Met Betsy at Swedish hospital around eight on Saturday. Usually when I’m meeting people for the snow shoe overnights I have to leave the apartment at like 530, so this late start was a nice break from the usual.
We met the team at a park in Snoqualmie around 9am. Mike Kretzler was leading the group this week. We also had Eileen, who is a new/returning mountaineer after 7 years. There was Steve, an IT guy. Then there was me and Betsy. Betsy, as I would learn was a two time Olympian with the UW rowing team. Since the group was small it was easy to divide amongst the cars and roll out to the Kendall Lake Trailhead.
We were at the trailhead by10 and had boots on ground by 10:30am. I was looking forward to a chill day shoe shoeing up to our campsite near the second Kendall Lake. Worth noting, was the amount of cars at the Kendall Lake trailhead. We were parked about a quarter mile down the Gold Creek road because of the number of hikers that day. Although we’d find that Sunday would be even busier with cars maybe parked .5 mile down the road.
The weather called for a low of 15°. And I could’ve sworn I saw it going down to 7 degrees. But at the trailhead, it must’ve been in the high 30s. We were all warm and were taking off layers within the first .5 mile.
With 1,800ft of gain over the 4.5 miles to the lakes, the hike was easy. And the fact that it was up a logging road made it a relaxed stroll. There was just a ton of hiking beta being passed around on the hike up. Turned out Eileen and Betsy were extremely accomplished international hikers. Several of them had completed the GR20 and Betsy was doing a portion of the AT 3-4 times a year. Some other hikes recommended to me included Seven Lakes, Tuck and Robin, Enchanted Valley and even a little detour off the PCT, called Trap Pass.
We reached the upper lake fast and even had time to explore the area before getting settled. We reached the lake by 2:30pm. We’ll unpacking, I realized how ridiculous it is to pack the tent inside the backpack. Everything basically has to sit in a pile while setting up and taking down the tent since it’s the last thing to come out and the first to go. I’ll be following the lead of these experience hikers and fastening that thing to the outside of my pack next time.
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I fell asleep after settling down and woke up at twilight to everyone getting dinner made in our ‘kitchen’ (a little oval dining hall that Eileen and I dug out of the snow, replete with a table and all). It was only 5:30pm, but soon enough it would be 8:00pm (hiker’s midnight). Over dinner we had interesting conversation, including working two remote jobs (lots of info about this on Overemployed.com), and why propane can’t be used in camping stoves (I didn’t think about this at the time, but Coleman stoves always use propane. It’s just that the canisters are heavy).
That night I’d have another set of funny dreams, one of which involved me as an Imperial trooper (sheesh, it didn’t seem so bad). That night, temps only dropped to about 15 degrees, which is cold when you think of it as half the temperature of refrigerator, but kind of warm considering it’s twice as warm as a freezer.
Hanging out with Steve after dinner.
Really incredible moonlight, with a waxing gibbous making the night easier since I forgot my headlamp.
I woke up around 7am to some awesome sunshine bursting through the trees. We were packed by 10:00 with snowshoes back on trail by 10:30am. Time flies when you’re chilling with all the freedom in the wild in the woods like that. We were back at the trailhead by 1:30pm, and at the pub in North Bend by 2:30pm. That day was Super Bowl, and we had to think for a second about who was playing. Since no one cared, we took our time and enjoyed some 5 star chili.
Several of these photos give credit to Eileen. She has a better phone and a much better artistic eye.
Eileen got a photo of me trying yoga with snowshoes on.
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