Cathedral Rock loop hike, 27-29 Oct
Nov. 21st, 2006 07:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Pictures of animal tracks:
Thursday 26 Oct 2006
After work I drove out to Tucquala Meadows trailhead, to stay the night there and get an early start the next day, on a three-day Cathedral Rock - Deception Pass loop. Stopped in North Bend for air for my tires, for a Northwest Forest pass since mine's actually been expired for a while, for remedial boot grease and gloves to apply it (since I'd called the ranger station and found out there was snow at higher elevations, which I hadn't really thought about), for a Blimpie sandwich to eat half of as dinner later and half for lunch tomorrow. I ordered a "VegiMax" which I assumed somehow would be heaps of vegetables, but turned out to harbor a protein patty.
It was raining as I came to exit 80, and raining as I drove up to Salmon La Sac. Before or after the town of Ronald a dog lurched into the road, not flinching at the shriek of my short skid.
I pulled over into one of the pulloffs by the lake, to look out across the darkness. A far echoing howl of a dog or some cousin. A light like a campfire high up, on an invisible hill it could be. A touch of old snow on the ground now.
Up FS 4330 in the dark and rain for a stated ten miles. I measure it longer, but maybe that's my weaving around potholes. A spire of water when your wheel hits a pothole, like you're torpedoed. A small rodent circled fast like a doodlebug in the sudden lights and vanished away. More snow on the ground up here.
I pulled into some dirt lot, got out with a headlamp, and found that this was the Cathedral Rock trailhead. No campsites were obvious. I went on to the end of the road, parked, and ate my half-VegiMax, in darkness, by dead reckoning. It was after nine by now. Then poked around and found a good-looking place to pitch a tent, flat snowless duff under trees.
Then I greased my boots. The welt-beads (terminological stab in the dark here) around the soles are cracked, and one toe's sole is splitting. But at least the leather is greased.
Friday 27 Oct 2006
My *heels* were numb this morning, and selected toes. The heels must get it from concentrating foot-weight, compressing the sleeping back onto the floor of the tent. A full-length sleeping pad would be good now. Or a set of heelcaps, with elastic bands to put over the front of the ankle to hold them on.
I lay in the tent for a snooze-iteration or two after I first woke, hoping the rain would clear up. Rain had not been forecast for Friday through Sunday, though I hadn't thought to check the Thursday forecast, so I'd grant that was legitimate rain if you'd pull this stuff. It kept raining. but sun stole through now, enough for photos of droplets on leaves and lichen drapery glowing. I packed up, made breakfast, sorted out every last-minute packing issue, left the car here, and walked back down the road to my entry TH at about noon.
Climbed up into damp snow on the ground and trail. Footprints on the trail, so far. Dents of snowballs off trees into the snow look like animal footprints, where they splatter or catch twigs. To Squaw Lake for lunchtime around 2. Camprobber jays greeted me as I came near, and looked me over. I finished my VegiMax, near as I could stomach the clammy moist tail of the bread. The jays were always sidling closer, eyeing my food, and some brave ones would fly at it hoping to startle me. A certain stump of branch looked like a jay out of the corner of my eye, repeatedly, though through no resemblance that I could pin down. The sun was out now, and it's a pretty little lake, steep-walled behind. I felt a happy sensation of hearing the air, the sunlight's running through it. Found two carcasses of crows or ravens nearby, jays picking at the red meat. Why were they so insistent for mine? Or were they not, and just trying to drive me away so I mightn't poach their lunch?
Snow cover of half a foot to a foot, enough to make the trail a bit obscure, but not enough to hide it. The rim of this year's growth on the amabilis firs is covered with water droplets, but the older growth has none. Walked through mostly open snowy country, sunny now, starting to see Cathedral Rock, up to the last and least small of the lakelets before the Rock.
Traipsed around looking for a tent site -- found a flat spot on two feet of snow, walked around east near to the edge down into the valley, and found a spot there, not too flat but actually bare of snow for about 1050 tent-millifootprints, and not muddy either -- hemlock-needly. Four or five o'clock now; the last direct light of the sun lifting off the snow. I set up camp (the use of a small stuffsack to help with tossing the food-hanging rope is a good idea, stolen for free from a $20 implementation at REI), and took a light pack on a little ways to Cathedral Pass, to watch the sun set across that bowl of mountains, shoot light through the gaps. Soon the only thing anywhere visible still struck by the sun is the squarish split block of stone on top of the Rock, still reddish.
The eastern sky glowed, too, and the snow glowed dimly pink in the sky-light.
My boots had let slush-water in, and my socks were soggy. I changed into dry socks, and the boots didn't carry enough water to get them damp.
Dinner, mostly Lipton Sides Garlic Shells made with buttermilk powder and freeze-dried vegetables. These dried mango slices have been sweetened, I'm pretty sure.
Saturday 28 Oct 2006
A dream: dragging myself on my belly across the desert with a philosopher riding beside, a horse or a bicycle, but dragging myself with immensely powerful arms. A young woman treated everyone to lemon orchid ices, the specialty of the establishment.
Putting my sit-pad (the aluminized tarp folded up in its envelope) under my feet has keep them warm. Yay, don't have to carry a bigger sleeping pad.
I got up with the idea of going to the pass again, as a morning jaunt. Sun just risen over the southeastern mountains. The Cle Elum valley was filled with light pouring up from the south, but flowed still with cold cloud at the bottom the light hadn't found, and trees there stood gray like ghosts. I shot photos of the light everywhere.
Then, with a food-bar down from the cache, went to the pass. The western view was not much in morning compared to the evening before, really. I saw a Nalgene bottle in the rocks I sat on that proved to be a cache planted by a Mountain Stalker, of useful emergency items, and a logbook. It had been placed just a few weeks ago, and found a couple of times, most recently by a group of Redmond middle-schoolers on their way to Peggy's Pond. No going there now, with the snow on the scrambly trail, the ranger told me, and I didn't even see where the trail would be, no. Walking back I looked again at the fork in the trail where I'd take the PCT onwards for my loop. The trail looked unclear in the snowy field.
I made breakfast and packed up. Heading for the valley floor today, maybe the upper lake -- would make for a short walk out tomorrow, and I preferred to camp down out of the snow this night.
The PCT proved not hard to find with a little guessing. This was beautiful walking, dry drifted snow in open country with the Rock looming above slowly turning. Animals have passed along the trail too. Lots of canine footprints.
The trail runs along the top of the valley for a ways, and then begins switchbacking down, to what is signed as a difficult ford -- I hear that the official recommendation is not to use the PCT at all, but to detour via the valley floor. I didn't expect it to be hazardous this far past snowmelt, but had been considering whether I should wade in boots and get them soaking wet, or go barefoot in icy water. As it happens, the creek was dry.
High pants as the key insight? I find that the source of discomfort with the pack's waist-strap is when it and the bulkier seam at the top of my pants both ride over the edge of my hip-bone. So if I pull the top of my pants way up over my hips...
The trail slopes downwards and will then gain a bit back to the Deception Pass. At lower altitude it was slush on mud, slippery. It passed tunnelly through brushy aspen thickets growing in slide gullies, where some were weighed to the ground by snow, but would spring up as you stepped over them, and others were holding wodges of slippery snow at neck level to crouch under.
A stream-gorge that barely showed up on the map; this stream was rock-hopping to cross. Winds and clouds pouring over the north-west corner of the valley. I came to the pass, continued a bit northwards just to be there (and stepped into King County, it turned out), then headed down the valley slope. Saw a huge paw print, a bear, and guiltily unmuffled my bear bell. My knees twinged a bit from the downhill. A bit below the Tuck and Robin side trail I hit people tracks, someone who had come up this far and turned around. A lovely lion's mane. I came down to the valley floor and started keeping an eye out for campsites. Little to no snow on the ground down here.
I changed into the last pair of dry socks, and splayed the wet ones out on bushes to dry a tiny bit until I took them in for the night. Refilled water, and made dinner of dried vegetables, instant rice, and tuna filet in a pouch. This worked out pretty well. I found that my feet were getting cold, and felt wet. I took the boots off and found that indeed this time the socks were getting wet, which was not good since they were wanted for sleeping tonight and walking tomorrow. I stuck my bare feet back in the wet boots to keep them not too cold (my feet that is; no, seriously), and hit on the idea of heating the damp socks over the stove flame, to steam some water out. Socks' singe point: shockingly low! They didn't burn much, they just smelled funny, from stray fibrils going up. I think it dried them a little. I wore them to bed, dampish, and foot-heat dried them by morning.
Lay on my back in the middle of a clearing, a small window through the trees overhead, and saw one south-going and one east-going satellite.
Sunday 29 Oct 2006
A dream: shown a lateral-thinking puzzle of two illustrations of a sink in Grand Central Station, and asked to explain what was different and why. I didn't see any difference. I gave up. I had been supposed to see the different tone used to color the porcelain, slightly redder, and to infer that it was the residue of a million New Yorkers' nosebleeds.
Sleet was ticking against the tent walls, and then snow. It was snowing fairly heavily. I went out to the lakeshore; the far wall of the valley had disappeared in gray. Hands way too cold in the light liner gloves, so I dug out the mittens. Made tea and oatmeal, knocked the snow off the tent, and packed it up.
The woods were full of pale yellow leaves and white snow. Through lulls in the snow I could see yesterday's trail as a streak sloping down the valley's far wall.
Driving out, a mountain and its flying clouds shrinking as I looked at them -- motion aftereffect from driving with everything enlarging towards me. I parked in the Salmon La Sac station lot and ate lunch. As I passed down by the lake it was still snowing heavily, and windy, and yellow poplars waved their leaves in the swirling white. Fat heavy flakes covered me as I stopped in one of the pullouts and dashed out to try to get pictures of the white lakebed. A black trunk with yellow halo.
The snow lessened and turned to rain as I came back down towards I-90. I headed east, to visit Hollie and Greg since I was so near by anyway. Broken clouds now, and light standing on the hills. A hawk slipping fast sideways across the road.
Good visiting. Snoqualmie Pass ended up closed, so I came back Monday morning.
More pictures:
Pictures of animal tracks:
Thursday 26 Oct 2006
After work I drove out to Tucquala Meadows trailhead, to stay the night there and get an early start the next day, on a three-day Cathedral Rock - Deception Pass loop. Stopped in North Bend for air for my tires, for a Northwest Forest pass since mine's actually been expired for a while, for remedial boot grease and gloves to apply it (since I'd called the ranger station and found out there was snow at higher elevations, which I hadn't really thought about), for a Blimpie sandwich to eat half of as dinner later and half for lunch tomorrow. I ordered a "VegiMax" which I assumed somehow would be heaps of vegetables, but turned out to harbor a protein patty.
It was raining as I came to exit 80, and raining as I drove up to Salmon La Sac. Before or after the town of Ronald a dog lurched into the road, not flinching at the shriek of my short skid.
I pulled over into one of the pulloffs by the lake, to look out across the darkness. A far echoing howl of a dog or some cousin. A light like a campfire high up, on an invisible hill it could be. A touch of old snow on the ground now.
Up FS 4330 in the dark and rain for a stated ten miles. I measure it longer, but maybe that's my weaving around potholes. A spire of water when your wheel hits a pothole, like you're torpedoed. A small rodent circled fast like a doodlebug in the sudden lights and vanished away. More snow on the ground up here.
I pulled into some dirt lot, got out with a headlamp, and found that this was the Cathedral Rock trailhead. No campsites were obvious. I went on to the end of the road, parked, and ate my half-VegiMax, in darkness, by dead reckoning. It was after nine by now. Then poked around and found a good-looking place to pitch a tent, flat snowless duff under trees.
Then I greased my boots. The welt-beads (terminological stab in the dark here) around the soles are cracked, and one toe's sole is splitting. But at least the leather is greased.
Friday 27 Oct 2006
My *heels* were numb this morning, and selected toes. The heels must get it from concentrating foot-weight, compressing the sleeping back onto the floor of the tent. A full-length sleeping pad would be good now. Or a set of heelcaps, with elastic bands to put over the front of the ankle to hold them on.
I lay in the tent for a snooze-iteration or two after I first woke, hoping the rain would clear up. Rain had not been forecast for Friday through Sunday, though I hadn't thought to check the Thursday forecast, so I'd grant that was legitimate rain if you'd pull this stuff. It kept raining. but sun stole through now, enough for photos of droplets on leaves and lichen drapery glowing. I packed up, made breakfast, sorted out every last-minute packing issue, left the car here, and walked back down the road to my entry TH at about noon.
Climbed up into damp snow on the ground and trail. Footprints on the trail, so far. Dents of snowballs off trees into the snow look like animal footprints, where they splatter or catch twigs. To Squaw Lake for lunchtime around 2. Camprobber jays greeted me as I came near, and looked me over. I finished my VegiMax, near as I could stomach the clammy moist tail of the bread. The jays were always sidling closer, eyeing my food, and some brave ones would fly at it hoping to startle me. A certain stump of branch looked like a jay out of the corner of my eye, repeatedly, though through no resemblance that I could pin down. The sun was out now, and it's a pretty little lake, steep-walled behind. I felt a happy sensation of hearing the air, the sunlight's running through it. Found two carcasses of crows or ravens nearby, jays picking at the red meat. Why were they so insistent for mine? Or were they not, and just trying to drive me away so I mightn't poach their lunch?
Snow cover of half a foot to a foot, enough to make the trail a bit obscure, but not enough to hide it. The rim of this year's growth on the amabilis firs is covered with water droplets, but the older growth has none. Walked through mostly open snowy country, sunny now, starting to see Cathedral Rock, up to the last and least small of the lakelets before the Rock.
Traipsed around looking for a tent site -- found a flat spot on two feet of snow, walked around east near to the edge down into the valley, and found a spot there, not too flat but actually bare of snow for about 1050 tent-millifootprints, and not muddy either -- hemlock-needly. Four or five o'clock now; the last direct light of the sun lifting off the snow. I set up camp (the use of a small stuffsack to help with tossing the food-hanging rope is a good idea, stolen for free from a $20 implementation at REI), and took a light pack on a little ways to Cathedral Pass, to watch the sun set across that bowl of mountains, shoot light through the gaps. Soon the only thing anywhere visible still struck by the sun is the squarish split block of stone on top of the Rock, still reddish.
The eastern sky glowed, too, and the snow glowed dimly pink in the sky-light.
My boots had let slush-water in, and my socks were soggy. I changed into dry socks, and the boots didn't carry enough water to get them damp.
Dinner, mostly Lipton Sides Garlic Shells made with buttermilk powder and freeze-dried vegetables. These dried mango slices have been sweetened, I'm pretty sure.
Saturday 28 Oct 2006
A dream: dragging myself on my belly across the desert with a philosopher riding beside, a horse or a bicycle, but dragging myself with immensely powerful arms. A young woman treated everyone to lemon orchid ices, the specialty of the establishment.
Putting my sit-pad (the aluminized tarp folded up in its envelope) under my feet has keep them warm. Yay, don't have to carry a bigger sleeping pad.
I got up with the idea of going to the pass again, as a morning jaunt. Sun just risen over the southeastern mountains. The Cle Elum valley was filled with light pouring up from the south, but flowed still with cold cloud at the bottom the light hadn't found, and trees there stood gray like ghosts. I shot photos of the light everywhere.
Then, with a food-bar down from the cache, went to the pass. The western view was not much in morning compared to the evening before, really. I saw a Nalgene bottle in the rocks I sat on that proved to be a cache planted by a Mountain Stalker, of useful emergency items, and a logbook. It had been placed just a few weeks ago, and found a couple of times, most recently by a group of Redmond middle-schoolers on their way to Peggy's Pond. No going there now, with the snow on the scrambly trail, the ranger told me, and I didn't even see where the trail would be, no. Walking back I looked again at the fork in the trail where I'd take the PCT onwards for my loop. The trail looked unclear in the snowy field.
I made breakfast and packed up. Heading for the valley floor today, maybe the upper lake -- would make for a short walk out tomorrow, and I preferred to camp down out of the snow this night.
The PCT proved not hard to find with a little guessing. This was beautiful walking, dry drifted snow in open country with the Rock looming above slowly turning. Animals have passed along the trail too. Lots of canine footprints.
The trail runs along the top of the valley for a ways, and then begins switchbacking down, to what is signed as a difficult ford -- I hear that the official recommendation is not to use the PCT at all, but to detour via the valley floor. I didn't expect it to be hazardous this far past snowmelt, but had been considering whether I should wade in boots and get them soaking wet, or go barefoot in icy water. As it happens, the creek was dry.
High pants as the key insight? I find that the source of discomfort with the pack's waist-strap is when it and the bulkier seam at the top of my pants both ride over the edge of my hip-bone. So if I pull the top of my pants way up over my hips...
The trail slopes downwards and will then gain a bit back to the Deception Pass. At lower altitude it was slush on mud, slippery. It passed tunnelly through brushy aspen thickets growing in slide gullies, where some were weighed to the ground by snow, but would spring up as you stepped over them, and others were holding wodges of slippery snow at neck level to crouch under.
A stream-gorge that barely showed up on the map; this stream was rock-hopping to cross. Winds and clouds pouring over the north-west corner of the valley. I came to the pass, continued a bit northwards just to be there (and stepped into King County, it turned out), then headed down the valley slope. Saw a huge paw print, a bear, and guiltily unmuffled my bear bell. My knees twinged a bit from the downhill. A bit below the Tuck and Robin side trail I hit people tracks, someone who had come up this far and turned around. A lovely lion's mane. I came down to the valley floor and started keeping an eye out for campsites. Little to no snow on the ground down here.
I changed into the last pair of dry socks, and splayed the wet ones out on bushes to dry a tiny bit until I took them in for the night. Refilled water, and made dinner of dried vegetables, instant rice, and tuna filet in a pouch. This worked out pretty well. I found that my feet were getting cold, and felt wet. I took the boots off and found that indeed this time the socks were getting wet, which was not good since they were wanted for sleeping tonight and walking tomorrow. I stuck my bare feet back in the wet boots to keep them not too cold (my feet that is; no, seriously), and hit on the idea of heating the damp socks over the stove flame, to steam some water out. Socks' singe point: shockingly low! They didn't burn much, they just smelled funny, from stray fibrils going up. I think it dried them a little. I wore them to bed, dampish, and foot-heat dried them by morning.
Lay on my back in the middle of a clearing, a small window through the trees overhead, and saw one south-going and one east-going satellite.
Sunday 29 Oct 2006
A dream: shown a lateral-thinking puzzle of two illustrations of a sink in Grand Central Station, and asked to explain what was different and why. I didn't see any difference. I gave up. I had been supposed to see the different tone used to color the porcelain, slightly redder, and to infer that it was the residue of a million New Yorkers' nosebleeds.
Sleet was ticking against the tent walls, and then snow. It was snowing fairly heavily. I went out to the lakeshore; the far wall of the valley had disappeared in gray. Hands way too cold in the light liner gloves, so I dug out the mittens. Made tea and oatmeal, knocked the snow off the tent, and packed it up.
The woods were full of pale yellow leaves and white snow. Through lulls in the snow I could see yesterday's trail as a streak sloping down the valley's far wall.
Driving out, a mountain and its flying clouds shrinking as I looked at them -- motion aftereffect from driving with everything enlarging towards me. I parked in the Salmon La Sac station lot and ate lunch. As I passed down by the lake it was still snowing heavily, and windy, and yellow poplars waved their leaves in the swirling white. Fat heavy flakes covered me as I stopped in one of the pullouts and dashed out to try to get pictures of the white lakebed. A black trunk with yellow halo.
The snow lessened and turned to rain as I came back down towards I-90. I headed east, to visit Hollie and Greg since I was so near by anyway. Broken clouds now, and light standing on the hills. A hawk slipping fast sideways across the road.
Good visiting. Snoqualmie Pass ended up closed, so I came back Monday morning.
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Date: 2006-11-21 06:01 pm (UTC)