Leaving the snowy and cold Goats and Ann's sister in WA, Ann and I headed south to drier hiking. We stayed the night at my house and headed east the next day. We made it to the PCT at the Little Belknap trail at about 11:30a. Most of the hike crosses lava spewed by Little Belknap. You cross two kipuka's (islands missed by the lava) which are welcome relief especially on the way back. Views from this hike are usually stunning but Sunday was cloudy and misty and we could not even see our destination, the flank of Mt Washington! We hiked up Little Belknap anyway for a 360 view of the lava flow. We had also wanted to summit Belknap Crater, but it was getting late and it was so cloudy, we decided to try on the way out. The trail to go up is just after the lava ends, to the left. Heading on, we still spent a lot of time on lava rocks, but the flow was older so there were also trees and bushes for color. The sun came out too and the white bark of the dead trees was stunning in the afternoon light. We calculated where the George Lake trail would be, but we weren't finding it. At the trailhead we had seen a group, two men, two girls and a
cat, coming from George Lake so we thought, "how hard can this be?" We turned around and finally decided that there was no trail and we were going to have to just bushwhack. We made it, but I lost a trekking pole and we could not figure how how that family got up there with a cat! George Lake sits in a bowl at the base of Mt Washington. You can see the spire of the peak and the flank from the east side of the lake. We camped on the west side because it was a little less windy. There was only one other group of two there and they had not found a trail either! We put on warm clothes and made dinner and tucked in to the tents by nightfall. The temps that night got down to 30 but we were very toasty because we were not chilled and wet. Dry and cold seems to be ok. Plus it didn't get that cold until later in the evening. The clouds held in the warmth for a bit. We woke up to clear skies and hiked out with our short sleeves and pants rolled up. It was sunny and 70! Views all around. We opted not to go up Belknap to get back earlier. What a weekend! Lots of adventure and variety!. :-)
map
 |
| Belknap and Little Belknap |
 |
| one of the kipukas |
 |
| a log cast |
 |
| Belknap from Little Belknap |
 |
| PCT lined with grasses in a burn |
 |
| we make it to George Lake |
 |
| morning reflections |
 |
| Mt Washington |
 |
| our campsite |
 |
| route finding down |
 |
| back on the PCT we can see what we missed |
 |
| North and Middle Sister |
 |
| ahhh shade! |
No comments:
Post a Comment