Summer Trips 2021 July-August

Stating that 2021 was a rough year is not personally unique to me. I think it was rough for just about everyone on the planet and it was no different for me though I feel that I shouldn’t complain too much. I recognize that things could have been much worse for me personally. Everyone close to me weathered the year without getting too sick. However, my summer plans ended up in shambles. I started the hiking season within about 5 trips of reaching my Skagit lakes goal south of the Canadian border. Most years, this would have been easily accomplished (after shedding a lot of sweat of course.) I only got one of those trips in. I got my one trip in right at the start of the season. The next on the agenda was a trip with the family into Otter Lakes. Unfortunately, a about a week before we were going to go, the girls had been over at a friend’s house. When Sacha came to get them they were all under a blanket having a secret meeting. The friend came down with Covid several days later. If the girls had gotten it, they would be having symptoms in the middle of our trip so we decided to postpone. It turned out by some miracle, they didn’t get Covid. We did that trip later in the year in the middle of my summer hiking season. Right after we got back from that trip, I contracted a breakthrough case of Covid at work. That knocked me back for several weekends. I didn’t have severe symptoms, it was like a weird cold, but I managed to give it to Phoebe who gave it to Sacha who finally gave it to Vashti right before school was supposed to start for the year. While my symptoms were mild, I seemed like I ended up with long Covid. My muscles and joints ached with a weird pain, silky smooth and inexorable. I did a couple of short trips while I still had the symptoms of the initial infection and seemed to do okay. At the end of the year I got in a good overnight scouting trip. The start of it was pretty miserable because everything ached but by the end of it the ache seemed to have cleared out of my legs. So that was pretty much my hiking season. For a number of reasons I have been late in getting the blog posts done this year. Again, it is a largely unedited wall of words.  

Freezeout Creek Lakes  7/29-8/2/21

Took a couple days off work to do a 5 day trip. Turned down a little shy of $3000 in overtime to do the trip. Started out Thursday Morning. Thursday and Friday were supposed to be hot, in the upper 90’s. NOAA forecast for Freezeout Creek area indicated temps only into the high 70’s low 80’s but suspected that these were off by quite a bit.  Was fortunate to be able to get a water taxi at 8:00 a.m. That way I would be able to at least get through the steep, hot part of the Lightning Creek Trail before the day got too hot. Water taxi cost $135 for a round trip. While I was planning all of this, the cows tore down a section of fence. Got materials (poles) ready to fix it after work on Wednesday, the day before the trip. Had to shop a bit more for a last few items so didn’t fix fence that day. Plan was to get up early the next day and fix fence which probably wouldn’t take too long before heading up to Ross Lake. Wednesday night boiled some eggs for the trip. Was disappointed to see that we only had seven eggs. Had planned to have a big plate of scrambled eggs for breakfast the next day. Didn’t really have a backup plan that I could do as fast as scrambled eggs so figured I would just have to pick up something at the store for breakfast the next day. Up early Thursday. Pack pretty much ready so threw it in pickup and headed out. Got three breakfast tornadoes from the deli case and a muffin at the store on my way up. Got to pasture and fixed the section of fence in about 15 minutes. Put tools up and hopped in pickup. Had about an hour and a half to catch boat. This would give me plenty of time to get to the trailhead and hike the mile or so down to the lake. Driving out, I glanced over and saw that the damn cows had torn another section of fence down even farther than the one I just fixed. If I let this stay, it looked like a good chance that some would get out in the 5 days I would be gone. That would leave my 80 plus year old mom to deal with the problem. Cursing, stopped the pickup and rushed out to dig some more poles out of storage and dig the hammer and nails back out. I still had a good bit of time but it was tighter now and if I missed the boat, I would not only be out the cash, I would have used the days off for nothing because I wouldn’t be able to do the trip. Fortunately I was able to get the fence fixed to my satisfaction in about half an hour. Hopped back in pickup and headed up the road. Got to boat launch with 15 minutes to spare and ended up waiting another 20 minutes or so. I was surprised that the day was still pretty cool. Often when the day is going to be hot, it doesn’t take long for the day to heat up in the morning. They had to load some canoes up for a trip uplake so it took a little longer than expected to get started. Actually got a little cold from the wind on the boat ride uplake and sunlight felt pretty good. Got to Lightning Creek Campground at a little before 9:00 a.m. and started up the trail. Wasn’t too bad at the start. Day was still cool but it warmed quickly and I had a drenching sweat going well before I got off the exposed area above the lake. The times of the sunlight feeling were gone for good. When I was in the U.S. Navy I lived in places where the humidity is greater but I swear in recent years the humidity here is now greater than it was a decade or two ago. With the humidity it felt like hiking in a sauna. Made pretty good time though. Got the 4 miles or so to Deer Lick in less than 2 hours. Short break there in a cloud of mosquitoes then on up the trail to Nightmare. Had hoped to make it up the old Freezeout Trail to the first good spring before taking lunch so I wouldn’t have to do a bunch of heavy walking with a full stomach. Didn’t work out that way. Day warming significantly and, by the time I got to Nightmare at around noon, I was feeling tired and hungry. Had to go through a bunch of brush and scree to get to better walking in timber and then through a bunch of switchbacks before I got to the spring I where I had wanted to eat lunch. Decided it would be wiser to eat there at Nightmare bridge and rest a bit. Ate and rested for half an hour or so before starting back out again. Getting through brush and scree was heavy work and the day was hot at this point. Switchbacks more heavy work with the added discomfort of burps that tasted like lunch every 30 seconds or so all the way. Rested at the spring. Nice spot, good breeze down the valley cooled things off by 10 or 20 degrees. Pushed on, resting more frequently now. Goal for the day was the confluence of Freezeout Creek and a stream draining the two largest lakes I wanted to get into. On map looked like there was a bit of a flat there and probably a nice place to camp. Made good progress above upper set of switchbacks. Trail quite a bit less steep in most spots so travel was good. Had to crawl over a number of downed logs which was to be expected. Figured I would make it to my camp spot easily. Ran into a bunch more unexpected switchbacks near my destination. These weren’t shown on the map I had. Discrepancies like this also to be expected. Fortunately had a kind of second wind at this point so just ground on through. Trail got really rough just before my planned camp. A large Douglas-fir had fallen, taking a hemlock of about the same size with it. This pretty much obliterated the trail. Had to detour quite a way around this. Trail pretty much disappeared in several areas beyond this. Confluence where I wanted to camp was only a few hundred yards farther though. The tributary draining the lakes I wanted to get into had cut down through about 5 feet of gravel and the banks were steep. Found a good spot through the steep cutbank and dropped my pack to look around. Freezeout Creek was less than 100 yards away. It took me a minute or two to orient myself as to which stream was Freezeout Creek. I had expected it to be much bigger but it was about the same size as the tributary stream I had just crossed. I had also expected to find a nice, fairly big timbered flat where there would be ample spots to pitch my tent. Instead I found a welter of windfalls with very little flat ground that wasn’t rough gravel and cobbles or was wet, brushy ground. I finally found a spot just big enough to pitch my tent. Good enough. I almost blew it. Without thinking after I dropped my pack I urinated in one of the few flat spots. Fortunately I found a better alternative anyway. Ate dinner and turned in. Wanted to get as early start as possible next day to try to beat some of the heat. Slept pretty well even though ground was a bit uneven. Sometimes this helps. This time it did. Got up just after I heard the birds start singing, got breakfast and was on my way before 8:00 a.m. Was able to pick up the trail on the other side of Freezeout Creek. It looked like it had been seeing occasional use every year and the tread was pretty easy to follow. Of course there were lots of windfalls to navigate. Again I was surprised that the morning was cool. Nice breeze blowing down Freezeout valley helped with this too. Actually got cold enough first thing in the morning that it made my eyes water. Found some more switchbacks that weren’t indicated on the map. Plan was to head up Freezeout and take a trib. draining the smallest lake that I wanted to get into and follow that up to the lake. The trib. was on the other side of the valley from the trail and I was a bit worried that I might miss it because the valley it occupied wasn’t really big and I couldn’t see much on the other side of the creek because the timber was so heavy. There weren’t really any landmarks I could use on the trail side of the creek. Creek I wanted to follow was north of a big burn on a ridge running east-west off Freezeout Mountain. Finally spotted the burned ridge and got my bearings. Crossed Freezeout Creek pretty easily. It was only about 5 feet wide at this point. On the map, both sides of the creek I was following looked navigable. Something in the back of my mind told me that I wanted to be on the north side of this creek but I decided to stick with the south side because it was a little easier at the bottom. Small lake was about 5920 feet elevation so I had about 1400 feet to climb to get into it. In about half an hour got to a big open area below the burned running ridge off Freezeout and realized why I had wanted to be on the north side of the creek I was following. A snow slide had run off the burned ridge and left a huge pile of jumbled logs in my path. I had seen this pile on Google Earth photos. There was nice timber to follow on the other side of the creek. I decided not to back track below the slide area to get across the creek. Picked my way through the pile of logs. Couple of nasty spots there with deep holes to fall into and the logs were unstable and some where rotten and cracked under my weight. Made across okay. Middle of the slide area was brushy but the ground was easy traveling since everything had been swept clear of the ground. Got to other side of the creek and traveling was easier. Lots of windfalls but nothing too hard to navigate. Expected to be getting to the lake soon but was a little optimistic. It always takes longer than you think to get where you want to go. Followed some bear trails through meadowy, then brushy areas. Had to navigate a few tag alders that I hadn’t expected to but it wasn’t too bad. Finally got to lake a little before 11:00 a.m. and noticed that the day had finally heated up. It seemed like it was only a matter of minutes from a fairly comfortable temperature to being uncomfortable in the direct sun. This was kind of the moment of truth for the trip. I had hoped to get over the east-west ridge off Freezeout Mountain to the next lake which was at 6639 feet in elevation. Trouble was that the contour lines were really tight on my side (north) of the ridge so I wasn’t sure if I would be able to pull it off. If I wasn’t able to get over the ridge from this little lake, I would have to retrace my steps back out the way I had come in and back to my camp. I was camped next to the outlet streams of these next two lakes and would have to get into them by following their outlet streams up. I probably wouldn’t be able to do this in one day. If I was able to get to the top of the ridge on the north side, the south side, though steep, was quite a bit more gradual and should be pretty navigable. This unknown factor was why I took an extra day for the trip, in case I ran into a snag of some sort. Upon reaching the small lake, I looked up and it looked like I would be able to get over the ridge pretty easily. This boosted my confidence. I walked around the small lake taking my regular notes. It was pretty shallow and I didn’t see any fish or amphibians. There were a lot of case building caddisflies and some diving beetles but that was all I saw. Started up over the ridge and was pleasantly surprised to find that there was a quite cool breeze blowing east-west along the ridge. About halfway up though I realized that what I had thought was the top of the ridge from below was actually just a swell in the ridge that hid the true top. The swell was easily navigable but the upper part of the ridge beyond was quite a bit steeper. It looked like I would probably be able to just squeak through. Ended up going on my hands and knees through several spots. It wasn’t too dangerous. The real danger would be if I somehow started to tumble head over heels. As long as I was down on all fours there was little danger of this happening. Got to the top of the ridge and peeked over. Sure enough, the south side was going to be navigable. It was also a lot hotter. I could just barely see the next lake, the one at 6639 feet, that I wanted to get into. My fantasy of sidehilling into that lake also got shattered. There was a nose of cliffs between me and the lake that dropped several hundred feet below me before I could get around them. Instead of sidehilling, I would have to drop several hundred feet through loose scree and then climb back up to get into the lake. Some Clark’s nutcrackers were hanging out on top of the ridge near some whitebark pines. There weren’t many large whitebarks alive. Most looked like they had been killed by either the fire or blister rust. Some had cones though. Even several smaller whitebarks had cones. Walked out on the ridge into the old burn to get some photos before diving over onto the south side. The slope on the south side of the ridge was less steep but it was also covered with loose scree. With every step, my feet slid downhill, kicking up dust, loosing rocks and making me struggle to maintain my balance. It was also a lot hotter than the north side of the ridge. There was a breeze but it didn’t cool me much. I painstakingly worked my way across and down the slope, aiming my route to pass just below the nose of cliffs. When I finally reached the cliff nose then it was back up through the same material. Now for every step up I took I usually lost half a step. I tried to stick to larger material which was marginally better. It was a bit more stable but still pretty loose and it was big enough to cause significant damage to legs and toes and hands and fingers if a rock rolled on them. A couple hundred feet below the lake I got into some ground covered with vegetation and the going was a lot better there. At the base of the waterfall coming out of the lake I was faced with a choice. The north side of the falls was more scree. The south side had a good cover of heather and small trees. Again, something told me that I should go up the north side. Instead I went up the south side because, quite frankly, I was tired of fighting the scree. I soon discovered that I was in some very steep ground. I didn’t want to backtrack down the hill and go up the north side so I pushed on and ended up on my hands and knees again, pulling myself up through small scrubby, krummholz trees. I always seemed to find a way through until I was standing at the lake. I decided to take the north side down. At this point I had been at it for an hour and a half or so and I was hot and tired. Found a nice patch of shade by the outlet provided by a larger tree. It was at least ten degrees cooler in the shade. I took my pack off and stretched out to relax for a bit. It was nearly 2:00 p.m. There was no way I would be able to make it into the last lake this day. I would go into that one the next day, following the outlet stream. I had taken an extra day in case such a contingency arose. Took a short nap and had lunch. Took some photos and notes. Mostly rock, talus and scree around the lake so not much to see in the way of plants. I hadn’t seen any sign of fish. The lake was pretty high and barren looking. I decided to try fishing anyway. To my surprise, I felt a bump on the line at the first cast. On the second cast I caught a nice fish. It looked mostly like a rainbow trout but seemed to have some characteristics of coastal cutthroat trout, more fine spots on the side and faint, though quite noticeable red slashes under the jaws. Fished a bit more and caught a few more. Thermometer that I carry in my pack said it was 85 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade and about 95 in the sun. This thermometer isn’t the highest quality and it is black so it would tend to soak up more sun, indicating a little higher than in should be. However, in the high 80’s and 90’s, my legs sweat enough to make my pants stick to them and my pants were sticking to my legs. So I know it was easily in the high 80’s or low 90’s. Started back toward camp at around 3:00 p.m. Off to the west I saw some towering clouds that looked suspiciously like thunderheads. I didn’t want a thunderstorm, especially as dry as everything was. This was Friday and the weather forecasts I had seen called for a slight chance of thunderstorms on Saturday, not today. Of course forecasts are wrong or they change. No help for it now. Started down the north side of the outlet stream and found the going much better than the south side had been. There was a strong wind from the west blowing in my face. It was better than still air but it was hot and didn’t cool much. The interested thing I noticed is that I heard a number of rock rabbits (pikas) both on the way in and the way out. I even saw one on my way out. This is interesting because I had heard that rock rabbits need habitat where they can keep themselves cool. If they are that sensitive to heat, it is surprising that there seemed to be so many out and about on this hot day. Took about an hour to get down the slope to the first patch of timber. This was pretty small and it looked like this area got hammered by snow slides. I was lucky in that it looked like a slide hadn’t come through in a while and the timber, though small was pretty easy to get through. After a couple hundred yards I was into old growth timber. Lots of windfalls here but it wasn’t too hard to navigate. The nice thing about going through windfalls off trail is that you can choose your own route and aim to miss most of the difficult obstacles. If you are on a trail, the route is already chosen for you. It is the luck of the draw. Some obstacles are easy to get over but others are not and you have to deal with those difficult ones if you want to stay on the trail. I knew I would have to cross another avalanche track running down from the burn on the south side of the ridge off Freezeout Mountain. Finally got to that and found another pile of logs to navigate. Again, the logs were all at the margins of the slide area and the middle part of it was mostly bare and easy to walk through. Another pile of logs on the other side of the avalanche track and I was back in the bigger timber again. This avalanche track would be my take off point for going into the last lake on the next day (Saturday). It was about a quarter mile upstream of the confluence of the streams coming out of the lakes. There was a huge patch of tag alders around both streams so the best route would be to get above that patch and just cut over into the valley of the stream draining the last lake all in the timber rather than slogging for an hour or more through the tag alders. Seemed like it took forever to get to the avalanche track and then it seemed like it took forever to get back to camp. I wasn’t worried about being lost. The ground I was on was between the Freezeout Creek and the tributary draining the lakes. All I had to do was keep going downhill and I would be steered inevitably back to my camp. Got back to camp a little before 7:00 p.m. Cooked dinner, ate and turned in. Looked at map again inside my tent before going to sleep. Contour lines looked pretty tight in one section of my planned route. I might not be able to get through. Good thing I wasn’t able to contour around into that last lake and then discover I couldn’t get down. I wouldn’t have had time to get out. I would have had to stay out overnight and retrace my steps the next day. Coming in up the outlet stream was a better plan. I could just retrace my steps if I ended up getting blocked. Woke up pretty early the next day and got going without lazing around in my sleeping bag for long. The first thing I noticed when I climbed out of my tent was that the air was full of smoke. This wasn’t good. Where was the fire? The woods around me were extremely dry and full of downed fuel. Debated with myself whether to just head out while I made breakfast. Finally decided that the smoke wasn’t as harsh and acrid as it would be if the fire was nearby and there was not ash falling from the sky so it was probably smoke that had blown in from somewhere else. There were several big fires, Cedar Creek/Delancey Ridge and Cub Creek, not too far away. The other part of the equation was that I was expensive and had taken a good bit of effort to get to where I was. The next fire that burned through this area, hoping and assuming that there wasn’t one already, would obliterate the old trail and make it many times more difficult to get back to this spot. Decided to go for it. It hadn’t cooled off during the night so the morning was pretty warm even though it was overcast and smoky. Worked up a sweat quickly. Like hiking in a smoky sauna. Felt really gross. Took a lower route up the tributary to the tag alder patch and then followed the edge of that up through the timber until I got to the avalanche area. A little minor brush to navigate to cross the tributary draining the 6639 lake and into the timber on the other side. Open in the timber, again with a lot of windfalls but going wasn’t too bad. Followed another patch of tag alders in the stream valley until I ran into a brushy avalanche track. Hadn’t remembered anything like this on the air photos of this area I had been looking at but there was no way around it. It wasn’t too bad. This was also near where the contour lines were close on the map and the brush was a help on the steeper ground. Got into some mixed timber on the other side of the avalanche track and continued up. There were some bigger trees here with a lot of scrubby trees underneath. Again the scrub, rather than being a hindrance was a help. Followed a bear trail up through the brush. Saw several trees that had been stripped by a bear for the cambium earlier this year. Ended up below a 3 to 4 foot Englemann spruce with limbs almost to the ground. From here I could see talus through the brush and the route ahead. It looked like I had gotten through the steepest part and would make it into the lake. My spirits picked up quite a bit. I could see a clear route to the lake now and there was not sign of a fire in the immediate vicinity. The first talus patch I go into was fairly stable. Most of the rocks had a heavy growth of lichen on them. It takes a long time for lichen to grow so a heavy growth indicates that the rock hasn’t moved in a long time. Several hundred feet up I ran into fresh talus. This was a lot more difficult. Went over to the creek at the bottom of the fresh talus and got a drink before starting up. Same story as at the other lake on the day before. For just about every step up, I would slid back down half a step. Got in some larger talus, where the rocks were several feet in diameter in the middle of the slope hoping the larger rocks would be more stable. They were but the downside was that, while many of the rocks were more stable, quite a few were not and this rock was big enough to take off a finger or toe or even a hand or leg. Made my way carefully up the slope. Near the top the talus got smaller and more unstable. I needed to get back over by the outlet stream. The slope I was facing was made of oversteepened fine material that would be a struggle to get through. There was a much better spot about a hundred feet below me but I wasn’t going back down. As I started across the slope, I happened to look up and see the flat of a game trail about ten feet above me. I made my way up to that. The going was much easier on the game trail. It was still a bit of a scramble over the oversteepened part but not bad. Now I was back into big rocks. Again, mostly stable but quite a few not. I was almost to the lake at this point. Made my way to the crest of a ridge in the boulder pile the other side of which, I assumed, the lake basin sat. Upon topping this bouldery ridge I was disappointed to see, not the lake but another boulder slope. The lake was just beyond this, without a doubt. Another five or ten minutes and I was at the lake’s edge. This was a pretty spot. Unfortunately it was so smoky that a lot of stuff was hidden. It did lift enough that I could see clouds and blue sky above. Looking east up the lake Joker Mountain loomed, a large pile of rock and talus. Looking west all I could see was smoke and the dim outline of some ridges. If the day had been clear, I probably would have seen Hozomeen and maybe some of the mountains on the Canadian side of the border, Shawatum, Nepopekum, Silvertip. No help for that. It was still a pretty spot. The lake was loaded with fish. As I made my way around the lake I got a really good look at many of them and a suspicion was born in my head. When I got back around to my pack I rigged my pole and cast a line. Sure enough, the fish were golden trout. I have only encountered these in a few other places. Golden trout are a subspecies or variety of rainbow trout from several areas of the Sierra Nevada (I believe) in California. Their latin name is Oncorhynchus mykiss aguabonita. Aguabonita means “water pretty” or probably “pretty water” in English. These fish lived up to that name. They were some of the prettiest I have seen. I actually got into catching them so much that I stayed about an hour longer than I had planned. I took photos of several but unfortunately I had set the exposure for my camera to a darker rendition in an attempt to make the clouds above Joker Mountain stand out from the sky in the haze and I forgot to turn it back to normal. So my photos of the fish were pretty dark, not as impressive as if I had the camera set for a normal exposure. I didn’t realize this until I was back home downloading the photos so there was no way to fix it except in photoshop. Hopefully I can salvage most of them. Ate lunch and started carefully back down. Took a different route around the oversteepened slope near the top. It was better. Going down through the loose talus took a lot of time. Had to be careful not to kick large rocks onto myself. Had trouble finding the lowest finger of talus that I had taken up but I had a good landmark. The large spruce that I had come up next to had a broken top and extreme cone shape, designed for shedding heavy snows. It was pretty distinct and it was taller than everything else around so I didn’t have any trouble getting back to it. Was able to retrace my route back down pretty well. Took a short cut to avalanche track and crossing of the stream draining the 6639 Lake. This was pretty easy from higher on the hill. I realized that I could cut quite a bit of travel off my route by taking just a little bit different angle. Got back to camp at about 4:00 p.m. and started packing things up. Day was pretty dark and this point. As I shouldered my pack for the trip out I thought I felt water hit the back of my hand. Sure enough there were some light rain showers. The weather forecast I had seen, now three days old had only called for a very slight chance of showers. I was happy that it was raining, especially since there was not accompanying lightning. The rain cooled things down and, if there was a fire between me and the lake, which I didn’t think was the case, the rain would help knock it down a bit. I might get a bit wet from the brush on the trail but I could deal with that. Walked about a mile out to my planned camp for the night. The rain had stopped after the initial showers so I wasn’t too wet. Took a bunch of photos of a nearby waterfall and stream, had dinner and turned in. Had a fairly easy day planned for the next day. I would walk out to Deer Lick Camp, 5 or 6 miles, and camp there and explore the trail up Three Fools Creek which I had never walked before. Sometime around 3:00 a.m. on Sunday I heard the first big rain drops fall. They soon turned to a steady rain. It felt good after the heat of the previous days, even though I knew I was in for a soaking on the brushy trail on the way out. Rain continued into late in the morning. Didn’t get out of my sleeping bag until 8:30 a.m. Figured it would be a fairly easy day anyway and I was going to get soaked so I might as well enjoy my dryness as long as I could. Stopped raining about 9:00 a.m., about the time I finished breakfast. Packed up and headed down the trail. Day was definitely cooler but muggy and raingear trapped body heat so I was sweating by the time I started out. Raingear is funny. It keeps you from getting utterly soaked to the skin but you still get plenty wet from sweat and from leaks in the raingear or around the cuffs, even the ones like I had that you can Velcro tight to your wrists. The other thing is that it hinders your movements somewhat, making it hard to navigate things like downed logs. Day was generally dark. A few showers hit on the way out but no downpours. Saw a couple of male tailed frogs at first major stream crossing of trail. Took some photos but day was so dark had to max out the ISO on the camera to get a fast enough shutter speed to take hand held photos. Got back to Nightmare Camp at about noon. Decided to have lunch. Mosquitoes loved the humid air and swarms appeared. Dropped raingear after lunch. Figured that I would run into a little brush but the trail ahead was mostly clear and I hoped to dry my clothes a bit from body heat. Got to Deer Lick at about 3:00 p.m. and the mosquitoes were really thick. Clothes were soaked. Trail walking didn’t dry them much. Didn’t really want to pitch tent in mosquitoes and have to crawl into wet clothes to walk the final four miles out in the morning. Decided to just keep going all the way to the lake and stay there. There were mosquitoes there too but probably not as bad as Deer Lick. I was tired but it was still an easily doable hike. When I finally got to where I could see the lake the lighting and clouds and mist and smoke made it difficult to tell if I was actually looking at the lake or a bank of clouds in the valley. There was a blue gray sheet in between the ridges of the valley with some mist higher up around the ridges as well. I think I was looking at the lake but the scene was kind of otherworldly. Got to lake at about 5:00 p.m. Found a tent spot where someone had camped the night before and pitched my tent on the dry spot they had left. There were mosquitoes and other bugs but they weren’t too bad. Ate dinner and turned in. Clothes still wet so stripped them off in tent. Slept pretty well. Chipmunks and deer kept rustling around outside all night long but I mostly ignored them. Slept in a bit the next day before crawling into wet clothes. Day was dry but sky was dark with smoke. Grabbed bag of crackers out of lunch bag and walked to Lighting Creek bridge and back. Warmed up pretty well and clothes started to dry. My pickup for the water taxi was supposed to be 1:00 p.m. so I had a bit of time to kill. Spent morning drying clothes, pack cover and rain gear out. Debated just packing everything up in case a boat came by early but decided it would be better to have everything dry. Walked back to Lightning Creek bridge to finish up notes but steady breeze that had been blowing earlier was gone and bugs were pretty bad. Went back to camp and worked on notes at picnic table. Sure enough boat came by at around 11:00 a.m. I wasn’t ready to go so had to wait until 1:00. Boat had dropped off a couple of Desolation pilgrims. The one guy was pretty talkative and in the first half hour of conversation I heard On The Road, Desolation Angels and, of course, Jack Kerouac himself mentioned as well as a mention of Me and Bobby McGee. It sounded like they had planned to go up on Desolation to camp but had bagged that and decided to stay at the lake camp and do a day trip. They weren’t sure about how the camping arrangements went. The campground was pretty empty but I offered to clear my spot so they could pitch their tent and secure the spot. So, when I finished with the notes, I packed everything up and got ready to go. I didn’t mention to the pilgrims that my dad was actually working for the Forest Service here the one summer Kerouac was out here he had actually met Jack and worked with him a bit and that he had a pretty good/bizarre Kerouac story. Boat came at a little before 1:00 and about half an hour later I was slogging up the hill to the parking lot. Stopped at mom’s on the way back and got the weedeater and weedate around electric fence at Stump Farm in preparation for moving the cows back there. Weighed pack at end of trip-60.5 pounds-a little better than last year. 

Freezeout Creek Trail above the crossing of Freezeout Creek. Brushy but tread was mostly intact. 

First small lake of trip. Lake is about 5920 feet elevation. Hozomeen Mountain at left side of frame. 

Case building caddisflies in lake. I used to know these a bit better but I wouldn't try to make a definite I.D. of these. 

Looking east from near outlet of 5920 Lake at Freezeout Mountain. 

Looking west down ridge running off Freezeout Mountain. Hozomeen Mountain directly ahead in the distantce. 5920 Lake in valley to right of frame. 

Looking west/southwest from ridge off Freezeout. 

Looking south from ridge off Freezeout Mountain, Jack Mountain in the distance. 

Looking south/southeast from ridge off Freezeout Mountain. 6639 lake sits in flat area below talus. More gradual slope is obvious off this side of the ridge. 

Looking east from ridge off Freezeout Mountain at Freezout Mountain. 5920 Lake in valley to left of frame. Steepness of this side of ridge evident. 

Selfie of Chucks and Hozomeen Mountain from ridge off Freezeout Mountain. 

6639 Lake looking south from near outlet. 

Looking west from 6639 Lake at Hozomeen Mountain. What appears to be cumulus clouds or thunderheads is actually a smoke plume from a forest fire. 

6639 Lake looking southeast from near outlet.  

Fish caught in 6639 Lake. Appeared to be rainbow or rainbow cutthroat hybrid. 

Looking west down valley of 6639 Lake drainage. Hozomeen Mountain to right of frame. 

Rock at my cooking spot on Freezeout Creek. I had this printed for Sacha for a birthday card. 

Looking west at Joker Mountain from near outlet of third lake of trip on third day of trip. Lake is at about 6200 feet. Haze from forest fire smoke. 

Same view as above. More haze. 

Wildflower collection of yellow monkeyflower (Mimulus guttatus) and Evening primrose (Epilobium spp.) at wetland near lake. 

Looking southwest at lake. 

Lighter areas near outlet of lake looked like redds where fish had been spawning. 

Golden trout (Onchorhynchus mykiss aquabonita). 

These fish were brilliant even their bellies. I don't think that they were actively spawning which will sometimes cause a fish to take on more brilliant colors. 

Talus slope on the way out of 6200 foot lake. 

Caterpillar on the way out. 

More caterpillars. I haven't tried to I.D. these yet but they had interesting coloration. 

Example of downed timber and fuel buildup. 

Just above my camp spot on Freezeout Creek. Yellow triangular trail marker visible on silver fir trunk near center of frame. Trail tread was not visible here but was farther up the creek. 

Just below my camp spot on Freezeout Creek. 

Small waterfall on stream draining Freezeout Lake at trail crossing. 

Same stream as above just a little upstream of waterfall. 

Interesting conk on birch tree at Ross Lake. 

Otter (Hamar and Enjar) Lakes 8/14-15/21

Decided to take kids into Otter Lakes again this year while Illabot Creek Road was still passable. Ready to go in several spots any time. Wanted to do the trip earlier in the year but kids had to quarantine due to close exposure to a friend who had Covid. Temperatures supposed to be hot, in the 90’s in the valley. Supposedly cooler in mountains but we weren’t counting on that. Got very early start in order to try to get jump on hot weather. Got to trailhead about 10:00 a.m. Could feel that the day was cool but it was very humid. Had a severe case of hiking start flu. Felt awful first 30 minutes or so on the trail. Seemed like it took forever to get my pace where I was exerting myself but felt okay. Shirt soaked through in about 10 minutes of walking. Stopped at head of Slide Lake for lunch at about 11:00 a.m. Very nice breeze there. Dried clothes and felt very good. Hard to start going again. Almost immediately, new windfall from last winter hid trail so it took a little searching to find it. Several other windfalls had tops and limbs landed in trail along the way. This created a mess that hid trail. Brushed some of the worst of these out a little on the way. Kids did very well. Needed help getting through a lot fewer spots than last year and pretty much made their way through the tough spots with very little fuss. Nice long rest stop at last major stream crossing before the long uphill haul into the lakes. Got to lower lake a little before 4:00 p.m. Day still hot and sticky but nice breeze helped cool things off and dry sweat. I wanted to check out the upper lake (Hamar). Last time I had been there was 2010. Sacha and kids wanted to go as well. Talus on south side of lake a little too much for kids. They got through about 100 yards of it before deciding to call it quits. I went on alone. Upper lake shallow. No sign of fish or amphibians though I didn’t have time to look it over extensively. Large pile of boulders about 20 high at west end of lake. Boulders very big some at least 5 feet in diameter. That and fact that pile didn’t span length of lake basin made me think that the pile was probably a terminal moraine rather than a snow avalanche impact landform (SAIL). Got back about 6:30 p.m. and cooked dinner for everyone. Ate dinner and turned in. Air was so humid, already had dew on rainfly just before the sun went behind the mountains. Next morning I also cooked breakfast-oatmeal. Some of the blueberries were already ripe and I suggested to the girls that they pick some for their oatmeal, which they did. Sacha and I had ours with brown sugar and walnuts. I finished off the oatmeal that the girls couldn’t eat. Very good with the fresh blueberries. After breakfast spread tent flies out to dry and went fishing. Did pretty well. Both girls caught fish. Phoebe caught one all by herself. I had been encouraging them to practice casting at home but they mostly had other diversions for their attention so their casting still needs a bit of work. But it worked well enough for Phoebe to catch a fish. Funny thing. Have been to this lake probably a dozen times since my first trip in 1987 and that ’87 trip was the only one where I had any luck fishing but the last two years we apparently happened to hit it just right because the fishing was very good. Packed up and got started out at about 10:00 a.m. Had expected day to be a bit cooler and got a bit grumpy as I started to warm up and sweat on the trail. Pack wasn’t riding very well either. Finally made my peace with the fact that the day was still muggy. Reached a log where I had to take off pack to get under and readjusted it when I put it back on. After that, felt pretty good for rest of trip out. Stopped for lunch at about 1:00 p.m. near a small spring. Had noticed that this spring was ice cold on way in. Kids had been complaining of being hungry for about half an hour and were starting to get grumpy. I was hungry myself but wanted to get to that spring. It was worth the wait. The cold water did wonders to cool you off. After lunch reached Slide Lake in about half an hour. Made it back to car at about 4:00 p.m. Got home and was cleaning fish when Sacha said that mom had called and the cows had gotten out and moved themselves to the other pasture. Even though the day’s hike hadn’t been close to the hardest I have ever done, I was still really tired and hearing about the cows getting out and potentially a lot of fence to fix and possibly a bunch of angry neighbors didn’t appeal to me. Finished with the fish and headed up to the farm. Fortunately the cows had only crashed one section of fence. One that I had been putting off because I was going to do a bigger fence project in that spot and I hadn’t wanted to do a bunch of extra work only to tear it out in a few years. I guess I should have fixed it. Fortunately, some neighbors opened the gate for the cows at the other pasture so they didn’t crash that fence. Miss D was still at the home place. She hadn’t gone with the other cows. Good enough. I checked to make sure everything was secure. I had scheduled the next day (Monday) off from work so I would use that time to fix the fence.     

Sacha and the girls at out photo spot. We take a picture here every year on the way into Slide Lake. 

Drama and anguish at a steep spot on the trail into Otter (Hamar and Enjar) Lakes. 

Made it. Everyone at lower Otter (Enjar) Lake. 

Looking northwest from Lower Otter (Enjar) Lake at Mount Tommy Thompson. 

Looking west near sunset down Otter Creek valley from Lower Otter (Enjar) Lake. 

Looking northwest from near outlet of Upper Otter (Hamar) Lake. 

Looking more west at Upper Otter (Hamar) Lake. Large mound near center of frame is evidence of SAIL or possibly a terminal moraine of a long-gone glacier. 

Tommy Thompson in the morning from Lower Otter (Enjar) Lake. 

Phoebe fishing. 

Mount Tommy Thompson. 

Results of the morning fishing efforts. 

Looking west from top of Slide Lake on the way out. 

Covid Shakedown 8/29/21

Had planned to do a 4 day trip the weekend before Labor Day. Weather was looking good for it. Then felt like I had a cold on Wednesday with a slight fever, 99 to 100 degrees. Sacha insisted that I get tested. Took Thursday, the 26th off and got tested. Got Covid positive results on Friday, the 27th. I was fully vaccinated but oh well. I worked with a lot of anti-vaxxers which is probably where I got it. There were at least six other people at work who came down with it at the same time I did. Pretty much felt like a weird version of a mild cold. Could feel there was something in my lungs but didn’t have intense coughing fits that left my ribs aching like I do with a regular cold. Sinuses were plugged and lost my sense of smell and, to some degree taste. Put it down to plugged sinuses but this was a little different. Still had lots of energy and my head was clear. Stayed home and took care of some minor chores Saturday. Sunday the 29th decided to do a trip to see what condition my body was in. Hadn’t been on a good hike in about two weeks which is about when you start to lose muscle tone, especially as you get older. Also, seemed like my breathing was fine, even though there was a hint of stuff in my lungs but I wanted to give this a serious test. Decided to go into small pond that drains to White Creek. Had been there some years earlier, accessing from Illabot Peaks Road. Did same this time. Road was pretty overgrown and beginning to fail but made to the point where I wanted to jump off. Took me a while to recognize it because everything had grown up so much. Beautiful day. Too bad I couldn’t smell anything. Sinuses also plugged ears because it was hard to equalize. Thought I was in trouble when I started out. Legs felt crampy on the first few steps I took away from the rig but this passed quickly. Probably crampy from sitting while traveling over rough road which is pretty common. Tried a more direct route from the one I took last time I went into the pond. Hoped to stay in second growth timber and avoid the thick brush I remembered for the route I took years ago. Turned out to be a fool’s errand. Timber was patchy and brush was thick in between patches of timber. Route required me to climb about 600 feet and navigate through some steep ground to hit pond. Figured this would be a good test of my lungs, legs and head (thinking). Used some ridgelines and cliffs and talus on map as landmarks to guide my route. Finally got into solid timber and continued up until I was about even with the top of the talus slope. At this point, I should be able to sidehill to the west and hit a flat where the pond sat. Didn’t see anything that looked like a flat so went a little higher. Slope became more gradual so headed to the west. Figured I should be able to see the pond before too long. It was mostly timbered so I figured it might be hard to spot. If I ended up getting too high and hit the ridgetop, I should have been able to see it from there and work my way down to it. Ran into some bluffs. Ground was getting steeper again. Consulted map and it looked like I was probably a bit too high. Looked like there was a flat below me but it was hard to tell in the dappled sunlight. You see the sun on tree boughs below you and it can make it look like there is a flat where there isn’t one. Decided to see if I could get on top of the nearest bluff and try to get a look around. Got pretty steep so abandoned that line of thought and decided to just head down towards what looked like the flat. In less than ten minutes spotted the pond. Good call. Lungs felt fine. Legs felt fine. Had plenty of energy. Thinking was clear. Did feel a bit off because my sinuses were plugged but otherwise everything seemed quite functional. Checked out pond. Had seen a bunch of Northwestern salamander egg masses here on the earlier trip. Pond had been about one third covered with snow at that time. This time there was no snow and the pond was lower than it would have been earlier in the year. Didn’t know how good a job I had done recording the vegetation on the previous trip so I redid that along with some other things I probably hadn’t been noting earlier. Saw more egg masses. After a short break and something to eat headed back. Was able to pretty much retrace route without incident. Still wasn’t able to find solid strip of timber so had to bash a bunch more brush. Ears finally equalized while I was on the road about halfway down. Made a kind of loud squealing sound but felt good. The skin on my back had also been hypersensitive at the start of the trip. The feeling had migrated from the top of my head to my back several days prior. Either the pack riding continuously on my back or the sweat I worked up, or both, had finally desensitized my skin by the end of the trip.  

Looking southeast at pond. 

Looking west. 

Northwestern salamander (Ambystoma gracile) egg mass. The only two things I remember from my previous trip here was that about one third of this pond was still covered with snow and that I saw a bunch of these egg masses. 

Looking north. 

Another northwestern salamander egg mass. It was a little late in the year and many of these had begun to break down, sometimes making it difficult to determine if it was an egg mass or just a ball of algae. 

Looking northeast.

Looking east.

Looking east and a little south. 

Same as above zoomed out a bit.