A place I wish I never had to leave

[hurleyfor3]

Napeequa Valley in the Washington Cascades. Photographed August 3, 2009.

[hurleyfor3]

The next day I hiked to Spider Meadow, just a couple valleys over.



See that mountain up on the left? I went all the way up there. Here's what it looks like.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

Nice! Really special.

25 years ago, I flew over Mr. Rainier, and while the dawn view at 35,000 ft. was spectacular, it was nothing like what you've posted here!

[SlimSlowSlider]

re your hiking stats - was that all on this trip? If so - nice work!

[hurleyfor3]

re your hiking stats - was that all on this trip? If so - nice work!

No, that's summer-to-date. The Cascades trip was some 48 miles over four days. The Spider Meadow hike was the longest at 16 miles.

I'm laying low for most of August but I have some interesting stuff planned for September.

[SlimSlowSlider]

Well, you covered some ground in those 4 days. Absolutely wonderful photos. Meanwhile, my camping/hiking gear languishes in the basement....

[BlueDevilBaby]

Awesome pictures! They make me want to think about a trip out west. What kind of camera do you have? I'm going to Peru in October with my little Cannon and hope I can take pictures as good as these.

16 miles! I hiked 8 miles on Sunday in preparation for my trip and was dying. The most will be 9km, but at altitude, so I am sure I will be sucking wind.

[Peterson]

Great area...I've actually been up in the Spider Meadows/Phelps Creek area twice this summer. Once for an summit attempt on Mt. Maude (turned back by some serious lightning at about 8,000 feet) and once for a successful summit of Seven-Fingered Jack (~9,100 feet). I'll try to post some photos below (not nearly as quality as hurley's...um, I blame haze and wildfires...yeah, that's it.):


Mt. Maude--the failed objective.


Marmots in Upper Leroy Creek basin...


Wildfires across Phelps Creek drainage...


Success--Seven Fingered Jack. Route traverses below the summit spires from right to left. Summit is the far left finger.

[Peterson]

Traversing scree below the summit fingers...ugly, ugly mess. I bent a trekking pole, Chris snapped one of his in half. Yuck.
I believe you can see Red Mountain (in one of hurly's photos) in the background of this shot.


The "hero" shot...Mt. Maude is actually behind us. Center and right climbers are the two dukies on the trip...


Summit tangelos with the Entiat glaciers in the background...


Photo is a little hazy but I loved the clouds coming over the Cascade crest...

So what were you doing out here hurley? Just a vacation? Or do you live out here?

[hurleyfor3]

Marmots Gone Wild! Cool. Did you dayhike 7FJ? That is a LONG day from Phelps Creek, like almost 6000 feet. Still a solid effort as an overnight. I've never seen a shot of all the fingers straight on like that. Usually I'm seeing 7FJ from another peak where they're all jumbled.

I don't live in the Northwest... yet. For now I go out there two or three times a year to hike. I was also in the Olympics over the 4th of July. The Cascades have my favorite hiking, anywhere.

The August trip was at the tail end of the 100+ degree days in Seattle, and some fires had started to flare up in the mountains. So it was unusually hazy for my trip, and for two days I didn't take a single picture. You can sort of see this in the Napeequa Valley pic; I cut down the "blue" level a bit. The views on clear days in the Cascades are flat out phenomenal.

Red Mountain is the peak on the left edge of the Spider Meadow photo. The peak I went up was an unnamed, higher peak on the same ridge. Good bit of exposed Class 4 stuff.

Oh BTW, that's film. Velvia 100. Nikon N90.

[Peterson]

We were car camping along the Chiwawa River Road for 7FJ...so yup, a dayhike from Phelps Creek Trailhead. We figured about 13 miles RT, and almost exactly 6,000 feet of elevation gain (of course, there's almost no gain along Phelps Creek so that really means 6,000 feet of gain in about 3 miles..ow). Although with the scree the elevation *loss* was the worst part...especially since we didn't bring our helmets.

For Mt. Maude my wife and I camped just south of the Leroy Creek trail and tried to do that as the day hike from there...but as noted, no dice. So it goes...

For your next trip, if you're not aware of it check out these sites for route beta:

http://www.nwhikers.net/
http://cascadeclimbers.com/
http://www.wta.org/

There's are some ridiculous reports in there (NWHikes and Cascade Climbers) from some trail runners...some dude summitted Mt. Olympus as a DAYHIKE. Started at 3 a.m. at the Hoh River Trailhead and was back in his car 18 hours later (that trail is something like 36 miles roundtrip I think with some significant glacier travel). Insane.

[roywhite]

Thanks for the pictures and stories; beautiful areas.

My idea of a good hike is 6 to 8 miles, so I'm nowhere near what you guys are doing, but I do have a question.

At what point does hiking turn into climbing? Do you need actual climbing gear when you're going up some of these mountains?

[hurleyfor3]

I's call it a "climb" if you have to extensively use your hands or specialized equipment. In Yosemite Decimal System terminology, this is Class 3. Class 4 is where there's significant exposure and/or effort involved in finding handholds, and Class 5 is where you pretty much need gear. The hike I did above Spider Meadow involved about 400-500 vertical feet of what I'd call Class 4. I didn't have technical skills, and it was right at the limit of what I'm comfortable climbing for now. For some of the climbs I'm looking at next month I'm at least investing in a helmet, though.

A "hike" in my book is at least five miles roundtrip and 500 feet of gain. Anything less is a round of golf.

Peterson: Dayhiking a 9000-foot peak in the Cascades? I'm impressed. I already surf nwhikers, but don't post there. They certainly do some crazy stuff... but so do folks in Colorado (check out 14ers.com). Elevation loss + scree + no helmet? I hope whatever happened it didn't hurt too much.

Here are some more photos:

Clark Mountain (front left) and Glacier Peak (back right), 8/3/09



Longer-range view of Lyman Lakes, 8/4/09


Wildflowers in Spider Meadow, 8/4/09


Flower field in Olympic NP, 7/4/09

[hurleyfor3]

Trail to Moose Peak in Olympic NP, 7/4/09


View of Mount Olympus, 7/4/09


More wildflowers, 7/4/09. Can you tell I like shooting flowers?

[Peterson]

Heh...I love hurley's definition of a hike...I may have to borrow that.

My only addition to the hike vs. climb discussion is that a climb generally involves offtrail navigation and routefinding, while a hike usually follows an established trail. Other than that, hurley hit the technical definition. 7FJ was mainly loose Class 3 with a smidge of Class 4 (and that is only because we went off route at one point).

Love the Olympics photos...but what is a Washington mountain thread without some volcano trip photos? Here are some from a Mt. Adams trip a couple years ago. One of my favorites since I proposed at the top (and thankfully she accepted).


Longview of Mt. Adams...the south ridge route follows the snowfields/glaciers on the right side of the mountain centerline.


Heading up to basecamp...Pikers Peak (false summit) is visible, with the true summit peaking out behind it (lighter colored rock).


I believe this is the Cresent Glacier...you can see the Columbia River gorge faintly in the background, and the peak at the top is Mt. Hood in Oregon.


Basecamp at the Lunch Counter (somewhere around 9,000 feet).

[Peterson]

Sunset from basecamp--you can see the rim of Mt. St. Helens poking above the clouds on the left side of the photo.


Heading up in the morning. You can see the shadow of the mountain (as well as another shot of Mt. Hood).


Mt. Rainier from the summit...


And the summit marker...

I think we managed to get all the Washington Cascade volcanos in the thread (hurley has Glacier Peak) except for Mt. Baker...anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

[hurleyfor3]

I think we managed to get all the Washington Cascade volcanos in the thread (hurley has Glacier Peak) except for Mt. Baker...anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

I have some Baker pics at home... will try to dig them up tonight. I did St. Helens in 2001, but it was cloudy, so Rainier and Adams were in and out of the clouds.

[hurleyfor3]

I got yer Mount Baker right here. Shot 9/6/05.



But you can never have too much Cascade volcano porn. So here's Mount Hood, shot from the approach to PDX (5/13/06):



That mountain in the distance is Jefferson (9/3/07):

[hurleyfor3]

Then come the Three Sisters. North, Middle (9/5/04)...



...and South (9/5/06). Of the Cascade volcanoes that haven't blown up in the last century, South Sister is the easiest one to climb.



Finally in California there's Shasta (9/24/04).



I skipped a few of the lesser Oregon ones, but my mom taught me too much mountain porn makes you go blind.

[DevilAlumna]

Dang, you guys are making me want to go hiking more.

Nice pics!