Gary, Jack and Sophie near the start
Jack above the trail near the start
This was to be my grand nephew Jack's and my warm-up hike, a kind of work-the-kinks-out day prior to a three day backpack. I've always thought getting up high was pretty cool — there's nothing quite like the view and sense of accomplishment one gets standing on a mountain you got to the top of with your own two legs. In our neck of the woods the peaks are generally empty, so they're usually a great place to contemplate the world and reflect on our place in it and our responsibilities going forward.
The hike up Lake Mountain is three or four miles depending on how you do it. Most of it is exposed and without shade due to fire events in the last few decades. There are no reliable water sources along the route, especially in this year of severe drought.
The official trail makes a big hook near the start which adds almost a mile to the total distance. If you know what you're doing, you can cut that off and save some distance. Despite having tried this "shortcut" on several previous occasions, I clearly didn't know what I was doing. I made the same mistake I've made before, heading mostly up the ridge instead of veering severely left towards the few still-standing trees farther west. As a result, we bushwacked quite a bit farther than we should have. We didn't travel any farther, but it was brushier and more tiring.
But the wildflowers were beautiful. I wish I could remember them better from year to year. There was quite a bit of Fireweed and some kind of Penstemon. There are too many Penstemons to keep track of, especially for a non-biologist/botanist like me.
As we got higher we could look back and see the brown of Kleinschmidt Flat at the end of the valley. Eventually we contoured around enough to reconnect with the trail, and followed it up to the top of the ridge.
The east face of the ridge has a good-sized slide on it, so we were careful not to get too close to the edge. It would be quite a tumble down that slope.
As we worked our way up the ridge the day just got hotter and hotter; it was well into the 90s. We were heading for a knob where the ridge turns north; it's always been kind of an intermediate goal for me, and on occasion the turn-around spot. We were getting pretty beat and Jack was running out of water, so it seemed like that would probably be our turn-around spot. We were stopping to rest more often...
We finally made it to the knob. We were poking around for some shade with a good log or rock to sit on when Jack yelled "Snow!" Sure enough, down in a depression there was a good-sized snowbank. Whoppie! Sophie eagerly lapped up water from the small puddle at its base; I sat down and took a big swig from one of my water bottles, being careful to leave enough to help melt snow. Then I scraped away the top of the snow and stuffed both my bottles with snow and set them in the sun.
After drinking a bit Jack wandered up the snowfield to check it out. A bit later I heard a yell and scrambled to see what was up; he was hobbling back, shaken up quite a bit. He had walked onto a snowbridge and it had caved in on him. He was a bit scraped up from a big rock he slid by as he went down, but otherwise unhurt. We checked out his scrapes; they didn't need any bandaging, and then I gave him a big hug. Having the bottom of the world drop out from under you suddenly would have scared any of us! If you aren't used to the snowfield environment and its potential dangers you don't know to look for them. Phew!
I purchased a Garmin In-Reach Mini over a year ago when I was hoping to take a long solo pack trip; I messed up my back and never activated it. With Jack under my wing I thought Dona and Jack's family would appreciate knowing all was well. So a few days before Jack arrived I activated it and tested it out; it seemed to work fine.
I thought Jack should know how to operate it, so I had him watch as I powered it on and sent the "We're here, all's ok" message. After exploring how it worked a bit we turned it off; it uses a rechargeable battery and I didn't want to run it down.
When we got back, both Dona and Jack's mom had gotten the message. So hopefully they wouldn't worry about us too much on our upcoming overnight trips.
In retrospect, it was a bit too much of a first hike due to the heat, but we got through it. We had one day to recover, then we were off on our backpack.
