sat dripping discreetly, drying off. Megan had now been in for half a dozen dips, but couldn't seem to stop. I was tasked with admonishing her if she went in again, but turned coat and encouraged her. Sorry.
Heidi had rather stay on the shore; she had brought plenty of books, and had a number of plants we'd seen on the way up to try to identify. (Unfortunately I couldn't get any of the identifications to stick in my head, except goatsbeard (i.e. Aruncus, not Tragopogon).) She waded and had a dinosaur on her head.
It would have been interesting to stay unto the sun dipped behind the peaks of Index, cutting off the blue air obscuring them, but that would have been darker on the way down. By the time we left the light was aslant, outlining the glacier-scoured boulder.
A mossy tree stretched in a patch of sun. Its branching habit -- trunk and cantilevers -- isn't what I'm used to from a maple, but that's what it is.
I saw an animal I don't know, in between a rat and a marmot in size, something like a less-prolate guinea pig.
At the base of the spattering falls trickled combs of water, with ferns.
The sun was now setting behind the mountains, laying swathes of dim shadow and distant light.
We were tired by the time we came back down to the fork up to the falls, but we took it anyway, I think because I bounced puppyishly. It was more stairs, many more stairs, but short -- half a mile, maybe. On the way, a snake's-head tree. Then the falls, bridal veils tracing trickle and splash pattern on the skew-split rock face. Closer, a chilly, soaking, gusty blast of air whipped along the ground. I crouched down, closed my eyes against the spray, to feel it against my face.
Heidi and Megan sat below the falls as I walked a little farther down, to where a branch of the water falls down another cliff -- maybe to the spattering falls?
I sunburned my hair-part.
We went up to Everett, and east on 2, through Sultan and Gold Bar. The hike is up the base of Mt. Index, to Lake Serene, which is as far up Index as you can go without switching over to rock-climbing.
(About the "Northwest Forest Pass Required" sign in the parking lot, and what's up with the anti-pass demonstrators found at REI: why one fellow doesn't like the pass.)
From the trailhead you start up an old road for a mile and a half. A couple of times you come to forks not mentioned in our book; I think at each one the correct branch is rightwards. The roadbed runs by streams and damp areas, through jewelweed (I have decided) and then salmonberries. Salmonberries taste something like a mulberry without any mulberry flavor or acidity, just the barely rank undertone. At points, at we twist through gullies, it seems we must have left the roadbed, but it's back by the time the trail veers off to the left, near the road's end.
Almost immediately there's a signpost for the side trip up to the falls. We chose to save that for the way down. (Since the falls are on the easterly side, sometime I'd like to see them earlier in the day, in direct light.) Soon there's a bridge crossing the brook below the falls, from which you see them in the distance. (Looking downstream you see a dinosaur with a pillow.)
A little ways further, a side branch of the brook spatters down a face of rock, catching the sun from behind, and another spills down stepped slabs.
Now the trail strikes upwards, on stairs, stairs, and stairs. What it was like before this civil engineering work I don't like to imagine. Mid-day on a fine Saturday, we were passed by a fair parade of people going up, and a few eager beavers coming down. The light on leaves was as always.
A couple of hours up, we cleared the tree cover, coming out into a brushy slope of littered rock (I'd not be surprised if it was kept clear of trees by avalanche), with a view of the peaks of Index. Are we there yet?
Finally we came to Lake Serene, in a pocket of the mountain. The trail runs a little around the lake: on a log bridge (with one handrail) over a loose raft of bare timber, up stairs (we'd thought we were free and clear of them!), and to a glacier-scoured boulder. I scuffled down a crack, to the water. The water is pale jade-green under the skin of reflected sky, misleadingly clear, deepening to aquamarine. Diacaustics danced on the bottom.
We were hungry. We ate lunch on a log in the shade, then sat in the sun on the scoured rock, snacking further on Brie with crackers.
Across the lake: the peaks of Index, snow patches, scree down to the water. Towards the left you see an angular block, which I'd guess was two-three stories high. People sunned themselves, and jumped from it. The scale of things was difficult to get a fix on; the scree-rock looks like gravel, but that pocket of pines is full-sized, and the scattered rocks are bigger than the people standing on the beach.
We saw how people were going around. It was no real trail, and soon led along obscure footholds at the base of a slab that plunged into the lake. On average we felt that was a bit much. Probably this was virtuous in hindsight, since the area was crowded and shouldn't have to take all that off-trail traffic.
To swim was tempting (on average), but we hadn't thought to bring suits, so we had the question of how much clothing to wear into the water and then hike home dripping in -- especially as the lakeside was crawling with audience. We queued up for a rock that sat out from the shore (behind me); when the current party was done with its turn, we waded out, left on it the clothes to keep dry, and tried to stare down the chilly water.
I jumped in. The chilly water we had waded through was the warm surface layer; below this was numbing cold. I tried to remain all coplanar in swimming, to avoid dipping arms and legs below the shallow thermocline. Megan stood with her feet in the deep cold until her feet wouldn't stand any longer, and she had to bring them back to body temperature. Then she lowered herself in slowly, baring her teeth, but without stopping. I came out onto the rock and rewarmed, went back in, and repeated the cycle. When I'd had enough I sat dripping discreetly, drying off. Megan had now been in for half a dozen dips, but couldn't seem to stop. I was tasked with admonishing her if she went in again, but turned coat and encouraged her. Sorry.
Heidi had rather stay on the shore; she had brought plenty of books, and had a number of plants we'd seen on the way up to try to identify. (Unfortunately I couldn't get any of the identifications to stick in my head, except goatsbeard (i.e. Aruncus, not Tragopogon).) She waded and had a dinosaur on her head.
It would have been interesting to stay unto the sun dipped behind the peaks of Index, cutting off the blue air obscuring them, but that would have been darker on the way down. By the time we left the light was aslant, outlining the glacier-scoured boulder.
A mossy tree stretched in a patch of sun. Its branching habit -- trunk and cantilevers -- isn't what I'm used to from a maple, but that's what it is.
I saw an animal I don't know, in between a rat and a marmot in size, something like a less-prolate guinea pig.
At the base of the spattering falls trickled combs of water, with ferns.
The sun was now setting behind the mountains, laying swathes of dim shadow and distant light.
We were tired by the time we came back down to the fork up to the falls, but we took it anyway, I think because I bounced puppyishly. It was more stairs, many more stairs, but short -- half a mile, maybe. On the way, a snake's-head tree. Then the falls, bridal veils tracing trickle and splash pattern on the skew-split rock face. Closer, a chilly, soaking, gusty blast of air whipped along the ground. I crouched down, closed my eyes against the spray, to feel it against my face.
Heidi and Megan sat below the falls as I walked a little farther down, to where a branch of the water falls down another cliff -- maybe to the spattering falls?
I sunburned my hair-part.
