|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
"Just a short hike here, then I promise we'll visit the Space Needle."
As usual, I was trying to do more than the day would allow. With an early morning flight home looming less than 24 hours away, we still had to manage a quick visit to the Hurricane Ridge section of Olympic National Park, then drive 2-1/2 hours to Seattle to see the futuristic downtown landmark. It's an optimistic agenda, but certainly feasible.
Hurricane Ridge is one of the more crowded locations within Olympic NP. It is home to a visitor's center, hiking hub, and some spectacular scenery. With mountain vistas and endless alpine meadows, one expects Julie Andrews to whirl onto the scene in a peasant dress, accompanied by a soaring overture.
Combine the scenic beauty with the proximity to the population centers surrounding Puget Sound, add in a narrow, winding Park Service road and a few RVs for seasoning, and you have the perfect recipe for an hour-long crawl.
Having left the balmy sea-level villages of Sequim (pronounced "s'cum") and Port Angeles just prior, the chilly wind on Hurricane Ridge was a momentary shock, but did not require excess layers on this particular June day. The sun was bright, even though it was filtered by morning fog. This fog, of course, is visible as mountaintop clouds to anyone in the towns below.
The immediate trail network on Hurricane Ridge is a well-travelled spiderweb. We headed north along the Klahane Ridge in the general direction of Mt. Angeles. While the summit was my general goal, the trail leading to the mountain serves as an excellent day hike in its own right. Originally constructed by mountain goats, it is mostly level, but a mildly risky route in spots. One misstep will send the unwary hiker tumbling down a steep meadow to impact either a pine tree or ultimately the road far below. Otherwise, the delicate mountain flowers, birds, narrow valleys and other alpine trappings conspire to create a memorable hike.
We reached the unofficial "trail" to the summit of Mt. Angeles in about an hour, 2.5 miles from the visitor's center. It is clearly a trail, since thousands of hikers tramp on it every year. It is unofficial, because the National Park Service doesn't want to encourage casual slackpackers (like us) to use the trail, since it requires some basic but still treacherous hand-over-hand climbing. So off we went.
The trail up Mt. Angeles is not exceptionally long, but it is quite steep and the surface is loose, gnarly rock. We ran into a descending boy scout and his father about a third of the way up, and they eyed us doubtfully.
"It's tough...depends if you're up to climbing a little. Work your way around to the left. You might make it...it's not easy...you might find it's pretty tough."
I thanked him, and replied that we'd go as high as we could, then have a proper picnic. GI Joe gave us a sort of unencouraging snort and proceeded down.
After another fifteen minutes and a couple of loosely-marked switchbacks over a rock slide, the already thin forest thinned even more. When we reached a small meadow at the base of the summit cliffs, Sandy announced that she would go no further, and sat down on a nice clump of moss between patches of snow.
From this vantage point, the summit is looming hulk of misshapen rock, vertical in some spots and broken in others. It is quite daunting. I asked for volunteers to join my quest, and Brynna promptly plopped down next to Sandy. Ally warily agreed to give it a try.
Although it appeared that we could find a number of different routes to the summit, we continued our gradual ascent. In other words, we followed the footprints in the patches of snow. Eventually this led to a chute that kind of angles back toward the top. While not life-threatening, it does require some basic rock grabbing, which Ally did quite gamely.
The last 100 or so feet pose a few real problems for the casual hiker, but nothing insurmountable for an adventurous 10-year-old with a climber's spirit. We clawed and scrambled our way up -- more frightened than the actual danger warranted -- determined to reach the top.
By following the unofficial route that angles up the southern cliffs, we were basically led right to the summit, thus avoiding the common mistake of climbing the various false summits. The climbing community considers Mt. Angeles to be a a true beginner's climb -- or less. Ally and I found it quite challenging. Most real climbers would chuckle at our nervous efforts, but at least we didn't make their common mistake of tackling any of the false summits.
Eventually we triumphed. We stood on top of the immediate world. We looked down -- way down -- at Sandy and Brynna, our advance base camp. We waved proudly as we stood together on the pinnacle, but mostly just clung together in fear.
The true summit of Mt. Angeles is a few square yards. Less timid souls would bask in their achievement, relax, and enjoy the view. Ally and I elected to descend rather immediately. At a somewhat sheltered area immediately below the summit rock, I decided to see if I could find another route down, to avoid the most difficult portion. I was soon out over the jagged peak of the north face, which was covered in snow, mist, and appeared to drop off into an abyss. Now that was cool. We descended the way we came.
Back at our advance base camp, Sandy and Brynna were relaxing.
"How was the view?"
Ally and I looked at each other and shrugged.
"We really didn't look around much," I said.
"It was pretty scary," Ally added.
So much for the great conquering climbers. We began our descent to the regular trail. Although we strayed off the erratic "unofficial" trail at the rockslide area, we rejoined the ridge trail in short order. Then we humped back 2.5 miles to the parking lot. As usual, I arrived last; tired, hungry, thristy. And I still owe Sandy a trip to the Space Needle.
Photo: Ally & Rick with Mt. Angeles behind. The junction with the unofficial trail is just behind us, there is a small group of people sitting there enjoying a snack. The true summit is the left-most pinnacle. Just to the right of it is the "false summit" many people mistakenly climb.
* * * * *
Click here for a trip to Mt. Rainier
Click here to visit the natural arches of Kentucky
Want more rocks? Here's a visit to "The Rockpile," also known as Mt. Washington.