Stats…
Mileage: 11.0
Elev. Gain: 2,900′
Cumulative HaT Miles: 46.9
Since Tom and I are going off to the Pasayten next weekend for our long-overdue backpacking trip, he opted to not go hiking with me this weekend and instead practiced at the dojo. It was our mutual loss for while he missed a beautiful trip, I missed his company (because 11 miles is a long way to walk by yourself).
This was a struggle from the beginning, not because it’s a particularly difficult anything (drive, hike, etc.), but because I’m finally feeling how hard I’ve been pushing myself all month and my body is just really wanting to stop and rest.
I woke up before the 5:30 alarm and since I wasn’t falling back asleep, I figured I may as well get moving (which was good because it still took me a while to get myself in gear). Out the door at 6:00 and on the trail by 8:20. En route, a beautiful sunrise with Whitehorse, Three Fingers and Pilchuck all visible beneath the high cloud layer. One of these days, I’ll see the sunrise FROM one of those mountains, but not today.
The weather forecast was not promising (either the night before or at pre-dawn), offering cloudy skies and a 30% chance of rain. But it didn’t look like any other area in the mountains would offer anything better and I needed the miles, so I stuck to the plan. What greeted me was a morning full of clear blue skies and crisp temperatures followed by an afternoon of moody skies but nary a drop of rain (on me, anyway).
Not much to report here (I guess I’m not in story-telling mode). The trail is well-maintained (looks like some fresh work has been done on the Park Butte trail) and the views are pretty much non-stop most of the time. I was up to the lookout early enough that it wasn’t too crowded (3 horse riders and 2 hikers outside on the wrap-around balcony, another 3 hikers inside the lookout – 1 other hiker had already come and gone) but I passed a steady stream of people on the way back down. I didn’t stay long at the LO (the weather was starting to turn and I knew I still had a long trip ahead of me) and was back down to the Scott Paul junction in no time. It was a little disheartening here to know that I had completed less than half of my miles for the day, but I persevered and was richly rewarded because of it, plus I was lucky enough that not one drop of rain fell in my vicinity (even though the clouds often looked like they were promising to dump and I could see showers off in the distance here and there).
This brings my final Hike-a-Thon total to 46.9 miles with an elevation gain of 10,246 (1.9 vertical miles). I may be short on miles but I went up quite a bit more than I had intended. I can still pat myself on the back for a job well done!
One of my fondest hiking memories is sleeping in the Park Butte Lookout, I hope I get to go back there again soon.
Good job on the Hike-a-thon!!