With that boost, I headed out west. As I was making the drive through eastern Washington, I called up Brent to have him look around for a hotel room near Cle Elum so I could dump my stuff, and crash for a few hours. He got the reservation all set up, and he planned on meeting me there during the evening. I got checked in, and went for a walk to the local DQ to satisfy my overwhelming craving for a peanut buster parfait. About an hour later, Brent showed up, and a little after 1am we departed for the trailhead to Mt. Stuart. On the curvy road up the mountain, I was concerned because there were several signs stating that there was trail closures due to some forest fire. Sure enough, we arrived at our trailhead, and it was closed off. We debated about parking down the road a bit, and being extra sneaky. However the prospect of being discovered would ultimately result in the discovery of my car parked just outside of the closed off area. We determined that we'd go down the road a ways where there was another trailhead that would lead us to the base of Mt. Stuart. Leaving the trailhead around 2:30am with headlamps, flashlights, and backpacks I fired up my GPS to drop digital breadcrumbs along our way in the dark. We pounded the trail up and up to the pass. It was heartbreaking to have come all the way, almost half way up the mountain, just to have to drop down two thousand feet. On the way down, mental and physical exhaustion were enhanced by the darkness. The body wanted to sleep. Since it was too chilly when you stopped moving, sleep was not gonna happen. By the time we crossed the river and arrived at the base of Stuart, we encountered some ribbon that marked the intersecting closed off trail, where we would have emerged probably hours earlier if we had approached from the easy direction. As Brent and I pounded our way up one of the avalanche gulleys on Stuart, the sun began to make an appearance. We spooked some deer along the way as the sun crested. After getting out of the nasty steep slippery stuff, we got onto some more polite talice slopes that were easier on the joints, feet, and mind. Pikas barked at us as we passed. Simple cairns marked some sort of trail along the way and seemed to lead us up to one of the ridge crests. We took a wrong turn somewhere, and we were trapped in a very steep gulley after investing a significant amount of effort to get there. We went up anyways, and got to the ridge. Re-energizing with some snackage and rest, we continued to climb to the base of a snowfield. There we filled waterbottles with ice, and scrambled up some really nasty eroded junk rock. The stuff crumbled, and was like ball bearings on the granite. Going up was challenging, but not as challenging as it would be going down. After an arduous scramble up on the shoulder of the false summit, we took a rest on some darker more sturdy rocks. Following the cairns at this point was tricky since the line of sight in-between markers, and there were multiple routes. Not all routes marked possible paths, and a few times we were dead-ended with nowhere to go but down, or a rock scramble to a tricky area. Eventually we were able to make the traverse all the way over to the summit.
We broke out the snacks at the top around 11:30am, and sent a text message from the top. There wasn't enough reception to make an actual call though. A heavy steel box was up there and inside was an unorganized collection of scraps of paper, and other randomness. I signed some paper booklet inside, and put it all back where I found it. I munched on some canned muscle stuffs, but the canned oysters were disgusting. I tried to force it down, but it came right back up. I gave some for Brent to sample, and it ended up on the north glacier several hundred feet below. After taking several pictures, and taking a brief snooze, I deposited the contents of the oyster can into a little groove in the rock. I saw a raven cruising below us, and I called out to it. The bird circled us a few times gradually getting closer. He made a close high speed flyby and the air whistled on its wings. He later landed and snarfed a few of the salty sea creatures. On the return rock scramble, we heard some loud raucous bird activity up there as more ravens showed up.
Brent and I debated going down a steeper gulley unknown to us, but it had the appeal of having sturdy rock instead of the crumbly crap we came up on the other side. I was almost convinced, but we decided it would be best to go back the way we came. Going adown was a painful chore. Pea gravel sized jagged bits of granite fell into boots regularly. The first hour or so we were quadrupeds slowly making downwards progress. As things opened up, and we descended into our original gulley we ascended from, it was less mental trauma, but more physical with the steep slope, and relentless joint pounding. We met three hikers going up, who must have gotten a LATE start. Two guys and a girl were making slow process, and would NOT reach the summit and back to their camp by nightfall. After a near eternity of painful descent, we reached the base of Stuart. We passed right on through the taped off section to a nearby stream where we guzzled LOTS of water, and ate a fair supply of trail mix. Footwear removal and adjustments were then made, then Brent and I shuffled our way UP to the pass. Progress up the switchbacks was slow, dry, hot, and misery for already exhausted muscles. The switchbacks didn't want to end, and the gradual crest of the pass was cruel in many degrees. FINALLY, we got to the top of the pass, took another break while swatting mosquitoes. I drank most of my water, and we headed down all the way to the car. My GPS played tricks on us in determining the distance to the car. That last mile in all seriousness felt like 3 or more. GPS was measuring straight distance, whereas our trail and ravine was more of a crescent shape. Barely got into the car, and drove off to Cle Elum just before nightfall. We hit up DQ hard with chicken baskets and ice cream. Then, we both crashed at the hotel.
Woke up in the morning early enough to eat the free continental breakfast, and head out to Kent. While I was less than a mile from home I got a text from my mom wondering if we had woke up yet.
During the weekend, Andra, Dustin, Brent, my dad and I piled into my company car and we went up and over the mountains into Naches the back way. There we met up with Emma and Jamie who were camping there. We found traces of very busy beavers that had done quite a number on some of the local trees. I was pretty impressed. We goofed around there for a while by the campfire and ate cheese-puffs!
Later in the week we also went on a neat little hike along the Pacific Crest trail. Saw lots of signs of deer and elk. Dustin and I brought guns just because. Using the scopes we were able to spot out teeny slivers of people on the Kelly Butte lookout miles away. Fun times!
During my stay, there was talk about the washouts up Forest Service road 74, and the untouched networks of roads up there. There is a log that one can walk across, but taking a motorcycle or bike across would be rather difficult.
My brother in law Jamie had a good amount of scrap lumber in his back yard. My other brother in law Dustin was in between jobs, and had some time to spend. After about two days, "somehow" a passable crossing was established. Later on Labor Day, Brent, Dustin, and I were able to cross over the crossing with motorcycles and head up on the extensive network of forest service roads. We had a small saw in which we were able to cut some trees that had fallen in the road. On the way back I did something stupid, and came down pretty hard on my leg. I had too much adrenaline in my system to notice any pain, but several hours later the pain became intense. I tried my best to mask the pain. Weird thing is that despite the impact and the amount of pain… most of the bruising must have been pretty deep because there was no sign of surface bruising. Brent fixed the alignment on the bike that I was using, and we stored them back into Jamie's garage. Got home and snarfed a Ibuprofen and Tylenol cocktail.
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