There was the world of the pavement and there was everything else.
Pavement was the Hurricane Ridge Road, an asphalt tendril climbing out from Port Angeles, and penetrating into the Olympic Mountains. was is the accommodation that allowed the river of internal combustion to flow uphill — the shuddering swarms of Harley’s, Subarus, Tahoes and other vehicles to convey their day-trip passengers toward the snow realm up above.
They looked out of windows, and saw the other world: the treacherous stands of stinging nettles and shoots of devil’s club armed with vicious barbs, diaphanous leaves of the big leaf maple shifting iridescent in the sun mist. They were just starting the climb, these visitors. So was I.
I too, grunted and shuddered my up the pavement, and I did it in the lowest gear on my bike. The plan was to notch another entry in the doorstep chronicles with a doorstep ascent of Klahhane Ridge.
The ridge is 6,000 feet above Port Angeles Harbor. It forms what I think of as the most impressive feature you can see from town. Torturous layers of jagged stone jut up out of the ridge’s west side to create the 6,400 foot summit of Mount Angeles. Snow clings to the shadowed north slope, even in July and August.
I knew I was going to pedal long and hard to get there. I knew my back was going to ache and that I would loathe the traffic going past my bike. The bike ride was the part I wanted to get over with before I traipsed merrily up the trail toward Mount Angeles. I thought of all the cars going by as I kept the bike tires on the narrow margin.
But sometimes you sweat the climb a thousand times before the wheels start turning. As I started up the hill, I found myself in a pleasant frame of mind, enjoying the sun on my face. I let my eyes wander off the road and up the narrow gullies where pearly-white freshets cascaded over moss. Fat orange salmonberries grew in the roadside thickets, though they were not quite ripe enough to eat.
An occasional vehicle did perturb my reverie, but the traffic was far lighter than what I had feared. It had been dumb to spend so much energy climbing the mountain in my mind earlier.
After over an hour of climbing, I had knocked out about five miles, which brought me to the entrance station to Olympic National Park. I found a place in a rumbling line of vehicles, then kicked my bike along with the rest of the traffic inching its way toward the kiosk.
Eighty dollars later, I had a crisp new National Parks Pass in my wallet and was pedaling past thick-trunked Douglas Firs. The investment felt good, especially knowing the threat national parks throughout America face from the current president and others who follow his brand of thug-ignorance.
A vehicle stopped ahead of me so that passengers could click at a doe and her two fawns — the size of puppies with delicate white spots along their flanks. These park deer registered minimal concern about my bicycle or the other traffic along the road. I hoped no one had been feeding them, but the world is rich in well-meaning fools.
The lush understory from the lower elevations dropped away to thinner pine forest, with long views across the valley to Blue Mountain and the snow covered face of the Obstruction Point ridge. Day-trippers wandered from their cars to get in front of the views.
“You must be a glutton for punishment,” one woman called after me as I chugged by with my heavy pack.
“I’m loving it out here,” I called back.
Fifteen miles and 4,000 feet after I left my doorstep, I pulled my bicycle up to the trailhead for the Switchback Trail. I immediately peeled out of my soaked shirt and replaced it. A couple of peanut butter banana wraps were the calories I needed before the hike. Water gushed down the mountain valley, melting off the thick patches of snow higher up the way. A guy plodded down the trail with a pair of skis on his back. A minute later, his daughters caught up with him, also with skis.
“How was it out there?” I asked.
It was skiing for the sake of novelty at this point, the man admitted. They had found mushy snow that tended to cave in near rock outcrops. The biggest worry was the fog, which was still wrapped around the mountains higher up. There were no regrets about getting up there though.
The beginning of the Switchback Trail was a muddy line zigging up between stands of Alaska yellow cedar and mountain meadow. Tiny alpine flowers were coming into bloom. Groups of black-tailed deer meandered lazily through their forage, with velvet on their antlers.
I encountered snow gradually, then all at once. A few patches over the trail, became large swaths where other hikers had kicked steps in for traction. No need for me to get the crampons out yet. I did use an ice axe to cut up a couple of switchbacks on the snow.
Typically, cutting switchbacks is a hiking sin, because it tramps out vegetation and can cause erosion. In this case, the snow absorbed the impact of my waffle stomping feet and I could proceed guiltless.
Still, the axe and crampons proved to be overkill for the expedition, where the majority of the climb was snow free.
By the time I reached the crest of Klahhane Ridge, the clouds had closed in thoroughly. This was my turnaround goal, Climbing to 6,000 feet from my home at 300 feet above sea level wasn’t such a bad day. Yet, I knew I could go further. Last year, I had taken a little used side trail up to one of the peaks of Mount Angeles. The tallest peak (which I’d also climbed last year) would be out of reach from this approach, but I would still be at almost the same height of 6,400.
The ridge divided the mostly snow-free area where I hiked, from an entirely different world on the north face. Here, in the shadows, I could peer over a 45 degree slope, where a chest-deep slab of winter snow held onto the rock. Peering down, the white snow blended seamless into the nothingness of the cloud layers. It was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. The depthless white concealed danger as well as or better than darkness would. I understood why the skiers had been freaked out.
Still…what a ride it would be. All I had to do is hop over the edge, and start sliding on my butt. I’d gather speed — tremendous speed — as I flew into that great white unknown with the ice axe as my only brake. It was a thought that was as terrifying as it was appealing. I thought of Herman Melville who wrote a whole chapter in Moby Dick regarding the terror of white:
“…there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood.”
The rock scree on the south side of the mountain was enough excitement for the blood right then. The slope looked like a cake turned on its side, with various shales, sandstones and basalts that were bastard children of volcanism and ocean floor upheaval. The rock was pulverized into bits and pieces. I kicked my boots in for purchase in pencil shards of shale.
The basalt was more solid, but still dicey. I test wiggled every hand hold before I put weight on it. Often I would find a toaster-sized rock, just waiting to tumble down slope. When I had the chance, I used my axe to “dry tool” out holds in the rock above me. There were even a couple of snow slopes, that I used the axe for, though I didn’t bother putting the crampons on. Carrying them up 6,000 feet of mountain was just my way of making sure I got the proper dose of exercise that day.
Eventually, the rock got more technical — as in technically, it was class IV climbing if that sounds impressive. I ditched the backpack, and scrambled my way up the last section to a lookout slab.
The clouds hid plenty, but I also saw a good amount of the June snow slopes to my north. The concealing nature of the fog made the jagged landscape more mysterious and menacing. I grinned in the wind for a couple minutes, then started down.
Descending the scree was predictably unpleasant. I placed little trust in any one footfall. Still, I got a little fun out of glissading down a couple snow slopes. I got a little too ebullient on one of these jaunts, and missed my chance to sink my axe in before the snow went out. The result was a bit like coming to the end of a waterslide to find that someone had replaced the pool with a gravel pit.
I emerged slightly battered and slightly humbled, to hike the rest of the way down the Switchback Trail (and glissade a few more snow slopes.) Though I had hauled heavy snow pants up this far, I didn’t bother putting them on. Instead, I worked on a new glissade technique, sliding backwards on my hands and feet with the axe twisted sideways. When it was time to hit the brakes, I turned the axe into the snow. The method worked OK, for the short sections that I had to deal with, though my hands were thoroughly chilled in their thin gloves.
Near the bottom of the trail, I took a moment to sit on a boulder, while clouds parted and mountains strobed in and out of the early evening light. I let myself breathe in satisfaction. These are moments that reaffirm that adventures, even day trips, have unfathomable worth to me. More and more, I have begun to believe in the Doorstep Adventure and I want to take more of them. If I cannot be in the places I love most, without putting money in the pockets of the people that destroy them, perhaps I don’t deserve to be there.
And it is important to find an equal measure of joy to the hardship that comes with getting into wild places without an automobile. Otherwise, why the hell did you bother coming out?
If you drive up to Hurricane Ridge and have a crappy time, you wasted a couple hours and a few dollars’ worth of gas. No biggie. Hey, let’s catch a movie sequel at the theater.
If you bike, hike or run from sea level, you better enjoy yourself out there, or else you just squandered a day’s worth of time and effort. So you have a good time.
The bike ride up had been fun for sure. The ride down was a complete blast: 14 miles of (almost) unadulterated descent. I leaned my way past curves and through mountain tunnels, white knuckling it with fingers on the brakes. I used the brakes as little as possible.
As I wheeled my road bike out onto the street to start my doorstep adventure, I could still see margins of frost on the north face of the neighbor’s roof. Soon the frost would retreat as the sun continued its climb. Higher up, fields of bright white snow filled the bowls and couloirs of Klahanne Ridge. It would stay white up there a while longer.
Yet, the expanse of frozen waste and toothy crags could be mistaken for mere background decoration to the fresh green day that was unfolding in Port Angeles — a glory of spring warmth complete with chirping birds, blossoming cherry trees fresh cut lawns, and the earthy smell of living organisms crawling out of winter sleep.
The disparate scenes were separated by several miles and a couple thousand feet of elevation. Today’s adventure was about closing that gap.
By biking, then hiking and finally snowshoeing up the ridge, I would feel the challenge of the mountains while taking the chance to connect with their snowy realm.
There was a mighty pack on my shoulders, flanked by powder snowshoes and a trekking pole/ice axe. It didn’t take long for that weight to feel uncomfortable on my spine. In the best case scenario, I imagined that I would be able to traipse across 6,000-foot Klahhane Ridge itself. I had ran up there from Port Angeles while training for my ultra marathon last summer. With deep snow in the equation however, the task wouldn’t be so simple. Avalanche forecasts called for elevated risk of slides, especially above tree line. I remembered encountering harsh slopes on my summer runs, which could be hazard zones. If nothing else, I knew I could travel to 5,000 feet or so and get amazing views.
I biked out of the neighborhood past the National Park Headquarters and onto Hurricane Ridge Road. There would be five miles of uphill biking to the Heather Park Trailhead at 1,800 feet.
I ground through the miles, weeping for my aching back. Cars swept up and down easily past me. Why do I have to make everything so hard?
Sometimes I brought my head up to appreciate the endless pavement view in front of me. Mostly I watched the little twigs and bits of gravel creep by my tires. There was progress, at least in the small scale.
Shoes
I made it to the trailhead parking lot by 10:20 a.m., and locked my bike against a sapling.
Other hikers were loading and unloading themselves into vehicles. Most of them, I guessed, were going up the more popular Lake Angeles Trail.
Still, I was in no mood to get caught up in another group of walkers. I was loaded too heavily to run, but managed an aggressive walk up the smooth grade of dead pine needles. At this elevation, the evergreen salal and Oregon grape shrubs grew in abundance. Big leaf maples with mossy limbs still found niches between western red cedar and the Douglass fir. After a few switchbacks, the maples would fall behind and the scrub would disappear.
An hour of climbing switchbacks brought me to the first dabs of icy snow up in the trees. They fell in a barrage of hard little pellets as the sun loosened their grasp upon the branches. Within a hundred yards, a hard-crusted, slippery snow firmed over the trail, dusted with a fine layer of powder. Hikers who had gone before had already worn some indents into the crust which were useful to prevent sliding. I thought of my snowshoes, but decided to wait until I encountered snow that I might sink into.
The more I climbed, the trickier travel on the crust became. The trail traversed the mountainside, but not enough people had been through to notch it out. The result: My feet constantly slid out to the left. Snowy branches above the trail waited for me to brush against them so they could dump their payload down my neck.
I could have protected myself by putting my rain jacket on. Some gaiters for my legs would have been nice too. I also wanted to eat lunch. Still, I knew the transition would take time and I didn’t want to stop for all of that, only to have to stop again and take my snowshoes out — or peel a layer off because I was sweating. I wanted to be in the place where I could do all those things, and I wanted it to be in the warm sun.
There had been one lookout that I had been saving up for. Yet, when I passed it, I saw that it was shaded, and that clouds had moved in below to rob me of the view I’d wanted. I kept going until I found a random patch of sun in the trail where I threw my pack off.
Sun or no sun, the cold found me immediately. The rain jacket and parka I threw on were little help to my cooling metabolic furnace. My hands immediately became dumb blocks of frozen meat. Still, I took my mini show shovel out to dig a small indentation in the slope where I could put a sitting pad.
Lunch included some bread heels and hummus, along with a not-too-bad vegan banana brownie I’d made for myself the other day.
Having tossed fuel back into the furnace, it was time to winterize myself. I had decided to go light on my feet, and was only wearing running shoes — not designed to withstand cold, wet snow. But I would make them honorary winter boots. I put plastic bags around my socks to keep water out, then strapped my gaiters on for reinforcement at the ankles. I brought out my ice axe/pole for additional support on the tricky terrain. Finally, I got my snowshoes on and hefted up my pack.
These relatively straightforward tasks were made far more onerous by numb hands that I had to rewarm with body heat several times in the course of my work. I cursed and struggled several minutes trying to get them into warm mittens, pulling with my teeth.
Forty-five minutes had passed between when I stopped for my break and when I started back up the trail.
Snowshoes
Putting snowshoes on was no magic bullet for making the slippery crust terrain more navigable.
I still would slide violently to the left sometimes on the thin powder layer. The spikes on the snowshoes worked best if I were going straight up or down, but the rounded edges afforded little help on the tilt-a-trail. A pair of smaller mountaineering shoes may have been a better ticket.
Having the pole/axe in my hand, did help here and there for certain maneuvers.
I saw the last section of footprints end in a series of postholes. Then I was the one making tracks. Several times I walked sideways because the snowshoes engaged pretty well that way. The constant sliding was jarring though, and I was getting frustrated.
Now and then I would walk straight up the hill off the trail and then cut back over along the edge of a tree well, where the snow was slightly easier to navigate.
During one of these maneuvers, I realized that I’d lost sight of the trail. I half-heartedly searched for it and realized that I didn’t particularly care. I had my tracks to follow and it wasn’t going to snow anytime soon. My slow progress meant that there was no way I was going to make Klahhane Ridge. There was an adjacent, shorter ridge below First Top, a 5,500 foot peak that I could reach by hiking straight up. Seeing that the snowshoes actually did well climbing straight uphill, I decided that this was a course worth pursuing.
There were several helpful cuts in the trees that I could take. As the going got steeper, I found myself swing kicking my snowshoes into the slope for traction, and sometimes climbing over crust ledges. These would take a while because my feet would routinely slide out under the substrate and I might have to kick in several times to get a real foothold. A lot of the sunny areas included crumbly corn snow that gave out easily. The axe would slide right through it without grabbing anything, so I would slam my hands in and pull myself up. I grabbed tree branches when available.
Just when I was beginning to feel like a grubbing animal, a break in the clouds revealed the Dungeness Spit, which jabs five miles out into the Strait. Meanwhile, Klahanne Ridge loomed big as ever behind me. Enormous snow bowls rose up between blades of rock. White wisps of cloud curled off the ridge, while much darker clouds lurked behind — malevolent and full of power.
So much snow everywhere, I thought. If I flew for 50 miles south above the Olympics, no doubt I would see more snow than bare ground. It made me think of my home where I had started and how springtime with its flowers and cut lawns only really existed on a thin strip above the water. These mountains felt more like the true character of the peninsula.
A recent slide had left a run of broken cheddar snow to my left. The slide was shallow, but ran for about a 75 feet down the snowfield, a reminder to stay alert. I chose to avoid a obvious climb up a steep, clear slope by staying in the protection of a downed tree, and then doing a weird, rock climbing/snowshoeing move to get to the top of another ledge.
The slope became more gradual, then I got to where I could see down the other side.
Mount Fitzhenry rose up beyond the Elwha River Valley. The tallest peaks I could see on Vancouver Island were below me, but were still high enough to hold snow. The top of First Top was maybe a quarter mile away, but only by going through a gnarly looking traverse. I decided that I was happy with the view.
Looking back down, I could see Freshwater Bay and Bachelor Rock where I had some fun times kayak surfing earlier this year. Bachelor Rock appeared disconnected to the mainland, so I ascertained it was high tide. And perhaps it was high time that I started heading back to Port Angeles. It was 3 p.m. and there was plenty of sun left, but I didn’t want to get cocky.
Ducking into the shelter of some rocks, I put my parka back on, and worked my snowpants on over my shoes (couldn’t have pulled this move if I’d been in boots.) I was glad for the extra layers, because I was sure to be colder on the way down. After one more look at my surroundings, I began the descent.
Glissade, Run, Ride
Having struggled to find footing on the way up, I had dreaded what the descent had in store for me. Sure enough, my snowshoes soon went out from under me.
As I sat with my butt on the snow, I realized that I was going to be just fine. I could slide down the mountain on my butt quickly and easily in a glissade. The snow pants, which I had thrown into my pack as an afterthought, were now going to be a saving grace. No way would I sit on the snow in thin wind pants up here.
My pole/axe, like the snow pants, was finally proving its worth. The pitches I was sliding down were quite steep. Yet, by holding the pole across my chest and digging the axe head into the crust I could moderate my speed.
Well, mostly.
I lost control a couple times and got swallowed in tree wells beneath Alaska yellow cedars. I kicked off the branches with my snowshoes, crawled away and got in place for another run.
Slide after slide, I ripped down the mountain. A big grin stretched across my face. I realized I was finally having some fun.
When I got back to the trail, I alternated between awkward snowshoe steps and crawling over the crust. If I fell, I just went with the momentum. I felt like a lurching bear, allowing myself to be not-quite in control. Further down, the snow became flatter and I started running.
In a couple places, I glissaded over some switchbacks, but the snow was getting dirtier and sharper as I went down. Melting snow felt like rain off the needles overhead. I snowshoed over crud snow and ice until I got to bare ground and took the shoes off.
I started running again. The pack was lighter now, and the downhill momentum made for a good push. I kept my knees slightly bent to protect them from trauma and put it all on my quadriceps.
The salal and Oregon grape reappeared. By the time I reached my bike, it had only been two hours since I had left the ridge.
There was a short flat section before the downhill descent. I swung into a highway pull out above Port Angeles, and looked northeast. The air was extraordinarily clear, affording me a view of the San Juan Islands and 10,000-foot Mount Baker. Even further north, I could see the white peaks of the mountains near Whistler, Canada.
It is worth mentioning that I tested my brakes before the final descent on Hurricane Ridge Road. It turned out the back back brake was loose. Resetting it was a simple matter. I just flicked a lever back into place. The lessons of last month’s wipeout are still with me, even if the cuts have faded.
I spun the pedals around so that my feet were on the rough sides, kicked off, and started down the road.
Twenty -five minutes later, I was back to my doorstep. The late day light played across the valleys of Klahanne Ridge where the snow still held rein. Those were mountains — not some pretty background decoration from the kitchen window.
As winter retreats up the slopes, I know I will have to spend more time up there.
The snowfall was one thing Lauren and I hadn’t counted on when we set out in search of the Tubal Cain mine in the Dungeness Valley.
First there was the drive up from Sequim, where we climbed a couple thousand feet into the Olympic Mountains via a winding dirt road that was full of potholes. We got to the trailhead a bit before noon. The snow was beginning to pack onto the dirt. Soon enough, it would become impassable.
There was only a light dusting on the trail as we began our hike, but as we gained elevation, the snow deepened. High white peaks glared down on us.
A couple hours into our hike, the trail we’d been following through the trees became a slog through deeper powder. Following the twists and turns of the trail became more difficult. There appeared to be a fork next to some orange flagging. Lauren thought we should go left, but I insisted that we go straight ahead. My way petered out into a meadow a couple minutes later. The snow made it difficult to see where anything went.
We doubled back and tried Lauren’s route, which led into a boulder garden. We passed a few pieces of metal, which seemed out of place. A B-17 had crashed here on a rescue mission back in the ’50s, and apparently the debris had scattered over a large area (though we were probably looking at old mining equipment.) The main crash site was close by, and was a popular spot for visitors to check out, but it seemed unlikely that we would have time to check it out now that it was getting late.
On the pothole road
Lauren at a stream crossing along the trail
Moss closeup
We had both put off lunch for a while, and were hungry. A large, overhanging boulder made for a semi-sheltered rest stop, where we could sit down.
The rocks had a weird smell to them like a mix between stale beer and marijuana. For a second, I wondered if someone else was out there with us, but we had seen no other tracks in the snow.
We sat down on my sleeping pad, eating fistfuls of Lauren’s homemade trail mix. I looked dubiously at a bruised up banana I had brought along. Fortunately, Lauren had the idea to incorporate it into a sandwich with flatbread and pieces of a chocolate bar. As if this weren’t fancy enough, she added a bit of the flambé. Using my lighter in lieu of a torch, she put the chocolate to the flame, melted it over the banana in a fine drizzle. This method took no small amount of time, but the melted chocolate pattern elevated the utilitarian wrap into backcountry gourmet.
Wrap construction and Lauren with the finished product.
Unfortunately, the clock was running down on us.
If we didn’t head back soon, we would likely finish our hike in the dark. I decided that we owed ourselves another 10 minutes of searching for the mine before we called it a day.
I pulled the map out and squinted at the features to see where the trail was supposed to go.
It looked like the mine could be on the other side of a creek, so we crossed over. I took us up a snowy hillside, approaching a cliff wall. Something about this felt right, but I couldn’t tell if I was drawing conclusions based on false optimism. I beat my way ahead of Lauren through the drifted snow on the way uphill. There was a patch of gravel that looked trail-like. Once again, there was that strange skunky odor in the air. A few steps beyond and I was at the bottom of the cliff.
And there was the mine! It was a dark opening, a mouth in the gray body of the rock.
Row on row of icicles hung above the darkness like an array of fangs.
The beast had announced itself with stale breath — the dead odor that I had perceived earlier.
A drool of a stream gurgled out from the unseen depths.
Come on in.
I let myself savor my trepidation and turned back down the slope.
“Whoo Lauren! Come on up! You gotta see this!”
Several icicles fell off the rocks and smashed into the stream below. Plenty more of them were waiting up there — a definite hazard.
I also wanted to go in. But how far did the rabbit hole go?
I took a headlamp and a small lantern out from my pack. Well, we’d come this far.
Lauren was game to accompany me on some minor-league spelunking. I walked in first, with ginger steps upon the various stones and pieces of smashed up wood poking up above the water. There were segments of dilapidated tracks that would have transported cars full of ore back in the day.
Here in there were half-rusted pipes put in there God-knows-when; I only trusted half of them not to shatter beneath my feet. I shone the light in front of me, saw only a uniform corridor, retreating to oblivion. There was no undulation or other variation as in what one would expect from an ordinary cave. Neither were there stalactites or stalagmites. It was just tall enough to walk under, just wide enough to stretch hands out to reach either side.
A century ago, efficient men had chipped the tunnel straight and direct into the rock so it would bring them to the copper ore. The mine was named after Tubal Cain, a metalsmith and the biblical descendant of Cain — Abel’s jealous brother. For all the work that the men had put in, the mine had brought more hardship than profit. The clearest legacy of the men’s labors was the straight and narrow shaft bored into the rock.
There was one variation against the uniformity of the stone however. It was on the ceiling, where I perceived small hanging objects, here and there. Small, furry, hanging objects.
I turned carefully around to Lauren, noticed one of them near her head.
“Sooooo…” I said in a voice that was meant to sound calm, and which likely inspired the opposite, “How do you feel about bats?”
“I actually really don’t like them,” Lauren said.
“OK, so maybe we should walk back out the way we came.”
“You’re seeing bats in here?”
“Just don’t look up at the ceiling.”.
I waited until we made our retreat back to the light to announce that indeed there had been several chiropterans in the mine, one of which had been only a couple feet away from Lauren’s head.
Lauren noted that bats or birds, or anything flying at her head were really not her cup of tea.
They weren’t my cup of tea either. I recalled Stephen King’s book Cujo, where a bat bite turned a once lovable dog into a homicidal killer.
But that was just a story. What business did stories have to do with being afraid of the dark and its mutants and zombies and Gollum and old Tubal Cain himself, waiting for victims dumb enough to enter his lair?
What business?
I turned back to the mouth.
Mountain view within the valley
“I’ll be back in a little bit. I just want to see some more,” I said. You can tell them my story if I don’t come back.
Going back into the cave, I hunched over like Quasimodo, in hopes that any bats I dislodged would miss my face.* The stale air in the shaft made me uneasy. No photosynthesis putting out fresh oxygen here. Our nostrils can tell us much about our proximity to life.
I began to feel hot under my jacket as I walked into the earth. I picked my way above the stream, moving from stone to wood, to any section of pipe I trusted enough to put my weight on. I took one misstep and managed to put half my boot in the water.
“Damn!”
“Are you alright?” Lauren called from the open world far away.
“Yeah, I’m OK.”
I kept trudging forward. I wondered if there would be any side alcoves or tunnels and if I would have the nerve to explore them. A big open chamber would be pretty cool. All I found was the same endless tunnel. Finally, after I spent many minutes of walking straight, the ceiling dropped lower and the walls closed in. The corridor went further toward some unseeable destination.
While the passage was still wide enough to move through on my feet, do to so, I’d have to walk through the stream, which ran deeper in the narrows. With a couple of hours of snowy hiking ahead of me, I was in no mood to turn my feet into ice blocks.
I hated to admit it, but I was relieved not to have an excuse to turn around. If not for the obstruction, how much farther would I have gone?** I guessed that I had gone about 100 yards through the narrow corridor, or about the length of a football field. I was ready to go back.
Hardier explorers than I will have to plumb the mysteries of Tubal Cain.
I picked my way back over the stream to the entrance of the mine. Every step made the walls a little brighter. I exhaled in relief and then took a breath of the fresh mountain air outside.
No bats had attacked, I had made it out alive and it was time for Lauren and I to hike back out through the snow to the car. I was glad get back to the land of the living.
The author takes a moment to mess with his pack
Notes
* After I returned from the hike, I talked to a friend who had been on a few cave tours. Even when bats fly out, they will avoid collisions with sonar, she said. The best thing to do if a bunch of bats come at you is to stay still and let them steer away. If you freak out and flap your arms, they are more likely to be confused and hit you.
** Apparently, the Tubal Cain mine goes almost 3,000 feet back into the rock. So I was probably only a tenth of the way in. I also learned later that the mine is still private property and I was not supposed to go in because of risk (unspecified.) I’ll plead innocent here, having not read this anywhere before the trip. I dug information about mine history here: http://www.kawal.net/tubalcain.htm.
I have this fantasy that one day I will become a Master of Gear.
The Master Of Gear knows exactly what to bring on any given trip, can effortlessly summon shelter, fire, warmth and dryness against the hostile elements. He or she can produce a cup of hot tea to warm your numb fingers, deflect windblown snow with a handy tarp, will always have an extra dry pair of socks, puts on a waterproof layer before the rain starts, wears exactly the right amount of clothes, is never cold, never sweats and has a pack that is much lighter than yours. Nothing is unnecessary.
You will look at your too heavy tent, ripped sleeping bag, the rag-tag assortment of bent stakes and garbage bags, remember that the gloves you need are in the bottom of your pack and feel like the amateur you are. Why do you even try? You’ll never get it right.
And yet I keep striving to get better and to become more fluent in the little tricks and beats that make up the rhythm of hiking, especially if I happen to be traveling with a significant other, especially if I’d talked big game earlier.
When Lauren had said she was looking to buy a tent for herself, I told her that she might save money and weight by choosing a lightweight tarp instead.
“They are better than tents in some ways,” I remember saying with conviction. “You can cook inside them without poisoning yourself with carbon monoxide, the ventilation will reduce the amount of moisture inside.”
I went on about how a cheap lightweight bivy sack could provide wind protection to the sleeping bag, how I had a friend who’d hiked the Appalachian Trail under a tarp, how explorers had even used them for winter camping.
Lauren was skeptical. Then she saw a tarp that weighed just over a pound going for $24 online. She went for it.
Not one to step down from a challenge, I suggested that we try it out on a November camping trip in the Olympic Mountains.
That is how we ended up hiking up along the Heather Park Trail on our way to a 5,300-foot campsite.
If I am not yet Master of Gear, I try to at least become Moderately Capable Guy.
As such, I have a couple of OK tricks in the bag. such as keeping a small piece of insulated mat at the outside of my pack. This enabled us to take a quick sit-down break on the side of the trail without getting our butts wet or cold. I’ve also taken to hiking with food and water in my jacket pockets to make it easier to access the basics when needed. Some “extras” that I brought along included crampons, if I wanted to mess around on hard-packed slopes up higher, an ice axe and a ski pole with ice axe attachment.
A quick sip of water was in order after a couple of hours (and 2,000 feet) of climbing up the trail. The lush environment that we had started in had given way to thinner trees, with many fallen trunks strewn about the mountain side. A fine dusting of snow was on the ground, a cold bite was in the air.
An opening in the trees led to a ledge, where Lauren and I could step out and look at Port Angeles Harbor, where gigantic cargo ships at anchor looked like rectangular islands. To the west, I traced the land to Protection Island and near the harbor of Port Townsend.
A mere 15 miles (give or take) out I saw Vancouver Island, Canada. Though I can see the island on any clear day from Port Angeles, it usually looks like a two-dimensional strip of hills and mountains. From on high, I could see beyond Victoria into the heartland of the enormous chunk of land (the largest island in the eastern Pacific) to the intricate passages off its eastern coast and over to vast inland lakes.
Our break went before another mile of steep hiking where the powdered snow got a couple inches deep. Later, we came to a stream and an abandoned foundation for a hiker hotel. The builders had abandoned their project long ago, but left a footprint for two weary travelers to set up tarp.
I let Lauren get water for our dinner while I bravely took on the challenge of putting up our shelter.
The tarp to tent substitution is something that I have tried at different times over the years, with varying degrees of success. I went for a walk down memory lane through some of my older blogs and concluded that something usually sucks about every tarp I’ve built. Here’s how I describe one night in the Black Hills four years ago:
Now that I had some tiny cocoon of body heat, I was damn reluctant to get up and fool around in the rain trying to adjust my demented shelter while getting everything soaked in the process. Instead, I forced myself into the fetal position, trying to think happy thoughts and reflect on all that valuable wilderness experience that I was getting.
And now I was subjecting my girlfriend to this?
But, hey, the tarp shelter that I’d built back in July had worked out decently enough. The shelter of the foundation gave me confidence too.
First, I kicked away the snow from the place where we would be sleeping, and swept it clear with a pine bough.
I tied one end of a rope to a tree branch where the foundation walls formed a corner and tied the other end to the head of my ice axe, which I sank into the dirt further away. This place, I was sure, would provide plenty of protection. I placed the tarp over the rope and secured the corners down with stake. I secured other corners down with two other tree branches and a piece of metal within a fireplace. I hauled off on knots so that I could make everything tight as possible.
Lauren came back to see a hodgepodge of ropes and knots, me still fiddling to get stakes in the semi-frozen ground.
“This is taking forever. Maybe we should have just brought a tent.”
“Nonsense. This is under control. I’m just a little rusty at tarp set up. It takes awhile.”
Eventually, I had everything into a crude, but workable shelter for us to put our pads and sleeping bags. Next, we folded our sleeping bags into lightweight, reflective bivy sacks that would hold in heat and shield us from the elements. Lauren’s feet were cold, so I took a moment to warm them on my belly, and then she got herself settled into her bag. I knew that if we were low on calories, it would be harder for both of us to maintain core temperature. A hot dinner was an obvious priority.
I took a bathroom break shortly before dinner, making sure to move a good distance away from the shelter. The last thing I wanted was the scent of urine drawing unwelcome visitors: mountain goats.
Hunters in the early 20th century saw the bold crags of the Olympic Mountains, the green blue waters of glacial lakes and gushing rivers and thought, “What this place really needs are some new large animals for us to shoot.”
Never mind that the fragile ecosystems in the Olympic Mountains developed without the large disruptive herbivores foraging the vegetation, and beating paths through the brush. The Cascade Mountains, not far away, did have mountain goats and it was easy enough to truck them over. The relocated goats did find the new environment to their liking. Unfortunately, for the hunters, their dreams of open goat season went off the table once the Olympics became national park in 1938. The shaggy beasts were left to stalk over the rocks and ridges to forage on the alpine plants and thrive in their new environment.
Even if these goats were bad for the mountains, I can’t deny that I would have loved to have seen some of these majestic creatures in their element. I’ve always admired their ability to leap gracefully along the sides of sheer cliffs. The sure-hoofedness of the animals would have been a spectacle to behold — though hopefully from a distance.
Goats are known to have a territorial streak. They can get stand-offish. Since they also can weigh hundreds of pounds and have large pointy horns on their heads, this can be dangerous. The one recorded animal fatality in Olympic National Park was the result of a goat charge near Hurricane Ridge.
It would seem logical for humans exploring the Olympics to try to avoid goat encounters, but unfortunately, human activities will attract goats. They seek out human sweat and urine because of its salt content. The Park Service encourages people to pee away from trails so that the goats don’t hang out there.
I had a ranger tell me the troubles of one unfortunate hiker who had set his sweaty shirt down in goat country. He must have walked away or else have been pretty unobservant, because a goat gobbled it up. Bummer.
Later, the goat decided the shirt wasn’t its style and regurgitated it back up. That was “lucky” for the hiker, who only had only brought one shirt into the cold, mountainous area. He put it back on and wore his newly-moistened garb the rest of the hike out.
For those of us unlucky enough to have a close goat encounter, the rangers have advised yelling and throwing rocks.
The advice changes during mating season, to “Stay out of the goats’ way,” — according to the same ranger who told me about the shirt-eating incident.
This time of year is mating season, which means that any yelling or posturing at goats would probably threaten the manhood of the males — kind of like calling the biggest guy in the biker bar a pansy in front of his friends — with predictable, violent consequences. Better to move aside and act non-threatening.
As early as the summer, the Park Service still hadn’t have a definitive plan as to what to do with the goats inside the park. They are a popular sight for tourists and a majestic creature to boot. It just happens that they are in the wrong place, through no fault of their own.
One proposal is a relocation program that involves tranquilizing goats and trucking them back to the Cascades. Goats that evade capture will then face bullets from human hunters who will finally get to do what the people who brought the goats to the mountains had wanted to do in the first place.*
The fact that there may not be goats in the Olympics someday soon only made me want to see a goat even more. Again, I should reemphasize that I only want to see this goat on my own terms. A pee-seeking goat stomping around the campsite was not what I had in mind.
I put aside goat thoughts and went back to food.
The chef’s special of the evening included split pea soup made from dehydrated flakes I’d brought from a natural food store earlier.
Lauren got my stove running from her sleeping bag and we got water up to boil. The flakes cooked in no time and soon we had a meal that could put some warmth back in our guts . The fact that we could cook this meal from inside our shelter was a definite plus. If we had been tent-camping, I would have set the stove outside in the raw elements so as not to burn the tent down or kill us with carbon monoxide. Score for the tarp tent!
The stove added warmth and a little moisture to our small shelter. Little beads formed on the inside of the tarp that would surely freeze later.
Spanish rice followed the pea soup. I added a tube of tomato paste for additional flavor. The heat was great for us, but Lauren’s feet were getting cold again.
I saw the obvious solution in an empty peanut jar I’d brought along. It could make a great hot water bottle. I boiled another pot of water and poured it in. While I had done this before with Nalgene bottles and aluminum, the heat of boiling water was too much for the thin plastic canister and it melted the top of the jar, rendering the screw top completely useless.
I cursed mightily at the spilled water and at myself. Why did I have to fill the jar to the very top? Why did I have to put completely boiling water in there?
The spill had moved toward Lauren’s sleeping area, but we were able to swipe it away before it did real harm. It had left a salty residue that goats might be interested in. I was bummed that I wasn’t able to help with Lauren’s feet. The whole thing felt like a bad omen for the oncoming night.
I gathered the remains of dinner back in the bear can and walked it up the trail to where it would be away from our tent. I took one last pee before I went back to the tent area. I had no interest in leaving my sleeping bag until morning.
Night time in a sleeping bag is the perfect time to wander into that half-sleep of speculation. Is that noise the wind jostling the branches, or is it a massive horned animal stalking the woods for urine deposits? Maybe the strange slits of its pupils were glowing red with malicious inner light.
And, hey, maybe it wants to kill you.
It is not difficult to imagine bad intentions from the beast with cloven hooves.
“Did you hear something?” Lauren asked.
“Hmmm. It probably wasn’t anything.” I said. I moved my ski pole with the ice axe closer to my sleeping bag.
I drifted back toward almost sleep until I heard a scuff, or maybe it was a sneeze.
Lauren: “What was that?”
I peeked over the flapping tarp, saw nothing in the darkness.
“Not sure,” I said.
The demons were toying with us, no doubt.
Sometimes music is the best remedy in times of stress, and I channeled the Rolling Stones.
“Wiiyiilld mountain goats …. couldn’t butt me to death.”
But maybe it was the wind that was going to do us in. Katabatic winds are common in the mountains, especially around coastal ranges like the Olympics. What happens is the warm air that rose to the higher elevations in the day time, begins to condense on the cold mountainside come nightfall. Then that colder, denser air begins falling down the mountains, producing intense wind gusts.
Not long after I got into my bag, a sigh went through the trees, and then the tarp began flapping around like the dickens. The moisture from our cooking and our breath now formed a frosty layer that the wind beat away like dust out of a carpet. Each gust of wind brought a little sprinkle of this icy stuff down onto our faces. Then the wind would stop or I’d here it blowing on some other part of the mountain, I would start to feel myself drifting back toward sleep and the wind would come back. It always came back.
I pictured the wind twisting effortlessly over the rock wall and swiping its cold fury over us. I cursed myself for not putting the tent right up into the corner. Right now, the wall was accomplishing next to nothing.
Plus, the knots that I had used to lash the tarp tightly together were coming loose, and the structure flapped nastily. Reviewing the flaws in my structure, made me feel like no Master of Gear, but perhaps the Master’s dull student who hadn’t done his homework.
“You should lower the front, so the wind doesn’t get in so much,” Lauren said.
The idea made sense, although, I had to get half out of my sleeping bag to make it work. I reluctantly untied the guy-lines from the fixed objects in the front and staked them into the ground. This did lower the wind profile of the tarp and it felt better inside. I clipped my pack into the center line also to make the shelter less apt to billow upward when the wind filled it. It also provided a partial wind barrier. Snowflakes were drifting into the shelter now.
I figured I’d done the best I could and rolled back over into my sleeping bag.
Sleep might have come then, but a few minutes later, the wind seemed to get much worse and the flapping louder.
“A tent stake came up!” Lauren announced. I could look up and see stars in the night sky. I cursed some more and got up to drive the stake back into the ground and reinforced it with a second stake in the same place. A while later, a different stake came up, and I had to reinforce that one too.
“Should we go back down the mountain?” Lauren asked.
I thought about getting out of the sleeping bag to reorganize everything for a trip out into that icy wind. I felt no great excitement at the prospect.
This was the best shot of the tarp I could manage through my fogged lens that morning The night winds had been unkind to our shelter.
At least our bivy sacks gave us a greater level of protection than what we would have encountered in our sleeping bags alone. If a little snow got on us, it wouldn’t melt into our insulation.
Still, we were both getting plenty cold. It was about 4 a.m. now and my hope was that the sunrise would give us some renewed vigor. The path of least resistance, staying in place, felt like the way to go.
By some miracle, the rest of the stakes held through the night.
We stumbled out of our bags to fetch the bear can and to fill up water for breakfast.
Sure enough the warm food and hot coffee put life back into us. Better yet, there was light coming in through the clouds and a little warmth to go with it.
We dismantled shelter, packed our gear and headed up the trail.
Initially, Lauren had voted we go right back down to the car, but the promising weather had changed her mind. The scenery around Heather Park includes views of the jagged peaks around First Top and Second Top.
Lauren climbing on ridge near Heather Park
We wore gaiters to keep snow out of our boots, and Lauren had a pair of micro-spikes to improve her grip on the snow. My crampons stayed in the pack. For the moment, they were too heavy-duty for what we were dealing with.
The trail wound up a series of switch backs until we got to a ridge where we could look out toward the Mount Angeles ridge and Hurricane Hill. I could make out the pale, blue line of Lake Crescent. It looked like another beautiful day down there.
The scenery, Lauren said, was worth the brutal night. I breathed a sigh of relief. Not all of the gear had worked perfectly, but we had stayed in the game.
On high, the wind whipped like a banshee through the hills and the clouds raced above the jagged peaks at unnatural speed. We topped out at Heather Pass. There was an inhuman drama to the scene that appealed to me. I always remember how much I love mountains when I go up into them.
Another view above Heather ParkAfter the freezing night, I’m glad Lauren was in high spirits, didn’t try to throw me off the mountain.
Before we went down to the lower elevations, we went up onto a higher ridge. I went ahead for the top, grabbing holds in the rock with the tips of my axes and pulling myself up. The effort rewarded me with a view of Port Angeles and the little toy boats moored in the harbor.
The ridge had something else: goat prints in the snow. Sometimes I followed in their tracks because they beat their way through the thickest brush. I had to hand it to them, thriving up in this freezing country without the sleeping bags, stoves, ice axes or tarps we humans were compelled to bring. If I had seen any of the rugged creatures roaming around, I might have asked how they pulled it off.
Alas, the hoof prints were the only sign. They kept themselves, and their secrets, hidden.
Regarding mountain goat removal plans: I heard about the proposal from the ranger station, and wanted to do more research.The information I found online was sketchy, but there is a document here, that suggests a plan to get the goats out of the Olympic Mountains.https://parkplanning.nps.gov/projectHome.cfm?projectId=49246
Huckleberries in the high alpine zone of the Olympic Mountains. Good bear food.
Sol Duc
Deciding where to hike in the Olympic Mountains was no easy task for my friend Sean and I, partly because the area has so many faces.
When we researched the ideal two-night trip, we had our pick of wild beaches along the Pacific Coast, the lush rainforests of the western valleys or amidst the drier, but still massive forests in the rain shadow. Higher trails access alpine tundra, even glacier.
We knew that black bears are a very real presence, to the point that the Park Service require overnight hikers to carry their food in canisters or else use specialized cable hangs available at certain sites. That limits freedom a bit. The park is host to a heavy mountain lion population, which also grabs attention, even if there is only a slightly higher risk of an attack then, say, a Bigfoot sighting.
The more credible threat that I anticipated, was cold September rains, which would throw down the challenge of staying dry — at least warm — while we were hiking and camping.
I wanted us to avoid cold and misery, and enjoy the natural beauty of the Olympics. It would be time for both of us to unplug and recharge.
The trip was also a great chance to catch up with Sean. We go back to college, where we ran cross-country together. He lives in Brooklyn now, but has a passion for getting out, whether to the Catskills or the Adirondacks further north. We’ve done a couple of hikes together through the years, including a couple mountains in the Adirondacks and an icy visit to New Hampshire’s White Mountains this spring.
We chose a path that would show us many of the different zones within the park, including the semi-rain forest of the Sol Duc valley, up to the 5,400-foot Bogachiel Peak, around Seven Lakes Basin, thence down to camp at Hoh Lake and into the Hoh Rain Forest and back the way we came. The plan would get us out of having to carry in a bulky bear canister, because the Hoh Lake campsite had cables where we could hang our food stuff. Even though Seven Lakes is a popular park spot, we had a good shot at enjoying solitude because we would be leaving midweek in September.
I put the tent in my backpack, and gave Sean the pleasure of carrying my cook stove, bulky pots and most of the food.
The sky above the trees was gray as we started along a smooth-packed trail beneath cedar, spruce and fir, their branches draped with the hair-like tendrils of goat’s beard lichen. The Sol Duc River ran through a black walled canyon to our south. Soon, we reached a bridge crossing above Sol Duc Falls, where the river course suddenly turned and dropped into a dark crevice.
Abundant moss grew in the falls mist, further up, spiky stands of devil’s club.
The trail began to climb from here along a series of switchbacks toward Deer Lake.
The cloudy skies had begun to drizzle, then to loose fat drops onto the trees above. Sean and I were protected for the moment, but if the rain continued, the drops would begin rolling off the branches, soaking us.
Neither of us were wearing our rain gear, and we were loath to put it on and start marinating in sweat. Given the mercurial nature of the weather in the northwest, it seemed likely that the rain would pass soon anyway. One day hiker that we passed simply held a trash bag over his head. Not a bad stopgap.
Alas, the rain continued falling, and we started getting wet as we went through clearings. Eventually, we caved and threw on our rain gear and pack covers. That, of course, brought the rain to a prompt halt.
Sol Duc Falls
The Bears of Bogachiel
As we climbed above the Sol Duc river, Sean and I hashed out a plan for any encounter with Sasquatch Americanus,.
Say we were going around the bend and Bigfoot walked across the trail, should we tell anyone?
Sean was inclined not to on the basis that anyone we told our story to would think we were lying or nuts. Later we agreed that we would only come forward with a Sasquatch sighting if there we could get solid photographic evidence.
Photographing Bigfoot might have been a tall order, but there were plenty of other opportunities to click the shutter as we climbed past Deer Lake onto an exposed ridge.
The trees became shorter and gnarled. A grand vista opened up to the north where we could see above the foothills across the hard blue water of the Strait of Juan de Fuca out to the mountains on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
The rocks along the trail were angular, blasted by winter ice. Glacier-carved bowls opened up on either side. Wisps of cloud gathered below.
Further on, we could gaze down into the Seven Lakes Basin, a bare landscape of arctic scrub, sprinkled with water-filled depressions.
“That looks like more than seven lakes,” I remarked.
Sean observed that all of the lakes had fallen from their high-water marks. As the water levels fell, there were places where one lake had diminished into two smaller ones. It had been a dry summer on the Olympic Peninsula. At least we didn’t have to deal with the wildfires and smoke that plagued the park earlier this year.
Seven Lakes Basin view with sumac in foreground, Sol Duc Valley in Background.
The ridge climbed a saddle where we could look south to the big mountains, including the jagged slopes of Mount Tom and Mount Olympus. Both were hidden in cloud, but occasionally a gap opened where we could peek at a snowfield or glacier.
We had less than a mile to hike down into our camp at Hoh Lake, but the nearby summit of Bogachiel Peak beckoned.
We took a side trail in that direction. The valley below us was filled with low-growing huckleberries with bright red leaves. One dark shape in that field caught my eye. I squinted at it for a moment, sure that it was some shadow cast by a dead tree or boulder. But the shape was moving.
“Hey! That’s a bear down there!”
Most of the bears I’ve seen in the wild have been pretty small, but I’m sure that this one was at least 250 pounds. It grazed slowly among the huckleberries like some bovine in the pasture. If it had noticed us, it didn’t care much.
We watched it for several minutes. Hardly a lumbering brute, the bear moved nimbly among the broken rock, keeping its head down in order to graze microscopic huckleberries out of the twigs and leaves. The black coat had a healthy shine. Elegance isn’t usually the word that pops into mind when I think of bears, but even this large specimen carried itself with refinement and dignity.
Seeing that the bear likely hadn’t noticed us, neither Sean or I bothered to make loud noises or tried to scare it off. We went on along the trail to the top of the mountain.
The lakes and mountains surrounding us delineated a domain of harsh weather and limited resources— a place that played by the old, hard rules that undergird the upholstery of our day-to-day existence.
Soil on these mountain tops stretches thin as erosion constantly feeds it to the valleys below and nothing washes down to replenish it— yet this film of organic matter was enough to support acres of huckleberries and to provide a bounty to the bears.
When Sean and I walked back down the trail, there were two bears grazing. We stared again, and this time, one of them did look up, seeming to acknowledge us. The look wasn’t menacing, but it seemed wise to move on. If nothing else, I didn’t want to disrupt them.
A small blue nugget of bear scat lay in the trail further on. They must have been getting all or most of their calories from the huckleberries, which is impressive considering that the berries growing here were half the size of a pea at largest.
Two bears going berry pickingSean going berry picking
Sean and I picked a few of them as we went. They were tasty, but the picking was incredibly slow. I guessed that the bears would have to pretty much graze continuously at the berries to feed themselves. That was what they appeared to be doing.
The blue splats of bird droppings decorating the rocks along the trail indicated that bears were not the only ones who profited from the berries.
Further down the trail, Sean spotted another bear, also grazing below us. The camp area at Hoh Lake was not too much further. We felt very motivated to be careful with our food, considering that there were bears nearby who were hungry enough to forage for hours in the huckleberries, They could get the calories they needed in minutes from one ambush into our supplies.
Sure enough, Sean saw one bear grazing on the hillside above Hoh lake, only about a quarter mile from where we’d pitched tent.
We turned in early while we still had the warmth of dinner in our bellies. I hoped we would wake up warm and ready to take on whatever the next day had in store.
Camp
Descent to the Hoh
Cold and mist were in store.
Soon after we awoke, Sean went out to pick some huckleberries to make morning oatmeal more interesting,
We finished our meal by slugging down morning coffee for Sean and some black tea for myself, then we were on the trail to the Hoh rainforest. We left the tent, gear and extra food at at camp (the latter hung up on the bear cable) so that we could move along with lighter loads.
The path dropped past mossy waterfalls, into groves of cedar. Unlike the wide trails we had hiked the day before, this route seemed infrequently traveled, with soaking vegetation closing in on either side of us. Sodden branches bounced harmlessly off of our rain jackets, but my lower half was drenched in short order. One hiker coming up from the other direction wore a makeshift plastic skirt. Excellent idea.
Further down the trail, we found a pile of bones beneath a cedar tree. The massive femurs could have only belonged to an elk. But what had killed it?
Sean speculated that it was a mountain lion. If one of those big cats was about, I definitely wanted my camera at the ready — only now, I discovered that despite my best efforts to protect it, moisture had gotten in and fogged the lens housing.
By the time we met the Hoh River Trail at the bottom of the switchbacks, some six miles below camp, it was already getting later in the day, and it was clear that we would only have a couple of hours to explore.
Stream crossingThe bone pile
But the wonder of the Hoh Rainforest was worth even a brief visit. In contrast to the tundra we had seen earlier, life ran rampant here. Massive conifers towered over with their lower branches draped in goat’s beard. Thick moss ran up and down the trunks of maple trees. Gigantic fallen logs supported ecosystems of sword fern moss and smaller plants growing out of them.
The environment had that fairy tale feeling to it, so much so that I almost expected to run across some Keebler elves out gathering mushrooms.
Elves we did not find, but sometimes we would stop and gawk at one of the enormous banana slugs or the black slugs that crawled onto the path.
The moist air was warm, almost sultry, compared to the exposed heights where we had hiked earlier. A whopping 141 to 165 inches of rain fall in this rainforest.*
We took breaks to explore an incongruous meadow, then did lunch at an overlook above the Hoh River, which was low and milky-white with sediment.
Much of the river originates from glacial melt off Mount Olympus. If we were going to see any of this mountainous splendor, it wouldn’t be from here. A low cloud base above the forest prevented us from seeing much above the tree tops.
The climb back up was a long one, but fortunately, passing hikers had knocked most of the moisture off the branches along the trail and we didn’t get so wet as when we started.
We stopped back at Hoh Lake to skip some rocks. There were no bears that we could see, but there was an occasional fish jump.
When I went up to the bear cable to bring the food down, the clouds broke and afforded me a view of the glaciers of Mount Tom and Mount Olympus. Miles of ice sat in the depressions between jagged crags.
I called Sean up and we watched the mountains. Even though Olympus is not quite 8,000 feet tall, the sharp profile of the mountains could have passed them off as giants of the American Rockies. The fact that there were huge glaciers helped too. In fact, we were looking at the third largest glacial system in the continental U.S. ** Altitude isn’t everything, especially when considering the 50 to 70 feet of snow that Olympus receives every year. Constant cloud cover protects the snowfields from the heat of the sun. Unfortunately, like most other glaciers in the world, the glaciers around Olympus have been in retreat. ***
As the sun sank toward the western horizon, the glaciers glowed in the pinkish light. Many hikers never get to see Olympus because it is so often in the clouds. I was glad that we had this chance.
Slug specimenSean at the Hoh RiverSkipping rocks at Hoh LakeView of Olympus from our campsite
More Bears and Mountain Views.
Early the next morning we hiked out of camp with after a light oatmeal breakfast. We had cut things a little fine with our food planning, so most of our lunch calories were going to come from bars and gel.
The morning chill left us as we climbed back up toward Bogachiel and the sun began to emerge.
Going past the plains of blueberries, we saw two black bears. One was on the trail, the other below. They were about the same size as the bears we had seemed earlier, and it seemed likely that they were the same ones.
We decided to wait a few minutes to see if the bear on the trail would move. When it didn’t, we started shouting, and the bear moved, slowly, up the hill.
We decided to add some miles to our total going back by following the High Divide trail the rest of the way around the Seven Lakes Basin, before descending back to the Sol Duc river. This route turned out to be an excellent choice because we were lucky enough to have more clear weather. We had superb views of Mount Olympus and some of the other nearby Olympic peaks.
As we walked further east, we got a better look at the Blue Glacier. Deep cracks within the ice revealed where it got the name, displaying that sublime turquoise tint you might recognize from photographs of arctic icebergs. Further down, the glacier formed a long tongue through the mountain valley.
Tragically, my lens was fogged for much of the morning, and I didn’t get any good shots of the mountains from this angle.
The warm sun and clear skies lent itself to more huckleberry picking, so Sean and I stopped frequently to load up.
We saw two more bears on distant hillsides, enjoying the same snack. That brought the number of unique bear sightings up to at least six for our trip — doubling the number of bear sightings that either of us had seen in our lifetimes. But who’s counting?
The trail took us down along the Sol Duc, offering plenty of opportunities to enjoy the sight of waterfalls in the mossy canyon.
We were no longer contemplating the natural beauty in solitude however. Several groups of hikers coming up the trail the other way to get to the campsites they had reserved for the weekend. It would be a lot busier on the ridges on the days to come. I was glad that we had seen everything when we did.
As for an encounter with Sasquatch? He stumbled out of the woods to give me a high-five — right after my camera battery died.
The kayak barely moved at first. I had to wriggle back and forth to inch it forward on the snow ledge I’d created. I saw the chunks of crust break away as gravity grabbed hold of the bow. Then the boat tilted over and we started tearing down the gully.
White powder sprayed up into my face. I could barely see what was happening, only that I was moving very fast. My efforts to steer with the paddle hardly mattered; down was the only direction my boat was interested in going — and it was going that way faster and faster. I squinted ahead to the fast approaching tree stand, wondering how the hell I was going to thread my way through.
Something bumped beneath my hull. The world instantly flipped upside-down and went white. My head was buried in the snow.
The ride was over.
I flipped myself right-side up, observed that my boat was almost completely buried in powder and that my paddle had flung out several yards down slope from me. To retrieve it, I had to take my sprayskirt off and wade through waist-deep snow. I’d need that paddle to get the rest of the way down the hill.
In the traditional model, I would wait to go kayaking until the snowmelt.
The powder on the mountains here in Routt County will begin feeding the rivers in a couple of months. Rivulets beneath the crust will merge, feed into drainage gullies, streams and willow fens, down to the Elk River in the Colorado River system. From the Yampa, to the Green River and eventually the Grand Canyon, the melting white stuff will build standing waves and hydraulics for whitewater kayaks and rafts to play in.
But just because the snow hasn’t melted, doesn’t mean that I can’t kayak over it. All it takes is a steep enough hill and a lot of powder.
Climbing with a paddle
Kayak tow system for winter
Getting a kayak to that steep hill is the first challenge. My system involves snowshoes, a backpack, carabiner, rope, and a canoe paddle. I set the ascender bars on the snowshoes and start wallowing up the deep powder with the rope tied to the bow, clipped to the carabiner on my backpack. The first run is always the hardest because I’m breaking trail and pulling my kayak uphill through powder. I lean forward like some hobbled supplicant, praying that the kayak won’t yank me off my feet.
In some ways, the canoe paddle in my hands works even better than the hiking poles I typically use with snowshoes. Paddling the powder on flat sections gives me a decent momentum boost from my upper body. The paddle also balances me. I can brace the flat of the blade against the snow, much as I would use a high brace to prevent a kayak from capsizing in waves. When the going gets steeper, I use the paddle more like an ice axe, sinking it deep into the snow above me and using it to pull myself up.
I often fall when the snow gives out from under me or my snowshoes lose their grip. Here, I can get back on my feet, pushing off the flat of the snow, like I’m doing an Eskimo roll.
The paddle can even dig out steps for me when I get to the steepest sections of the slope.
Going up the hill this way is one of the most physically grueling workouts I’ve ever done — a full body punishment system. My heart pounds like an express train when I finally get to the top of the ridge, maybe 150 feet above my start point. It’s a lot quicker on the way down.
Set up
Kayak, pack and paddle
The climb was over. Finally.
I wiped sweat out of my eyes and surveyed the run. It was a south slope and the sun had just come out. Hence, a delicate crust was already forming on the powder.
I pulled my sprayskirt out from my jacket where I had stashed it in an attempt to keep it warm and stretchy.
There is something reassuring about this sprayskirt, a solid piece of neoprene that has stood up against the fury of waves and rivers. This pricey, “serious” piece of gear, helped me feel that, yes, I did know what I was doing up here, looking down a 35-degree snow slope through an aspen glen.
I used the paddle to dig out a notch in the slope where I could set the kayak down.
Getting the sprayskirt attached around the cockpit was a chore in the cold, even after I’d stashed it in my jacket to keep warm. The skirt wasn’t strictly necessary to go down the hill, but I did like how it kept the powder out of my lap. And I had that psychic comfort of knowing I was using a piece of gear that had served me well on past trips.
It did feel a little weird being in a kayak without a life vest however.
The backpack on my shoulders was another thing that was a little different from my standard kayak trip. I’d already given up trying to tie my snowshoes to the kayak for the way down. It was easier to put them into the nylon loops at the sides of my pack and fasten them together with a cam strap.
I put a ski helmet on and sunglasses. I wrapped a mesh t-shirt around my head like a burka to deflect all the powder that was about to come flying up at my face.
I looked at the canoe paddle, a cheap wood thing I’d bought in Minnesota. Having already busted up a couple kayak paddles last year, I decided that I wasn’t ready to invest in quality piece of equipment only to smash it in while jackassing in the snow.
Making it work
The mantra for this run was “Lean that mother!”
Just as I had leaned kayaks on edge to turn them in whitewater or waves, I planned to use the same principles to make the boat work on the snow. Adrenaline had helped me forget this principle on my earlier runs and I had tried turning by using the paddle alone. It wasn’t enough.
With that in mind, I planned to lean far enough to put my whole body against the snow if need be.
I pushed off and the kayak began grinding downhill at a slow crawl. I leaned the boat way to the left and dug the paddle in on that side. Sure enough, the boat began to turn that way. The sound of crust breaking beneath the bow accelerated at a slow grind to a faster swoosh. Snow began flying up into my face. Now, I was moving at a skier’s speed. I leaned right toward a gap in the scrub oak and the boat responded in a neat arc.
I was carving!
The boat responded to the powder exactly the way it was designed to turn on the river, the same way a skier would cut graceful curves into the alpine slope. I’d stumbled into a unified theory between snow and water.
I shot through the gap in the shrub and the powder started flying up in my face. The view throuh my sunglasses became dim, then obscure. Then I could see only see white. My hands clutched the paddle, unwilling to let go. The best I could do, while flying blind was to lean hard and hope to avoid hitting anything.
After a couple seconds the kayak stopped. I took the sunglasses off and saw that the lean had dug the kayak deep into the snow and basically thrown on the braking power that I’d needed — that along with the fact that I’d steered into some shrubs.
I put the sunglasses in a pocket and analyzed the route down the hill. I pushed off again and carved the rest of the way to where I’d started.
Buried kayak after a flip in snow
Can snow kayaking be the next hot sport?
Some witnesses have seen me going up and down the hill with my kayak and asked where I got the crazy idea.
No, I wasn’t the first person to think of it. There are some very entertaining online videos of others who have gone before me.
Nonetheless, this is hardly a popular sport yet. I’m enjoying something out which doesn’t necessarily have a large body of knowledge surrounding it and gives me the challenge of finding some things out on my own. Nor does snow kayaking (yet) have specialty products designed specifically for the job.
Note: If I were designing a kayak specifically for going down snow slopes, I would probably build metal edges into the sides for better carving. But that would subtract from the fun of doing something goofy in inadequate gear.
Snow kayaking is also a learning opportunity for boat technique
Many similarities between boating and snow sports became apparent after I started launching my down the hill.
Leaning for instance. I plan to steer with same aggressive edge that I used to carve the snow the next time I kayak in whitewater.
On the flip side, now that I have tried using a canoe paddle with snowshoes, I’m considering ditching poles on my next snowshoe trip with steep hills. Being able to brace against the powder without plunging deep into it (as with poles) is a huge advantage while climbing. So is being able to carve steps quickly.
The paddle also proved instrumental an igloo building project that I will describe in a future post.
Kayak vs. Skis
When the fresh snow falls on the hills and I have to decide whether I’d rather strap boards to my feet or go rambling in my yak, there are considerations to weigh:
Kayaks are slower to move uphill
When it comes to kayaking down a hill vs skiing, the former is obviously far more laborious to haul up to the top, at least if ski lifts aren’t a part of the equation. This is however, a killer workout that I’d would recommend to anyone who wants to get in shape for mountain climbing or trail running.
Kayak gear is tougher to work with in winter
Other changes that I had to make to kayak the snow vs. on water included moving the foot pedals way back so that I could fit inside the boat it wearing winter boots. A sprayskirt is nice for keeping the snow out, but getting it on and off in the cold is a bear.
Because snow kayaking only puts my head a couple feet above the slope, even more powder flies up in my face than what I’d encounter skiing. I’d probably do well to invest in some ski goggles before snow kayaking full time.
Kayaks are more forgiving when they hit stuff, but will hit more stuff
One advantage of the low body position is that I can’t get knocked off my feet like I can skiing, though a flip is definitely possible.
If I hit a tree in a kayak, it will go better than if I hit a tree on skis because I’ll have a bunch of plastic protecting me. The fact that the kayak doesn’t steer as well as skis means that collisions are harder to avoid.
Kayaks excel when terrain is deep and steep
The kayak’s extra volume means that it floats very well on snow. I got some decent runs on a powder day when some of my friends snowboarding friends could barely move. They ended up using the kayak tracks to pick up speed.
On groomed trails, snowboards or skis are definitely faster and more exciting than a kayak run. If I put glide wax on the bottom of my boat, it may change the equation.
Without deep powder, steering is possible, but sketchier. I took a run down a south slope that had crusted over and found myself going down the hill backwards with next to no control.
So far, deep powder and steep slopes have equaled the most fun for me, including one run where I went down slope in a chest-deep mass of churning snow.
While deep and steep snow has made for the best kayak runs for me, that stuff is also the hardest to drag a kayak through.
What I’d like to try next:
At some point I’d like to graduate to a double-bladed kayak paddle, though I doubt I’ll find anything cheap enough that I’d be willing to sacrifice anytime soon.
I’d also like to try setting a luge track in the hill and build banked turns with a shovel. It’d be fun to get up some speed without having to worry about steering so much.
I’m both excited and terrified to see what happens when I finally melt some glide wax onto the bottom of the kayak. I have a feeling that it will be a wild ride.
Summit ridge on Big Agnes, looking northeast toward Mt. Zirkel and Wyoming
What was amazing about my homemade pulk sled was that it worked.
I’d dripped ski wax onto the bottom of the kid’s sled for maximize glide. From there, I loaded on jumbo snowshoes, a monster backpack, sleeping bag and separate dry bag full of food. I lashed ‘em all together with cam straps, affixed cam straps to ski poles, affixed other end of poles to a carabiner on a belt around my midsection.
When I moved on skis, the sled followed. Nothing fell off or skidded into the snow.
I skied east on the snowmobile trails toward Slavonia, a trailhead in the Zirkel Wilderness, which was on the way toward Big Agnes. This 12,000-foot mountain had become an obsession of mine for a couple of weeks. There were the usual symptoms: staring at the topo map, figuring routes, squinting at the distant mountain from the groomed ski trails.
Now, I was skipping out on a fun three day weekend with coworkers so I could be on this snowmobile trail in the fading light and dropping temperatures.
Homemade pulk sled, at the start of the adventure
It was a six mile ski to Slavonia, started at 3 p.m
Occasionally, I moved myself and the whole rig out of the trail to make way for the snowmobiles, so I could breathe their exhaust fumes for the next couple minutes. The demented yowling of their engines bounced off distant ridges. To be fair, this trail wouldn’t have been here if not for the snowmobiles, but I was proud that I was planning this trip motorless from doorstep to mountaintop.
The pulk skittered over the broken snow crust behind me. Going uphill with this thing definitely upped my calorie consumption; going downhill with it boosted my adrenaline. I poled frantically to keep the fast-descending object from swinging in front of me and knocking me off balance.
On the road to Slavonia
The fact that I’d attached the sled to me with stiff ski-poles instead of rope meant that at least I didn’t have to worry about it taking me out at the legs.
Fears about whether I could really make the homemade pulk work had been among my doubts about whether I could pull off this motorless expedition. I was thrilled to see that I could move everything smoothly enough
Tomorrow, I’d get to have all the weight on my back, and hopefully be able to haul it all uphill through deep powder to Mica Lake. The third day, I planned to go on with only bare essentials in my backpack. If I could steer clear of avalanche zones and fatal rock precipices, I could reward all these efforts with a smiling moment on a mountaintop.
It was dark by the time I pulled into Slavonia. The small wooden structure at the edge of the parking lot looked far more inviting than the tent I had yet to pitch.
Yes, that small building happened to be the trailhead bathroom, but so what? The shit was frozen anyway.
I wasn’t out to get the glamorous camping award, and if this saved time from taking the tent down in the morning, I was all for it.
Another perk: I could set my stove up inside to cook dinner. I locked the door to offset the slim possibility of someone making a late-night visit to the facility. I later noticed a sign forbidding camping in the area. Well, lest I paint myself as a scofflaw, let’s just say that I was taking a very long dump, a dump that happened to last until the morning.
When people wake up on a bathroom floor, it is usually the product of hazy decision-making half-remembered, if at all. In this case the bathroom floor was a key part of my plan to make up the most distance possible the following morning.
Dinner at the best seat in the house
The morning still sucked, as mornings winter camping will suck.
Sure there’s the beauty of the silent world, the promise of the untrammeled snow. Also there’s the numb fingers, numb feet, the intrusion of dampness where you don’t want it, the burden of leaving the marginal comfort of the sleeping bag for the thousand little camp tasks and packing.
There were no tracks on the trail, leaving me to break the powder. I’d left the sled behind — it’d have been useless in this stuff.
Leaving the skis behind had been the difficult decision. Even if I’d put climbing skins on the bottoms, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to make the same time that I would make in snowshoes. Strapping them to the pack would have added bulk to an already mighty load, and probably would have gotten tangled in trees on the climb up. It would have been hard to get a slick ride down with all the weight on my back anyhow.
My goal was the mountaintop, not a flashy descent. With skiing out of the picture, I could focus on tasks like route finding.
Locating the trail under the feet of snow in a willow drainage was no easy task. I meandered through the aspens in the valley, staying on an eastward course. I used my topo map to find the drainage between two mountain ridges that was my golden ladder to Mica Lake.
Snow slough with debris tracks in Mica Creek Basin
Finding the route and climbing it are not one and the same however.
My snowshoes, which are great for floating on loose powder, are less awesome on steep pitches. I found myself doing elaborate traverses, pulling myself up on tree trunks. This was a dangerous game because said trees were loaded with beachball-sized snow bombs, quick to drop when shaken. Sometimes the trees would drop their payloads for no good reason and white powder would explode over my head and shoulders.
The other kind of falling snow that I worried about was avalanches. Sources had told me that the east side of the valley was dangerous (windblown snow would accumulate on the west faces with the prevailing wind) so I tried my damnedest to stay on the opposite side of the drainage.
The task was not so easy because of Mica Creek, which sometimes cut up to 30 feet down into the bedrock. The topography in the basin forced me to cross the creek several times — walking oh-so-delicately over the snow bridges.
The water might have only been a couple feet deep, but if I soaked a boot, I would most likely have to turn the trip around.
There was also no easy way to get down to the water without falling into it. I refilled my water supplies by dangling a bottle off a cord from one of the snow bridges.
A narrows lay ahead, which included a steep climb between two steep snow-covered walls.
Here, the safe west wall had the most evidence of falling snow. However, the drop wasn’t so long and I didn’t worry about a light snow sloughing going over my boots. Nothing that I could see had fallen off the other side of the canyon, but if something did fall, it could have made for a minor avalanche. I stayed west.
At the top of the narrows, the drainage opened up into a valley. It was maybe half a mile wide, flanked by razor-like mountain tops.
Burned trees near Mica Lake
The drainage forked and I chose to go right, climbing up a steep ridge between Big and Middle Agnes. Few trees grew on the high snow fields. Eventually there were none, just blank white snow and jagged rock. I scanned for a route that would keep me out of avalanche danger, but also keep me away from impossible rock spines and other hazards.
Two ominous tracks of busted snow streaked several hundred yards down the south face of Middle Agnes. Avalanches had fallen here.
The more I climbed, the more I expected to run into Mica Lake. Eventually, I realized that I had gone way too far to the east, and turned back downhill.
Water, food and warmth were the three priorities on my mind as I came into camp.
Light was already fading by the time I reached the lakes’s edge, meaning I had to hustle to do my chores.
I used my ice axe to bash a hole in the lake ice and get water (difficult because there was only a couple inch margin between the ice and the lake bottom). I climbed a slight hillock nearby where I dug a large pit in the snow where I pitched tent. I got another pit started for my fire.
The axe came out again for fuel gathering. I swung away at the spruce branches nearby by the light of my headlamp.
I took one mighty swing at a branch only to have the axe fly out of my hand. I heard the familiar, musical dong! as the axe bounced into something nearby. But where the hell did it land? I swept the snow and the tree branches nearby and found nothing. I tried recreating the trajectory of the lost axe by throwing sticks and seeing where they landed. Eventually, I dug around through the powder with a stick and still came up empty. I called off the search after a half hour and got to fire-making.
Say what you will about the romance of woodsmoke rising up in cold winter air, I’d have probably just used my cookstove if I’d known what a royal pain the campfire was going to give me.
I had some Vaseline-soaked cotton balls with me, excellent fire-starters, but my supply was low, and I decided to save them for an emergency.
Another challenge was that the lodgepole pine didn’t grow up here. This meant that I no longer had the ubiquitous, highly flammable, red needles that I’d used to start fires easily at lower elevations.
I tried lighting notebook paper and drier lint that I’d brought with me. The licks of flame rose like a promise — and sputtered out as I hacked smoke. Finally, I broke off a piece of candle and added it to the lint. When the lint ignited, the burning wax kept the whole shebang going long enough for me to ignite some dead spruce twigs.
Cooking on the wood fire was like getting teargassed. Every time I reached in to shift the pot over the flames, I got a throat-wracking, eye-burning draught of smoke. By the time I’d softened the lentils enough to be palatable, I had a dull headache and a sore throat.
I ate as quickly as possible, as the fire wound down. I put another pot of water on to pour into my metal bottle to heat the foot of my sleeping bag.
I had put spruce boughs under the tent for extra insulation against the cold. I propped my backpack under my sleep pad, and put the sleep bag into an emergency bivvy. I felt confident that I would be warm enough this evening. What I was having a hard time imagining was getting up at 4 a.m. to fetch water and prepare my gear with numb fingers and toes. I knew it would be best to get up early if I wanted to do anything before the snow softened, became harder to walk on, and more likely to avalanche
My route, as seen in daylight, went behind the trees, into the valley and to the left behind the rocky ridge line to a snowfield that went to the summit ridge..
I dreamed that I woke up in a blizzard, with snowmobiles wheeling around camp. I hated that the whining machines had made it to the lake I had worked so hard to get to on my own, but the falling snow meant that I probably wasn’t going to try the mountain. This thought felt like a relief.
I woke up at 3:49 a.m. thoroughly confused, unzipped my tent to look up into a clear, cold sky. Stars glittered like ice shards on black water. A crescent moon cast its pale light upon the snow world.
Body and mind might not have been motivated, but my bladder had a strong motivation of its own. Once it had motivated me out of my sleeping bag, the hardest part was over.
I decided to pretend that I really was stoked that I was getting up this early. The fake motivation helped me to wrangle gear together, strap snowshoes on my boots and trudge down to the ice hole on the lake to fill water bottles.
Fortunately, I’d put snow back on top of the hole after I’d filled up the last time. This insulation had prevented the ice from completely reforming. I was able to bash the hole back open with the tip of my ski pole and a liberal dose of profanity. The water was slushed with ice shards. It would refreeze quickly in the cold air. I put one bottle in my pocket and stuffed the other two into my jacket. In this way, I kept my water supply close to my body heat.
Unmotivated to start any fires, I opted to skip the hot breakfast for a Clif Bar.
As soon as all the camp duties were over, it was almost 6 a.m.
I retraced my snowshoe tracks to the basin above the lake and then chose a route going up a valley on the south side of the mountain.
The world was painted in deep dark blues and the pale hues from the moonlight. In a world that seemed half-real, the cold felt real enough. I had the iciness of the water bottles near my skin, frigid air moving through my nostrils. Movement was the way to stay warm now that I was out of the sleeping bag. As I toed up the first snowfield, the sense of purpose that I had been faking earlier began to gel into the genuine object. Movement was what fought back against the vulnerable feeling walking alone in cold darkness.
I knew my confidence would grow when the sun came out, and that I would be glad that I decided to begin this early hike when I had the chance. I knew that I had already invested a lot in this hike, and that if I backed down, it would be hard to rally the courage or the fortitude needed for future adventures, and that I would be giving up on some of the qualities that I value most in myself.
My path up along a snowy ridge as seen on the return trip. Little Agnes is in the background.
One shooting star raced across the sky. Another flicked by a couple minutes later. Then there was another, and another.
A set of lights from the distant town of Clark twinkled far below. I raised the climbing bars on my snowshoes for extra support as the route steepened.
Paranoia about avalanches kept bubbling into my consciousness.
I kept inside the trees as much as possible — there was less likely to be snowfall there. I inspected the tree trunks for broken branches or snow accumulated on the uphill side.
I topped out on a sinuous ridge of snow, walked the edge down into a treeless basin. A dim green glow gathered above the ridge-line to the east.
Avalanche-wise, two factors were in my favor: there had been no new snowfalls in the past couple weeks, which meant that the snow that was on the slopes had had time to stabilize. Also, it was still very early in the morning, which meant that the snow was far more stable than it would be in the afternoon.
Looking up at the face I planned to climb, I could see no avalanche tracks. Still, I planned to weave around as I climbed to avoid the steepest pitches and to move in the shelter of some boulder-fields. If things began to look truly sketchy, I’d turn around, I promised myself.
Climbing the steeper pitch in my over-sized snowshoes did turn out to be a challenge. I found myself sliding back at least half as much as I could step forward.
Finally, I swapped out the snowshoes for crampons. The crampons gripped exquisitely, but didn’t do jack to keep me from falling through knee-deep snow.
I leaned forward into the slope so I could put more weight on the ski-poles — even flopping them flat onto the snow in front of me like some bizarre climbing flipper. I approached the top in this awkward crawl, suitable behavior for a supplicant. Now and then I looked out or down. A radiance swelled above the eastern ridge. The sky went from dark to gray. I watched as first sunlight burned on the high peaks, marching like fire down the slopes to ignite the darkened world below.
The pitch got steeper and steeper. My heart beat like crazy as I fumbled along. I got to a second set of boulders and jabbed the crampon points into the rocks to haul myself up. The thought of avalanches reverberated through my brain. Was this snow too steep? Should I head back. The snow was getting crustier here. I watched tiny snow chunks dance out from beneath my crampons and roll, roll, roll, roll, down the hill, leaving particle accelerator tracks in their wake. One chunk of crust wheeled down the mountain like a runaway buzzsaw
View down the snowfield I climbed. My tracks are between the clumps of stones on the bottom right.
.
When I tried to kick out some larger slabs, however, they only went for a couple feet before they stopped. The slope seemed too gradual and the snow too cold to really rumble. I still felt unease in the pit of my gut. My awareness also went to my right foot, which had gone numb with cold despite the climbing workout.
For the last forty minutes, I’d had my eyes set on a leaning boulder, that was higher than anything I could see on the mountain. It had seemed like only a quick jaunt to get there, but my approach was painfully slow. I struggled to lift the crampons above the crust so I could fall back into it. I worked my fingers into tiny holds in the rocks in order to flop myself over. I stumbled, drunken to that ridge, looked out and gasped.
I’d gone from looking ahead inches past my nose, to looking out over unfathomable miles. Boulder projections stabbed the sky off knife edge ridges. They glinted in the orange illumination. The Zirkel range rose up in a defiant bulwark on the other east of the valley. Further south, mountains followed mountains like shark teeth. There was a gap at North Park, on the other side of the Continental Divide, and then the mountains rose again. Miles of empty table land lay to the north in Wyoming.
View of peaks along summit ridge looking northwest
I instinctively recoiled from the edge. Indeed, I could see places where cornices of overhanging snow dangled over the the cliffs like trapdoors to the abyss. I could also see, unhappily, that there were two other peaks on the ridgeline before I truly reached the top, and these peaks were separated by a narrow, dangerous-looking ridge with a thousand-foot drop on either side.
“Well screw that,” I thought.
I turned around and began tramping down the crusted snow.
At one point, I heard a rumble overhead and my heart lurched.
I whirled around to realize that it was only an airplane.
Another glance at the snow face, made me reconsider the avalanche danger. I took a slope measurement using a trekking pole and a compass as a protractor. I estimated that the slope was only about 30 degrees, if that, which was about the least steep angle that an avalanche would happen.*
I also saw that there was a way to cut to the west side of the summit ridge, which might take me to the highest peak while avoiding a walk on the knife edge.
Two more peaks on Big Agnes
I had already committed 20 minutes to walking down the ridge and it would take a lot longer than that to get high again. After standing in place for a minute, I started trudging back up the way I’d come. It was far easier going up the already broken snow. Finally, at a boulder-field just above the summit, I made a dogleg to the west. Again, I stuck crampon points against hard stone. I maneuvered around the first peak and over to the second. I topped out with another view into the vast gulf stretched out to the north of the peak. The third and final peak was maybe two football fields away.
But the knife edge was even sharper between these two peaks, and if that wasn’t sketchy enough there was a tall vertical rock outcrop standing right in the middle. Climbing over wasn’t even a possibility.
If I wanted to get beneath the outcrop, I would have to crawl out onto one of the absurdly tilted snowfields on either side. If my crampons could grip into the champagne powder snow and my hands could grasp some tiny chink in the slippery rock, I could see a minute chance that I could crawl out to this final peak. But when I tried to visualize this possibility, what I saw was a tumbling, thousand-foot death ride that got faster and faster until that sudden stop at the end.
I realized that I had to turn around again, just a couple snowball throws away from the summit. Knowing that I had exhausted all my options, made it easier to turn around without pesky second guesses to haunt my descent.
It is likely that if I had gone the standard summer route, approaching the peak from the east side, that I might have found a way to this final peak. Then again, going this far to the east would have added many miles of unbroken powder to my trip, and for all I knew, there may have been avalanche risk that would have fudged my chances there.
Half an hour into my descent, I was close to the shadow of the ridge line, where the sun still hadn’t risen. I crouched in the shelter of a boulder so I could swap out my crampons back into snowshoes where there was solar warmth. This was where I discovered that the water bottle in my right pocket was empty. Where had the water gone? Mostly into my right boot. No wonder why that foot had been so cold.
Rock, ice and lichen near the top of Big Agnes
It was my fault. When I’d filled the bottle in the slushy water, there had been ice crust on the screw threads and I had failed to twist the cap all the way shut.
I squeezed out of the sock and set it in the sun, warming the foot as best as I could with my hands.
It took another hour and a half or so to get back to camp.
I’d knocked out the fulfillment part for this trip’s hierarchy of needs (OK, almost fulfilled them. I didn’t quite reach the summit did I?) now it was back to basics: water, warmth and food.
It was a beautiful sunny day on the snow and I felt no need to hurry back down to Slavonia for another night in the bathroom. It was nice to take care of camp chores at a leisurely pace.
I walked out on the lake ice to where I found a mushy patch near where a stream came in. I was able to use my snow shovel to dig out a generous hole to fill my bottles. I took the rainfly off my tent so that the sun could burn away the humidity, and threw my damp sleeping bag over a spruce sapling.
I had snagged some dead red needles on the way back to camp, which I used to set a new fire on my cook-pot lid. My boots hung out on sticks jabbed into the snow, so that the most amount of warmth could get into the toes. After a while, I started some pasta mixed with coconut butter. I was out of patience for the slow-cooking lentils. I watched the steam rise from my boots and socks. I put my metal water bottle near the fire so I would have something hot to put in the toe of my sleeping bag.
It would be a good night’s sleep.
Taking care of the basics at camp
* https://utahavalanchecenter.org/blog-steepness. Here is one source, amongst others that explains the relationship between slope angle and avalanche risk. Though this blog describes me doing my best to use what I’ve read and picked up from others to stay out of avalanche danger, I haven’t taken any classes, and don’t want to give the impression that I am an expert on the subject.
Hoar frost decorates a cairn on the trail to the Mount Washington summit
The high slopes of Mount Washington don’t look so far away from the trailhead at Pinkham Notch — the same way that on some nights it looks like you could reach out and pluck the moon out of the sky.
It’s close, but not that close.
There are over four miles and 4,000 feet of hike between the start-point and the rocky, ice encrusted waste where New England’s tallest mountain tops out.
Ben and I wrangled our gear together in the parking lot. I crammed an old windbreaker into my pack with a puffy parka, secured my jumbo polyester sleeping bag to the outside with a cam strap.
“Do you really think I’ll need a parka?” Ben asked. “This fleece is pretty warm.”
“Trust me. You’ll be glad to have it when we get to camp and stop moving. Your temperature is going to drop.”
The packs were already bulging with the trappings of our hastily-assembled trip. I had got back to Connecticut from my friends’ wedding on the afternoon before the trip, while Ben had worked until midnight on the previous night. We’d made the drive from Connecticut to New Hampshire that day, stopping to pick up groceries and other trip necessities.
“You sure you want to carry that beer up the mountain?” I asked Ben.
“Of course!”
It was the first hiking trip for the two of us since Ben had come out to visit me in Wyoming back in 2012. It was also his first time going up Washington, a hike I recommend for any able-bodied Northeasterner. I’ve been lucky enough to stand on the top of this mountain several times over the years, starting with my first ascent with my dad back when I was seven.
On a good day, it is an easy climb. The trick is finding a good day.
The mountain is notorious for gale winds, snow in the summer months, avalanches in winter and some disorienting fog for good measure. Fortunately, the forecast in the days before our trip called for unseasonably warm weather and relatively mild 50 mph summit winds. I still loaded on the warm clothes and gear, along with plenty of food to keep the internal furnace running. I had no desire for the mountain to catch me off guard.
One of the helpful warnings for winter travelers. It was too early in the season for Ben and I to worry about avalanches.
The sun had already set beneath the cliffs of Boott Spur as we started up the Tuckerman Ravine Trail. We had about two and a half miles uphill to get to the camp at Hermit Lake.
The trail was a rugged course of bare rock and boulders, worn clean of dirt by generations of footsteps along one of the most popular hikes in the Northeast. The Cutler River swirled alongside.
We stopped at an overlook to admire the Crystal Cascade, then continued our climb beneath the fall leaves. A deciduous mix of birch, beech and maple trees began to give away to spruce and balsam fir with altitude.
That, I told Ben, was one of my favorite things about climbing mountains: it only takes a handful of miles to cross into different worlds. The next day, we would ascend past alpine garden and into tundra.
Light was fading as we approached camp. The trees were already shorter and thin here. The dark headwall of Tuckerman Ravine appeared above us, a cross section of a 1,000-foot tall bowl. At either end stand the twin outcrops of Lion Head to the north and Boott Spur to the south. Above us, the tiny points of stars emerged out from dusk.
The Hermit Lake camp takes up the base of the ravine with interspersed tent sites and lean-tos. The place gets hopping in the summer months and again in the winter when the skiers come out to take on one of the most intense slopes in the east. In November, there aren’t so many people. In fact, no one else was staying there that night aside from the caretaker, giving Ben and I first pick of campsites.
We chose one of the few structures that was closed in on all sides. After we set up our mats and sleeping bags on the floor, I started cooking up some lentils and pasta.
Ben enjoying some of our gourmet trail fare
That was when we had our visitation. A small gray form crept out from a gap in the doorway, and scurried over our clothes.
“Hey! Get out of here!”
The mouse looked at me with marginal concern. Then I made like I was going to rush it, and it ran back through the gap. I placed a rock to hold the door tight against the wall, but a moment later the mouse simply crawled through a new gap underneath. It perched on top of Ben’s hiking boot before I waved it away again.
“We’re going to have to hang everything up,” I announced. “It probably wants to chew the leather.”
We made use of the pegs inside the building to hang clothes and shoes. Food went into a bear bin near some outhouses.
Later, we went outside to check out the star show above the ravine. There was only a small breeze where we were standing, but we could hear blasts of wind, roaring through the boulder field atop the headwall. The clear night air revealed the misty trail of the milky way.
Periodically, we would see a shooting star make a brief streak across the sky.
“I wonder if that is happening more than usual tonight, or if we just don’t bother looking up most of the time,” Ben said.
I didn’t know.
Our concerns turned back to earth, where we were getting cold. And then there was the specter of the marauding mouse waiting for us back at the lean to.
Right after I got into my sleeping bag and turned off my headlamp, I heard Ben grunt,
“He crawled right over my face!”
I turned on the headlamp just in time to see the mouse scurry under the door. This time, I took out our trekking poles and extended them to fill the gap. Laughable defense against a critter small enough to crawl through a quarter-sized opening, but it was something.
I went back to sleep with my broad-brimmed hat over my face. At least, if the mouse crawled over me, he wouldn’t fall into my open mouth.
The next morning, we did an oatmeal breakfast and began our hike up through the ravine.
Thin waterfalls sprouted out along the granite cliffs in front of us. Steps of quarried stone made the ascent easier, but the steep climb had us puffing. Added to that, it was freakishly warm for the season, warm enough so that I stripped to shorts and a long-sleeve t-shirt. I’ve experienced colder conditions on the mountain in July.
Water coming down the headwallIce-filled stream cuts through alpine garden above TuckermanView of Lion Head from within the ravineCool views! Hiking up the ravine with Boott Spur in the background.
Here and there, patches of snow and ice lurked in the shadows. A small frozen falls clung to the north face of the bowl. There were clouds racing over the headwall, but the cliffs sheltered us from the wind — for now. Scrub trees along the trail, were bowed permanently into awkward shapes from downdrafts.
The air got colder as we got higher. We stopped to re-layer right before we summited the headwall where the wind was blowing. When we got to the top, the temperature must have dropped 15 degrees. Gusts of wind buffeted us periodically, but we were had the semi-shelter of the summit cone. Now there were no trees, just broken boulders with lichen growing over. We had about .8 miles of this terrain to cover before the we got to the weather station that marks the top of Mount Washington.
We began to make our way over the rocks, stopping periodically, to glance over at Lion Head and down to Tuckerman. We wouldn’t be enjoying views for much longer. A dark plane of cloud cut the top of the mountain out of view. Soon, we were engulfed in that swirling mist.
Blast patterns of hoar frost decorated stony outcrops and trail cairns, a spiny mosaic mapping the wind currents and eddies.
Frost feathers on Appalachian Trail marker near the summit
We scrambled up the boulders, using the cairns to follow the trail.
A short ways in front of us, it went over a lip.
“I think I know what that is,” I said.
Sure enough it was the auto road to the summit. We walked along the pavement to the weather station. Here, at the top of the cone, we finally felt the full force of the wind blowing over the mountain. An icy path led to the pile of rocks where there were no higher rocks. A sign marked the summit. We lurched like drunks as the wind shoved us this way and that. We got to the top and slapped high fives through our gloves.
Recorded wind gusts for the day fell in the 50 to 75 mph range — unexceptional for a mountain that once set a world record 231 mph wind speed and had been predicted to gust 130 mph the day earlier.
Whatever speed the winds were blowing, the conditions did not inspire us to linger about the summit. We got our pictures and got off the top. We sought the shelter of one of the weather observatory buildings to layer up into parkas and windbreakers, then started our descent.
Ben at the top
To mix things up, Ben and I opted to take the Lion Head Trail on the descent. This route kept us in the wind a little longer, but it also afforded some excellent views down into Tuckerman. Our quads were feeling it by the time we got down the rocks to Hermit Lake.
Ben was ready to call it a day, but I opted to take a quick run up the steep boulders of the Boott Spur Link to get a different view of Tuckerman and fill my daily masochism quota.
It was near dark when we got back, Ben already had pasta going for dinner. The beer was out, of course, a fine Smuttynose imperial red that did credit to The Granite State.
Our main objective complete, we would have a leisurely hike back to Pinkham Notch the next day.
As an added bonus, the mouse kept his distance that night.
In many ways, Ben and I had been like that troublesome rodent. We’d challenged the giant, and got out of the way before it had the chance to swipe at us.
Moss closeup 
The author takes a moment to mess with his pack
