Burroughs Mountain - 3rd burrough

This is one of the best trails to see Rainier. It appears to close that you can stretch your hand and touch it, or just walk down that ridge and start climbing the mountain. The trail did not disappoint this time also.

It starts at Sunrise point and gains elevation quickly to Frozen lake. The lake still has quite a bit of snow around it and its fun to sit down and watch the small icebergs floating in it. From the lake, its about 0.7 mile to the first Burrough. View are good at first Burrough, but its in no way the final destination. Another 0.7 mile is Second Burrough. There is still a small snow patch on the trail, but nothing to worry about, can be crossed easily even without poles. Views from Second Burrough are just awesome, you will probably never see Rainier so close, or so I thought!

After taking a good break here, we decided to go up to the third Burrough also. The trail is not maintained and does not appear anywhere. But I think that is a huge injustice. Its about 1.5 mile and 800ft elevation gain. But before that you have to lose about 400ft of elevation, which means the way back also has a uphill stretch. Trail just goes straight up the hill, its steep in places. We saw a lot of mountain goats. View from top of 3rd Burrough is truly breathtaking. You can see whole Rainier from top to end of glaciers. Its just amazing and a definite must do. It adds about 3 miles and total 1200 ft (800 + 400) of elevation gain to your hike, but its worth it.

Its all snow free now and wild flowers are in full bloom. Its suggested to take wonderland trail on the way back, though it has couple of snow patches, but lots of flowers. 
More photos - http://picasaweb.google.com/hiking.glory/BurroughsMtn

Big 4 Ice caves

This are the ice caves which are formed at bottom of Mt Index every year. As the name states, the snow on the mountain drops down and packs into caves. Its a very short 1.5mile hike on mostly flat accessible trail. On the way we saw the huge destruction caused by flood. You could really see the power of water there, it had downed huge trees, leaving a trail of destruction. The caves were nice, we walked along and a bit into them.

Navaho pass and peak

A perfect weekend. What more can you ask then a perfectly sunny cloudless day, 14 miles of hike, breathtaking  360 deg views of all sort of mountains and a beautiful never seen before pink and blue sunset to top it all off! That was how my hike to Navaho Pass and Navaho Peak turned out to be. Its a grueling 14 mile 4100 ft hike up to the peak, and the drive is more than 2 hrs from Seattle. This means that we had to start early, and hike fast. Early start, no problem for me. Hike fast, yes a little problem. I am a marathon run, I hike at a slow and steady pace!

We started from Redmond at abour 8:30am. The Teanway River Road which we take from Cle Elum is surprisingly nice and paved. Only the last 3.5 mile of unpaved forest road with lots of potholes. Still the camary made it pass them easily. We were at the ready to start hiking by 10:40. The trail is actually called Stafford Creek Trail and the name Navaho does not appear anywhere.

First part of the trail is easier. It has lot of 'rolling hills', but the grade is gentle. We made it to a nice spot with campsite in 1 hr 40 min. We found a group of backpacking resting there. So decided to grab a quick bite before starting further. From that point it was a quick climb to 4.5 mile mark. Here the trail forks. The trail on left goes to Standup Creek and the one on right goes up to Navaho Pass. It still does not mention Navaho on the sign!

After mile 4.5, the trail climbs more steadily. We also left the creek behind at this point, and the nice forest cover also disappered. It was a hot sunny day, temperature hovering around 80. This section though only about a mile or so, felt very very long. It has a bunch of switchbacks and every few feet it feels like we are almost there! Luckily there were some wild flowers to keep us entertained. We saw a couple of people returning and could not help but ask them, how much further! Finally we hit this place called 'moonscape'. It does look like out of the world, barren land in the middle of green mountains. I can bet its volcanically active, or is a site of meteor crash!

From the moonscape its another half a mile or so, gentle uphill. But it just felt very very long. The views were good though. And then finally, we reached the pass! As soon as you climb that last few feet to the pass, its like a new world has opened in front of you. The beautiful unexpected enchantments are right in front of you, hanging like a painting. As soon as I saw that sight, all tiredness was gone! It was all about how can I see more of it, where is a even better view. Before starting the hike, we had a doubt if we will make it to the Peak. The Peak is another 1200ft from Pass and trail is very steep.

Once we got there, no one even asked the question. It was sure that we are going somewhere higher to get a even better view. The question was left one or right one! Someone told us that if you go left, you can hike to a nice ridge line and there is closeup view of Mt Stuart, and can see Ingalls Lake, Ingalls Peak etc. On the right was Navaho Peak with its 360 deg view and view of Mt Rainier. So we decided to head up Navaho only instead of going to unknows.

It is indeed a very grueling climb up. I think it was one degree up Buckhorn. Very steep and somewhat slippery slope. Still nothing that good hiking shoes cannot handle. It seemed very unsafe and while going up, I could not imagine how I am ever going to make it back down this slippery slope safely. Still, we kept going and finally made it to the top. It was worth every pain, and it might even be worth any fall I could take on the way back, of course if it did not involve broken bones! From the top, there is a true complete 360 degree view. I have hardly seem such true unobstructed view. It really had a feel of true summit. This time I also found the summit register and signed it. I felt like we should never get down from this point. I should confess that part of it was because I was scared to go down!

We spent about 30 min at the summit. Taking photos, eating lunch, though I could not eat anything. Then it was time to do the long 7 mile descend. From the Pass, it took us about 1 hr to come up and 1 hr to go down. I was very happy that I made it down safely. A combination of good shoes and hiking pole helped and I guess I am getting more confident now. On the way down we saw a group of backpackers looking for campsite. I was really sad to tell them that there are not good campsites up there, its all rocky and slopy.

Once down at the Pass, I could finally relax. From there it was just another 5.5 miles and 2900ft to go. It was a slight race against time also since we did not get headlamps this time. As usual the 5 mile felt like 10 miles. We could not belive how we hiked up so fast while going down is taking for ever. It was really really hot by now, so after the moonscape, we stopped at a small stream to freshen up. From there it was straight walk down to trailhead. We finally made it in 8 hr car - car. Probably 7hrs of hiking time.

Marmot Pass and Buckhorn Mt. backpack

July 3 - July 5, 2009

This July 4th long weekend we decided to backpack to Marmot pass and beyond. Marmot pass is in heart of Olympics, one of the few high elevation trails which are snow free at this point.

We started from Kirkland in a somewhat timely fashion. Headed up to Edmonds to catch the ferry. Being a perfectly sunny weekend, there was a 90min wait for the ferry! There we decided that its not worth it and we should just drive around the sound. It was a long drive, and probably took us an extra 90min, so not sure if it was worth it! We reached the small town of Quilcene around noon. There we found a nice cafe to have a good lunch.  The cafe was so good that we will come back to it!

We started on the trail around 2:00, quite usual for us. We had only 4.5 mile of hike that day before setting up camp, though there was a 3000ft elevation gain also. The hike starts in the forest and immediately starts to go up. With backpacks, it was difficult from the beginning. We reached Shelter Rock, where we wanted to have food and take a break. The site is not marked and a 'gadget' told us that Shelter Rock should be further.

So we marched on. The trail is still in the forest, which was nice because sun was hot up there. Soon we were really tired and felt like can't go any further. The trail becomes really steep after Shelter Rock. So we stopped at a point and had food. Some nice people told us that just a little way up and this will become the most beautiful hike you have ever been on! That was very encouraging. We did find a very beautiful display of wild flowers on the trail.

 It also opens up a little bit with views of some surrounding mountains. Since the distance was only 4.5 mile, our desitination Mystery Camp was not far. We were really tired by this time, 3000ft is not a small distance. Views were getting better, so that was encouraging. Mystery Camp was a colony! literally! There was a really large group from Mountaineers Club and about 200 (ok 10) other people. We had hard time finding a campsite. Mystery Camp is also in middle of lots of trees so there are virtually no views from here.

We were so tired by this point that we did not have the energy or the time to go up and camp at Marmot Pass. It would definitely have been a 10 times better campsite. So we found some place after lot of going back and forth and settled camp. This was also the last point to get water, after that it was all melting snow.

Next day, usual style, we got up late and started hike late. But there was not a lot of distance to cover so it was ok. We reached Marmot Pass quite quickly, it was awesome. The views were totally worth it, and I could imagine how awesome it would have been to camp there. Anyway, its meeting of 3 trails also. From here, we had a choice to either go over to Buckhorn Lake, a longish trail, or go up to Buckhorn Mountain, an unmaintained steep steep trail. We walked a little bit towards Buckhorn lake. We met a nice group of people on the way and they told us that the lake is not worth it. So Buckhorn Mountain it was.