9/5/15 – 9/6/15

The theme of the summer seems to be things not going according to plan.  The Labor Day gang (Bubbles, Daybreaker, Goodness) once again penciled in a climb of Glacier Peak (WA) for the long weekend.  And once again, weather conditions were not favorable for a summit attempt.  Someday I will get to use my glacier rope.

We had what seemed like a good backup plan in place: a 3 day trek through the Necklace Lakes area of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness in the Snoqualmie National Forest.   We would head up the trail from the West Fork Foss Lakes trailhead toward Big Heart Lake, then cross country it through spectacular alpine lakes and talus fields over to the trail along the East Foss and down to the Necklace Valley Trailhead, bagging some peaks along the way as time/energy permitted.

 

It started out fine, though cold and damp.  We had a nice day walking through old growth forest and endless climbing.  The trail on the map ended at Big Heart Lake, but a well used boot path continued over south over Atrium Peak, gradually fading out as we neared Chetwoot Lake.

 

Shortly thereafter we decided to camp, not wanting to be stuck on talus after dark looking for a place to camp.  We celebrated Goodness’s birthday with real candles in a loaf of banana bread.  As we finished our dinners, it started to rain and we all retreated to our tents.

 

Overnight, the rain continued, finally turning to snow. Wet, heavy snow.  I didn’t get much sleep because I was so paranoid clearing snow off the tent to prevent it from collapsing.  Also, I peed in a ziploc.

 

We had discussed many scenarios over dinner about the next day’s plans, depending on weather.  But snow had not been considered.  We stayed in our tents until ~9am.  By this point, it was only drizzling and the snow on the ground was starting to melt.  Given that our route forward was cross country and we had almost zero visibility and we figured the talus was all wet and slippery from the snow, we decided to just turn around and go back the way we came.

 

When you are thru hiking, it’s easy to push thru some bad weather.  You have no choice really.  But when you do have a choice, when a car is waiting at a trailhead and there are warm and dry places available….it’s a no brainer.

Next year…

Planned route is in Red/Purple (Trail/Cross Country). Actual route hiked in Green.