Trail Review: Pratt Lake and Temporal Shenanigans

Pratt Lake - June 23rd

8 miles

2300 ft Elevation gain

Alpine Lakes Wilderness; I-90 Corridor

Dog Friendly

Difficulty: Moderate

Hikers beware! Pratt Lake has a temporal distortion on the trail! Wait, I’m getting a little ahead of myself, let me go back...

You start your hike up to Pratt Lake, in the same way as most hikes in the Alpine lakes wilderness. It’s a nice walk through an Evergreen forest with a mild-moderate incline. The highlight of the hike for me was the view from a ridge above Talapus Lake. I think if it had been a bit clearer we would have been able to see Rainier very prettily situated.

You continue up, there are some super cute bridges that you cross over, and if you did the hike early in the season (like we did) you’ll be walking through some snow. There was some crazy mist that was hanging out over the snow that I’m a little sad I did not take pictures of.

Till now everything proceeds as it ought to. Time does nothing out of the ordinary and you are just happy hikers!

You hit the saddle and start descending into Pratt Lake basin, we had to do some scary-ish skirting over snow/ice fields on an incline (not recommended without ice axes, we’re just idiots). Pass over some rocky/boulder fields. You walk through a little bit of forrest and you’re at the lake.

And it takes a fucking year to do all that. No really, it looks like a long descent and it is. Until you start to go back up.

The lake itself is pretty ho-hum (so ho-hum our whole group forgot to take pictures), or at least it was for us on this particular day. I think if it had not been so very cloudy and overcast that would not have been the case since I’ve seen pictures of the lake on sunny days, and the color and clarity of the water look pretty stunning.

Then you start ascending up out of the basin and it takes like 15-20 minutes. What in the holy hell is going on here? It took us an hour to go down and 20 minutes to go up. While the terrain was not the smoothest, I have never in my life had this happen. I have some knee issues so I’m a little slow going down but it never takes less time.

The only conclusion I can come up with is that there is a temporal distortion. If this happens to you, keep calm, call the Doctor.

WTA Link

Trail Review: Boulder River

Boulder River - May 27th

8 Miles
500ft Elevation Gain
North Cascades (near Darrington)
Good for Dogs
NW Forest Pass
Rating: Easy

Our hike on Boulder River started off pretty dramatically and ended... nicely, though it was a bit anticlimactic. Chris was ill so I ended up hiking with our friend Katie. The drive to the trailhead was quite lovely. I always love driving out to the North Cascades, I think they are the pretties mountains I've ever seen. People always gush about the peninsula. Feh. Give me the North Cascades any day of the week. See (below)? That's just barely getting towards them, they get so much better!

However, when we got to the trail head there were at least 10 Search and Rescue vehicles. The drive isn’t a short one from Seattle (about 1 hour 15 minutes), so we were super worried that we wouldn’t be able to hike.

As we got closer to the trail a woman informed us to please make sure we yielded to search and rescue, since they should be on their way back and carrying equipment. She then walked over to their FOOD TRUCK to get a breakfast burrito.

I will let that sink in. 

Search and Rescue has a food truck. With breakfast burritos! This sparked an entire conversation between Katie and I about how we would love to join Search and Rescue, except we don’t have climbing skills, helicopter piloting experience, or a desire to possibly have to get out of bed before 7am. We concluded we could not join Search and Rescue, but that breakfast burritos are delicious.

After that things were pretty much routine. We ran into aforementioned Search and Rescue personnel and they informed us they’d been out since 2am helping some stranded hikers. Further proof that Katie and I could not get breakfast burritos.

The hike was nice. There are a couple of nice waterfalls along the way and you never stray too far from the river itself, which I also find keeps me relaxed. I will say the trail conditions were not ideal, the trail was VERY muddy. Not “oh dear I might get some mud on my boots muddy,” more like Never Ending Story “ARRRTEX!!!” muddy. The grade is fairly level and we didn't need to take breaks at all going in or coming out. Though there was some route planning involved on how to avoid the majority of the mud.

The hike itself ends sort of weirdly. There’s no real conclusion, no this-is-the-place moment. It just sort of stops and you get to sit by the river have some snacks and turn around a slog it back. If you’re lucky there will be some crazy ass mist that is just hanging out over the river though. Which is pretty cool.

WTA Link

Deception Pass State Park: Part 2

This post is going to go up a day early since tomorrow promises to be a bit hectic. 

I woke up after dozing off for a bit and thought to myself “Hmmmm there’s no dog in my sleeping bag. Where the hell is Jaxx?” He usually sleeps in my bag when it’s cold, because he’s spoiled and I don’t mind the extra warmth. I woke Chris up to make sure he wasn’t with him. Turned out he’d nosed his way out of Chris’ door. Shit. Shit. Shit.

If you’ve ever had a pet disappear, you know it sucks. It’s especially awful when you’re in an unfamiliar place and your dog has a particular affinity for cars. I ran out of the tent and started whistling from him. Got about 50 yards from camp and this woman came around a building and asked “Did you lose your dog? Is his name Jaxx?” Oh thank god. He had just wandered into a neighboring campsite where people were still up. My dog likes to party. Needless to say we’ll be investing in some small carabiners to seal the tent zippers at night. But everything was fine, although I didn’t sleep much the rest of the night, first because I was totally afraid that I was going to lose Jaxx again, second because by this time the tent was slowly beginning to collapse.

For me the tent wasn’t really a problem. I like small spaces and it wasn’t completely collapsed so I didn’t have tent material on my face. The nice thing about your tent collapsing is that it’s really toasty. It’s a general rule of thumb that the less space inside a shelter and the lower the ceiling the warmer it’s going to be, since warm air travels up. This goes for primitive shelters as well. However, Chris is a lot bigger than me and he had damp tent on his face. Not pleasant. He didn’t want to move to the car, so poor guy ended up rolling up his sleeping mat and using it to prop up the center of the tent. Around this time I finally passed out. 

Ko-Kwal-alwoot

Next day we struck camp pretty quick and went up to the north end of the park (Fidalgo Island) to do some additional hiking. It was warmer and even prettier out. On the way we stopped and took some pictures from the bridge (Above). We started out at Rosario Beach, which WTA had mentioned as a very pretty spot. My favorite part was this gorgeous carved Samish (Native Americans indigenous to the area) statue of Ko-Kwal-Alwoot, also known as The Maiden of Deception Pass, who ended up marrying the family that rules the sea. The carving is beautiful, but really I love the story, you can read it here.

Day two was short, we were both pretty exhausted from the previous day’s hike and the long night. Only hiked about miles total, but it was a beautiful day. The Olympic mountains were out in the west (click on the photo below to see them a bit more clearly). One thing that struck me (on both days), especially being from a coastal region myself, is how clear and empty the water is here. I’m used to surging surf, tons of kelp and sea life. In the area I grew up in California the water and sea life is pretty similar to what you find in Washington marine areas, tide pools and rocks seem to be alive with all manner of sea urchins, crabs, starfish, different types of sea plants. Here it was just empty which, while a little jarring for me, does make for some beautiful water. I could almost pretend I was in the Mediterranean.

Overall definitely go visit Whidbey, but I would recommend going during the week, or off season to avoid lots of groups. Unless you are one of those people who love car camping, because you're very social and inevitably make friends with everybody in neighboring sites. Good for you, you damn alien. 

WTA Link for our second hike here. It's also highlighted in red on the map of the park in Part 1.

Trail Review: Anti-Aircraft Ridge

Location: Issaquah Alps

Difficulty: Easy (~600 ft of elevation gain)
Dogs Allowed: Yes
Mileage: 6-7, but lots of opportunities for shorter hikes as well
Fees/Passes: None
Season: November - April

It’s always tricky in Western Washington to figure out good hikes in March that isn't going to be snowed in. You’re options are either to go out to the peninsula, the San Juans or some places in the Southern Cascades. The Peninsula is tricky if you have a dog, since so much of it is National Park, in addition both it and the San Juans have the added complication and cost of ferry rides. Going down to The Gorge or Southern Cascades isn't ideal either, it’s a long drive and areas may still be snowed in. If you don’t have time to do an overnight or multiday hike, this means you’re in for an extremely long day.

Which is why early in the season a lot of people, especially in the Seattle area end up settling for hiking/walking in some of the more expansive urban parks in Seattle (Discovery Park, Carkeek Park, etc.) and parts of the Issaquah Alps. A nice bonus for these hikes is that none of them require passes or have day use fees.

Chris, Jaxx and I have done a few of these, and this was probably one of the prettier ones. There are tons of trails in Cougar Mountain Park so you have a lot of options in terms of length. There isn't a lot of variation in difficulty since there isn't much elevation gain or loss for any of the hikes. Some have short bursts of slightly steeper terrain, but they are typically short. There are some nice views if you can find places without trees. You can see the lake in the valley below and we did get a nice peak at Mt. Baker in the distance. My favorite section that we hiked was Klondike Swamp. While it doesn't have majestic views it has definite swamp(ish) charm, lots of gnarled trees covered in moss etc.

WTA recommends this hike November through May, mostly to avoid mosquitoes I probably won’t hike here after April because of crowds. On an overcast (not rainy) day we saw probably 10 people or more, which doesn't sound like much when I write it down, but I like more solitary hikes. I imagine this place gets packed by mid-late spring.

Sorry about the lack of photos, cam-jam was dead.

WTA Hike Link (including directions)