Summer travels :: Part 2

After my adventures in 112 degree TX (heat index... the real temperature was only 107), I was pretty stoked to head up to the Northwest to see family, friends, and the Cascade mountains again. Although there are some nice tall hills on the east coast, there's nothing approaching the rugged beauty of the Cascades. Needless to say, I tried to make the best of my time here. In fact, of the first 9 days I was in the NW, I was in the mountains 7 of them.

The first overnight trip was instigated by meeting up with a friend who recently graduated from Cornell and is spending the entire summer traveling around the NW doing photography. I'm not the least bit jealous. (right...) Anyhow, we headed up to Twin Lakes for one night, up past Monte Christo - a gold-mining ghost town from around the turn of the century. In addition to a bit of interesting history, this stretch of mountains is essentially in the "backyard" of my parents' place (less than 1/2 hour drive to be well into rugged beauty).

The weather report was iffy, and we left under clouded skies, but it began to break as we headed back past the first ranks of mountains. During the 8+ mile hike in, it felt like we were being chased by a view-crushing wall of fog. We could see it literally spilling over the ridge behind us, like dry ice fog over a punchbowl. As we topped the ridge overlooking Twin Lakes, we had no less than two or three minutes before it caught up with us, turning the view to a complete white-out.

It doesn't come off in the picture, but the clouds were literally spilling off the ridge behind us like dry ice

The last ridge holding back the fog from the Twin Lakes. The rock in the center of the picture is about 30 feet tall!

Fortunately, that last ridge held the fog mostly at bay for the rest of the day, and yielded some interesting pictures, including the sunset lighting up the 2000 foot high granite wall behind the lakes a beautiful orange. It's been a long time since I slept in the mountains, and it was a wonderful thing.

The next morning we woke to mixed skies that quickly turned to dense fog. Our hike out followed a ridge for several miles, and we all know what happens to saturated fog as it blows up and across the top of a ridge. Yes, precipitation. Mostly light, but enough to soak the bushes along the boot trail we were following and thus soak us. As we dropped off the ridge, things improved rapidly, and by the time we hit the car, it was a beautiful partly cloudy day. Oh well. It was still an awesome trip that just whetted my appetite for more backpacking.

A beautiful, crystal clear stream ran right by where we chose to camp

The sun "set" ~1 hour earlier at our campsite than a point a couple hundred yards to the left (relative to this picture)

Looking across the upper of the twin lakes

Nice sunset lighting

Dusk across the upper lake

The next morning under a blanket of clouds that we shortly hiked up into.