The trails opened on Tuesday. The weather had been decent all week and the local trails were swamped. The weekend promised blue skies. No way was I going anywhere well known. Scratch my first choice. When I arrived at my second choice, there were a ton of cars there. At 7am. Nope. I drove a little further to my third choice and found no one there. It's not surprising. I hadn't even learned of this trail until a year ago. It'd be only a couple of miles and virtually no climbing, but at least I'd be distancing and in the mountains.
Being in the mountains was what I really needed from this trip. I like to say I live "in the mountains" and sometimes I say I am "of the mountains," but home is civilized with bathrooms and wifi. When I want the mountains I want to be in the wilderness. Mrs. Moosefish wanted me to be in the mountains, too. After having me moping around the house for the last month it was clear I needed to get out.
Almost at the end of the mile walk I saw a trail branch off to the left. Huh. It probably just loops around and goes to the road. Except when I walked that road I didn't see it. Well, I've got time so...
It didn't lead back to the road. It kept going up along the creek. Past another waterfall, across avalanche slopes devoid of snow, down to a remarkably decent set of log bridges bound together with rope. And then it kept going. In fact, some of the nicest areas were right on the other side of the creek.
The trail did eventually become an old logging road, but not before Tink got to work on her recall. She's actually pretty good if she's (a) out of sight, (b) was thinking about coming back anyway, and (c) wasn't distracted by something else.
After finding snow and celebrating and then finding more snow and cursing because we had to posthole through it, we wound up at the high point we had originally avoided because of the crowds. Total people seen: Zero. I descended the usual way and saw about 10 people on their way up. Not actually that bad compared to the other places we could have gone.
On the way back we saw more and more cars at the trailheads the closer we got to civilization. Almost home, cars were lined up almost a mile from the trailhead. It's a pretty good thing we didn't try to go there.
In the end, we got our time in the mountains and we did it while recreating responsibly. We stayed close to home, we were self-sufficient, and we distanced throughout our adventure. Not bad for the first Saturday since the trails opened. The real question is whether the crowds will endure during bad weather and whether they'll overwhelm the trail system when the weather really gets good.
Don't worry. I'll keep finding places no sane person would ever go. It's my contribution.
