There's nothing so galling as a circle around a trail in one of my books. The circle means that it's been partially completed. Without the "x" there's no closure. Just over a month before Dan and I had tried to climb Hex Mountain, but heavy snow and winds (1.4Mb movie) forced us to abandon the trail early. Since the snow on the west side of the Cascades was either just slush or prone to avalanche we decided it was time to return to the site of our previous failure and complete the climb.
It looked like we'd be able to start up the Hex Mountain trail as before, then go off-road, cross Newport Creek, and pick up the Sasse Ridge trail. Last time we started at the Hex Mountain trail there was one other car. This time a large party of guided snowshoers were getting ready to head out. We really didn't want to be behind them so we returned to the Sasse Ridge trailhead (ie: The Last Resort) and started from there.
The road heading up was actually groomed for snomobilers so I walked without snowshoes for the first half mile. At a gate on a sideroad I donned my snowshoes and the adventure really began.
The trail/road switchbacked up the hill, but given the relatively icy snow and the snowmobiler tracks (even on a gated road) we decided we'd jump the switchbacks and blaze our own trail. This worked great the first couple of times we did it. We were able to find easy ways through the trees even if the grade was steep.
Unfortunately, we decided to continue this plan and cut a much larger loop. We found another person's tracks and followed them for a while, but they swung north which didn't make a ton of sense at the time. We continued straight up (northeast) and were soon stuck in a forest of alder and vine maple which dramatically complicated things. The one bright spot to this route was finding a rabbit's den complete with tracks, but alas, no rabbit.
When we finally cleared the nasty undergrowth we picked up the other person's tracks again (surprise surprise) and made good time up the hill. The trees thinned out and we were in a mature forest with no sign of humanity except the annoying buzzing of snowmobiles in the distance.
Continuing the climb, we made a wrong turn at what was probably the official entry to the Sasse Ridge trail and had to cut across a clearcut to regain the trail. Amazingly, there were snowmobile tracks even up here (well above the sign that said they were prohibited), but it wasn't until we were well away from there that they actually showed up to further tear up the trail.
Finally, at about 4,500 feet, we could see the summit. It was a steep slope, but the snow pack was good so we walked the spine to the top. We could hear the guided group, but couldn't see them, so we knew they were close. It was a race! Victory! We found ourselves atop the hill as they stood at the summit of one a quarter mile to the west.
Remembering the map, I recalled there was an east summit and sure enough the GPS showed we were still short our goal. Ugh. There was a narrow ridge that ran between the two hills which we crossed in what was probably the most avalanche-prone area we encountered. Needless to say, there were no problems and we were soon on the true summit of Hex Mountain.
Rather than return the way we had come up we decided to go down the real Hex Mountain trail. It exited to the road only three quarters of a mile from where we'd parked and we were pretty much guaranteed no snowmobilers on this side so it was an easy decision. Plus, we'd get to see the section of the trail we hadn't completed a month earlier.
We all but ran down the quickly descending spine and soon wondered if we'd taken a wrong turn. Recollection told us there was a huge drop to the east, but now we could clearly see there was another ridge there. We were following the guided party's tracks, but maybe they were going a different way or... Nah. This was the right trail. The hideous conditions on our last trip up had obscured the ridge to the east or perhaps made it seem much farther away. Weird.
We passed the snowshoers and then another small party on their way up. Soon we were at a fork in the road which I pointed out to Dan was where I had thought we could cross over Newport Creek to the Sasse Ridge trail. Since that's where we needed to go anyway and we're always up for another boneheaded adventure (especially when we have extra time on the clock) we headed into a large meadow toward the creek.
Happily, we hadn't tried this to begin with. The creek ran through a gorge that didn't appear on the map so we had to follow the crest south until we could get down the slope. The creek itself wasn't hard to cross, but then we had to climb out to find the road. Once there it was a short downhill tromp to the car... except we made a wrong turn. Dang.
We started up a long hill on the wrong side of Davis Creek before I realized the error I had made. We turned around, crossed Davis Creek, climbed up another ridge and finally, finally found the real road. By this time the weather had dramatically warmed and the roads were ground to slush by the snowmobilers. We made quick time down the road and were soon back at the car being sprayed by the dimwits on their pollution machines.
Our custom route was 10.8 miles and 2,600 feet of elevation, but only took 2.5 hours up and 1.5 hours down. We needed to be back at the car at 2pm to get home in time for Dan to head to dinner. Our arrival time was 1:59pm. How's that for just-in-time delivery?
