Driving home from work as the moon hung above a snowy Mt. Si I thought about how I could swing a trip into the mountains. The problem for me is that I get to see Amy and the girls for a couple of hours each night and on the weekends and that's too little time when they change so fast. Amy's found she can go out at night after the girls are sleeping and she won't miss too much. Hiking in the dark, to be frank, sucks. I get lost and fall down enough during the day. I don't need darkness to help me there. If only I could find a way to hike at night.
But wait! A (nearly) full moon... headlamps... highly reflective snow... it could be done. In fact, it has been done. Amy and I snowshoed around Leech Lake in the dark on New Year's Eve in 2003. The trail was lit with glowsticks and it was AWESOME. Of course, snowshoeing during the day by myself wasn't terribly safe. At night it certainly wouldn't be any safer... who could I sucker into such an adventure?
Daryl was still on the bus in Seattle when I posed the question to him. He told me he had to call for permission (we're all such good husbands) and he'd get back to me. (In case you're wondering, it was all theoretical for me until Amy gave me a kick and told me to find someone to go with lest I miss the chance.) The phone rang a few minutes later, but it wasn't Daryl, it was his wife Michelle.
"If he won't go then I will."
Ok, then. I had someone to go with. (It was Daryl, in fact, but Michelle has put in her bid for the next full moon in December.) Now... where to go? Yes, yes. You'd think I'd have that all figured out before I found someone to go with me, but these are just the little details.
The Summit at Snoqualmie was still closed because the snow was a little shallow so that seemed a winner. We could park at the PCT trailhead and head south across the slopes. Dunno how far we'd get, but it'd be a good test of the concept.
By 9pm we were at the trailhead and gearing up. Daryl was using Amy's snowshoes since he didn't have his own (a minor problem I'm sure will be soon remedied) and although they were a bit light for anybody other than Amy we headed up the trail. I had my headlamp on for a few minutes, but then realized it was unnecessary. The moon lit the way wonderfully.
The first short section switchbacks up through the trees before breaking out onto the open slopes. The snow looked to be between a foot and three feet in the trees. In the open it was harder to tell. We followed the PCT as best we could. At times we could see the vague shape of the trail slowly climbing the hill, but that wasn't really all that important.
The snow was very dry and sparkled in the moonlight. Close your eyes really tight, rub them vigorously. You see the little sparkles? Pretty disorienting, huh? That's what it was like if you looked down for too long. Of course, why you would is beyond me. The mountains to the north and west were gorgeous and I spent most of my time gazing across the freeway at them. (Yeah, the freeway noise was lousy, but what can you do?)
We stopped by a tree to take some pictures with long (eight second) exposures to try to capture some of the beauty. That's when the siren went off.
Not a police siren or a fire engine, but more like an air raid. My mind immediately thought, "AVALANCHE!" Until I realized there was no avalanche. Maybe they're about to do avalanche control and the gun is pointed right at us! No, not so much. As my heart stopped racing my mind reminded me that it was unlikely they'd fire into the mellow ski slope where any avalanche that did come down would wipe out the resort at the base. An ambulance and a fire truck left the station soon after with lights flashing so it must have been the "get thee back to the firehouse ye wayward firedudes" siren and not the "we're gonna get you, John" siren. Hmph.
As thoughts of being buried alive or blown to bits faded from my mind we continued up the slope. We switchbacked beneath the idle lifts until we got to the northernmost summit at about 3,800 feet. A radio tower marked the top and a net marked the drop-off down the other side. It was steep enough to make me stay a ways back from the edge.
We had dawdled our way up (less than a mile, about 800 feet of gain) so it was now 10:30 and starting to get chilly. A fog was rolling in from the east so the views that had slowed us on the way up (yeah, that's what it was) were gone now. Daryl tried sliding on one of the garbage bags I had brought for just such a purpose, but a combination of me grabbing the wrong size bags, his backpack and snowshoes acting as brakes, and too much powder (is there really such a thing?) prevented the quick descent we had hoped for.
Nonetheless, we were back at the car and on the road by 11pm and home 20 minutes after that. Amy's already planning a girls snowshoe adventure and I'm always looking for time outside. If we could just find a way to keep the kids warm in a sled this would have been a near-perfect family outing.
Hmmm... maybe that's how I'll get rich.
