What: Backpacking
Where: Pasaytan Wilderness (super north Washington)
When: July 4th weekend
I may or may not want to climb the top 100 peaks in Washington. Six of them are located in the Pasaytan Wilderness, so it seemed like a great idea to grab a few peaks on a long weekend. We picked this weekend because I got an extra day off work and it was about a week before Andreas started his job and would most likely cease to have full weekends off. Little did I know the temps were supposed to be in the 90’s the whole time. AHHH!
Day 1 – Remmel Summit
We had gotten to the trailhead the night before (after a little under 7 hours of driving from Seattle) and had camped right next to our car.
We woke up late, around 7, and continued to take our time packing up 3 days food and all the necessary gear for a few peaks.
By the time we got moving the sun was already shining high in the sky and the mosquitoes were coming out in force. I didn’t think too much of it, and only brought a tiny (not-so-full) bottle of deet with me (hell, normally I would never even think to bring it, not to mention my hatred of using it).
The first steps on the trail leading to the Chewish Trailhead were strange. It was sandy. There were also gorgeous purple flowers all around us. Although, all the tree’s were like matchsticks with almost no branches and charcoaled bodies. I described it as “eerily beautiful.” The contrast of the black trunks with the green grass and purple flowers was amazing. It was depressing and gorgeous all at the same time.
We walked about 2.6 miles almost entirely downhill before we met up with the Chewish Trail and River. The great news was that the next miles would all be along this great river. Although the sun was high above us, we were presented by a comforting breeze, cooled by the river.
We saw a couple different animal prints in the mud but didn’t see much wildlife, except for a grouse. We did see 4 hikers (2 groups of 2) hiking out, which seemed strange since it was the 3rd of July and the start of a weekend. Oh well, we weren’t about to complain about getting the wilderness to ourselves!
There were many stream crossings. For one I took my shoes off and walked through the frigid water since I didn't trust the slippery rocks (that were a bit further than a leap for me). Others had precarious trees. Some had boards.
The 13 miles passed by really fast and we were at Remmel Lake before 2pm. As we were approaching the lake the mosquitoes were out in force. If we kept moving we were usually OK but if we stopped for just a moment (which was hard not to when you’re surrounded by beautiful blossoming alpine meadows) you would be attacked, and shown no mercy.
We walked around the lake following random trails looking for a good campsite. We found one and set up the tent. I jumped inside immediately to hide from the bugs. Andreas wondered around a bit more and came back to report a much more obvious camp site a little further up, and presumably where there would be less bugs since it was further from the lake.
We moved the tent to find out that this was really bug haven. We both stayed in the tent in fear of the outside. At one point I counted 24 bugs on the side of our mesh screen. Time was passing by faster than we realized and it was almost 4pm before we decided that summiting Remmel was an imminent next step.
It was harder for me to gather the courage to get out of the tent but I did and continued to run down the trail trying to rid myself of the bugs.
The trail we wanted was somewhere near the lake, although neither of us had seen the actual trail (in retrospect, it was right next to a big cairn that we wondered ‘why is that there’ since we couldn’t see any other options but straight to the lake—turns out the trail was over a stream, by the cairn).
We could see where we wanted to go and decided to bushwack to meet the trail. Since our elevation was already rather high (~7k ft) there weren’t many bushes to plow through and it was fast going. We must have kept getting on animal trails for we thought we found the real path a few times (the Green Trails map had warned us the trail was ‘hard to follow’). We took care to walk in these tracks and not on any alpine vegetation.
We eventually found the right trail and continued around the bend towards our peak, the 35th highest in the state. By looking at the map we decided there were 2 reasonable ways to get to the top. One, was to cut out early where it was easier to ascend the ridge, and then ridgewalk to Remmel. The other was to go further down the trail, past the bend, and head north by the waterfall. A waterfall didn’t sound like a solid trail to me so I suggested we scramble to the ridge. Green Trails did not note any trails to the summit. Andreas had copied some trail descriptions from the Becky Guide and Summit Routes but he neglected to include Remmel Peak on this copying adventure.
It took us a little while to get to the ridge, and once we got there the skies started to turn gray. It looked like a shower was coming our way. The mosquitoes, although we were at quite high of an altitude were brutal. Any stop to check the map and they would be all over you.
At this point I was getting a frustrated with the mosquitoes and Andreas was getting frustrated with the trail (err, complete lack-there-of). Remmel just kept looking further away! After rain sprinkled on us slightly we were even more annoyed. Andreas asked if we should turn back—with the clouds it seemed like it would be dark soon, and Remmel had yet to seem any closer. I claimed if we turned back now we’d be in the same place tomorrow, stuck without a trail and even more frustrated; I suggested we go to the far ridge to see if we could find/see a better trail (for today or tomorrow).
Andreas relented and strode ahead of me. I was pretty tired and definitely needed food. Soon I head a happy shout; Andreas had stumbled upon the real trail!! We were both confused why this obviously large trail had not been noted on the GT maps. After a cookie each, we were bound for the summit.
The switchbacks up the large rocky summit were super. It was obvious a LOT of work had gone into this trail—how could it be completely unmarked on Green Trails?! For this part in particular, it was wider and more well kept that a majority of the trail we had been on all day!
The summit view was incredible. Looking south we could see a myriad of mountains with hints of white on them. All the peaks looked gorgeous and like they wanted to be climbed as well!
We signed our name in the trail log—we were the 3rd to be there this year. The other posts were from a person a month before, and somebody who had come in the winter, to presumably ski down.
After a summit treat of Peanut Chews we were on our way to the tent, ready to make dinner. We descended via the nice side trail and met up with the main trail right by the waterfall, our original second option for ascent. Opps. Fortunately we were back at the tents with spaghetti and pesto in our mouths by 9pm after about 17 miles and a top 100 peak down!
Day 2 – Ampitheater (or if you’re Becky, Ampitheatre) Summit
I turned off the alarm instead of hitting snooze which was a mistake. Although we were up before 7 we were disappointed in another late start (we wanted to be able to hike in the cold before the sun warmed everything up).
As we were eating breakfast in the tent (bagels and nutella—a new staple) we watched a young male deer check out our site.
We packed with fury and then raced away from the lake and the trailing mosquitoes, we were on our way to Amphitheater! It was a much shorter day, only about 8 miles to the peak. It was much hotter this day and we, sadly, had no river breeze. The mosquitoes also found us very attractive.
My body doesn’t handle heat very well and I was having a tough time with the hills. I think the mosquitoes relished in this fact. Eventually I stopped and applied deet and was happy to have a shield against the mosquitoes, even if it was poisoning my body. Today, I’d rather die of deet poison than mosquito bites!
After many winding switchbacks, and deciding whoever made this trail was really drunk or hallucinating (I swear we went back and forth up and down and just did circles for awhile) we somehow ended up in Switzerland! All of a sudden the entire forest opened up and we were surrounded by alpine meadows, with a large peak staring us down and the sounds of streams running by.
We decided to have lunch in Switzerland and discovered that one of the most addicting, high calorie snacks ever is triscuits dipped in pesto! I’m pretty sure I ate 6 hiking days worth of calories in one snack sitting. For some reason the bugs in Swizerland weren’t as bothersome, it was great! Maybe it was the nice breeze that helped out! We had a great view of Remmel from the day before.
Andreas saw a gopher, but all I saw were gopher holes, which there were tons of.
We continued on through Switzerland on a horse trail (what we thought was a route mapped out on the Green Trails map) and came across a lone hiker. He was without his pack and about to apply first aid to himself for he had just slipped on a rock and scraped his arm.
It turns out he had lost his pack! He asked us if we had seen any sticks in the middle of the trail for he had hid his pack in a tree growth near them (seriously, you have to hide your pack in this wilderness??). He said he’d dropped it right below the summit but couldn’t find it anywhere. We hadn’t seen any sticks in the trail but told him if we did, we’d give a holler. He did tell us some useful advice—we were on the trail to the summit of Amphitheater (which we thought was strange since we knew we needed a side trail but were happy to hear the news nonetheless).
Not too long after we reached the area where the arms of Amphitheater run together. Andreas kept trying to find a hidden trail and I wondered why we didn’t just head to the right where the summit was lurking. After a bit of wandering and some bekoning back Andreas met me in the center again. He started taking compass readings and after 5 minutes of sighs and confusion asked me “do you think we could be here?” and pointed on the map. “Of course that’s where we are!” I replied. Andreas seemed to be sad with this conclusion and at first I didn’t realize what the problem was. It turns out, there were no trails listed on the map that even somewhat related to the trail we were on. So technically we were never on the trail we thought we were on.
After a bit more harassment we dropped our packs (in very plain view) and headed to the summit. It was a short scramble to the top and we were soon rewarded with some vast views. Disappointingly there was no trail register or geological marker, instead just a large cairn. We were still able to enjoy the summit for there was a great breeze and a somewhat melted package of peanut chews to be devoured.
After leaving the summit we consulted the map and our 2 guidebook printouts on the route up/down from the summit. Our two options seemed like: hike back where we came from and go around the west arm taking 5 miles to get to the lake to camp at, or go down a steep rock/snow/sand gulley and end right at the lake. I voted for the gulley and we went to check it out. There was still some snow, but it looked avoidable and the route doable. The grade was steeper than we would have preferred but we felt it was feasible; we just had to make sure we didn’t put any trust in the rocks we found (for they easily slipped in the sand).
We followed what was (in retrospect) probably a goat trail down, it zigged and zagged in what seemed like a reasonable switchback and were down by the huge boulders marking the bottom in no-time. Alas, every step down led to another mosquito attack. We rushed to find the perfect campsite (off of the alpine vegetarian and on flat grounds) and set up the tent. We decided that cooking a planned hot meal was out of the question for neither of us wanted to venture outside to use the stove. Andreas took one for the team and bravely pumped water at the lake. At one point we counted 34+ mosquitos on just one side of the mesh tent. We went to bed early since there wasn’t much else to do.
Day 3 -- Cathedral Peak
In the morning we decided to head up to Cathedral before packing up. It looked like a simple scramble up its moderately steep sides. We tried to walk on sand as much as possible to avoid the alpine vegetarion, even though walking on sand is slower going.
We were easily able to see the notch of the cliffs which was our first waypoint on the directions. We followed the rock rib and at one point we were even able to locate a climbers trail traversing the rib. A little climbing after and we lost the trail and wasn’t sure which way the directions were leading us. We were at a cairn but that didn’t seem to tell us much. We couldn’t tell which way to go from there. We looked right and decided that didn’t look correct so we tried left. After some obvious rock climbing skills were implemented I deemed this as an incorrect route. The book described a class 5 scramble and this was obviously not such, before we got too far, making it hazardous to get down, we turned around and went back to the cairn, and tried going right. This way still implemented some rock climbing skills but they were by far easier moves and we felt confident in our abilities to get back down.
We were able to get much closer to the summit when we came across “the gap.” The book describes this as a gap that will “get your heart beating” although I think it was a bit more than that. The gap was a least 3 feet wide. You start out standing on one platform (2x3 feet), and your goal is 3 feet across (a 200 foot drop) to another platform 5+ feet above. To get across you must span your body like a bridge, to one good handhold, one crappy handhold, and one great foothold (that I’m not actually sure I could reach if my body was already spanned). Andreas flawlessly implemented this technique while I had second thoughts (after seeing how spanned my taller counterpart was).
While waiting at the gap, a nice billygoat came by. He climbed up to the cairn and started on the path we had taken towards the summit. I joked he was going to get there before us, since we were hesitant at the gap. After Andreas passed the gap and I threw the bag to him (a surprisingly noisy procedure) the billygoat decided he had better things to do.
In the end I “wussed out” and didn’t go over the gap. I felt terrible about this “failure.” I could see the summit, it was about 30 yards away, and at one point the rocks I was standing on put my head above the summit (I think). I was able to watch Andreas sign the log and felt really disappointed in my abilities. I knew my parents would be happy I choose not to go across, but that didn’t help alleviate the feeling of failure, I was a disappointment to myself.
When Andreas came back (jumping down 5 feet to the small platform) he said his legs were shaking. I felt a little better knowing that I wasn’t the only scared one, but at the same time it didn’t really help.
As we worked our way back to camp the billygoat showed up again. He pseudo followed us down, and posed for many photos. He made me feel better. It was like making a new friend!
Once we backtracked to camp (and after taking some alpine meadow photos) we packed up our bags. While packing you had to dance or else the mosquitoes would attack in force. Andreas refused to dance while packing his bag, and at one point exclaimed “Alison, take a picture of this!” I looked over and gasped at 30 mosquitoes gathered on Andreas’ calf. I told him “NOOOO, move! Hit them off!” but he refused and looked for his camera as I got mine. I forgot my camera wasn’t on autofocus so I got a blurry shot, but you can clearly see what we were up against. It was 12:15pm and we were 20 miles from the car.
We ran to the trail and after we thought we had lost them and applied the rest of the small bottle of deet on us. I’m not sure if it was the deet, or that the degrees dropped a bit and a breeze started following us, but for the next few hours we didn’t encounter any bugs, just gorgeous views.
We had no idea if we were going to get the 20 miles in but that was our goal. We stopped at Apex Pass and had a quick snack. Apex looked like a boring mountain so we were almost happy it was no longer #100 on the top #100 list (beaten out by Flora mtn 3 feet higher).
On the rush home we found a large abanded bunkhouse. It looked like it used to have running water and electricity! There was a new, very nice bunkhouse near it, but it looked occupied (saddles hanging outside) so we didn’t bother checking it out. Just down the path from the bunkhouse we found the remnants of an abandoned Tungsten mine. It was really fun looking at the old furnace and all the pipes and other various objects. There was even a steel track and a cart around.
We wanted to hang around longer but there were still many miles until home so we left the area and were back on the path. We were making pretty good time, and continued to make good time as the mosquitoes started to come out from hiding. As I’m writing this I’m getting chills just thinking about them lurking everywhere. We had minimal snack breaks and told stories (true and false) to pass the time. At one point we went through this very spooky section of woods. We were surrounded by a heavily wooded forest, but none of the trees had branches. In the slight breeze (that we could barely feel) they creaked and swayed, and our path seemed to darken, in addition to the overcast skies.
Fortunately that didn’t last too long, and we closed the loop and were headed back through familiar territory to the car. We saw a deer and instead of running away, after we passed it, it started walking towards the trail.
About 3 miles from home we came across a boldly green meadow that looked like an extremely comfortable place to pitch our tent. A gopher stood by a fallen log at the far end, right before the creek. It was picture perfect, but we decided to continue on, if we could make it to the car we’d feel much better about ourselves. Unfortunately the trail from here on back to the car was all uphill!
Due to the mosquitoes we took a decently fast pace, until the steepest part of the hill. Although the pace slowed dramatically, it soon quickened as the slightest hint of a lesser grade. When we were about a mile from the car the mosquitoes planned and implemented a full force attack. I’m not sure why they didn’t like Andreas, but he claimed to not be bothered but could see them constantly buzzing around me. Every time I would kill one, two more would show up. At one point my shoulder was black from mosquito guts. My ears were beat red from bites as well. I was getting quite frustrated and kept trying to pick up the pace to be rid of them. I’m pretty sure at one point I was easily putting on a 4mph pace, and the mosquitoes were still able to keep up. Impossible!
I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to make it back to the car I was so annoyed but we made it before 8pm (and dark!) and I hid in the car and took a baby wipe bath as Andreas braved the outside and cooked dinner. Dinner looked a little scary and I wasn’t feeling hungry, so I just had some cookies before bed. Before we went to bed we saw a deer, I think it followed us the last few miles home.
On the last few miles home I claimed, “We’re sure going to sleep well tonight!” and Andreas responded “I’d bet my life on it!” Right before bed I decided to put the rain fly up just to prevent any dew buildup. I put the fly on backwards but was too lazy to fix it because it was mainly for dew prevention.
Humorously, we could hear the deer walking around on the gravel road at night, which woke us up. But more importantly, that night there was a massive wind and rain storm. The wind shook the whole tent and even though we didn’t stake it in, it held surprisingly well (probably because we were using a crashpad as a mattress and it took up most the floor). Either way, we didn’t get much sleep. You could hear the wind coming from far away down in the valley, and then it would hit the tent with a very loud shake.
By morning the storm had cleared, and minimal water had entered the tent (even with a backwards rainfly). Some clothes at the end of the tent had conveniently soaked up any rain seepage. Andreas was thoroughly impressed with my Marmot Titan’s performance throughout the night.
We decided it would be silly to let the lactic acid in our legs sit, so we headed out for a late start to conquer Windy Peak, a mere 8 miles round trip. Turns out 4 steep miles feels like a lot after 3 days of intense hiking. We had a much slower pace than the proceeding days, but were going along fine (if you can call fine “guessing where the trail is”).
The trail was through a completely burnt out forest with grass growing everywhere. It was obvious the trail was barely used. The only way we could confirm we were on the trail was because there had been some trail maintenance done at one point—so we could see stumps of tree’s and were able to follow them up the path. The good news is we didn’t think we could get completely lost because we had a large river to our left at all times.
We could hear thunder in the distance from pretty early on. We had clearish skies so we just hoped they’d stay that way. At one point we crested a ridge and saw that the thunderstorm was quite massive. The ominous clouds weren’t that far from us, and the thunder suddenly became much louder. We went a few steps further and it started sprinkling on us. It only did this for a few moments and then stopped, along with our travels. We decided to survey the weather and decide if it was worth it to the peak. We figured we were going to get wet either way. Our pace was quite slow so we probably still had an hour and a half or so to the summit. Lightning flashed and not a few moments later thunder sounded. It was obvious the storm was coming straight for us. We didn’t really have any place to hide, all the trees were tiny and burnt; there was no coverage. We decided to book it off the hill and get lower in the valley asap.
As we were flying down the trail, the temperature dropped drastically and soon after it started to hail on us!!! We couldn’t believe it. We had to lesson our pace due to awkward terrain and all of a sudden the storm was right on top of us. We saw a flash of lightning and before it was out of the sky we were deafened by the sound of thunder. It was kind of amazing to witness though at the same time we wished we had better cover.
By the time we made it back to the car the storm had passed us, and it was even sunny out! We joked about giving Windy Pass another go but we were both to tired to even laugh at the suggestion.
We got in the car and prepared for the 7 hour drive home. The good news is we’d be getting in before 10pm and would be able to go to bed early in anticipation for work the next day.
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