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Bluebird suffering optional
Joined: 22 Jan 2014 Posts: 199 | TRs | Pics Location: United States |
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Bluebird
suffering optional
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Tue Aug 03, 2021 1:06 pm
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Nancy and I decided our plan for Logan was foiled by the forecast for possible rain/thunderstorms and smoke so we headed towards the Olympics, where the forecast was clear all 4 days. I am working on finishing the Smoots in Jake Robinson's honor so I was quite pleased to aim for Anderson. Since we had 4 days, I also thought we could tack Constance on. She agreed and we met in Edmonds, where I left my car on Main street and we sat in the ferry line for longer than expected, catching the 9:30am ferry. This was a later start than we'd hoped for, but it was okay since all we wanted to do was get "as far towards Anderson as possible" on our first day.
We biked the old Dosewallips road, which for me was a mix of walk and bike, and for Nancy (an Ironman!) a bike ride.
We enjoyed a nice long break for lunch at the old Ranger station and started hiking around 2pm. The Dosewallips trail is quite pleasant and usually shady, which was welcome on this very hot humid day. We gradually made our way up the trail, which had not even a blowdown, stopping for water at Diamond Meadows. We got our first glimpse of Anderson on the trail near Honeymoon Meadows. We met two parties who told us their goal was the Anderson Glacier. We thought we might see them again but didn't.
Dose river from the bridge far above first view of Anderson didn't realize we were looking at the route!
The ford at Honeymoon was no big deal but did require shoes off. It was pleasantly chilly but not too cold. We kept hiking uphill, past Camp Siberia and Anderson Pass. We decided we had time to hike up the trail towards the glacier, but probably not enough time for our stretch goal, the unnamed lakes west of the S ridge of Anderson. We didn't find a lot of flat ground without rocks, but we were in bivies and found a flat bare spot big enough for us. Skies were clear and the weather so warm I ended up stripping off all my layers overnight, despite being a cold sleeper and only bringing a 40f quilt.
I woke in the predawn hours to raindrops on my face. What?! This was not the weather we'd anticipated! We moved gear into the bivies, covered everything else and went back to sleep with the bivies zipped up, hoping it was a brief shower. When we woke at dawn, it continued to drizzle on and off. We in-reached for weather forecasts and heard that the rain should pass around 9am, so we moved into an area with tree cover and relaxed for a couple hours. We started at 9am with a mixed bag of clouds and occasional pockets of blue sky. I lead us on an old trail beyond the tarn near the main Glacier trail, which quickly peters out in some lovely heathery, tarn splattered, flower strewn terrain. I stayed west of the high point 5600+ & found occasional bits of trail and wandered to the lakes, surprising a lovely bear eating blueberries as we walked on the west side of the lakes. After the lakes we crossed some undercut snow over the outlet stream, found a nice route up and around to a boulder field.
out route beckons! The bear, beautiful and glossy black. Oblivious to us until I called out "Hi Bear, there are people here". Ran away then. beautiful lakes, would love to camp here frogs all over in this area
Straight ahead was the "3rd class gully" we were expecting.
straight ahead, on the right-ish side is the gully
It was mossy, steep and loose but went fine. At the top we found some old metal rap hardware, but no tat. We continued contouring north on 2nd and 3rd class ledge terrain on the path of least resistance, which was a mix of dirt, rock and snow with occasional heather benches. It started to rain. I don't mind rain, but I do when I'm in terrain like Mount Anderson. I worried a bit about descending the steep ledges and mossy steep gully in the rain on our descent. When heading north cliffed out, we trended NW to find a ledge that took us beneath the snow to the north ridge of Anderson, where we met the standard Glacier route.
on our way to the summit! (in view) summit smiles Nancy on the summit me on the summit
Class 3 brought us to the summit. The wind picked up and we were cold, but we enjoyed the views, descended to a slightly sheltered spot to eat before heading back down. I ate some cookies and the wind gusted and carried the wrapper away so quickly we couldn't find it. Dear Nature, I'm sorry for the cookie wrapper
Luckily, the rain stopped and the rock dried up quickly so the descent was largely uneventful.
Look carefully for me descending the gully
I love exploring, so I insisted on taking an old trail I found east of the unnamed lakes. The trail was interspersed with significant trees and required some bushwhacking at times, but I always found more tread. There was a cool chasm close to where I found the one cairn on route, which is where the trail we first followed had petered out.
cool snow filled chasm
We were happy to find our ursacks unmolested by bears and our gear dry in our bivies. We took a rest and started hiking down around 5pm, with the goal of camping "somewhere", which ended up being Diamond Meadows. We met two more parties hiking up to the Glacier. Given that the glacier isn't really a glacier anymore, at least not that I saw anywhere near the trail end... and is a pretty popular destination, I think the Park should consider renaming the trail the Anderson Lake trail.
Diamond Meadows was busy, but we took the westermost campsite, across a stream from the others but without river access so we were alone for a quiet evening of sleep. After rising, we hiked out, retrieved our bikes and rode to the Constance Lake route trailhead. I love a good uphill pack slog, so I told Nancy I'd see her at the lake and started cruising uphill. Somehow I got off route on the left near the trail start, on some pretty awful steep dirt and burned trees. I found my way back to the actual trail, which still isn't great but it's waaay better than where I was. I made it to the lake in about 1 hour 50 minutes, which wasn't bad for my poor route finding at the start. The trail is quite steep and has some legitimate scrambling on the way. I was surprised at how much scrambling there is the last 500+ vertical. The first set of campsites were quite busy with lots of tents, so I left some gear on the trail as a signal for Nancy to continue around and found a lovely spot with a rocky lake access point for swimming. It wouldn't be good for tents, but for us and our bivies, it was perfect. I took a quick dip in the lake and laid around naked, smoking pot until she arrived.
alpine laundry I may or may not laze around naked in the alpine while my laundry dries...
Nancy (the Ironman finisher) is an excellent swimmer and not as timid about cold water as I am so she took an actual swim in the lake. We went to bed early and I caught up on some sleep before our planned 5am wakeup time. In our conversations with the two men who climbed Constance on Sunday, we were advised to leave our snow gear behind as we could stem the moat near the one snow finger and to bring lots of water because there is none on route.
I woke to a foot jiggle from Nancy and we were on route just before 6am. The route to Constance follows boulders and more boulders.
sunrise over Lake Constance
There were some cairns, but not as much as I expected.
We headed up talus and scree above the ledges leading to the first pass, which is at about 6500 elevation. I never enjoy steep firm dirt and there was some along the way. There are some lovely sleep spots near this pass and you could melt snow just below the pass for water.
views from the 6500 pass a little smokey
We stopped here for water and snacks before continuing up more loose scree to a notch at 7300 elevation. At the notch we dropped down and found the snow finger, stemming an interesting gap between the rock and snow and then walking on the snow along ledges with intermittent cairns. We took a narrow steep ledge around a corner and ascended a bit more.
a bit of tread the narrow ledge
When it wasn't really clear how to get around a high point (with more bivy sites), we explored and found a way around to the left that looked okay but not great. I descended a bit and then tried the right of the high point and found the Finger Traverse. At that point I was already out on it, so we decided to go for it. It has bomber hands, but I could have been happier with some more footholds than I found. Nancy, a skilled rock climber, loved the Finger Traverse. The first half is the most exciting, after that there is a bigger gap and you can kinda straddle it, which felt more secure to me.
checking out the Finger Traverse Deciding to go for it! Nancy loved the Finger Traverse, check out the exposure! The cliff keeps going waaay below this photos FT from a distance
We enjoyed another break and continued on. There are a few cairns, but not too many. We tried to stay on the ridgeline but had to drop down at a few points to avoid 5th class terrain. The summit was the farther one... that looks like a big fin. We found the route around the backside and I climbed up to the summit on a 5th class route that I didn't really prefer downclimbing. We sat at the summit, which was full of flying ants. What do those things eat up there anyway?!
Oh, thank goodness this isn't the way up. around the corner I pick the hard way up Nancy follows me up familiar NWhikers in the register! our entry happy mountain ladies on the summit
Nancy found a 4th class downclimb over a big hole, which was safer than my up route and we gradually retraced our steps back to camp. At the ledges below the 6500 pass, I found the "trail" and followed it, getting separated from Nancy. We yelled and I blew my whistle to stay in verbal contact and eventually the ledge between us eased and I indicated that I was going to follow the trail and meet her downhill. The trail isn't continuous with the route through the boulders closer to the lake, looks like it was wiped out in the scree on a steep slope. I dropped down, we connected and in a short amount of time, were back at the lake for a swim before descending.
goodbye Lake Constance This trail is no joke Is this really the trail?
Descending the Constance route took care on the upper portions, so we moved carefully with our packs but were still to the bikes in 2 hours.
We drank more water, biked down to the trailhead and were driving away just after 8pm. I was excited to find my bike still parked on Main Street after the ferry ride.
Theboywhocriedroute, silence, drewcoll, gymcarrey, Mesahchie Mark, Magellan, ozzy, rstoddard24, Route Loser, Tom, neek, geyer, RAW-dad, slave524, Off Route Randy, Nancyann, RichP, IanB, Frodo Barefoot, reststep bobbi
Theboywhocriedroute, silence, drewcoll, gymcarrey, Mesahchie Mark, Magellan, ozzy, rstoddard24, Route Loser, Tom, neek, geyer, RAW-dad, slave524, Off Route Randy, Nancyann, RichP, IanB, Frodo Barefoot, reststep bobbi
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raising3hikers Member
Joined: 21 Sep 2007 Posts: 2343 | TRs | Pics Location: Edmonds, Wa |
nice work getting anderson and then throwing in constance as a bonus peak! would have been cool to see you guys up there, just missed by a couple days. sounds like a fun trip, cool pics
btw, that anderson lake looks big, so sad that it used to be a glacier
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awilsondc Member
Joined: 03 Apr 2016 Posts: 1323 | TRs | Pics
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Nancyann Member
Joined: 28 Jul 2013 Posts: 2314 | TRs | Pics Location: Sultan Basin |
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Nancyann
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Tue Aug 03, 2021 8:22 pm
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Two very badass Mountain Ladies!
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RodF Member
Joined: 01 Sep 2007 Posts: 2593 | TRs | Pics Location: Sequim WA |
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RodF
Member
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Thu Aug 05, 2021 1:06 am
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Brava!
"of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt" - John Muir
"the wild is not the opposite of cultivated. It is the opposite of the captivated” - Vandana Shiva
"of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt" - John Muir
"the wild is not the opposite of cultivated. It is the opposite of the captivated” - Vandana Shiva
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ozzy The hard way
Joined: 30 Jul 2015 Posts: 475 | TRs | Pics Location: University place, wa |
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ozzy
The hard way
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Thu Aug 05, 2021 10:32 am
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“I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but I wanna have my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames”-Mr Mojo Risin
Off Route Randy
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Magellan Brutally Handsome
Joined: 26 Jul 2006 Posts: 13116 | TRs | Pics Location: Inexorable descent |
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Magellan
Brutally Handsome
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Thu Aug 05, 2021 11:40 am
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Amazing work ladies! Love the photos Selena.
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silence Member
Joined: 25 Apr 2005 Posts: 4420 | TRs | Pics
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silence
Member
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Fri Aug 06, 2021 6:18 pm
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PHOTOS
FILMS
Keep a good head and always carry a light bulb. – Bob Dylan
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Midnight Slogger 'Schwack Job
Joined: 04 Aug 2017 Posts: 96 | TRs | Pics Location: Greater Cascadia |
awilsondc wrote: | I can't say that I've seen anyone combine these two classic Olympic peaks in one trip, but it makes sense to do so! Nice job, and thanks for the reminder that I need to get up Anderson. |
Very cool to see these two peaks linked up--and done in style! Gotta love that "trail" between Dose and Lake Constance.
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bobbi stillaGUAMish
Joined: 13 Jul 2006 Posts: 8012 | TRs | Pics Location: olympics! |
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bobbi
stillaGUAMish
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Fri Aug 06, 2021 8:13 pm
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fantabulous climbs, ladies!
you ROCK!
bobbi ૐ
"Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So…get on your way!" - Oh, the Places You’ll Go! By Dr. Seuss
bobbi ૐ
"Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So…get on your way!" - Oh, the Places You’ll Go! By Dr. Seuss
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