Pictures!
We started our trip at Irongate Trailhead, about an hour outside of Loomis, WA. There was not much shade as a fire had gone through the area about 5 years prior and the trees were slowly regrowing at the higher altitude. I think we started the hike around 5,600ft and climbed to 7,000ft the first day. But we were rewarded with some awesome sunset pictures from a nearby hilltop:
The next two days we made our way to Cathedral Pass and what I expected to be the highlight of the trip. We ran across an old mining cabin along the way, at Tungsten Mine.
The cabin has been kept up through the years and inside is a note written apparently by the last person to live and mine there - though the paper seemed to be in really good shape for a mine last operating in the 1940s. Inside the walls were covered in people etching initials and dates into the walls; we added ours of course.
In the background is Apex mountain. We had thought about hiking up to Tungsten Lake to make camp one night but it would have been a lot of off-trail and we felt it would be too much. So we made our way to Cathedral Pass and Upper Cathedral Lake:
There were many more lakes in the area and we did a day trip out to Lower Cathedral Lake (less pretty, more bugs) for a quick swim before coming back here for dinner. This was the third day and probably the best day of the trip for me.
On day 4 we found what was the most picturesque lake of the whole trip at Remmel Lake:
Behind it is Mt. Remmel. My companions both jumped in for a swim but I didn't join them; I was steeling myself for what I was expecting to be a difficult day. And I was correct at that.
Before the trip we had been watching the weather reports as forecasts were expecting a heat wave over the area where we were hiking. The lowlands were expected to get up over 100 F or 110 F in places. We knew the elevation would spare us the worst of it, but even hiking in 80F (27 C) with a full pack is challenging. This day got into the 80s easily, and to add onto that the trail we were taking on the way out was not well maintained. It was possibly the worst trail we've had to navigate:
That's just a sample as it was like this for miles. What should have been a fast and easy downhill instead had us scrambling over and under and around fallen trees. The burn from 5 years ago left many trees dead and dying which in turn caused more blowdowns. The goal had been to get to our last night's destintation, Four Point Lake, in the early afternoon before the sun became too menacing, but instead I wilted on the last climb 2 mile climb in the heat (and again scrambling over more fallen trees). I was definitely the slowest in the group and we did not get up to the lake until it was almost 5.
Dinner at Four Point Lake. The bugs were among the worst I've ever encountered; we were willing to sweat in our puffy jackets rather than wear light stuff the mosquitos could bite through.
The last day was fairly easy. The trail crews had gotten to lower sections of that trail and so we were able to make good pace downhill. I think we were covering 3 miles per hour with our packs on, though the lower we descended the hotter it got. Again, no official readings, but it felt like it was around 90F (32 C) for the heat.
We followed the Chewuch River out and finally got to the car in the early afternoon. Then it was an hour drive to Winthrop, WA where we had burgers, beer, and ice cream.
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In this game that's going to help us because he's going to go to the negotiating table with twitchy eyes and slightly too wide a grin and terrify the neighbors into favorable border agreements, one-sided tech deals and staggered NAPs."