There was some confusion because Mark thought a few of us hadn’t taken the right turns to get to the Serpentine Hill trailhead. Justifiably, there were a few confusing turns and it would’ve been easy to get lost. I had come up the night before the try out my new car camping set up so he thought I might’ve not made it.
I had woken up about an hour earlier. I hadn’t slept well in my new car camping set up and think things might’ve been better in there if I had a real pillow— the camping pillow I had was either too big or not big enough, and would slip down since sleeping on the back car seats was at an incline. Next time it might be more comfortable too if I sleep with my comforter instead. The other issue was that it probably reached 17 degrees, but my bag was only rated for 20. Nonetheless, some tomato soup and coffee chai tea would make the morning click into place.
We slowly assembled in the parking lot, and did a round of introductions. I quickly learned that no one knew each other and only met that morning. It’s always reassuring to learn that everyone is an outside with you. After the introductions we figured the last two weren’t coming, 8 of the 10 registered were present, and decided to pack out.
I hadn’t realized the entire ‘hike’ would basically be on a road. So the hike up was a mild excursion and a good chance to meet my fellow hikers. Stephanie, was a recent transplant from Yi Chang, China. A city I’d later learn that had about 3 million inhabitants and was the site of the three gorges dam. I’d also meet the other Mounties in the group.
On the hike up we saw some needle ice ‘growing’ out the road. Watching a timelapse of this stuff is wild, the ice is literally squeeze through capillaries in the ground to from little hairs of ice. Mark also seemed to know quite a bit about the geology of the area, and mentioned that the hills were green because of the copper in the Serpentine soil, since it’s deficient in nutrition. As a result, tree growth is stunted so you see a lot more little shrubbery and bushes.
Mark also told us a little about the Granite formation in the Teanaways and Enchantments. Apparently, the granite in this part of Washington is very similar in composition to the granite in California (specifically, San Diego I believe). And apparently that’s because before Pangeo split 200 million years ago, this part of Washington was directly connected to California. Then through a process of divergence, these geographic land masses migrated away from each other.
We broke off from the forest road and walked across a serpentine moraine to the summit of Serpentine hill. At the col between the forest road and Serpentine Hill, it looked like there was some decent camping beta. The summit of the Hill was windy and about 40 degrees so we didn’t spend much time.
Being late autumn in the Teanaways, we were treated to some larches.
This is the serpentine rock on the col between the Forest road and the Hill.
From there we walked the remaining section of forest road to a point were we broke off to walk up the final hill to the top of Iron Mountain. It was probably a 30 minutes walk and 300ft to the summit of the mountain. There was only about 5” of snow and some snow drift sections with over a foot of snow. There was a false summit, so we crossed through a thicket and climbed some low class scramble to the summit. We retreated to a forested section and chatted about the Thanksgiving dishes we’d be cooking. I raved about the pumpkin ravioli, and mentioned that the TJs pumpkin squash/ tomato sauce would pair with it.
At the foot of the hill before the last push to the summit of Iron Mountain.
After our epic summit push.
From there, we made our way down. I almost always get a funny rush of excitement when I descend these hikes. On the way down, we came across quite a bit of Elderberries, that were far past their prime. Apparently they’re good to pick anytime between July and September. Once we made it to the parking lot, we circled up and completed the standard Mountaineers post-event debrief. From there everyone packed up and hit the road.
Some incredibly final views of the Teanaways completely characteristic of the PNW
Snoqualmie starting to get it. Might be a good season 🤞
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