For my first trip this year to MRNP it was a lot of bang for my buck! Lex and I started on the trail at about 8:20am and headed down a wide densely forested trail with minimal elevation gain for the first few miles. The trail generally follows near the Fryingpan Creek to our south. At different points along the way views of the creek are afforded. About 2.5 miles up we get a view of a nice waterfall. To get the best view involved a bit of off-trail adventuring.
About a mile later we get to a crossing of the Fryingpan Creek on a large log with a railing. We stopped for a break and I ventured around with my camera for some shots of the creek and Rainier. I found a perk beyond some trees and found a slot waterfall just below the footbridge. Talk about a hard rush of water!!
Two guys had caught up woth us and we resumed not far behind them. Not too much further up the older guy yells back to us that there's a bear ahead of them on the trail. We tried to get him to quiet down as we really wanted to see the bear. We caught up and passed them in an attempt to get a few photos. By the time we got up ahead the bear had gone into the bush. Being brown he was hard to spot until I heard some movement. Much to our surprise he was about 20 feet from us behind a bush and he could have cared less about us. I really wanted a photo but was not about to go into the bush and attempt one. I love wildlife a lot, but i'm smart enough to know when to let it go. I tried to get a shot but it didn't turn out to good. Last time we let a group pass us by!!!
We found ourselves nearing Summerland and we checked our elevation and our map. We found that we missed our cutoff where our off-trail route would lead us. We decided to improvise our route and followed the trail for about another 1/10th mile and then proceeded towards the moraine.
We crossed a few small creeks and at one point when Lex stopped for a photo op I spotted a Hoary Marmot not too far away. I walked over towards him and he eyeballed me before running into his hole. We took pics of the mountain and soaked in the scenery. I went back to check on Mr Marmot and found him foraging for food. He noticed me and hauled butt accross the creek and towards his home again. This time I was ready with some video rolling. It was really cute to see him cruising and "jump" over the creek.
We crossed the morraine and the Fryingpan Creek and soon found ourselves in the trees heading up to the ridge that eventually leads up to Goat Island Mt. The first part of the ridge was tricky to travel as it had some heavy brush and trees. With our elevation gradually increasing we were looking forward to hitting the summit.
Out of the trees and onto the exposed ridge we traversed past small snow patches on a moonscape type terraine. We knew there was a false summit so we kept that in mind as we approached a high point. We continued along and saw our summit about 20 minutes away. As we approached the summit we realized that there was another high point about another 20 minutes away. We consulted our maps and realized that because of our need to summit the high point and summit fever that we had to continue along as the true summit was 70 feet higher than our current location, argh!!!
20 minutes later there was no more up and we enjoyed the views including Mt Adams to our south. With a 40 minute break we decided on our route of descent and started on our way. The first part was straight forward and we made good time. But then we got into the trees and really steep slopes. We put our trekking poles away opting instead to keep our hands free to grab onto to trees and such, or as we hikers would call it, "veggie belaying". We donned our helmets for safety's sake and continued on down. A few times we slipped but no injuries were accompanied, thank goodness. Finally after a real adventurist time we were back down at the Fryingpan Creek and left trying to find a safe place to cross. Back on the trail we kept our eye out for Mr Bear as we were close to where we had seen him earlier in the day.
With other plans in mind we made good time getting back to the car and arrived at 5:20pm. We gained almost 4000 feet of gain, about 10 miles over a 9 hour period. This was the simplest summit I've had in a few weeks and I look forward to getting another summit under my belt next Tuesday.
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