[Matt]

Date: February 19, 2018 Destination: Hamilton Mtn 5093 (USGS Mt. Townsend) People: Matt, Carla, Elle, Steph Dogs: Isabel What I learned from this trip: "Rhododendron" is the Olympics word for "Brush." At first it was sort of interesting seeing all the wild rhododendrons growing under the forest canopy. It's definitely a different kind of vegetation on the west side of the Olympics. Then we hit places where we had to walk through them. Their twisty stems are tailor made for wrapping around your ankles and knees and waist until you have to push them aside one branch at a time. They don't grow very thickly, so they're not as bad as slide alder or vine maple, but they also grow everywhere, even right up on top of the ridge line. The other thing I learned is that walking on hard frozen steep ground is really hard on your ankles, knees, legs, back, shoulders, neck etc. So it was a harder, longer day than we expected. We got a good workout, but were rather sore and tired afterward. Anyway, we made our way to the summit of Hamilton, which had limited but impressive views of the area around Mt. Constance. Stefan had done this trip in 2012, when they were able to drive up to 3240 feet. Fresh snow low on the road started us lower down, which added extra time to the trip. Once we were higher up, we followed the ridge line, which has a lot of small ups and downs. There are a few steep rock outcrops, but they can be bypassed, pretty much always on the climber's left side. We picked this trip in order to avoid heavy snowfall and avalanche danger in the Cascades. That part succeeded, since there were only a few inches of fresh snow in the area. As Carla said, "we took our snowshoes out for a walk," since we carried them most of the way, but didn't need them. We did have to use crampons to keep our footing on some of the steeper upper areas. Round Trip: 10.5 miles, 4060 cumulative gain, 9:45 hours

Hamilton GPS track

Cutting uphill between the lower and upper roads

Tracks on the upper road

Rhododendrons being brushy

Following the ridge crest

Hamilton summit

Constance

Warrior

Marmot Pass, Buckhorn, Iron, Worthington, Tull Pass

View back down to the ridge we followed

Puget Sound and Seattle

Izzy wearing her night light

[iron]

[Stefan]

I like your Black and whites. Nice

[wildernessed]

[puzzlr]

I appreciate your carefully captioned and labeled photos. Thanks! I can see this peak from my house so I should probably climb it some day.

[reststep]

[GaliWalker]

I like that B&W of Constance.

[Abert]

Rhododendrons with just the right covering of snow is even better. Random branches springing up with cold, wet blobs of leaves. In your face, if you're lucky. That's Martin Peak at the south end of The Needles, reststep.

[Matt]

Abert, good eye recognizing Martin. I had to zoom in on a photo of the Needles Range from Marmot Pass to see that.