Studio711.com – Ben Martens

On Memorial Day weekend, Tyla and I headed over to Lake Chelan State Park with her family. It’s on the east side of the mountains, so if you remember your Washington geography, you’ll know that it’s in the desert.

The park is more focused on day use than overnight camping, but we probably had the best trailer camping spot in the park. We bordered the woods on one side so we had some privacy. And even better, there was a small stream running in the woods behind the site that the guys named Pee Creek.

The park does have some incredible tent sites. Each site has room for one car to park along the road and then you carry your gear about 50 feet down to the water. Your tent gets set up on the banks of the lake. There’s no immediate water access since there are about 10-15 feet of huge rocks heading down to the lake, but it’s still a great view. If you have a boat, you can even rent a dock right by your campsite!

The lake itself is gorgeous. It’s 55 miles long and is the largest natural lake in the state. At 1486 feet deep, it’s the third deepest lake in the US and the 25th deepest lake in the world. The bottom of the lake is 388 feet below sea level! I couldn’t find any stats about the cleanliness of the water but it was amazing how far down you could see.

We had beautiful weather all weekend which let us enjoy a lot of time playing with Oskar down by the lake, go for a couple short hikes, and check out the small dam just down stream from the lake.

It’s a very popular destination which means there can be big crowds, but since it’s such a big lake, the boat traffic didn’t look too crowded. When I make my millions, it will be tempting to buy a house somewhere on the lake. Maybe this one will still be for sale.

In a three hour drive home, we went from desert lake to snowy mountain pass to wet coastal region. I love the Pacific Northwest!

A few photos are included below and more are in the photo gallery.

I headed out with the Brandt family to Alder Lake State Park for the Fourth of July weekend. It wasn’t our first choice since we got a late start on reservations, but the campground actually was pretty nice. The biggest downside was that it was close to Hwy 7 which is the western entrance to Mt. Rainier, but the traffic died down a bit at night and the fan in the camper drowned out the noise.

Our campsite was just a short walk from a boat launch into Alder Lake and Oskar made good use of that with a lot of swimming. Tyla and I even joined him for a bit. The water is pretty cold since it flows straight off the Nisqually glacier on Rainier, but we had a good time.

On Saturday, we braved the crowds and headed up to the Paradise visitors center on the south side of Rainier. It was pretty easy to spot the extra dirty snow on the Nisqually glacier from a big rock slide they had last week. (Video is posted on YouTube from hikers.)

On Sunday night we headed up the road to Eatonville to check out their fireworks display. After a couple conversations with the police, we ended up getting booted off the school grounds viewing area because pets were not allowed. We watched from the parking lot, had a great view, and beat all the traffic leaving town.

All in all it was a great trip. We couldn’t have asked for better weather and camping was a great way to celebrate one of the first weekends that has really felt like summer!

Photos are posted in the photo gallery!

At the end of last week, Tim, Andy, Stephanie, Micah and I cobbled together a plan to go hiking on Saturday. Tim suggested Lake Serene up by his house so we grabbed our gear and set forth. This one is hike #35 in your textbooks.

The day was a bit wet and chilly, but we dressed and packed appropriately. The first mile and a half are a gentile incline up to the base of Bridal Veil Falls. The river comes down over 1000 feet in less than half a mile and the trail snakes right below the last free fall section. Somehow Tucker ended up swimming that pool for a bit, but even the misty spray was enough to suck the heat out of my body.

From there the trail started climbing steeper and it was quite rocky and wet in many spots. There have been a lot of blowdowns and slides along the trail but they were almost all moved out of the way by volunteers. Because of the steepness of the second half of the trail, there are endless switchbacks and stairs built into the hillside. This trail gets a lot of traffic in the summer. If those stairs weren’t there I imagine you’d have a big muddy mess.

We reached the snow with about half a mile left in the hike. It was 3-4 feet deep in places, but the path was well tracked so we didn’t sink in very far. We arrived at the lake to find it frozen as expected. It will be fun to do this again in the summer and see how different it looks. Mt. Index rises from the opposite side of the lake and adds a very imposing backdrop to the lake.

All in all it’s about 7.5 miles and 2200 feet of elevation gain. Poles aren’t required but were a big help in the muddy and snowy sections. Both hiking books that we looked at rated the difficulty as 3 out of 5.

I didn’t want to risk the nice camera in the heavy mist/rain, but I did bring the little point and shoot to document the trip. Photos are in the gallery tagged with “Lake Serene.”

There won’t be a lot of hikes available for the next couple months as the snow melts so we’re stuck in the lowlands trying to avoid the crowds. A couple weeks ago, Tyla, Micah and I headed out to Squak Mountain. For those of you following along in your textbooks, this is hike #5. The hike winds around the least crowded of the Issaquah Alps and covers a lot of the estate of the founder of the KING broadcasting company. In fact, part of the hike goes right past the foundation of the old house and the large fireplace is still standing. The hike wasn’t that memorable, but it was nice to get out on a beautiful day and stretch the legs a little bit.

This past weekend, the three of us headed out again to hike along the De Leo Wall on Cougar Mountain. This one is hike #2 in the book and it was a bit more interesting than the previous hike. The trailhead was swamped with people but we left them all behind pretty quickly and found a bit of solitude. We never made it to the viewpoint because of some confusing signage and text in the book, but we did find the waterfall.

All in all these were decent hikes for early in the season but I won’t be itching to do either one again. The Squak Mountain hike was notable for some very bad guidance from the book. It usually does a good job of leading you along the trail, but Squak and Cougar are so riddled with a maze of trails that it can get pretty tricky.

Hopefully we’ll get some warmer weather soon to get that snow melting up in the mountains! There is still 10-20 feet of snow in most places up there.

When spring rolls around, I start flipping through various hikes trying to figure out which ones I want to tackle that summer. The first one I identified this past spring was Crystal Lakes. It’s not a very strenuous hike but it’s one of my favorite areas and ends up at an alpine lake. For those of you following along in your textbook, this is hike #66 in Beyond Mt. Si.

Free weekend days with no rain are getting harder and harder to come by, so on Sunday Tyla and I decided to go for it. It as rainy/misty/cloudy for most of the drive but it didn’t bother us on the hike. The hike itself is consistently steep as it climbs 3000 feet in about 3 miles. The trail is very smooth and well maintained though so you don’t spend a lot of energy stepping over roots and rocks.

We arrived at the lake and found a couple people there, but even though this is a popular trail, we saw less than a dozen people all day. We were able to see all around the lake (and even spotted some leftover snow from last season on the far bank.) It quickly got very cloudy/foggy and we didn’t have much of a view.

It was a very enjoyable hike though and we did get some good glimpses of fall color and at one point the clouds parted and we could see Rainier. The shore was very accessible all the way around. I’m tempted to go back in the summer and do some (chilly) swimming there.

One of the great parts about the hike up to Camp Muir was glissading (sliding on your rear end) back down the snowfield. We carried trash bags up with us to help give us some extra slide and a little water protection. We all got pretty wet but it was a blast after all that hard work. I took some video of Andy and Andy sliding down. AndyM came up with the idea of poking his legs through the bottom of the bag to make some stylish shorts.

I’ll tell you up front that this is probably going to be a long post, but I want to record every minute of this trip. When I moved to Seattle, I thought, “I should climb Rainier.” I still remember the first day that the clouds parted and I saw Rainier on the horizon. I quickly realized that this thing is enormous. Ever since then, Mt. Rainier has filled my sunny days with taunting.

Camp Muir is located at just over 10,000 feet on the south side of Mt. Rainier. The parking lot at Paradise is 6,000 feet and the summit is 14,400 feet. Muir is halfway up and is on the path for most of the major routes to the summit. Most people who are headed for the summit will get up to Camp Muir on Day 1 around noon and will try to fall asleep as early in the evening as possible. They’ll get up very very early on Day 2, leave some gear at Camp Muir, reach the summit, come back to Muir for their gear and descend all the way to Paradise. Mike and I set out to ski down from Camp Muir back in June of 2008 but got turned around by a blizzard and my poor conditioning.

I’m still interested in getting to the summit, but before I invest the time and money in that trip, I wanted to do a day hike to Muir and back to see what it felt like. But every year, the summer would disappear without a trip to Muir. This year, I put a date on the calendar, found a group to hike with, and started some training.

We had planned to go last Thursday, but as the day approached, it became clear that the weather would be much better on Wednesday. It turns out that Wednesday was absolutely perfect. Visibility was so good that we could easily see Mt. Adams, Mt. St. Helens and even Mt. Hood which is 100 miles away! It was about 50 degrees with 20mph at the top which was perfect for a strenuous hike. On Thursday the temps were right around the freezing mark with rain and 40mph winds. We chose well.

AndyD and AndyM made the trip with me. Tim had planned to come along but had to bow out due to work. I met the two Andy’s in Renton at 6am and we headed for Paradise. We hit the trail at 9am. The first 2.3 miles up the Skyline Trail to Pebble Creek went very quickly. The views were extraordinary and the path is very well travelled. After crossing Pebble Creek, we were on the Muir snowfield and our ascent slowed dramatically. Trekking poles are a must. I can’t imagine doing it without them.

The snowfield does have some bits that are steeper, but it’s generally a relentless 2.2 mile slog up 2700 vertical feet of snow. The total vertical and length aren’t that terrible, but doing it at altitude is a whole different ballgame. By the time we got to about 9000 feet I was really feeling the effects. My muscles weren’t getting tired but my feet wouldn’t always go where I told them to go and I felt short of breath. At 10,000 feet you have 30% less oxygen than you do at sea level! Two hiking tricks really helped me out. The first is pressure breathing where you purse your lips together and forcefully expel all the CO2 from your lungs. The second was the rest step where you take one step forward, lock out that knee and rest on your skeleton. Then repeat with the other foot. Finding a good pace with this method was what kept me going. The Andy’s were quite a bit faster than me. I don’t know how much faster they would have made it to the top if they hadn’t waited for me (although they said it wouldn’t have been much difference.)

We reached Camp Muir in four hours and ten minutes which is a good/average time for summit groups. The difference is that I had a 25 pound pack and not a 40-50 pound pack like the summit groups. We kept pace with most of the other people that left around the same time as us and even left a few in our dust.

We spent about 45 minutes at the top enjoying the view, relaxing, putting on various bits of dry clothing, and eating. Then it was time for the descent. We had all brought trash bags along so we punched our legs through the bags and made hilarious looking shorts out of them. There are long glissade chutes down the slopes and we made good use of them. The first person would be sort of slow because they were re-breaking trail. The second was a bit faster and the third person would fly almost uncontrollably down the hill. It was a fun reward for such a tough hike. Once we got off the snowfield we hoofed it down to Paradise very quickly.

The sights and sounds were incredible: huge waterfalls poured over cliffs, the stark contrast of the wildflowers below to the snow and rock above, marmots running through the fields, chatting with climbers who had summitted that morning, and the thunderous sound of rock falls higher up the mountain (one of which we spotted.) Any one of those things would have been enough for a normal hike, but they all combined to give me an experience I’ll never forget.

One of my biggest concerns before the trip was what to take. I got the REI Flash 50 backpack for this trip, but what should I put in it? I ended up with two Camelbak bladders. The 3L one contained water and the 2L one was filled with the powdered Gatorade mix. I wore shorts and a dry hiking shirt. In the bag I carried an extra shirt, fleece, pants, gaiters, Under Armor shirt and pants, emergency first aid kit, emergency blanket, flint, a knife, two pairs of extra socks, sunscreen, a camera, jelly beans, 3 Power Bars, an apple, carrots, Tyla’s homemade trail mix and two sandwiches. If I had it to do over again, I would have brought less food. The jelly beans were really helpful. I kept them in my pocket and munched them regularly on the way up. I also went through all my liquid, taking the last sip as we got to the car. If/when I do this again, I want to look into waterproof boots (or at least I’ll carry a second set of shoes) and a bandana for some extra sun protection. Also, there are “bathrooms” at Muir but no toilet paper. Bring a bit along or bring a roll and leave it there. If you have to poo along the trail you are required by law to bag it and take it with you. In the cold weather and altitude, it would take hundreds of years to decompose.

I’d also say that you cannot leave too early in the day. Get up as early as you can and get on the trail early. We left at 9am but by the time we were coming down, it was getting really slushy and wet. It would have been even harder to climb up in those conditions.

Two things surprised me on the trip. First, there were bees on the whole way up the snow! They never really caused any problems but there was a constant buzzing as they followed us the whole way up. The second was how much of this hike was mental. On other tough hikes, I’d go until I couldn’t physically take another step. On this trip, I really had to focus on not letting the lack of oxygen get to me, not thinking about how far I had left to go, and on finding a good pace that I could sustain.

I owe a huge thanks to Andy and Andy for making this trip a reality! This has been on my list for a very long time (I mentioned it in the 2007 year in review) and it’s a major accomplishment for me!

You can view all the photos in the photo gallery.

I’m going to be making an attempt to make it up to Camp Muir on Mt. Rainier (elevation 10,000 feet) so I feel the need to get some training hikes in. Last Monday, AndyM and I hiked up the cable line trail on Tiger Mountain. It’s not really an established trail but rather a trail cut for a cable and it runs almost straight up the mountain for 2040 vertical feet. The normal trail takes 3.1 miles to get there but the cable line trail gets to the top in just 1.5 miles.

Andy had to wait for me to take a break quite a few times, but we made it to the top in 65 minutes. On the way down we hiked the normal 3.1 mile trail and it took us exactly 65 minutes. Strange.

It was pretty tough going, but I’m looking forward to doing it again. A guy at work says he can do it in 40 minutes with a full pack. I think I have some work to do to get to that point.

Here are two views of our route. In the first one, north is up and the cable line trail is the one on the right side of the image. The second image is a 3D view looking south.