Growing up less than 20 minutes from the start of the AT, the Appalachians were my first love. I have a habit of subconsciously comparing all other mountains to my well-known, pastoral hills of the Appalachians. There is this weird family tree of mountain organization in my mind, and every time I am introduced to a new mountain group, along comes a new label. The Appalachians are the old grandmother who has seen it all, with face full of smooth laugh lines, and plenty of laid-back wisdom: disciplining, but never too harsh. The North Cascades definitely fill the rebel distant cousin role. Rugged, dangerous. The whole family is always talking about his crazy ramblings. Probably a heart breaker with his good looks. You never know, he might try to kill you with a broken beer bottle or befriend you and have the greatest adventures of your life.
We hit the road on Friday afternoon to be stuck in the city-escaping traffic of the holiday weekend. Stop-n-going it until well out of Seattle, we were finally able to escape the highway to the stretch of cities ending in -ington, then to the North Cascades Highway, and finally to the trailhead for Hidden Lake Peak.
The trail was heavily wooded for the first 800 feet, but then broke out into a drainage, where it climbed steadily through areas of wildflowers, tongues of avalanche debris, and snow-melt streams.
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| From Hidden Lake Lookout |
At about 5500 feet the trail turned to snow. Breaking out boots and ice axe, we kicked steps up to the ridge. We found the lookout on hidden lake peak just after the sun set behind Baker. As the sun was down, and I was a bit freaked out about crossing even slightly inclined frozen snow in the dark, I talked Andrew into a bivy on some snow-free ground at the top of the col. The sunset had been beautiful, with alpenglow lighting up peaks in every direction. From our bivy spot it was jagged, snow capped peaks for about 340 degrees around us. A perfect spot to sleep for the night.
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| From Hidden Lake Lookout |
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| From Hidden Lake Lookout |
...well, a perfect spot to sleep out except for the mosquitoes. We had been above tree line in solid snow for the last 1000 feet, and you think this would ensure a bug-free zone. But these mosquitoes if anything were worse up here than in the melted-out meadows below. Resigning to having at least two hundred bites by the morning, I fell into a deep sleep with a soundtrack of buzzing to my dreams.
Andrew with his own, personal swarm. Kind of like your own, personal Jesus, but a little less guilt when you kill them.
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| From Hidden Lake Lookout |
My feelings towards the biting bugs
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| From Hidden Lake Lookout |
We woke up to find that, in the light of day, the trail up to the lookout was melted out and an easy climb. So we climbed up to the lookout post, and spent some time taking in the views and reading journal entries from the lookout log. My favorite entry is from a girl who just was dumped for a "skinny girl in California", taking post-breakup haven in the mountains, and wishing her ex-boyfriend ugly children. Second favorite was a long entry about how the outdoor privy outside the lookout was, hands-down, one of the best views for pooping in the history of outdoor thrones.
Andrew reading journal entries in the lookout.
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| From Hidden Lake Lookout |
Views from the breakfast table.
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| From Hidden Lake Lookout |
We decided to start our descent about mid-day, after Andrew got in some turns. (Note to self: skis are a much faster downhill method of transportation than feet.)
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| From Hidden Lake Lookout |
We hit the car in the late afternoon, and headed back to Seattle for some fireworks, crowds, and good, old-fashioned redcoat bashing. Don't get me wrong, fireworks and drunken crowds are great, but there is no greater way to celebrate Independence than in the woods on a mountain top.
Cool.
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