Looking up the meadow toward Sibley peak

Looking across the ridge

After the long drive to the trail-head we started up the trail into the woods. About a third of the way into the hike the trail broke out into the open sunshine, with views looking up the meadows and back down the valley. Wildflowers were out everywhere. Lilys, paintbrush, columbine, thistle, lupine, heather, and dozens of others sprinkled the dense meadows all around.

White men can't jump. Brown men can't hike.

Snowmelt and Mt. Stuart

The hike started out in light tree cover, but quickly got up into talus rock fields of many different colors. As soon as we reached the pass we ran into a couple mountain goats scrounging around for food.

Goat with Mt. Stuart behind

Some crazy looking flowers sprouting out of a rock

The trail dipped down into the snow over the pass and skirted along the side of the mountain. The views of Mt. Stuart were awesome. After what seemed like a long time the trail scrambled up to the lake, which lies directly under Ingalls peak. If the lake wasn’t frozen I think I could have got a sweet picture of Stuart reflected in it. We didn’t see a single person near the lake, and only a few people on our way up to it. Once we got back to the van we had some food, beers, and settled in to read our books until dark.

Lake Ingalls and Stuart behind

Our camp station in the van. Get em Harry!

The next day we headed back towards Seattle and stopped at the Lake Margaret/Lake Lillian trail. The hike was fairly open and sunny, with views across to Rainier about half the time.

Rainier with a big lenticular cloud covering the top

The Beargrass was in full bloom, with  flocks and a few other flowers out too. We decided to make it a shorter hike, so we climbed up to a summit with views down to a couple of the lakes and all the way northeast to Stuart where we had been the day before. Great weekend with super nice weather. All the pics can be found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottandjackie/sets/72157621023927744/

Beargrass along the side of the trail

The other members of the motley crew

Scott picked me up, we picked up Eric, sped to Leavenworth to make the 9am deadline, grabbed a fast food breakfast, and headed to the trail. We sweated out beer for the first few miles to the turquoise Colchuck Lake, and then headed around the lake to the base of Aasgard pass. The torturous scramble up Aasgard was possibly the least fun part of the trip, but after a couple hours we reached the top. A world of frozen lakes and snow fields began to lay out before us, surrounded by barren craggy peaks. We’d climbed about 4,000 feet so far.

First glimpses of the basin from Aasgard pass

Eric ready to jump off Dragontail's saddle

Since we were all fairly exhausted from the climb and the weather was kind of crappy we decided to find a campsite and call it a day. It was a chilly 40 something with no sun, but we made the best of it by passing around our fifth of Jim Beam and cooking up some hot meals before heading to our tents.

Under some un-named peaks

After a night of almost no sleep I woke up to the sun beating down on my tent. I crawled out, walk 20 feet from our tents, and took in the views all around me. About that time a group of about 10 goats came running across the snow covered meadow towards me. My first thought was that the goats had finally had enough of humans and were going to try and trample us in our tents. They turned out to be fairly benign, snooping around the outskirts of our campsite for food scraps and waiting for us to pee, at which point they would lick up the salt left behind. The goats were pretty fearless, coming within a couple feet of us at times. The babies were little, fluffy, and skittish, but really cute.

baaaaa

Our second day we started out by climbing Dragontail peak. At around 8,800 feet it is the 2nd tallest mountain in the area (mt. Stuart is the highest). We had to hike back towards Aasgard, traverse a snow slope, and then from the saddle we hiked/scrambled the last little bit to the summit. The clouds started to thin out as we got to the top, giving us great views of the surrounding peaks and valleys. On the way down we were able to glissade all the way to the basin floor, making a 5 minute job of what took us an hour or so to hike up. Later that day we hiked down to some of the lower lakes, getting great views of Prusik peak and all the snow covered lakes.

Snow covered lake with Prusik peak and the Temple behind

Frozen lake

That night the weather was super clear, giving us great views of stars, planets, satellites, blah blah blah. We passed around a delightful golden delicious apple and killed the second half of the Jim Beam while we discussed various brain teasers and astronomy theories.

View of Little Annapurna from our camp (goats on the rocks)

The next morning we got up and climbed Little Annapurna, a peak that was directly across the basin from our camp. Views from the top were great since the clouds hadn’t yet rolled in, and we were back down to the campsite before 11 am. We packed up our gear and started the long (>10 miles) hike out. We passed by all the lakes on the way and lost 6,000 feet of elevation before we got down to the Snow lake trailhead. Scott sweet-talked a family into giving him a ride to the Colchuck trailhead to pick up our car. Since we were all a little sore we decided that going to Leavenworth and having a few beers would be a good idea, so after conversing with a German lady and sharing some pints we headed home. For all the pictures from the trip go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottandjackie/sets/72157620291555407/

Summit of Little Annapurna

Ellinor is the one in the middle.

Ellinor is about 5,900 ft. elevation and if super accesible in the early season. The climb goes up the trail switchbacks until it hits snow, where you start climbing up an avalanche gully.

Jackie hikin along in the snowy woods

There were patches of snow at the trailhead, but nothing major until we got up in elevation, where it started snowing on us. Since we got a late start we started having people pass us on the way down, glissading past us.

Jackie in the chute

After a lot of slow plodding up the steep slope we finally made it to the summit, where another couple was sitting. Since it was snowing and our visibility was about 100 ft (damn you Ellinor!) we didn’t really have any views, but regardless it was a fun way to start the hiking season.

Looking up the big mountain on the trail up to Muir

The next weekend we decided to give our legs a workout and headed up to Mt. Rainier. We decided we’d hike up to Camp Muir, the main base camp used by climbers going up the south side of the mountain.

Snowboarder on their way down from Muir

Lots of people hike up to Muir and ski or snowboard down. Camp Muir is just over 10,000 ft. elevation, so you get to ski about 4,500 elevation down the mountain back to the parking lot, which stays snowy into June or later.

Mt. Adams from Muir. We climbed that thing!

Along the way are great views of the Tatoosh range just to the south and then St. Helens, Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams as you get higher up.

Mt. St. Helens from Muir. Damn, that's a big hole.

The hike down was fun, with a few glissade areas. Unfortunately our sunscreen was some crappy stuff so we both got fried, but hey now we know.

The Brothers are the prominent peaks in the middle. What a cool sunset.

The next weekend we thought “What the hell, we’re gonna climb the Brothers.” The Brothers are actually one mountain with two peaks connected by a narrow knife ridge saddle. They are the most prominent peaks in the Olympic mountains that you can see from Seattle.

Taking a break at Lena Lake

We’ve been saying we wanted to climb The Brothers since we moved to Seattle. The south peak is just over 6,800 feet high, and the trail starts at about 600 feet elevation, so there’s over a mile of elevation gain. That and the trail is about 16 miles roundtrip, with the last third rough and hard to follow. Since we got a late start we climbed as far as we could and then pitched our tent on the side of the trail.

Looking up the south chute

Once we made it through the bushwacking rougher section of the trail on the second day we came to the base of the south avalanche chute. From this point on it was all snow, and the going got steeper and steeper as we went.

Finally made it

After a very nervous scramble up the last little bit we were finally on top! Awesome views of the interior Olympic mountains, and way off to the East looking teeny tiny were the skyscrapers of downtown Seattle. We couldn’t have asked for better weather.

Climber and his dog ready to downclimb the summit

There were about 30 people that got to the summit within an hour of us. On the way up several rocks went whizzing by us from climbers above, so on the way down we tried to space out a little more. It was a little slow going, but once we made it down the steep area just under the summit we were able to glissade short sections.

And the coolest site of the day.....a goat!!

On the way down we got to see a goat wandering around near the trail. These things are insanely surefooted, and live all up around the steep cliffs. Supposedly they’re not native to here, but with no real predators here they just thrive.

An awesome month, hopefully with more to come this summer. If you want to check out any more of the pictures or download full size images you can go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottandjackie/sets/72157618851215844/