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| First campsite at Goat Lake (look for the tent to the far right) |
Wayyyyyy back in September we headed out on a long weekend backpacking trip to celebrate my birthday and our anniversary. Jay found a nice loop hike in the
Norse Peak Wilderness that promised few people, mountain goats, and loads of views of big volcanoes. Awesome! The goats delivered for us! We saw so many of them on this trip - plus loads of elk bugling and bear sign. We hiked up a million switchbacks and then back down again to camp the first night at Goat Lake. Reports were flying that the northern lights had potential to make it south to WA that evening. I was so excited about this possibility that I got no sleep at all...and for no reason. =( We got out of the tent in the middle of the night to check the clear, starry, sky for the lights with no luck. Even though I knew there were no lights, I was still too excited to fall back asleep. Man. I was tired the next day as a result!
The hike out from Goat Lake was beautiful and chilly!
It would have been sweet if we had made it to Basin Lake to camp on the first night - just look at this place! Alas, the lake was too far for us to reach with the late start we got on Friday and it was too close for us to stop at on Saturday. So we simply enjoyed the amazing view of the emerald water and all the goats on the hill above the lake.
Tons of goats!
The spot where we planned on getting water was already occupied by a zillion tadpoles - a delight for these nerdy biologists. After walking around a bit more we found a non-tadpole-ish source for our drinking water and sat down for a tasty lunch in the hot sun.
It was mid-September but the huckleberries were already changing color in the Norse Peak Wilderness. I had been hoping to pick lots of huckleberries, but they were totally done. This was the only bummer of the trip.
We hiked along the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) in the morning, then headed off of it for the afternoon to head south to Crown Point and finally picked the PCT up again to head north on our loop. The big northern turn onto the PCT slammed us right into this awesome view of Mt. Rainier.
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| Pacific Crest Trail - Norse Peak Wilderness |
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| View from Camp Two of Rainier |
This was a horrible place to camp. Horrible. We were surrounded by horny elk bugling in the morning and the sun was far too bright on that ugly volcano right by our tent. Don't ever come here.
Within our view of Rainier was a view of Crystal Mountain Ski Resort - you can see a tiny building to the left side of the image. I can't believe we haven't been skiing there yet. Jay and I need to go and fix this problem on a clear day so Rainier can be our ski buddy.
On our third day we climbed up to Norse Peak for the best views of the entire trip!
The views included Mt. Adams (in this shot), Mount Rainier, and Mt. Baker far off in the north. We could also see the Enchantment Range and the craggy North Cascades. A Cooper's hawk flew overhead. A pika made that cute shrieky sound. And I was very happy.
Pika doing that cute pika thang. I seriously love these little mammals.
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