It’s Halloween already, isn’t it? How did I miss that it’s already Halloween?
It had been a year. A busy, adventure-filled, amazing, challenging, ridiculous year. Full of evolution, change, growth, and movement forward toward the future.
But October found me back somewhere I’ve been quite a few times before… reflecting on how much has changed since the last time I was there. To an extent… but, frankly, also appreciating the calm moment to just not think about everything. To relax, to unwind, and to appreciate the cold wind and clear skies.
I’ve been to Green lakes… Ohh, probably at least seven times. Once a year, give or take, and probably a few more times that I’m not quite remembering. It’s calm, beautiful, and I’ve gotten to know the area pretty well at this point. It’s comforting, and I’m always thankful for the weekends that I can make it up.
This year, I went out a bit later than normal – Or so I thought. In retrospect, looking back at previous photos and such, it seems that mid to late October is pretty normal of a time for me to go out… interesting. I don’t quite recall there being this much so any other time, so… Hmm. interesting, in any respect.
I got out fairly early in the day, with the goal of getting to camp before sunset – Shorter days, less hiking time, the usual. I was aiming to arrive and make camp with maybe half an hour of daylight left… and instead, I got there with nearly two hours of daylight to enjoy! I was happily surprised – I’ve been hiking and working out a lot more these last few years, but haven’t been seeing too much progress, and I freely admit that it’s been a bit draining on my psyche. After absolutely crushing this, and my last, hike… I’m starting to see why I haven’t seen much progress.
I’ve been continually moving forward, and doing harder and harder hikes. Middle Sister was exceptionally challenging… but that’s because it’s a challenging hike. It’s not even really a hike – it’s a technical ascent! Of course it should be hard!
Anyways, I made it with tons of time to explore, relax, and enjoy myself… and then, to sleep. Like, so early. I legitimately was tucked into my sleeping bag drifting off by 8:00, I think.
The next morning I woke up late.
That’s right. Asleep by 8:00, and still asleep at 10:30. Awwww yeah, be amazed at that sleep debt I carry. Or… just at how much I enjoy being curled up in a sleeping bag in the freezing woods? It was exceptionally windy that night… Windy enough that I had woken up and actually got out of the tent to better secure my cooking gear and hiking poles!
Regardless of how long I slept, I got up. I broke fast, I supped upon coffee, and I enjoyed the cold. I took some time to boil off water for myself to bring home. I thought… a bit. But mostly, I simply let myself enjoy the cold world around me, either through my own eyes or through the lens of a camera.
It.
Was.
Excellent.
The drive home found me a bit hungry… and the random pizza place that I’d spotted along the drive in was closed by the time I made it by. A quick stop for gas gave me time to do a quick websearch, and soon enough I had found a small neighborhood bar and grill to slack my need for a huge bacon burger… and a chance to read some interesting roadside signs!
Wow… I can’t believe it’s been this long since I’ve gone backpacking up at Elk Meadows. It’s been… what? Since at least 2021… So over a year, from my records. 13 months.
For this being my go-to hike, that’s kind of a long time.
I mean, okay. Granted, I’ve hiked Elk Meadows a ton of times since then. Let’s see… three other times? More than any other hike, by a good margin, so it still counts as a go-to. Just… less backpacking this year, I think. Yeah – four times this year, vs. six last year. But there’s still time, I have faith I’ll get another few in this year.
Anyways I went backpacking at Elk Meadows
It was a lovely weekend – I started off by having brunch at Timberline Lodge, getting a chance to sit down at the Cascade Dining room for their buffet and snacking on some excellent fancy restaurant fare. It was… good… but not great, frankly. COVID’s hit everyone hard, especially the tourism industry, and it felt like the Lodge was still severely understaffed. I was patient though, snacked as I could, and soon enough was parked and heading up the trail to Elk.
The hike was lovely – I went pretty much non-stop, working on my endurance a bit, and pushing to hike a little bit more quickly than I normally would. Not being in a rush, mind you, just… pushing my body a little bit. Exulting in my strength and endurance, and seeing how far I could push those limits.
I made camp in a new campsite for me, since there were folks in my normal ones, and set about exploring the meadow. It was interesting – the meadow was more crowded than I think I’ve ever seen it before, with a grand total of maybe half a dozen people camped around various spots. It was almost loud… not significantly so, of course, and not enough to overwhelm the sounds of nature, but… still. Loud enough that it was noticeable and memorable.
I relaxed.
I ate dinner, read my book, and stargazed.
I slept gloriously, and woke up excellently refreshed.
I explored the meadows again in the morning. Stretching out, warming up the muscles, and appreciating the cool and sunny day.
I finished my book, packed up, and walked back to the car.
It was a good day.
Ohh! One interesting thing of note – My campstove had given me trouble on Middle Sister, if you recall, so I pulled it apart before heading out to Elk Meadows… dissassembled the whole thing, cleaned and rinsed it, and made sure everything was back in its proper place. Works like a charm, now!
Just a reminder to people – You’re always capable of troubleshooting stuff!
Friday through Sunday, 12-Aug-2022 through 14-Aug-2022
Vital Statistics: Day 1 = 6 miles, ~2,000ft elevation from Obsidian Trailhead to Arrowhead Lake campsite. ~5 hours total. Day 2 = 6 miles round trip, ~3,100ft elevation to Middle Sister Summit via the Renfrew Glacier. ~11hrs total. Day 3 = 7 miles, ~2,000ft elevation loss, via Obsidian falls. ~4 hours total.
Talking with the rest of my team, I realized something interesting. This trip is pretty close to the 16th anniversary of my first backpacking trip! Not to the day, I don’t think… but the Perseid meteor shower is this weekend, and that was the starter for my first backpacking trip, so…
Hey! Happy 16th anniversary of backpacking to me!
Not only that, but Middle Sister is the tallest glaciated peak that I’ve summitted! Standing proud at just over 10,000ft above sea level, it beats my previous summit of The Matterhorn (no, not the one in Europe, the smaller one in Oregon…) which stands at 9,845ft.
An anniversary and a personal record, all in one weekend… not so bad, right?
There’s another first to add to the list too – My first official Mazama’s climb! Since BCEP, I haven’t had occasion to do a full and official climb with the group who I spent so many weekends hiking alongside. I’d signed up for the Mt. Hood climb, of course, as is tradition for graduating BCEP students… but unfortunately that trip fell through due to a series of increasingly unlikely and exceptionally ridiculous issues.
I got an email a week or two prior from the BCEP group I was a part of. There were a few extra spots on a Middle Sister ascent team, and applications were open if any of us were interested. I’d already made plans for that weekend to go backpacking in the North Cascades with a friend of mine, but since those plans were pretty tentative at best (and, let’s be candid here, I gave them a 50% chance of falling through) I pivoted toward Middle Sister pretty quickly.
Plans were crystalized, times confirmed, and gear packed. An earlier-than-normal morning was followed by a stressful drive, where I was convinced that I was going to be a full 30min late to meet the team… until I realized that the longer-than-expected ETA was because my GPS was planning on having me take 15mph forest service roads to the trailhead… instead of the 60mph highway that leads right to it. I arrived almost exactly on time, in the end, though I’m pretty sure I overdosed on stress hormones before I realized that tomfoolery.
One there, with the whole group assembled, we held a solid team meeting at the trailhead. Went over plans, routes, gear, and all the fun things that a new team of adventurers cover with each other. Then, we shouldered our packs and headed in.
The hiking was, truthfully, a bit rough for me. I’d like to think that I’m in shape, and I know that in comparison to the majority of the population I am, but compared to the team I was with… I wasn’t the strongest member. We had seasoned mountaineers, a firefighter, and exceptionally strong hikers. Our route wasn’t particularly tough (see the above vital statistics) but I was definitely lagging behind by the time we started into our final push to the lake-side campsite.
Thankfully, our campsite was singularly gorgeous, and we’d arrived with easily enough time to spare for a quick nap, some good relaxation, and even some crevasse rescue practice… not that we expected any major crevasses on the glacier, but they’re one of those things that you always plan around… the penalty for failure being as simple as it is catastrophic.
We rested, we ate, we hydrated, and we watched a perfect sunset drop below the horizon before heading to bed, with dreams of an early morning start in the forefront of our thoughts.
The following day, on the push for the summit, I was feeling the elevation. Or the gain, or… I don’t know, but it was definitely a challenging. The morning started beautifully cold, and I embraced the change of pace from the boiling heat of Wilsonville with gusto. My jacket stayed in the pack, and my tee-shirt let me appreciate the full brunt of the alpine morning.
As we steadily ascended, the sun lit up and we took some time to stop for photos of the sunrise illuminating the line of Cascade Volcanoes stretching off into the Northern distance. We continued on, though we did take fairly regular breaks… to my extreme appreciation. Route-finding wasn’t particularly easy, since the glacier has receded quite a bit in recent years, but soon enough we found the foot of the Renfrew Glacier and headed up.
I dragged.
It was tough going for Ben, I freely admit. I was tired, my pack felt heavy, and the terrain was steep.
I persisted though, and with some help from the rest of the team we all made it up, and I was able to summit my newest glaciated peak!
The rest of the day was better than the ascent. The descent went smoothly, with my knees thankfully playing well with the braces and glacier and not even hurting that much. The glacial descent itself was lovely – a bit challenging in spots where the snowfield got steep, but we had rope teams and crampons and axes, so even in the two instances where I lost footing I was able to very quickly self-arrest and stop my slide within a foot or three.
The return to Arrowhead Lake was glorious – we quickly dropped our packs, and our outside clothes, and jumped into the bracing lake. It was freezing at first, but actually quite warm once we became acclimatized to it… the lake was maybe 4ft deep at its deepest, and fairly small, so the sun warmed it up nicely throughout the day. It wasn’t like a hot-tub, by any means, but… more like a mild cryotherapy? Regardless of the exact temperature, the lake was hugely appreciated and undoubtedly contributed to a speedy recovery for my poor tired legs.
Dinner and sunset were lovely, as expected, and sleep claimed me quickly and deeply; a very well earned rest.
The following morning saw us packing up a bit later than we had on Saturday. We didn’t have a summit to try for, and almost our entire trail was downhill… which would speed our pace, and was absolutely critical to my sanity for the morning. I could (and did) survive some uphill… but the lake and some ibuprofen could only do so much, and my poor legs had performed right up to their peak over the two days prior.
We took a detour to visit a small spring at the base of our campsite, maybe 300ft below the lake, and to see the waterfall that it turned into later on. We hiked, chatted, and took semi-frequent breaks to snap pictures of the stunning scenery surrounding us.
That didn’t slow our pace though, and we made excellent time – finding ourselves back at the trailhead far earlier than I would have guessed.
A final group meeting was had, and the climb was officially over.
We did an outbrief, discussed lunch, and made our way to burritos in a small tourist town called Detroit. On the way, I picked up a few hitchhikers from Bangkok who were hiking the PCT, and the whole team had lunch (together with the backpackers) at an excellent pod of food trucks off the side of the highway. We traded stories, learned a bit about their slice of the world (Both were ex-pats, one from the States, the other from London), and finally said our goodbyes for the day.
I drove home, left my gear in the spare room, and drew myself a much-needed Epson salt bath.
P.S. – I just got an email from another team who was on the mountain! They got pictures of us on the summit!
