Some Hikes I’ve Done
Massachusetts
Mt. Greylock
New Hampshire
Mt. Lincoln
Mt. Monadnock
Mt. Washington
The first time I climbed Mt. Washington was with my dad when I was between 13 and 16 years old.
The second time was with a friend who, like me, was about 24 at the time. About halfway up, not far above the tree line, was a small building with a sign that read something like this:
MANY PEOPLE HAVE DIED CLIMBING THIS MOUNTAIN. AT THE SLIGHEST SIGN OF BAD WEATHER, TURN BACK.
We looked up and saw some threatening clouds – definitely more than the slighest sign of bad weather. Naturally we kept going.
We were in shorts and tee-shirts. One of us had a windbreaker.
About half-way between the sign and the summit, it got cold – maybe around 40 degrees. It also started raining, got windy, and became foggy. Then, we got lost. Unbeknownst to me, my friend hit his head on a rock. We were getting cold fast.
In the area where we were, many people have walked off cliffs in similar situations. (I think the name of the area contains “Lion” – maybe it’s called “Lion’s Head”.) We lucked out and found some cairns, found the trail, and made it to the top.
At the top was a building. Inside, you could buy food, postcards, and touristy things. Many grandmotherly people were about. Apparently they had taken the road up the other side. Even inside the warm building, it still took me over an hour to stop shivering. The grandmas couldn’t understand why I was so cold.
Someone was nice enough to give us a ride down to the bottom. Unfortunately for us, this put us on the side of the mountain opposite where our car was parked. To get back, we had to walk a lot of miles in pouring rain. It wasn’t too cold at this lower elevation, but boy was it wet. Water squirted sideways out of our shoes at each step. When we made it to the car, we sat there doing nothing for a while, happy to have no water coming out of the sides of our shoes.
We later climbed Mt. Washington again. This time we both ended up with really sore knees on the way down. We came down the ski trail to try to make the trip shorter.
Next Summit Along the Ridge that Mt. Washington Is On
New York
A Hike above Lake George (Black Mountain?)
A Hike in the Catskills Along a Ridge
I think this hike was about six miles long. It went up to a ridge, then followed the ridge. I don’t remember this being an out and back hike; I’m pretty sure that either we used two cars, or the trail was a loop. It was winter. At the trailhead, there were feet of snow. We fell through on each step. I loved it. My friend brought along a pepperoni stick, which I thought was hilarious. At the top, it was windy. It became colder as the day went on. After a while the pepperoni was less hilarious, and I really wanted some of it. My friend granted me a fair amount, but only a little at a time.
Whiteface
Vermont
Haystack Mountain
Killington Peak
Mt. Equinox
At least twice.
Appalachian Trail
I hiked north from the intersection of the trail and route 7 – this is a point a few miles east of Bennington. This takes you up onto a ridge. If I remember right, you end up on or toward Glastonbury Mountain.
On another day I started from the same spot with my dad. I think that time we went south.
Washington
Bear Lake (Mountain Loop Highway)
January 6, 2007. The snow level was low enough so that we had to park just off the Mountain Loop Highway and put our snowshoes on immediately. Hiked on the road up to within maybe a mile of the trailhead, probably 10-12 miles round trip. Again, very nice snow. Lots of trees down. Photos
Blackjack Ridge
Carne Mountain
September 22, 2007. Jay set a mean pace immediately at the bottom, and thus there was no talking until we were about 2/3 of the way to the top.Photos
Centennial Trail, Snohomish, WA. Photos
New Year’s Day, 2001. 10 mile hike on flat Rails-to-Trail trail near river and route 2 in Snohomish, WA.
Chatter Creek to Pass Before Lake Edna
October, 2007. Roughly 10 miles round trip, 3000-4000 feet elevation gain, up to 6000-6500 feet. This is a hike off of Icicle Creek Road near Leavenworth, and provides access to the Mormon Ladies area of the central cascades. I had designs on scrambling up to the top of Grindstone mountain, or at least seeing how hard it’d be. Visibility was intermittent; sometimes I got good views across the valley; other times I could not see more than 100 feet. There was several feet of powder snow, and I ended up turning back at the first pass. Only because the group of 3 guys before me had broken trail was I able to get that far – I was alone, and above the basin, had no idea where the trail was other than from following the tracks. Once I got down I started thinking about this and realized that hiking alone in this situation is pretty dangerous. Now I know better.. But it was fun being out in the wilds like this. As I was going up and the other group was going down, there might not have been another person within about 4 miles of where I was.
Denny Creek and Malekwa Lake
Goat Mountain
October 27, 2007. There are a lot of Goat Mountains in Washington – this is the one that’s across the valley from Mt. Baker, on the same ridge line as Hannegan peak (I think). Roughly 10 miles round trip, up to around 6700 feet. We got up to just below the ridge, scrambling from the end of the trail straight up the grassy slope. The slope was a mix of grass and blueberry bushes. It was too late in the season to eat any blueberries, but I’ll bet there are zillions of blueberries here earlier in the year. This hike brought some of the best views I’ve seen, especially at sunset looking across the valley at Mts. Shuksan and Baker. But near the top of Goat Mountain it was very dangerous for me, given my level of experience and equipment. There was 2-4 inches of patchy snow cover on a steep, wet and somewhat muddy grassy slope. I had a tough time in my light hiking boots without crampons. It took 3 or 4 hours to go somewhere between 1 and 3 miles in this terrain, planning each step. I was able to get good traction by planting my poles and sometimes putting almost all my weight on one or both poles, so that is what I did. In places, even standing without falling was difficult. Making each and every step at this intense level of concentration was new for me. The only thing I can remember doing that was at all like this is downclimbing a really steep area in snow at a Utah ski area after going into the forest to retrieve my errant ski. Then, I was facing into the mountain, and punched my arms into the snow in order to keep connected at 3 points while I took the next step. That was only for a few minutes though. Here’s a picture of me on Goat Mountain, in a place where there’s still some trail. Off the trail was even slicker. Even here on the trail remnants, it looked to me like if I fell I wouldn’t be able to stop until the bottom of the slope, hundreds of yards below, or more. I had no ice axe and would have had a heck of a time self-arresting. Finally we got off the dangerous area and hiked down in the dark with our headlamps. This hike was great motivation to learn about scrambling, boots, crampons, navigation, and all sorts of things. Later I read that on slopes like this you should have crampons and ice axe – this is no less dangerous than traveling on steep snow or some kinds of ice. More photos
Hannegan Peak
August 18, 2007. Photos
Heather Lake
Hex Mountain
January 19, 2007. Snowshoed to within about 500 vertical feet of the summit. Turned back there due to fading daylight. Broke trail through some of the steep sections that had lots of powder. Tough and fun. Photos
Heybrook Ridge
This was the field component of the Mountaineer’s navigation course. Two other people from our hiking group were in our group that included 2 instructors and 6 students. The hiking seemed like 5 or 6 miles with maybe 1500 feet of elevation gain. It was rainy in the morning, and cold all day. The course had a series of problems, with the last two being to follow a bearing. On the first of these, I ended up within 3 feet of the objective after going maybe 400 yards. On the second I chose the most difficult route, which included going through a clearcut and over a pile of logs that was at least 20 feet high, and ended up within about 20 feet of the objective. A good day, and a useful course to have taken.
Ingalls Pass
October 20, 2007 – we had planned to go to Ingalls Lake. We turned around at Ingalls Pass (6400 feet) after plowing through 2-3 feet of snow for a lot of the way. Lots of fun, lots of work. Photos
Lake Quinault Loop
Mailbox Peak
January 14, 2007. My first hike with the group that I’ve been going with. 4000 vertical feet in 3 miles. It was a nice hike despite the cold weather at the top, where we witnessed rain, sleet, hail, and snow in the few minutes we were up there. Photos
Maple Pass and Lake Ann
Mazama Ridge
November 24, 2007. This was a snowshoe hike of 4-5 miles with around 1500 feet of elevation gain, up to around 6000 feet. This was my first snowshoeing since the mid 1990s, the only other time I’d gone before this. Mazama Ridge is on the slopes of Mt. Rainier and is known as one of the best spots in the country for snowshoeing. There was enough snow; most of it was crunchy; some was powder. We lucked out with the weather. During long sunny breaks, Camp Muir looked nice and close, even though it was 4 or 5 miles and 4000 vertical feet distant. Some other time..Photos
Mt. Defiance
Mt. Pilchuck
Mt. Si
At least 4 times.
The most recent was a solo snowshoe hike on December 2, 2007. Originally I had planned to snowshoe up Mailbox Peak but the avalanche report looked very dangerous. So I opted for Mt. Si. At the trailhead there was 10 inches of snow, so I snowshoed from bottom to top. The trail itself was slushy until about 1000 feet from the top. It was very cold at the bottom of the haystack, with over 3 feet of snow. I was the last one off the mountain. This was my second snowshoe hike.
Mt. St. Helens
August 26, 2007. Photos
Mt. Teneriffe
December 22, 2007. A rainy but mostly fun snowshoe trip. We started at 900 feet elevation and made it up to about 3800 feet before hitting our turnaround time. Distance was probably around 11 miles round trip. I tried an experiment to keep my gloves dry. I kept my hands out of my gloves for the first few hours. Sure enough, the gloves stayed dry, but my hands got about the coldest they’ve ever got. They were yellow and red and were not working very well. This seemed to be making the rest of me very cold too. Jim gave me some hand warmers and helped me get into my mittens. After an hour or so my hands were fine and I was warm. Photos
Olallie Lake
Rock Mountain (Nason Ridge)
Salmon Ridge Sno Park (Razorhone Road #3070)
Snowshoe hike on December 15, 2007 on the lower slopes of Mt. Baker. Photos
Serene Lake
Skyline Divide (Mt. Baker)
November, 2007. This is another hike from the “WOW North Cascades” hiking book, which claims to have only hikes that make you say “WOW”, and having done several of those hikes I have to say that their claim could be true. We did the Skyline Divide trail on a beautiful partly-sunny day, and got really nice views of Mt. Baker. After reaching the first plateau, which had some snow and ice, we opted not to continue to the right since it looked too dangerous to do without crampons and ice axe. We walked around a bit up here (to the left), had lunch, and headed down. This terrain was good practice for walking up and down slippery trail. When we got down to the trailhead, there was still some day left, so we drove over to Mt. Baker and hiked around some on road above the ski area. It was too late in the day to do a lot, but we got some tremendous views of Mt. Shukan and of the snow in the area, as the sun set. This segment did add maybe 2 more miles to the total mileage and it was nice to get some more hiking in. The road was closed to cars, and it was an interesting time of year to be there – you could still make out the road, but parts of it had a lot of snow, and there were several small rock slides that had gone onto the road. I ended up running down the road in a foot of snow in order to make sure I wouldn’t be late getting back to the cars. Photos
Skyline Lake (Stevens Pass)
Snowshoe hike on December 8, 2007. Really nice snowy trail to a frozen lake on a sunny day.Photos
Sol Duc Falls
Circa 1999. Nice walking in the Olympic rain forest.
Sourdough Mountain
September, 2007. Photos (high resolution – viewing will be slow with some internet connections)
Stevens Pass
January 20, 2007. Field trip for the Mountaineers’ Snowshoe Lite class, starting from the Stevens Pass Ski area and snowshoeing up into the back country. I have not seen this area mentioned in snowshoe books but it is a great place to snowshoe. There is a nice mix of open and tree terrain and a large area to play in. One has to be careful around some of the slopes as they are good candidates for avalanches. We had a good group and the hike was more strenuous and less basic than I had feared. Learned a few things.
Stuart Lake
Surprise Lake and Trap Pass
Fall, 2007.
Talapus Lake
December 31, 2007. Parked right at I90 exit, snowshoed up the road to the trailhead, and then on to the lake. Beautiful and plentiful snow. Roughly 12 miles round trip. Photos
Tiger Mountain
At least 3 times.
