Team Advil, Gherry Bender, Jim Seeks, and Jacob Engelstein did their annual marathon hike in the North cascades this year. They were hosted by Jacob at his cabin in the Methow Valley and joined by Ed Bernbaum, the leader for Jacob’s Himalaya trek earlier in the year. The first day was a short hike to Blue lake
It was sunny and the mosquitoes apparently satiated on the blood of Jacob’s son David who had hiked their a week ago. They gave us very little trouble. The hike is short, but we didn’t get there until 3:00 and we had food and wine waiting.
The next day we headed to Hart’s Pass which is a beautiful ridge hike preceded by 10 miles of road that will make you repent and return to church. It is one car wide, has 1000 foot drop offs at the sides and no guard rails. But the hike is lovely once your legs stop shaking.
It goes along the top of the ridge. The snow was recently melted from the meadows and the flowers were blooming. There were no mosquitoes, but the black flies were thick. But they are slow and not a problem if you keep moving. However, because of them we did not get our usual post lunch meditation time.
The last day we hiked Maple Pass. Due to the constraint of a wine tasting invitation, we had to be back early to clean up, so we stopped before we reached the top of the pass. But there was a pass before the pass named Heather with a lovely meadow where we stopped and ate lunch. As you can see, we had rain and the threat of thunder storms and we did turn around once, but nothing stops the rain like putting on your rain gear. So we took put it on, took it off, turned around a couple of times and headed back up. Kind of like a dog circling before settling into a nap spot.
We could see Lewis Lake from the pass and Ann Lake on the way up.
A bear was seen just off of the trail by the hikers behind us. We looked for it on the way down, but all we saw was a Pica. It did not attack us.
There was the usual assortment of wild flowers and a good time was had by all.
Each night we would return to Jacob’s cabin which is located at the head of the Methow valley. It has a beautiful meadow that he planted in native grasses and we would return in the evening, set on the porch, drink a little beer and watch the sun go across the meadow.
There is a large hay barn on the place where Jill and Loren held the reception after their wedding.
All in all, the time was too short, but a great time was had by all.
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