Cowiche Canyon

 

I could not take the rain any longer in the second week of October so I headed to Eastern Washington for the sunshine. It was pouring down rain in Seattle and continued until I got past Cle Elum, but by the time I reached the canyon it was blue skies and 70 degrees.

Cowiche canyon has everything you need for a fall hike.  It is flat walk that goes through a canyon that use to be a railroad bed.

There is a stream running through it

 

In the afternoon it gets great light reflections off of the side of the canyon

and the canyon has  every fall color that you might imagine.

There is also a trail across the top of the canyon , may be 300 feet elevation gain, that goes through beautiful grass lands.

There is a short side trail to a winery, which I didn’t take this trip, but this is sure to become a fall classic.  The trail ends at another parking lot.

so you could do this as a three mile hike, but the trip in across the canyon rim and back along the canyon bottom is an easy six miles. But I would recommend it in middle October.

full set of photos

Back to Ingalls yet again

 

Mary and Vangie wanted to see the larches and they were prepared to put up with a beautiful but long hike and the snow. The temperature at the bottom of the trail was in the mid fifties, but seemed much warmer in the sunshine.

Lunch break in the snow

and a little clarification that that really was where we were headed to.

In another forty minutes we were crossing the pass

to some incredible views,

 

from some awe inspiring view spots.

full set of photos

Back to Ingalls again

 

It was a week later and I was heading up to Ingalls Lake for two reasons: 1) was to check to see if the larches were in their full color and 2) to make sure the trail was passable since I was taking Mary and Vangie up it two days later.  People get very irritated when you make them get up early on their day off drive 2 1/2 hours to a trailhead and a couple miles up the trail only to find out that you have to turn around. But the weather was beautiful with sunshine and a crisp 40 degrees. There was fresh snow on all of the peaks.

There was fresh snow on the trail, but no more than 18 inches.  Just enough to make pretty pictures.

And the larches had reached their full splendor.

So I spent a couple of hours playing in the snow

and photographing larches before heading back down to my car.

Full set of photos

Ingalls Lake

 

In the first week of October, I made a trip up to Ingalls Lake to see if the larches were turning color. The weather was terrible in Seattle and my plan was to post a lot of pictures of the warm sunshine and make derogatory comments about my friends trapped back in the miserable weather in Seattle.

But as I headed up to the pass, there is always a pass and it is always up, I could see the weather coming in from Puget Sound.

With a lot of effort, I managed to get up into the clouds before I got to the pass where it was a typical fall day for hiking with light snow and forty mile an hour winds.

But the larches were starting to turn

and the trail was very well marked.

I worked my way down into the basin, but the snow was two feet deep and I didn’t figure there was a lot of point in hiking another hour to the lake when visibility was about 10%.

In fact it seemed like heading back to the car before dusk was a very good idea since the weather seemed to be deteriorating. What’s worse than 10% visibility and forty mile an hour winds you ask?  All of those things in the dark.

I was only a couple of miles north of my car, but it was enough to get into the weather. Mean while, half way back to the car it was sunny all day and the fall colors were beautiful. It is  kind of hard to predict exactly where the edge of the rain shadow will be.

Lake Melakwa

 

I’m less than a month behind on my postings, so I have a chance to get caught up.  In the first part of September, I headed up to Lake Melakwa to stretch out my legs and have a pleasant day in the sun. Melakwa is one of my favorite hikes.  The lake fits its valley perfectly and Kaleetan Peak at the end looks like a smaller Matterhorn. It is also the backdoor route into Snow Lake. Just climb 800 feet over that pass (Melakwa Pass) at the end of the lake and in less than a mile of cross country, you are at Gem Lake.

Large parts of the trail are in the cool shade of the forest which makes for a very pleasant hike.  The trail is broken up into several  natural rest stops.

You head up from the Denny creek trail head and in less than thirty minutes, you reach the natural rock slides. There are generally young kids playing in the shallow pools of water or sliding down the polished rock channels.

In another thirty minutes you reach Keekwulee Falls, which in means nothing in the local Indian dialect since it is a word made up by the Mountaineers to sound like an Indian word. But it is the perfect spot to stop and have a cookie while looking at the falls.  This late in the season, there was very little water going over the falls.

The next hour and a half is the long hall.  Up over hemlock pass and then a mile to the Lake.  The lake is really two lakes separated by a twenty foot channel and a six inch waterfall.  In the middle of that channel is the perfect rock for lunch. It is in the sun, has a nice breeze to keep the bugs away, and is flat for sleeping on.

It also has great views in two directions.  Look north  to see the upper

and south to see the lower lake

I watched the birds catching insects on the surface of the lake

and then got up and headed back along the lake side trail. It does get a little narrow, but the worst that could happen is a five foot jump into the lake, which is not much of a threat on a warm sunny day.

I took one last look at the lake and then made the two and a half hour walk back to my car.  Two and a half hours may seem like a long was, but down hill is easy and in the warm sunshine it is really pleasant.

The end of up and the end of down

 

We left our camp on Rush Creek and started up Donahue Pass.

The guides and the trail description speak of the pass as though it will be our hardest test.  It was over 11,000 feet high, but several of our other passes were just under 11,000 feet and a couple of hundred feet doesn’t make that much difference. In addition, we were already above 10,000 feet when we started this ascent, so it was really a pleasant walk. In less than two hours were in the high, high country.

and a few minutes later there was no more up.  We had reached the summit of the pass

 

 

and it was all down hill from her. Down below you see Lyell Meadows, the Yosemite “high” country leading out to Tuolumne Meadows.

We plunged over the crest

went past Mt Lyell and its glaciers

The trip down to the bottom of Lyell Canyon

was very steep and I thought that it was more tiring than the trip up to Donahue Pass.  It certainly took a lot longer, but eventually we reached the canyon floor and the end of down. A scant twelve miles from the end of the trail.

We set up camp in the valley, swatted our last mosquito

and by noon the nest day we were hiking along the Tuolumne River

and crossing the bridge to the land of cold beer, no more hiking boots, and an air conditioned van we could lay back in and enjoy the ride.

Ansel Adams Wilderness

 

We left our beautiful campsite over looking Mt Banner and Mt Ritter and headed deep into the Ansel Adams Wilderness. The trail dropped down a steep snow chute

to where it plunged into Garnet Lake

and walked along the lake.  That is Banner Peak at the end of the lake. The astute observer will notice that they can no longer see Mt. Ritter. that is because we've circled around the right hand side of Mt. Banner and it is blocking the view of Mt. Ritter.

This is what it looked like a week earlier when we were seventy five miles away.

We continued up over Island Pass, looking back at Garnet Lake

and onto 1000 Island Lake.

They may look the same, but they feel very different.  Perhaps it is the sun light, the breeze, or the fact that we laid about in the sun for an hour, but the lakes do all feet different.

And we set up our last high altitude camp on Rush Creek.