Converse in the North Cascades: January 2017

Labor Day Weekend 9/3-5/16

I had planned on going into Galene Chain Lakes and some nearby ponds just on the British Columbia side of the border but the weather was going to be cloudy and showery. There are some excellent views from up there and I wanted to see them. On Saturday the 3^rd I went Down Below and got a haircut. I took the kids along and we went to the Kids Museum. We had a pretty good time. We also took a train ride through the mall. Sacha stayed home to get some rest and work on schoolwork and other things. Sunday I went to mom’s, walked Skyeball and fixed chicken waterer for Sacha and (hopefully) a battery charger that I had damaged earlier. I took the afternoon to go grouse hunting. I went up Illabot Creek road. I had heard earlier that it had slid in but found that it was passable all the way to Slide Lake trailhead, there was even a tiny Fiat car there. There were no trail register sheets for 2016. The old sheets from 2014/2015 still there. USFS apparently get any record for visitor use of that area for 2016. I checked a few more places out and saw one grouse but didn’t get a shot. I asked Sacha that night if she wanted to go into Slide Lake the next day with the kids, try to maintain the tradition of the annual trip. It poured sheets of rain for half hour to 45 minutes that night. The next day, Labor Day, it was kind of socked in but we decided to go anyway though we got late start. We brought plenty of raingear for the kids. The drive was actually quite nice through clouds and fog and mist even though we couldn’t see the nice valley views that you usually get. The trip into Slide Lake was different from previous years. The trail was well used and surprisingly not too wet. We started out on the trail kind of dilly dallying like you do with small kids then suddenly we realized that we were in a yellowjacket nest in the ground. Sacha grabbed both kids and hustled them up the rocky trail, pretty impressive. There were several good teaching moments. Vashti noticed some silver fir cones that squirrels had cut and I was able to show her a half eaten cone and the seeds inside. We also checked out a lot of mushrooms and heard some rock rabbits. The trail was tough for little kids but they had done pretty well previous year. This year however, there was lots of whining. It took about two hours to make it to the lake and, as it was, we almost didn’t go all the way. The kids were hungry even though they had eaten a pretty good breakfast. The hungriness probably added to the whining factor. We ended up stopping to eat a little less than half a mile from the lake. We decided to continue going to lake. We wanted to be back by about 2:00 p.m. and at this point it was after 12:00 p.m. and we had a drive of about an hour to get back. I picked Vashti up and put her on my shoulders. Sacha had a kid carrier for Phoebe. We made it to the lake in a few minutes. I took a few photos. Slide Lake shrinks to about half its full pool level later in the year. I had seen it this way before but didn’t know if I had any photos and I wanted some just in case I ever wanted to show someone. I didn’t have time to fish. After I got the photos I tried a slightly different route back through the rocks. This was pretty difficult. The rocks were of a size where it was often too far to jump from one to another and the rock pile had lots of deep holes to fall into. When I finally got back I put Vashti on my shoulders and headed out. I think it took a little more than half an hour to get out. I had my pack plus Vashti on and the pack pushed her weight mostly right onto my neck. It was pretty uncomfortable and I worked up a good sweat and was breathing hard by the time we got out. We got close together when we thought we were close to the yellowjacket nest at the start of the trail and, on a count of three, we hurried through. The yellowjackets boiled up out of ground and we realized that we had almost been standing in the nest when we did our count down. We got home a little after 2:00 p.m.

Sacha and the kids on the Otter Creek bridge at the Slide Lake trailhead.

Vashti on the Slide Lake trail. She appears to be pondering the large mountain hemlock but she is actually bored and in the process of milling idly around waiting for the rest of us to catch up.

Sacha and Phoebe.

One of the large rock piles along the trail. These rock piles never cease to amaze me and I often ponder their source.

Another large rock pile and some Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmannii). There is an isolated seam of this spruce from below Slide Lake to well up into the Otter Creek valley. This species is more common in drier areas and on the east side of the Cascades. I recently came across another seam of it on the west side but I can't recall exactly where. I would have to look at my notes.

Everyone post meltdown and lunch snack. The log they are standing in front of is a Douglas-fir, the end of which the USFS trail crew bucked out of the trail in 2003, according to the chainsaw carving on the bucked off block.

Take II. Sacha managed a smile this time.

Slide Lake. One of the reasons I wanted to go this late in the year is that I wanted some photos of it at its lowest level. I have seen it as low or lower than this before but I didn't know if I had any photos of it.

The full pool waterline is at the edge of the vegetation. The lake was down probably 10 or 15 fifteen feet.

Tenpeak Mountain, Honeycomb Glacier, Butterfly Glacier Area 9/8-11/16

I had been looking at this area for ten or fifteen years. It looked like tough trip. It was a long way in. There were two mapped lakes and there was some sidehill into the second lake that looked only marginally doable. I had looked at lower route into this area in the early days but abandoned this figuring it was way too brushy and probably had a lot of cliffs. With the advent of Google Maps and other programs I was able to look at air photos that made it look more feasible. I had scouted part of the route earlier in the year. My original plan was to go in on Friday the 9^th and come out Monday the 12^th. Sacha had to go out into the backcountry for work on the 12^th so the plan was revised to Thursday the 8^th thru Sunday the 11^th. The weather looked iffy. The forecast was for rain showers clearing up on Thursday, Friday being nice and clear then possibility of weather again on Saturday-20% to 30% chance of rain as I recall, then nice again on Sunday. My plan was to go by trail to the Upper Suiattle at Chocolate Creek on the first day. Then, the next day go farther up the Suiattle to a stream flowing off Honeycomb Glacier and follow this stream up to a small lake just northeast of Honeycomb Glacier and Tenpeak Mountain. From there, I would attempt to sidehill a little over a mile east over some pretty steep ground to another lake below part of the Butterfly Glacier. A lake now existed where the toe of the Honeycomb Glacier used to be. Visiting that was also part of the trip. My main concern with the weather was not only that rain would make everything more slick, a problem on steep sidehill but there was also a possibility of low clouds which would severely mess with navigation in the high country where I would need to be able to see as far ahead as possible in order to figure out the best route. A compass would work but in that scenario, you follow a heading until you run into some obstacle that you then have to work pretty hard, going up or down, to get around. With clear weather, obstacles can be seen more easily so you only have to alter your route slightly in order to avoid with a minimum of effort. Even though the forecast was for a low chance of precipitation, the weather system was still liable to bring in lots of low clouds. With the weather situation, Saturday, the third day in, would potentially be clouded in. The gamble on doing this trip would be that I would be able to get into first lake and second lake on Friday with good weather. That way, if it was socked in Saturday I would be on way out. The route out would basically follow stream valleys so I had no worries about navigation. If I was not able to do it all on Friday, I could possibly go into the second lake on Saturday and start back out but, if it was socked in on Saturday, that would probably not be feasible and I would have put in a lot of effort that would have to be repeated at some later date to get into that second lake. It dumped rain on the afternoon of Wednesday the 7^th. Sacha’s work trip was postponed for week so I could have gone with my original plan of Friday, the 9^th thru Monday the 12^th. The weather was supposed to improve from Sunday the 11^th on but Saturday still stood with a chance of weather. If I did Friday through Monday, that would put me trying to do the critical part of trip, up Honeycomb Valley and sidehill to the second lake on Saturday when the weather was supposed to be not so good. I had even planned on doing some other day trips elsewhere instead of gambling on the effort to get into this spot. Finally I decided to stick with the Thursday through Monday plan, hoping to be able to get critical part of trip done on Friday. If I ran into any serious glitches on the various routes I would be taking, the plan would be shot. I would still would have Saturday to get into second lake but that wasn’t sure thing. There were showers on Thursday morning. These began to break up as I headed up the Suiattle River Road. By the time I was at the trailhead, the clouds were breaking up and there was a good breeze that would help to dry things out. Most of the trail was pretty brush free so I could stay dry even in a light rain but the last part, from the crossing of Vista Creek on, along the old route of PCT was no longer maintained and very brushy. This meant a soaking by wet brush even if the rainfall was only light. I made decent time. The old PCT trail route was filled with fallen logs and it was much harder going than a well maintained trail but it was still much superior to no trail at all. The first part of the route after the Vista Creek crossing was pretty dry. It was also pretty dry for about a mile after Dusty Creek crossing as well. Then I hit an area where apparently the breeze didn’t hit or maybe showers fell more heavily later in the day. I had gone through several light showers throughout the day but none had affected me to this point. From this point on, the brush was soaking wet. I didn’t put on my rain gear because I figured I would get as wet from sweating inside the rain gear as from the brush. I counted on having enough time for my clothes to dry out or being able to building a drying fire once I arrived at destination for the day, the Upper Suiattle River near Chocolate Creek at about 5:00 p.m. I was soaking wet mostly from the water on the heavy brush along the old trail. The day wasn’t that cold but there was a strong wind blowing up the Suiattle Valley. While this helped dry my clothes, it also chilled me to the bone. There was a nice camp spot with a fire ring right where the trail entered the riverbed. The area was mostly sand and rock so there was very little fire danger. All the burn bans had just been lifted because of the recent rain as well. Good enough. I pitched my tent and built a warming and drying fire and spent the next hour or so getting dried out. I ate dinner, doused the fire and turned in early at about 8:00 p.m. The next day would be big day, critical to the trip and I wanted to get an early start. It was very had to get out of my sleeping bag the next morning. I was awake at first light and had to force myself to get out of my warm sleeping bag. There was a strong, cold wind blowing down the Suiattle Valley. It was strong enough and cold enough to make my eyes water. My shoes were still wet from the day before. I had my wool coat and hat on for cooking breakfast. I considered building another fire but figured that would take too long. I was constantly questioning myself about what I was doing. It would be much easier just to pack up and head back home instead of continuing on into rough country in the face of the bitter wind. It wasn’t cold compared to winter conditions but it was very cold for summer. I had to mentally whip myself to keep going. Packed up and headed up river by a little before 8:00 a.m., a little later than I had wanted to but good enough, considering the conditions. My feet and toes were aching with the cold, at least the parts I could feel, the rest were numb. My fingers ached with cold and my eyes were constantly watering from the cold wind to the point that it was hard to see. At the mouth of Chocolate Creek Valley I ran into a spot where the wind wasn’t blowing and there was frost on ground. It got better shortly after the confluence with Chocolate Creek. I started up a hill out of the river bottom onto a terrace and got into the sun. The route up the river valley to Chocolate Creek was bare rock and sand. Above Chocolate Creek I was on a timbered terrace and it was pretty brushy with lots of windfalls. I followed the edge of the terrace above the river where the going was a little easier. I ran into one stream valley that I hadn’t remembered from my scouting trip earlier in the year. I was rather surprised, but obviously it was there, so I just hadn’t remembered it. A little farther along was another valley to cross that was full of wetlands. It looked like it was possibly a series of beaver ponds but I didn’t see any beaver cut trees or sticks. This area was a pain to navigate, lots of mud sinkholes and brush. Not too far after that, maybe a quarter of a mile was one last low valley with a mostly dry wetland and I was at the confluence of the Suiattle River and the stream flowing from the Honeycomb Glacier, my route up. I arrived at about 10:30 a.m. a little later than I had hoped but not too bad. After short rest I started up the creek. There was a large alluvial fan at the bottom of the creek near its confluence with the Suiattle. Just above this fan, the creek was constricted by bedrock cliff walls on both sides. There were two possible routes at bottom of this constriction. One was around the bedrock wall on right bank or east side of creek. This involved going through several hundred yards of thick tag alders to get to some talus, at which point, I was probably good to go. The other route involved going straight up the creek. On the air photos it looked like bare rock all the way going straight up the creek and the contour lines on my maps indicated a doable gradient. Overall it looked like the easier route. The one hitch in this was a possible waterfall area on a corner at top of the bedrock constriction. It looked like one would have to cross the creek at this point but the waterfall might be too steep and prevent this. It might be possible to navigate this spot but there was lots of steep bedrock here. I couldn’t see the spot from bottom of the bedrock constriction. I decided to chance the route straight up the creek, figuring that, if I couldn’t get around waterfall area, I could always backtrack and take the tag alder and talus route. There were lots of large loose boulders along creek and I had to be very careful how and where I stepped in order to avoid getting my feet or legs crushed or pinned, not a good scenario for someone traveling alone like myself. In addition, the rocks that were in the water were covered with very slick algae and slick mud from glacial flour. I worked my way carefully up to the corner at the top of the bedrock constriction. I was relieved to see that I would be able to get through. It wouldn’t be easy but it was doable. I crossed the creek in a flat spot between waterfalls, sliding my feet along on slick rocks under opaque glacial flour filled water until one foot stopped on something solid, usually my toes became wedged in between some invisible rocks, often a little painful but better than slipping and falling. Then I would slide the other foot along until it wedged in between something solid. I got across okay and then crossed back again a little farther up. I thought I was golden at this point. But then I saw another waterfall over bedrock ahead. I had also seen this on the air photos but had hoped to be able to walk up the bare bedrock beside creek and avoid the brush. From my vantage point in creek, I could now see that this wasn’t going to happen. There were thick tag alders on either side of the bedrock falls and the rock was too steep and slick. There was a likely looking crack in the bedrock on the east side of the creek that looked like it might give me access above the falls but when I got there could see it was too steep. Near the bottom of the falls on the west bank of the creek it looked like there was a way up through a fringe of tag alders into some bare talus and then up onto a bench above the waterfall. I took this route and was shortly above waterfall. I was home free now. At this point the creek valley was open, and mostly bare all the way to the lake formerly occupied by the toe of Honeycomb Glacier. I stuck to west side of the valley. There were big bluffs and cliffs on the east side that had just shed a bunch of rock and it looked jagged and sharp. The rock on the east side was smoothed by glacial ice there was a lot of walkable bedrock. I got to pond below Honeycomb Glacier Lake at about 12:30 p.m. and the lake itself shortly thereafter. I decided to wait and try to get into the mapped lake above and to the northeast before eating lunch. One route to this pond would be to go up along Honeycomb Glacier Lake and go up a moraine on its east side but I saw another likely route up through a gap in the bluffs at the bottom of the lake. If this spot was doable it would save me half a mile to a mile of walking. I tried route and it was good until I was almost to the top. There was a sketchy spot here. I scrambled up it okay but, looking down, I saw it would be difficult to get back down here. I figured that I would have to just take the route by Honeycomb Glacier Lake on the way out. On the top of the bluffs I found several ponds. I thought I saw something like frog jump in one of these ponds though this seemd pretty unlikely. The pond was fairly barren in a pretty barren place on bedrock ridgetop. Then I saw a tadpole. Then I saw even more tadpoles massed in a shallow area of pond. Maybe it was a frog that I had seen. I walked around the pond and definitely saw a frog jump in and swim away underwater. Most likely these were Cascades frogs but it would be nice to catch an adult to verify this. I saw another frog, a tiny one jump into the pond. As I was looking to see where this one went so I could capture it to observe it closely and try to verify what species it was, I saw a large frog hiding under small piece of wood right below me. I captured that one easily and verified that it was, in fact, a Cascades frog. My task was now to get down to the mapped lake below that was my ultimate goal. I could see it from the ridgetop but there was no readily obvious way down. I wasn’t too worried. If frogs had gotten up on ridgetop, there was most likely a navigable way down for me. I walked out on the bluff a bit to get better view and saw a good, easy spot to get down to the lake. Taking that route I was at the lake in about 15 minutes. I did a quick tour around the lake, observing a little bit what was in lake but mostly looking for a camp spot. My plan was to set up my tent here and try to get into the other mapped lake about a mile and a quarter to the east and back that day. I could survey this lake, where I would camp the next day (Saturday). I wanted to get into that other lake, especially if it ended up being socked in on Saturday which could prevent my navigating to it. The weather was presently excellent but I was running out of time. There weren’t a lot of good camp spots. Most of the flat spots were pretty wet. I finally found a spot that was good enough near the outlet of the lake. I pitched my tent, stowed a lot of gear I wouldn’t need in order to lighten my pack and headed east down small outlet stream to eat a late lunch. The outlet stream flowed to another pond that wasn’t mapped. My maps showed a snowfield here but area was now melted out and open water. A flight of ducks took off from this pond as I approached. I thought they were diving ducks of some kind, something like goldeneyes. Their wings whistled a bit like goldeneyes but I didn’t get a really good look at them. After lunch I started out towards the mapped lake to the east. I thought I could see the valley where this lake sat but there was lots of steep, slick looking ground in between. I took a few pictures of the unmapped pond along the way. This pond was very shallow and looked like it was rapidly filling in. There were lots of goat tracks in the bottom of this pond. There were lots of goat tracks in area in general and saw quite a few wallows or dust baths along my route to the lake to the east. The ground along my route was very steep but it was doable. The issue wasn’t so much with the slopes but a number of ravines that cut through the slopes. These ravines had very steep, nearly vertical walls and the ravines themselves dropped nearly vertically for hundreds of feet in some places. I couldn’t see all of them but I could see where several along my route. I determined that I would need to go up several hundred feet or more to get into some moraines below the cliffs of the mountain above, part of Tenpeak Mountain. I found traveling the moraines to be pretty good, there were boulder piles and the occasional snowfield. This was much better than sidehilling over steep, slick ground. I had a few stretches of that as well but overall it wasn’t too bad though generally it was quite slow. I still had to watch footing through loose boulders and the areas of steep, slick ground. Snowfield travel was the best and fastest travel. The snow was soft enough that my shoes sank in for good traction but it wasn’t too soft. Along the way I noticed a potential alternate route back down to the Suiattle River in a stream valley to the east, just below the moraine at the lake where I was camped. It looked like I could either follow a bare bouldery stream bed out or go through some timber. I decided to see what my maps indicated for steepness of ground in this area later. I noticed several steep dropoffs in the timbered area that may or may not have been navigable. I continued on and finally reach the Moment of Truth Spot. I had been looking at this spot for over a year on air photos. It was a gully in a bedrock area that looked like it might be too steep to navigate without doing some rock climbing, something I wasn’t about to do. It also looked like it might be passable without too much problem. The only way to find out was to look at it directly on the ground and now here I was. The spot I had hoped to get through was too steep. There was a mountain goat trail around a small vegetated ledge but this very exposed. The ledge was probably 2 feet wide and sloped out toward the gully where a slip would result in a fall of 100 feet or more onto bedrock. This was maybe doable but the consequences of failure were severe. I wasn’t about to try it. It looked like I was stopped. There were no other potential crossings within sight down the gully. I decided to go up the hill a bit and check that out. It was only a short distance up until I hit impassable cliffs (impassable to me at least, probably not an experienced rock climber). Just below a small waterfall coming off these cliffs I found a niche in the gully wall where I could get up. It hadn’t been visible from my initial vantage point. This niche was still a bit risky but it had lots of good handholds and footholds to get me up six feet up to a flat break in bedrock that I could follow along out of the gully. It was a spot where, if someone else were with me, I could have taken off my pack climbed up easily with little worry and had them hand up the pack. The risk of falling and sustaining a serious injury was slight with a pack and would have been even less without a pack on my back. My situation was a little more serious because I was alone. If something did happen, I was a long way from help. If it happened to be really serious, I could only hope that I would be able to activate the GPS tracker that Sacha insists I carry (which I am okay with). The danger in such devices is that one sometimes gets into the mindset that, if trouble is encountered, they are a sure, quick was to summon help. This can be a dangerous assumption. I grabbed a handhold and foothold and it was one easy step up to the flat. The hard part would becoming back down where it would be hard to see where to place my feet. I could potentially fall and hurt myself, maybe even seriously, but the risk of this was slight. The bottom of the gully was sloped at this spot and it was steep enough that I wouldn’t want to try to jump down to it (I did that once and got overbalanced by my pack and went for long, unpleasant tumble). The good thing was that, if I fell here, I would probably bounce a few times but not go shooting down hundreds of feet. Once I was safely past the Moment of Truth Spot I was close to the flat where lake was, maybe a quarter mile or less. That last quarter mile was a nightmare of very steep, slick ground. The steep ground was covered with juicy forbs, arctic lupine, Sitka valerian, buckwheat, and false hellebore. These plants make mountain slopes look very pretty when in bloom but their water content also makes them very, very slick to walk on. To make things worse, these plants had already begun to die back for the year and the brown, rotting vegetation was doubly slick. I still had to go up a couple of hundred feet. Going straight up was preferable to trying to sidehill through the area. I picked areas of bare talus and went up them as far as possible before having to go into the vegetated areas. When the bare talus ran out, I still tried to follow areas where there was rock was close to surface even though it was covered with plants. The traction was better in these rocky areas. When I got to areas where heather or drier type vegetation was growing, I tried to sidehill as far as possible. I still ended up falling numerous times. I had to cross one last gully. This one was also steep enough to make things difficult but not extremely dangerous. Finally I was home free in the bare rock of a moraine that helped form the basin where lake sat. When I finally laid eyes on lake, it was 5:00 p.m. I had started at about 3:00 p.m. It had taken me about 2 hours to walk about a mile and a quarter. Figuring that it would be light enough to travel until about 8:00 p.m., I had about 5 hours to get to the lake and back and my turn-around time would be 5:30 p.m. I had about half an hour to check the lake out. I took some photos and looked to see if there was anything interesting in water or lake shore. I went around the east side of the lake mostly. I was surprised to find the lake water clear even though it was fed in part by the Butterfly Glacier to the south and west. There was an arm of lake extending east and north that was not shown on the USGS Map. This looked to be represented as several separate water bodies on the Green Trails map which put the outlet in the wrong place. There were quite a few different plant species present. It wasn’t as barren an area as I had expected. It was a nice spot and I would have liked to spend more time there investigating things but had to get going if I wanted to sleep in sleeping bag in tent that night. This wasn’t my preferred scenario for visiting a lake but I got there and got it done, another one off the list. I will probably never go back. From the moraine that formed the basin of the eastern lake I could see the first lake where I was camped. It wasn’t too far away as a bird would fly, maybe fifteen minutes or less but it was at least 2 hours via the route I would have to take. On the return trip the slick areas were a nightmare. I busted my ass many more times coming down the slopes than I did coming up. My feet would often shoot out from under me unexpectedly. Once my left foot was forced through an awkward position when my right foot shot out unexpectedly and uncontrollably. My left foot was able to flex and roll through its position without spraining, tearing or breaking anything. I often try to explain to people that this is why a wear Converse tennis shoes. My feet suffer on rocky trails but, off trail, these shoes are so soft and flexible that when I step into a hole or end up with my foot and ankle in some awkward position that would ordinarily result in a sprain or break, the forces are dissipated to a large degree by allowing my feet to flex. The worst ankle sprains I have ever had were in shoes with hard soles where the force of my foot going out of the normal walking plane was instantly concentrated on my ankle which was the only thing that could move. Several of these sprains even happened in shoes with “stiff” or “strong” ankle support. I got through the Moment of Truth Spot okay. I had considered taking off my pack and lowering it with a rope but decided I could get by okay. I very carefully chose handholds and footholds and got through without incident. The rest of the trip back was relatively uneventful. I looked at the possible alternate route out other stream valley but decided against it. I was back at camp at a little before 8:00 p.m. I had planned on having Lipton noodles for dinner but realized I had only packed one bag which I had eaten on the previous night. I was a little disappointed but settled for instant mashed potatoes and canned ham. In years past, I would have been pretty psyched at this point. Even though getting into the second lake had been a little less than optimal as far as not having much time to spend there, I had still gotten into both lakes in one day when I wasn’t even sure if I would be able to get into one. I still had worries about the route out which cast a pall on things. I wasn’t out of the woods yet and still had some dangers to face on next day, though not nearly as bad as some places I have been in the mountains. I have been to a lot of very cool, pretty places in the mountains but quite often the stress and worries about getting out unharmed detracted from my surroundings. It is really hard to enjoy the scenery if you know that there is a distinct possibility that you could be dead the next day or dying a long, slow death over the next several days for the sake of something that wasn’t necessary. I also missed Sacha and the kids and having a family raises the stakes if you should happen to meet an untimely end or even injure yourself severely and survive. Despite my worries about the next day, I fell asleep quite easily. I was very tired. I was up at first light the next day. I wanted to get an early start and be well on my way out by the end of the day. There were lots of clouds in the sky which I had expected but there was also a lot of blue. It didn’t look like rain immediately. The clouds and open sky were just right to create a pretty sunrise. As I was eating breakfast a duck of some kind flew in and landed on the lake. Its wings whistled faintly. I saw it sitting in the lake when I went to wash my breakfast dishes and I went back and got my camera and took a bunch of photos. It turned out to probably be a male ring-necked duck, according to the references I consulted later. I did another tour around the lake and looked over a moraine on the northwest side of the lake. This moraine was perched above the cliffs along creek I had followed in on the previous day and I wanted to see if there was another possible shorter route out of the valley. I had abandoned thoughts of following the timber below north side of lake where I was camped. It looked like there were some serious cliffs in the timber and the maps indicated same thing. From the edge of the moraine I saw another pond just below, about 40 feet lower than lake where I was camped. I checked this pond out and found it loaded with tadpoles. Everywhere I looked in this pond there were tadpoles. These were most likely Cascades frogs but I didn’t see any adults. The pond was very green with a heavy growth of algae. I looked at possible shorter route out. There were cliffs immediately below the pond but farther north, there was a large moraine that was at or above level of cliffs. This moraine had been eroded away several hundred feet by creek I had followed in, leaving just a scrap of moraine on the side of the valley. The western edge of the timber that I had thought about following down was growing on top of this moraine. The upper edge of the eroded area of moraine almost vertical for about one hundred feet before flattening out quite a bit nearer to creek. The lower part was readily navigable, the upper part was not. I abandoned the idea of taking a route out in that direction. I would go back and take a pass between the lake where I was camped and the new lake at the toe of the Honeycomb Glacier. This would add a mile or more to my travel but it was almost a sure thing that I would be able to get through that way. I went back, loaded up my pack and headed out at about 9:00 a.m. I wasn’t too worried, I figured that I had lots of time to get out, much more than if I had had to try to get into the second lake on this day instead of heading out. The clouds were breaking up nicely and there was lots of sun. I got to the top of the small pass into the Honeycomb Lake at about 9:30. There was a strong, cold wind blowing. Tenpeak Mountain looked pretty impressive clad in glaciers in the morning light. I stopped and took a few photos. I was pretty sure about this route but I had been a little worried because I wasn’t positive. I could now see that the route was doable, with caution, as is quite often the case. My route was down the face of another eroding moraine. This one was probably a lateral moraine of Honeycomb Glacier. There were lots of wetlands on top of this moraine. I ran across a blooming flower that I recognized as a gentian of some kind. I had seen photos of this species in Pojar and Mackinnon, a plant reference book, but had never seen it in real life. I thought it would be a good idea to stop and take some photos. I didn’t know if it was rare or not. Just because I had never seen it before didn’t make it automatically rare. It could just as well mean that I had walked past lots of it at the wrong time of year when it wasn’t blooming and simply never noticed it before. I took my photos. The wind was blowing pretty hard and I was still in the shade so it was hard to hard get a shutter speed fast enough to freeze the motion of flower while still having enough depth-of-field to show details. Not too many years ago I would have spent up to several hours positioning my tripod and trying to brace this plant so I could get a better, artsy, picture, especially since I would probably never come back to this place again. At this point in my life, I was more interested in getting out of there in a timely manner so I could see my family. I took the photos off-hand without tripod and, when I figured I had gotten some good enough that I would be able to identify the plant with a good degree of certainty, I called it good, put camera my back in my pack and headed out. It turned out that this plant was alpine bog swertia (Swertia perennis), a member of the gentian family and it is most common much farther north. On the rare plant website that Sacha looked at there were only two recorded sightings of this plant, both from Snohomish County (where I was also) from sometime in the 1930’s. I continued on my way out making my way down the eroding face of the moraine above the new lake below Honeycomb Glacier. It was steep but not too bad. I made it to the lake at about 10:00 p.m. and continued out, taking a few photos along the way. I was on east side of valley and decided to stay there. My plan was to stick to that side through bottom of the eroded moraine to the older talus that I had considered using as a route into the valley. There was a large patch of tag alders at the bottom of this talus but I figured it would be easier to get through it going downhill and the route was a much more direct way to the bottom of the Suiattle Valley. As an added bonus, I wouldn’t have to deal with the slick, loose rock of stream channel. I soon discovered east side of valley was bad choice, at least on the upper end. There had been a recent rockfall on this side of valley not too far below lake where I had camped. There was lots of very sharp rock here. I had noticed this on the way in and avoided that side of valley, which wasn’t too hard because I was already on the west side and the going was easy enough there. Going out, I had initially wanted to stick to the east side because then I wouldn’t have to cross the creek and could keep feet dry much longer. I discovered though, that the rock in the rockfall area was not only sharp but it was also very loose. I had several rocks big enough to crush a leg shift suddenly underfoot. I quickly determined that it would be best to cross to the west side of the creek to get below the rockfall area and then cross back to the east side. I crossed and recrossed below the rockfall and began working my way down valley along the more gradual part of the large, eroded moraine on the east side that I had looked at from the cliffs below my previous night’s camp. As I got closer to the talus I planned on using as my route out of the valley, I realized that I could have followed the top of the eroded moraine to a spot where I could have easily gotten down to this talus. I mentally kicked myself a bit. This would have saved several hours of travel and been a much easier route. Either I hadn’t noticed it from above or it wasn’t obvious or visible from my vantage point. I consoled myself that I ran across the gentian (swertia) that I wouldn’t have seen if I hadn’t taken the easier route. And besides, I had plenty of time. Travel down the talus was pretty good. Travel through the tag alders at the bottom of talus was more challenging but not as bad as tag alder patches that I had gone through before. I picked up a few devil’s club thorns in hands, as is typical in such areas. The thorns would fester over the coming days. I got to the river a little after noon. I noticed that the river was carrying a lot more sediment. It was browner and more opaque, probably from increased melt from the warm weather of the previous day. The water wasn’t much deeper than when I had crossed the day before though so crossing back over wasn’t an issue. I decided to push on before eating lunch. I had hoped to get to the open area at Chocolate Creek and eating there but I realized that this probably wouldn’t happen. I got to the first side valley filled with ponds and wetlands pretty quickly. I thought I would to have to cross the deeper valley that I had forgotten about on the way in first but wound up at the valley full of ponds first. I thrashed my way through the brush, trying to avoid getting too muddy or falling in. All my thrashing evidently made someone mad because I got stung on my left thumb. I didn’t see what manner of bee it was, I just felt the sting. I hurried as quickly as I could out of that spot, which wasn’t fast because I had to thrash through brush to get anywhere. I could swear that I glimpsed a stinger sticking in thumb but when got to a place where I figured it was safe to look, the stinger was gone. I am pretty sure it was there though. My thumb really hurt and there was no round red spot surrounded by ring of white skin that is the result of getting bitten by a yellowjacket or hornet. I continued on, thinking that I was on the flat that would take me to Chocolate Creek without any further complications. Then I ran into the deep side valley that I had expected earlier. This created a weird sense of a time warp in my head, like things weren’t quite right. I got through the deep side valley and ate lunch on top of the terrace overlooking river. When I finished I got up and continued on. Glancing back, I realized that I had been lingering and eating almost directly below a western hemlock that had fallen and gotten hung up in some other trees. Luckily the wind wasn’t blowing hard enough for that tree to come the rest of the way down. If it had, my lunch would have ended rather unpleasantly. Several times I felt a little unsteady on feet. I wasn’t sure if something was wrong or if it was just because hadn’t let the food digest a little before moving on. The unsteadiness seemed to go away in about half an hour. I reached the open area of the river valley at Chocolate Creek at 3:00 p.m. I had hoped to have been at this point at 2:00 p.m. I stopped several times along the way to take photos. I reached trail by 4:00 p.m. I saw several tents pitched near where trail led into riverbed. I could see a high quality GPS receiver. I figured that these were some USGS folks who I had seen at the trailhead when I started my trip. I waved but didn’t stop to talk. I was curious about what they were doing but I wanted to make more miles that day. I harbored hopes of getting out at least to Canyon Creek that day. The section of trail between Chocolate Creek and Dusty Creek was about 4 miles but it seemed to take forever. I lost the trail once or twice but nothing serious. I got to Dusty Creek by about 6:00 p.m. Dusty Creek was also more muddy and looking and a little higher. At this point I realized that it was unlikely that I would get to Canyon Creek or even to Dolly Creek that day. I got to Vista Creek by about 7:30 p.m. and crossed. Same story with Vista Creek, slightly higher with muddier looking water. This was the bare minimum of what I wanted to get done that day. At least I would be walking all the rest of the way out with dry feet and on a good trail. It was getting dark rapidly. I could have pushed on but decided this was good enough. I pitched my tent and made dinner. Instant potatoes. Very quick. Only had to boil water, add potatoes and wait a minute. I got water from Vista Creek for dinner. This water was very gritty and I often crunched down on pieces of sand. It didn’t hurt when I did. Everything I bit crushed easily but it still made dinner a little less enjoyable. I have many times drunk and used glacier water for drinking and cooking but this was first time I recall it being gritty. Vista Creek’s bedload was obviously volcanic in origin. Maybe this was the difference. The other places I had used glacier water had bedloads that were more granitic (I guess also technically volcanic but formed by different processes). The next morning I was up early and got started a little before 8:00 a.m. I already saw a hiker blow by on the PCT before I got started. I got to Dolly Creek in a little over half an hour. Canyon Creek was a little less than half an hour from there. I made several stops on the way out to try to record stream crossing where I had seen tailed frog tadpoles on previous trips with my SPOT GPS. Only one of these was successful. I thought it interesting that I had seen quite a few tailed frog tadpoles on previous trips but I didn’t see a single one on this trip. I got home by noon. I met Sacha and the kids heading out driveway. I was really happy to see them. I met them at mom’s later for walk and dinner after I took care of my pack and tent. Overall this trip was pretty tough. I would give it about an 8 on a scale of 10. There was a time not too long ago when I would have been ecstatic, riding a natural high for several days after completing a trip like this. Lately I am just glad to be done with such trips. I took some risks. Of course these risks were not on the level of something like free ascent rock climbing or maybe even driving a car. I could have fallen once or twice though this risk was small. More likely I could have been pinned by large boulder in the stream I followed up. I came really close to having something like that happen to me in 2005 and it could have just as easily happened here. A demise like this wouldn’t be as dramatic as a fall from a height but would be just as fatal and potentially more miserable. The thing about all these risks is that they were also not necessary, in that the trip itself wasn’t necessary. This was something I chose to do and it could have resulted in my family not ever seeing me again. I now find myself in the position of people I used to criticize who had families and chose to spend a lot of time off on their own away from their families and take unnecessary risks. I don’t know the chapter and verse but Jesus said, “Judge not harshly lest ye be judged”. I am not particularly religious but there is a lot of wisdom in that statement. I need to mention the soundtrack for this trip, a crazy mix of old and new, from Chainsmokers and Daya and Halsey, Rihanna and Calvin Harris (Lightning), Looking Glass (Brandy), Triumph, Sia, Paramore etc. etc.

Cascades frog I saw on the trail on the way in.

Looking up Suiattle River valley at the confluence with Chocolate Creek. Tenpeak Mountain on the left.

Yours truly on Upper Suiattle River getting ready to cross and head up side valley to the Tenpeak Mountain, Honeycomb Glacier area.

The side valley and stream I followed up to the Honeycomb Glacier area. The corner I was so worried about is about in the middle of the photo. It was actually a little harder than it looks in the photo but not too bad. There were actually tougher spots a little farther upstream. The whole streambed was a minefield of loose rocks out of the water and very slick rocks under water.

About a quarter mile below the lake below Honeycomb Glacier.

Pond just below the lake below Honeycomb Glacier.

The lake below Honeycomb Glacier and the remnants of Honeycomb Glacier. My maps still show the glacier occupying the area where the lake is.

Small unmapped pond on ridge on the way to the small mapped pond below Tenpeak Mountain.

Tadpoles in pond. These were probably Cascades frogs.

Tadpole beginning to metamorphose. Hind legs showing.

Same pond looking back towards Honeycomb Glacier.

Small mapped lake below and north of Tenpeak Mountain. This is where I camped on the second night out.

Goat track in sand.

Smaller, unmapped pond just east of the mapped pond below Tenpeak Mountain.

Looking northwest at mapped pond where I camped and Glacier Peak from the flanks of Tenpeak Mountain on route to lake below Butterfly Glacier.

Looking north down Upper Suiattle River valley from flanks of Tenpeak Mountain on route to lake below Butterfly Glacier. Chocolate Creek is visible at middle of frame. Right to left, Plummer Mountain, Miner's Ridge, Sulphur Mountain and probably Dome Peak.

Looking southeast at lake below Butterfly Glacier from moraine at bottom of lake basin. At this point I had about half an hour to spend at the lake before I needed to be heading back.

Looking south at lake below Butterfly Glacier. Butterfly Glacier to right of frame.

Looking southwest at lake below Butterfly Glacier and Butterfly Glacier.

Looking northwest at lake below Butterfly Glacier and Glacier Peak.

Pond on lake outlet and Glacier Peak.

Looking north down Upper Suiattle River valley from flanks of Tenpeak Mountain on route back to my camp.

Sunrise on third day of trip from my camp at small pond below Tenpeak Mountain.

Duck at pond. I figured out later that this was probably a male ring necked duck.

Looking back north at camp spot from route out via Honeycomb Glacier Lake.

Zoomed in view of previous photo. I probably could have quite easily followed the moraine above and to the left of the pond and saved myself quite a bit of time.

Honeycomb Glacier from route out. The peak above the glacier is, as far as I know, unnamed.

Alpine bog swertia (Swertia perennis). This plant typically grows much farther north. Sacha found it on a rare plant website for this area. There were two other sightings on the site, both from Snohomish County, where I was and both from the 1930's. There are probably other sightings but I haven't had time to research this.

Dikes and sills in the rock on the route out of the valley.

Pond just below lake below Honeycomb Glacier.

Looking back up valley leading to Honeycomb Glacier from my route out. The small mapped lake below Tenpeak Mountain where I camped the night before is to the left of the large rock outcrop on the left side of the frame.

Upper Suiattle River at Chocolate Creek. Tenpeak Mountain on left side of frame, Glacier Peak to the right.

Upper Suiattle River at Chocolate Creek and Glacier Peak.

Upper Suiattle River at Chocolate Creek. Tenpeak Mountain to left side of frame.

Tenpeak Mountain.

Glacier Peak.

Chocolate Creek. This one small creek colors, in turn, the Suiattle, Sauk and Skagit Rivers chocolate brown.

Chocolate Creek.

Looking upstream at Chocolate Creek. Tenpeak Mountain in the distance.

Upper Carry and Campbell (Day)Creeks and Grouse Hunting etc. 9/24-25/16

I had hoped to get in one last four day trip to finish out year. The weather looked good for this weekend but there was rain on Friday and Sacha was leaving for four days on Monday so this weekend was out. It was supposed to clear out Saturday and be really nice on Sunday. I decided to try to salvage the weekend and go into several ponds at the head of Rocky Creek in the Day Creek watershed. I came in from Pilchuck Creek side following the same route I had earlier in the year. I brought my shotgun in case I saw grouse. Friday after work I went to the chiropractor for an adjustment. My right hip, leg, and foot were still bothering me but it wasn’t intolerable. The adjustment helped. My chiropractor is in Burlington and I got out of there just before the Cascade Mall shooting. I was up early, about 4:00 a.m. on Saturday. I had to go up to mom’s to check Skyeball and the cows before heading out. I got started up the hill at about 7:30 a.m. There were small rainshowers all the way to Pilchuck Creek. The sky was heavily overcast when I started out and gradually cleared out a little bit later in day. I got to the spot where I was going to dive over the hill from one road system to another one below at a little after 10:00 a.m. The distance I had traveled was about 7 miles, maybe a little more. This was pretty good time. I had gotten a bad feeling halfway up the hill that I had left my raingear at home. It wasn’t supposed to rain but always bring raingear anyway just in case and everything was soaking wet from the rain on day before and overnight showers. The route I was going to take was very brushy and I would get soaked through to the skin without raingear. I looked through my pack. Sure enough, I had left them at home. Evidently I had taken them out when unpacking after last trip and hadn’t put them back in. I was pretty disappointed. One option was to continue. I had long wool underwear and a wool coat so, if I got in bind, I would be in decent shape but I didn’t really want to get soaking wet. I wouldn’t have hesitated in my younger days but I have spent a lot of wet, miserable time since then. I finally decided to go out farther on the road system I was on into some ponds on Carry Creek and Campbell Creek, both of which drain to Day Creek. I had planned on going in to these next year but I could just as well go in this year and both of them were pretty close to road so I wouldn’t get absolutely soaked. As a bonus, I could scout another pond for next year. I got to the first pond which drained to Carry Creek at about 11:30 a.m. The sun was now starting to peek through the clouds occasionally but it was still pretty cold. I measured a temperature at 51 degrees Fahrenheit. The pond water was almost black and, the way the light was hitting it, I couldn’t really see into it. I saw a Cascades frog in a small side pond and got some pretty good photos of it. I finished up at that pond at about 12:30 p.m. and headed to a nearby pond about a quarter mile away. This pong drained to Campbell Creek. It was a nice spot, especially since it was cool enough that there weren’t many bugs. There were lots of wetlands in the vicinity so I am sure there would be lots of mosquitoes, flies and gnats in warmer weather. I ate lunch at small high spot above the wet ground and checked out the other pond where I saw two more Cascades frogs. I headed out at about 1:30 p.m. I decided to go a little farther along road into two more ponds that weren’t mapped. I reached first of these at about 2:00 p.m. I was running out of time. The pond interesting. The west side was very steep, the bank was almost straight into the water. This was kind of an unusual feature in these mountains where everything is typically lower and more rounded. There were lots of mostly solitary big rocks and even cliffs-rock that resisted erosion better than the surrounding areas during last ice age but this pond didn’t seem to be in an area like that. I did quick survey of the pond but didn’t see much, nothing I could positively identify. I headed out at about 3:00 p.m. and was back at my rig at about 6:30 p.m. I had been on my feet for almost 12 hours. I was very tired. I hadn’t seen a single grouse. I was home at a little before 8:00 p.m. It was all I could do to eat a little bit and download the day’s pictures. I planned to get up at 6:00 a.m. the next day, Sunday, and do another trip to some unmapped ponds on Irene Creek and do more grouse hunting and deer scouting. I ended up sleeping in until about 7:00 a.m. The kids were up by then. I played with them for a few hours and didn’t get going until about 9:00 a.m. I had to go take care of Skyeball and the cows. By the time Skyeball was walked and cows were watered, it was 11:30 a.m. The sky was still dark. There had been showers night before, so much for the forecasts that said there would be good weather that weekend. I went up Irene Creek Road. I looked across the valley at the area that I had planned to go to. It was very misty and cloudy and wet. I decided not to go. I went to LaRush Lake. It was very calm. The lake was like glass with everything reflected in it. The sky was still dark and everything was very quiet. There was not a sound, no birds, no squirrels. Pretty cool. I fished for hour before I finally caught a few, one at 14 ½ inches and two at 8 inches. There are no spawning areas in the lake so the little fish had probably been recently stocked while the bigger fish was a holdover from a previous stocking. Slight sprinkly showers while I was at lake and then sun started to peek through. Headed home. By time I got there lots of sun. Mowed lawn. Sacha had taken kids to church and now they were at friends house while she worked on online teaching certificate. Lots of work and not easy work for her. Went out and checked one more spot for grouse. Usually see a lot in this area but not today. All in all, weekend didn’t turn out to be that nice so if I had gone on trip, it probably would have been fairly miserable. At a minimum it would have probably been like hiking inside a cloud. This was one of three remaining weekends where I had chance to do a four day trip. I wanted to try to get into some lakes at head of Downey Creek. I wanted to at least try this year. Even if I failed, then at least I would have more knowledge about possible routes for next year. The forecast for the coming weekend was bad as well. It looks doubtful I will get in that last trip this year. (I didn’t).

Cascades frog in wetland below pond on Upper Carry (Day) Creek.

Looking northeast at mapped pond on Upper Carry Creek.

Looking east at pond on Upper Carry Creek.

Looking southwestt at pond on Upper Carry Creek.

Looking westt at pond on Upper Carry Creek. The dead trees in the foreground are probably the result of a water table that rose probably due to beaver activity raising the dam at the pond outlet.