Lighten Up!

“Not Bad At All”

Hammering rain. Pea-soup fog. Mud. Hail. Gale force winds with 70 mph gusts. Sandpaper-ish weather ready to scour away shingles, siding, and small children.

Only those with a death wish or utter fools would be out in weather like this. So we take the kids to the neighbors, load up the backpacks and go charging up the road for an all-day hike to mark three November birthdays: ours and the U.S. Marine Corps. The original plan = hike the Big Flat trail in the Olympic National Park Wilderness, about 90 minutes north.

Isn’t it amazing how great something looks on paper vs. how it turns out in real life?

The “jumping off point” for our adventure is the town of Clearwater, a Lilliputian mountain burg hemmed by – what else? – the Clearwater River. (They’re good with original names around here.) We find both burg and river. Naturally, “Clearwater” is a churning, opaque gush of “chocolate milk” water that’s half mud and half sandpaper.

We keep driving, eyes peeled for any sign of the South Fork Campground followed by the faintest vestige of anything resembling a Big Flat trailhead. Our trusty guidebook has never steered us wrong. There’s a first time for everything.

Scanning the map, guidebook, the barely-wide-enough-for-a-car, hope-we-don’t-meet-a-logging-truck road and the approaching monsoon, we drive and drive. And drive. And drive. We wind up on logging roads that Paul Bunyan wouldn’t recognize. We’re sure Canada is just around the next bend. Can’t say the same for marked roads, trailheads, or signage – all conspicuous by their absence.

Those with sound judgment and functional gray matter would admit defeat at this point. So we spend another hour retracing our steps, retracing our retracing, checking the map, terrain, odometer, elevation, landmarks and retracing our retracing after retracing… All during a raging gulley washer while listening to Andrea Bocelli sing Tosca. In Italian.

Is this fun or what?

Later, a feeble sun struggles to break through the bruised, black-and-blue sky as we turn tail and head back to the North Shore of Lake Quinault, a lake roughly 45 minutes from home. Look left! There’s a peacock bow of color, shimmering and iridescent in the wet, anemic sun.

Since the weather seems to be clearing, we turn onto Lake Shore Drive North and decide on a short hike to the Quinault Big Cedar, aka: a Really Big Tree. Once again, our timing is impeccable. The weather holds until we’re two minutes into the trail, at which point the sky lets loose a torrential downpour. The trail is uphill, so the rain sluices downhill and into our boots like water from a flume.

By “rain” we don’t mean the wimpy southern California stuff that’s more heavy mist than actual rainfall. Washington rain is the Real Deal. Think Noah. We’re scouting supplies of gopher wood en route to the Really Big Tree, chugging over choice Okeefenokee real estate cleverly disguised as a “trail.” But there’s a definite “plus” to today’s hike. With nary another soul nor sole in sight, we have the entire trail to ourselves. (On this wet, wild November day, everyone with a brain is indoors.)

By the time we squish back to the car it’s way past lunch time, so we head for the July Creek Picnic Area on the north shoulder of Lake Quinault. If you’ve never picnicked at July Creek in November, you haven’t missed a blessed thing: chattering teeth, numb fingers, frosted breath, stacks of fog. Enough tempest-tossed driftwood to cripple an elephant.

Are we having fun yet?

Driving further after lunch, we decide on another trail – the Maple Glade Trail adjacent to the North Shore Ranger Station. (Whoever said Discretion is the better part of valor?) We circle the entire loop trail to find the glade lined by rain-swollen streams, ankle-deep mud, downed trees, enough moss to choke a herd of Sasquatchii (plural for “Sasquatch” – just made it up), and alder trees.  What’s with this “maple” stuff?

Some outfit called the “Kestner Homestead” squats along this trail. We’ve no idea who Kestner was, but he chose a pretty spot. Like 100 years ago. The only stuff holding this ramshackle, dilapidated place together now is Scotch tape and spider webs. The plethora of NPS “Nos” posted on this property includes “No overnight camping.”

They’re kidding, right?

It’s late, late afternoon by now and the one thing we don’t want to do is get caught out on the trail after dark. The animals have a word for hikers who do: Dinner. We galumph past an idyllic meadow and four black-tailed deer. What’s that print in the mud? Cougar tracks.

Can this hike get any better?

We hustle back to the car and have barely buckled up when the skies open.  Again. Hail pelts the windshield. Driving toward the south shore and our favorite local restaurant, we dodge toppled trees, storm debris, and navigate darkness so thick you can slice it. Rain cascades out of the night in sheets. We haul broken tree limbs and small logs off the pavement so we can pass. Next, a herd of Roosevelt elk thunders across the road. Talk about “deer in the headlights.” These things are huge! Think “SUVs with antlers.”

“I don’t remember this place being so dark” Chris observes, “we’re not that far from civilization.” We later learn that the storm knocked out power to 16,000 customers, including our dinner destination. Not to worry. The restaurant has its own generator. (Sometimes ignorance is bliss.)

The day includes Italian opera, howling winds, downed trees, power outages, “monsoons,” disappearing trails, “swampland,” hail, and marauding wildlife. Also a rainbow, Chicken Cordon Bleu, NY Steak and raspberry white chocolate cheesecake by candlelight in front of a roaring fireplace with Andrea Bocelli tunes.

Not a bad birthday. Not bad at all.

***

“Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.”

A perfect forecast for exploring the hidden pleasures, mysterious lore, and endless opportunities for disaster to be had camping and hiking to places like “Frozen Lake” at Mount Rainier’s Sunrise.

An idyllic alpine aerie perched at 6,400 feet on the Mountain’s eastern hip, Sunrise is the highest point in the park you can access by vehicle. It’s also a rare treat, open but 8 – 10 weeks a year due to immense quantities of snow. Think Himalayan. So when we hear the Sunrise road is still open in late September, it takes us about a nano-second to make up our minds. (Never mind that the local forecast says “cloudy with a chance of meatballs.” Naw. Not really. It was more like “thirty percent chance of showers.” But at Mount Rainier it’s pretty much the same thing.)

Seeing as how we’ve missed Sunrise for the last five years running due to snow, when Washington weather chokes up the sky like steamed spaghetti and clouds dish out rain like overcooked marinara, we figure we’re not gonna let a little water wilt our plans. (Bet they said that aboard the Titanic.) Yea verily, there’s nothing like firing up the ‘ole Coleman camp stove in a monsoon. So we “picnic” Washingtonian style at White River Campground about 14 miles below Sunrise – shivering and dripping. Is this great, or what?

We soon discover that Sage Son Sam, Boy Wonder, has totally ignored instructions to pack a jacket. “But it’s sunny outside and I’m dyin’ of heat stroke!” Right. Doesn’t mean a thing at Mount Rainier, where the Old Girl stretches 14,410 ft. into the sky, snags moisture-laden air high-tailing it off the Pacific, and routinely creates her own weather. Not to be outsmarted by the O.G., we come outfitted for a Nordic expedition because we KNOW the Mountain. (Which is sort of like claiming to “know” how they make legislation.). Good thing Dad brought extra layers and was willing to part with a few!

Anyway, we reach Sunrise after lunch and find the Visitor’s Center is still open, despite what we’ve been told. A couple of volunteers will “man the fort” for one more week. (They’re native southern Californians, which pretty much explains everything.) Inside the stone-and log edifice, we hunker down in front of the fireplace and wait for the weather to calm down into a hurricane. It doesn’t. So we don parkas, zip up hoods, double-lace our Itascas, and head out. Oh, and did we mention that it’s 38 degrees outside?

Naturally, we choose the trail to Frozen Lake, which isn’t really a difficult choice given the terrain and the weather. It’s an easy leg stretcher of three miles. What the guidebooks don’t tell you is that “easy” on a warm, clear, sunny summer day doesn’t quite translate that way on a wind-whipped, rainy, “Mom, I can’t feel my fingers anymore!” afternoon.

The moon-rock dust of this hike has morphed into an Amazonian clone, complete with ankle-deep mud. The uphill route through alpine tundra is also above the tree-line. This may not mean anything to you clueless hiking rookies sipping tea in front of your furnace at this very moment, probably with a nice toasty quilt over your shoulders, but no trees = no shade, no cover, no protection from the elements, and no wind break. Not to worry as Chris points out in his best Clark Griswoldism, “Buck up kids, it’s all part of the adventure.” (Bet Custer said that at the Little Big Horn.)

Earlier in the season, the Frozen Lake/Fremont Lookout trail offers spectacular views of the Mountain to the south and the entire Cascade chain to the north. At one point you stand in a draw on a ridge no wider than a street, and have trouble deciding which way to focus your attention. Unless, of course, you’re hiking during Hurricane Ike, the Mountain is zipped into a pea-soup fog and you can either open your eyes to incoming rain flung sideways like stinging nettle or hike blind. As for vistas, well, we’ll settle for seeing our hands in front of our faces.

But we gamely “batten down the hatches” and continue hiking while winds howl off the Emmons Glacier, the largest single glacier in the lower 48. Chests heaving, boots squishing, we cross a God-forsaken draw that resembles a moonscape. Just over our shoulders is a lake. It’s fenced, with a thick chunk of snow on its chest. Trouble is, there’s no identifying marker. Just a few signs declaring, “Domestic water supply.”

What is this, Final Jeopardy? (We later learn that this deep, aqua pool is in fact Frozen Lake, which serves as the drinking water supply for Sunrise. Nice to know these things ex post facto.)

So, not yet convinced that we’ve reached “Frozen Lake” – on a day like this, what else could it be? – we chug on doggedly in search of our elusive hydrological prey. Josiah is just short of full-scale meltdown. Sam has long since abandoned all attempts to ward off frostbite, which is now chowing down on his exposed ears. The standard “I told you to pack a…” parental lecture ensues, but seeing as how it falls on frozen ears, there’s not much point.

“Isn’t this fun?” Chris grins. The troops aren’t quite convinced, but it’s hard to argue when your jaw is frozen shut. We check map, guidebook, and compass, fuel up the kids on trail mix, granola bars and raw meat (just kidding) so they can make it back to Sunrise sans travois. Man. The rate at which an “exhausted, too cold, too tired, can’t make it, gonna die” kid can race down a homeward bound trail is the stuff of legends.

Back at Sunrise, the Visitor Center resembles Starbucks on a Friday night. It’s packed. Space at the fireplace is hotter than a fifty yard line ticket at the Super Bowl. In their best rendition of drowned rats, a troupe of bicyclists from Enumclaw arrives, sloshing water like bipedal amphibians. These guys have pedaled 65 miles in the rain. They get to turn around and head back as soon as they unclog their gills. So do we.

As for our return to the Ohanapecosh campground and our tent? Industrial strength rain fly and ground tarp notwithstanding, when any tent resembles choice Okefenokee real estate it’s time to pack ‘er up and skedaddle. Which is another way of saying “cloudy with a chance of meatballs.” Do they deliver?

“Film at eleven.” Or you could just click here: http://hevencense.wordpress.com/frozen-lake/