altitude slickness

Staring at that date for Mount Olympus on the calendar has been a pretty good motivator lately to get outside and start moving. This morning I got up pretty early for something I haven’t done in a long long time – a good old-fashioned dawn patrol ascent. The target was the Columbia Gorge’s Dog Mountain, down near the town of Stevenson, before you get to Hood River. A quick 45-minute drive and I was the second car at the trailhead – always a good sign. Didn’t bring much this trip, only 10-15 pounds at the most as I had to be back home to help a neighbor pour concrete at 11. At 6:30 I was heading up the very very steep trail and feeling it pretty quickly. It took a little longer than usuall for me to get my second wind, but once that kicked in I was fine for the rest of the trip.

The trail was in really nice shape, but things became much more interesting once I broke through the trees and hit the high meadows below the summit. Lots of flowers out – I’d missed the full-on bloom of early spring, but what was out was still beautiful. Lots and lots of balsamroot in varying stages of blossom and decay, as well as various red and purple wildflowers I’ll have to try to identify some time. There was a nice view out towards the west, and the tip of Mount Hood was visible just to the south. Adams was also out, but you had to peek through the trees on the north side of the summit.

I took a few shots up top, and then turned on the iPod and headed back down the Augsburger Mountain trail, supposedly a bit longer but less severe way to make the loop back to the cars. I ran it pretty quickly, passing only a few people on the way down, but grinning the whole way down.

Dean and I weren’t feeling too ambitious. It had just been too long since we’d been outside, and with only a limited amount of time, and in-shape-ness, we decided to play it easy and head back to Franklin Falls for an easy winter camping shakedown.

Quick load-up of the snowshoes and packs and we headed up to the Pass. The trailhead was mostly empty, so we backed into place and started heading back down towards the falls. It only took us an hour or so to make it back there but it was dark by the time we were able to stomp out a place for the tent… ON THE ICE.

Yup, on the ice. The only flat place stable enough for us to pitch the tent was about 40 yards down from the main falls near where the trail headed back up. The ice was about 4-5 inches thick, but after getting things settled and dinner going, it was a bit unsettling to hear the water flowing directly underneath you. It wasn’t the quietest campsite I’d ever been in – the falls was doing its thing quite nicely and the westbound side of I-90 was just overhead with snowplows coming by every 30 minutes.

Dinner was quick and easy, with Dean’s Jetboil knocking out water quickly for a couple of freeze-dried meals. We had neglected to pack cards or a book or an iPod or anything, so we decided to just get some rest and call it an early night.

A couple hours later – maybe around 10…

POW! KA-RACK! Shuffle shuffle shuffle slide slide slide

I was instantly awake – heart pounding and my feet already scooting out of my bag and heading towards my boots.

Dean was doing the same thing, but it was over as soon as it started. Adrenaline pumping, I pulled on my jacket and boots and stepped outside with my camera to see what had come down, and how close it was. We had picked this destination because of the snowfall up higher and the considerable avy danger, so we figured a chunk of ice had broken free and tumbled down in the rocks. I took a few night shots and shuffled back into the tent.

It took both of us a while to get back to sleep, and even then it was fitful and light. The water running under your head wasn’t the most comforting sound, even though we knew the ice was solid. The rest of the night pass uneventfully though, even with the sounds of snowplows dropping their blades on the freeway above our heads that sounded like avalanche cracks. The next morning we were up early, downed some water and packed up. It was just barely snowing, but there was around five inches of fresh stuff to plow through on the way back, which provided a lot of good photo ops. The whole excursion wasn’t that spectacular – a simple overnight hike in the snow – but it was a good exercise in snow camping and stretching out the legs. Didn’t see too many people on the way out, but we did come across a nice solid igloo someone had made…

Breakfast at Gordy’s – excellent as usual, and a perfect way to finish off the morning.

With the long Thanksgiving weekend bringing us up to the Seattle area, I’d brought along my pack and gear for some kind of outing. Luckily Mark was able to make it out on Saturday and we decided to go snowshoeing up at the Pass. I’d just bought a couple pairs of snowshoes on sale at REI the day before, so that coupled with all the fresh snow promised a good workout that morning. Avalanche uncertainty pointed us towards the Gold Creek area, and with our typical early morning start, we turned on the headlamps and started shuffling up the snow-covered road.

The road was pretty well-packed, so the snowshoes weren’t that helpful for the first little while. Once we hit the deeper trail though, we were glad we’d brought them along. We were only out there for four hours or so, but managed to hike ourselves silly and get some really good photos. It was a good quick outing and nice to be able to pull off considering it had been a while since I’d been out down in Vancouver.

Happy Birthday, Mark!

early morning late season dark foggy lost wrong turn backtrack discover trails waterfalls find trailhead head out quick hike nice trail good view high point lots of pictures back around easy day a good saturday morning.

Dean and I went up early last Saturday morning, starting from the parking lot just a little before sunrise. Time was short for both of us, but by taking one of our shortcuts up the hill we managed to spend a few minutes up top enjoying the view… Lots of birds out, but oddly enough, we were the only ones out hiking that morning, which doesn’t happen very often on Saturdays. Having something as accessible and close as Rattlesnake Ledge will be sorely missed once The Move goes down in a few weeks. That said however, I’m really looking forward to exploring the Columbia River Gorge and the south end of the Cascades. The boys and I picked up a few books at Marmot last week and it looks very promising.