Olympic Hot Springs

To start off the month of December, 5 of us hiked to Olympic Hot Springs. We thought the hike was going to be about 5.5 miles, but the road was gated off about 3 miles lower than we had anticipated, so it became a bit longer than we had planned. Snow began to fall as we hiked in. By the time we got to camp, it was coming down very hard. We set up our tents on the snow, then walked to the uppermost pool of the hot springs. I have no idea how long we soaked, but it was for hours. As we sat in the pool, it POURED snow. Every once in awhile, a glory hole in the clouds would open up and we could see stars. Then, the snow would start again. We soaked, we ate, we drank.

Finally, we extricated ourselves from the wamth and headed back down the hill to the tents. Wow, we had gotten a ton of snow. At this point, more than a foot had fallen since we started. Throughout the night, snow continued to fall. By morning, we had accumulations of between 18 and 24 inches of fresh snow, and the snow continued.

The hike out was something else. We alternated breaking trail with out one pair of snowshoes. About 1.5 miles into our hike out, the snow switched over to rain. The trail got harder to break and we got quieter. After about 4.5 hours of hiking, we finally made it to the cars. All of us were soaked, but we still had a great time. And, due to the bad weather, we were the only people at the hot springs that weekend!

Ingalls Lake

In October, I visited Ingalls Lake. The weather was spectacular, and I assumed that it would probably be the last chance in 2007 to visit the high country before it became snowbound. No camping around the lake, so we set up our spot and then visited the lake. Ingalls lake is an amazing spot. It is set just below craggy Mt. Stuart in a basin of larches. We just missed the larches, which are conifers that turn bright yellow and lose their needles in the fall.

The lake was partially frozen over and it was quite an expedition to scramble over rocks and snow to get to the far end of the lake. On the way back, the sky clouded over and it got a bit colder. Just before sunset, the clouds lifted and Stuart began to glow. All around us, the mountains reflected the last rays of sun. When the alpenglow receeded, the clouds lit up. Later that night, the almost full moon on the surrounding snow and peaks rendered headlamps totally unnecessary. Sunrise was an unearthly orange glow.

Eagle Cap Wilderness

In mid September, Sue, my friend from my Alaska trip, flew out from Georgia to join Gina, John George, Sherell, Chris and myself on a weeklong backpacking trip in Oregon's Eagle Cap Wilderness. JG had been to the area when he was a boy scout, but none of the rest of us had heard of it.

What an amazing place. The elevation was mostly about 6000 feet, and it was filled with beautiful lakes and valleys. Much of the landscape was granite. It reminded me of the Sierra Nevada. Our favorite lakes were Moccasin Lake, because of the amazing clarity of the water and the great drop offs, and Glacier Lake, because of it's incredible beauty.

Mt. Adams climb

In the beginnig of August, a big group of us headed south to Mt. Adams to attempt to climb the second highest peak in Washington. Adams can be a technical climb, but the route we took was not technical. It was steep. We camped the first night at Lunch Counter, then got up before dawn to head up. Sunrise was beautiful -- great mountain shadows on the clouds and landscape. We had amazing views of Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Hood from our perch. As we started climbing, the winds picked up and the clouds came in. I had one glimpse of the true summit from the top of the false summit, then everything became totally white. We made it to the top, but our visibility was reduced to about 10 feet of solid white, and the winds were probably blowing a sustained 40 mph. It was an interesting trip down. Once we made it back to the false summit, we glissaded in the luge-like trough down to our camp. What took us about 3 hours to climb took about 5 minutes to go down.

Next year, we will return for the view from the top!