It was a beautiful weekend day so the trails promised to be busy. Clearly, that meant I had to go somewhere less crowded than usual. How about a named, but rarely visited peak without a trail? Sounds good to me. Unfortunately, the majority of travel would be along the Pacific Crest Trail so I started early.
Tink and I huffed and puffed our way up the trail with breaks only for water in a couple of spots. We passed a couple of people who were taking their time to enjoy the walk a bit more and stopped only to talk with a pair of backpackers heading north and a single hiker coming south. The latter warned of a bear just before the meadow.
What the heck is a bear doing on such a busy trail? That seems a poor plan. I mean, sure, we are wandering through their home in the wee hours of the morning and they have a need to consume all the food before winter comes, but come on! (As you can tell from the pictures, we did not see the bear.)
Once we entered the meadow we were serenaded/heckled by a chorus of marmots and pikas. It sounded kind of like this.
Eep! Eep!
Wheeeeeeeeee!
Eep!
Wheeeee! Wheeee! Whee-whee-whee-whee-whee!
Eep! Eep!
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
(It's just like you were there, right?)
The marmots were way up on the cliffs, but the pikas were relatively close to the trail. Scratch that. At least one pika was on the trail. Ok. The bear gets a pass, but if you're a fist-sized rabbit, that's a bad plan. Tink was on leash so she didn't get to investigate. I'm not sure she'd care after she completely ignored the goat the week before.
We crossed the famous Kendall Katwalk (no cats, thankfully) and quickly jumped off the PCT. The maps show a trail, but... nope. We followed the ridge ducking to either side when the going got sketchy. A big old marmot sitting on a boulder watched us quietly. Threats? Us? Apparently not. The summit was summited, we registered in the register, and took a much more reasonable way down that landed us in some lovely snow perfect for cooling off warm bellies.
It was crowded on the way down, but the PCT is wide in this area so we maintained distance easily. We detoured onto an "abandoned," but still perfectly serviceable trail for the last stretch and saw nobody for the last two miles.
All apologies to the good animals that shared their home with us on this fine day. I'm sure they'd have been perfectly happy to chill out without us around, but sometimes company is unavoidable.
If you want to see more of our observations for SCIENCE! check out iNaturalist. And why not make an account so you can contribute, too?
And where was this? We followed the PCT North from Snoqualmie Pass, over the Kendall Katwalk, and up Collar Mountain. On the return we detoured onto the Commonwealth Basin trail.
I want to respectfully acknowledge the Wenatchi, Tulalip, Snoqualmie, and Coast Salish People, who have stewarded this land throughout the generations. Learn more at the USDAC.
