Noble knob

This was the weekend for a easy trail. We decided on noble knob, its a 7 mile round trip with a total elevation gain of 500ft, easy breezy. The road leading to trailhead is really bad, steep uphill, gravel, rocky, basically not recommended for your cute little loved car. So we decided to rent something better and go for the hike.
As usual we started lazily around 10, partly because rental car need to be picked up. I forgot to take the forest pass again, cannot understand how!!! Once we reached the FR 7174, the adventure began. The road was indeed steep, uphill, narrow and very bad. There were some sharp switchbacks. Driving on it was slow and very careful, we managed to maintain a speed of 20 on that road. There were a lot of potholes that should be avoided. In all it needed careful driving, high clearance car is better, though we did see a Nissan Sentra making its way up.
We started our hike on "a" trailhead. It did say Noble Knob on it. The hike immediately started very steep, taking us straight uphill. We must have gained almost 500 ft in less than half a mile. From the top, the view in valley was great. We had major doubts that this is the real trail. It was suppose to be flat!. We looked for a lunch spot and ate a bit. Started again, hoping that we have already covered the 500ft we were suppose to gain.

Bandera Mountain

One of the very few 4000ft+ peaks so close to Seattle. No need to mention that its quite a popular trail. We started the hike on a somewhat cloudy Saturday morning. The drive is less than an hour, so we started lazily around 10:00 from Redmond. We were ready to start at the trail head by 11:10. The trail starts with a gentle uphill. Soon you reach a nice small waterfall, I think this is called Ira Spring. Another 20 min gentle walk up from Ira Spring, you will see a fork in the trail. The right side is closed and to the left you will see a steep slope up. That is the true beginning of this trail and it never eases from there. Its all the way uphill, at least 30deg slope, sometimes 45 and even a 60deg uphill. For long time you will walk in the tree line.

You will see I-90 snaking in the valley below and Snowqualmie river by its side. Beyond I-90 there are other couple of high peaks and faint trails heading up to the peak are also visible. Do not forget to take a break and spot Mt Rainier. Its one white mountain with foreground of green peaks. We mostly missed it on the way up because the day was cloudy and we did not know we should be looking for it.

This trail is shared with Bandera Mtn and Mason Lake. There is a fork about 2.5 miles up. At this point, the real trail goes to Mason lake which is about another half a mile. And the trail to Bandera mountain is pretty much a scramble up at a very steep grade. But every inch of that walk is worth the views you get from the top. There is a false peak where you will find good rocks to sit and gaze at Mt Rainier (is you are into those kind of things). Mason lake is also visible on the other side and Rainbow (I think) lake a little further from it.

Some more rock scrambles lead to the real peak which is not that impressive. Most common reaction on reaching the real peak is "That's it!!". But you may want to do it just to complete the trail. There is almost no place to sit at the peak and view is blocked by some trees. We took a group photo and top and just came back down to sit in the rocks.

Mason lake was looking so inviting on the hot day that some of us decided to go on a little adventure. They descended the rocks and went all the way down to the lake. The "trail" is difficult and treacherous, but still doable. If you are in shorts, you may want to think twice as you will have yo go through lots of bushes. And you end up at other side of the lake. There is no trail around the lake, so to get back on the trail, its another scramble through rocks and bushes.

Trail Data: 7.6 miles round trip ( + 1 mile if you want to take a detour to Mason lake, recommended on the way down). 3000ft elevation gain to Bandera Mountain.

Directions: From Seattle, take I90 east, exit 45. Left at forest road 9030. After about 0.5 mile, continue on forest road 9031, this is a 3 miles gravel road, ok for small cars though.

Ingalls Creek

.... oh I mean Ingalls Lake, no I think I mean Ingalls Creek। That is how our long weekend backpacking started। It was the first good hike of the season for me. We decided on going to Ingalls Creek, start on Saturday, wilderness camping overnight and then back on Sunday. This was a out and back trail. Somewhere on the way during planning, some people decided to go to Ingalls Lake which is a 9 mile rt, 3000ft trail and they forgot to tell others in the group about their decision. Shayon decided to go to some place in Mt Rainier region (Ingalls* is around wenatchee) and of course did not tell anyone else and we were all going together in one car.

Unusually I had not even looked at the description in detail. It was not Mt Deception and that's all that mattered. Friday we all went to REI and I got kathmandu curry, finally.
Saturday, I got up early to do a lot of cooking. Made upma for beakfast, lots of potato sabji for sandwiches. Then I took directions for this place called "Ingalls Creek" and then Rahul took directions for this place called "Ingalls Lake". We all got together at my place around 9, and we started almost by 10:00. It was a 2 hr drive to whatever place we were going to (still undecided). 1 hr into the drive, on I97 it finally occured that we don't know where we are going. Somehow a decision to go to Ingalls Creek was made for which no one takes responsibility.

We had sandwich and rice lunch at the trail head. The trail started fine. It was almost flat, going in the jungle, all along the creek. We stopped at a place where there was lake access, wet our feet in ice-cold water and had second round of lunch. Then started again. On the way we met some people और उनसे पूछा की आगे का हाल क्या है। उन्होंने हमें बताया कि जिस lake पर हम जाना चाहते हैं वह तो और १० मील दूर है। और पता नहीं खुली है भी या नहीं। यह पूरा रास्ता ऐसा ही है। जंगल में से, अधिकतर सपाट। इसका मतलब हम एक दिन में वहां तक पहुँच ही नहीं सकते।अब निकले ही हैं सारा सामान ले कर तो एक दिन क्या और दो दिन क्या। खाना कि तो कमी नहीं होती, और दफ्तर का क्या है, कम तो चलता ही रहता है। तो हमने सोचा क्यूं न और एक दिन रुक जायें और पूरा देख कर ही जायें।