Forum Index > Trip Reports > Thanksgiving Trip to Mount Christie, Olympic Mountains
 Reply to topic
Previous :: Next Topic
Author Message
Larry
Member
Member


Joined: 22 Feb 2003
Posts: 1084 | TRs | Pics
Location: Kitsap
Larry
Member
PostSat Feb 22, 2003 11:11 pm 
November 20 – 23, 2002 Thanksgiving Weekend USGS Mount Christie Unbelievably stable weather, a thin consolidated snowpack, no holiday obligations…this was an incredible opportunity to travel the high country. Normally, it would be foolish to travel alone to the interior Olympic Mountains this time of year, but now it was as safe as it gets, with a wonderful temperature inversion that screamed, “Shorts and Shirts and Shoes (and Skis) Allowed Above Timberline”. This was a rare opportunity indeed! I packed my venerable Karhus with glee, and drove the deserted highway, following the dipping sun west 110 miles to the ocean and Highway 101. I pointed the Old Beater north out of Aberdeen, cranking up the unique musical genius of a Nirvana album. The setting sun painted a copper alpenglow on the distant Burke Range, etching my synapses with dreams of summery skies. The Humptulips River was low and clear, with the riffles rolling in shining silver swirls from the jack-o-lantern gibbous moon rising in the east. I took a car break at the hidden Holocene bog near the highway, stretching my legs under the stars through the deep and ancient sphagnum and wild cranberries. A loon threw out a melodic hoot from a distant pond. I remembered the last time I was here, under a moonless sky, with Comet Hyakutake shimmering to the northwest, it’s tail arcing out with the same shining silver swirls as the riffles I had seen from the highway. A pair of yellow eyes stared back at my headlights as I pulled into North Fork Campground. The eyes disappeared as I shut down the internal combustion engine and all electrical circuits to envelope myself in silence and darkness. I rolled down the window, allowing the river to voice its song to my ears, and the scent of needles to freshen my palate. As I adjusted to the night, the mammoth trunks of the cedars and firs materialized from the darkness, showing yet another kind of silvery shimmer from the moonlight. I threw down my sleeping gear and slept near the largest cedar, marveling at how small the Old Beater looked against the huge tubular trunk. There was a morning chill, and the moon had shifted to the western sky as I packed by flashlight. The canopy, 200 feet overhead, was making little whispering sounds in the light downvalley wind. The epiphytes were busy catching nutrients with their silent nets. The sword ferns seemed to be pointing upvalley, exhorting me to get on the trail before dawn. I drove my gear a half-mile further to the deserted trailhead, stashed my credit cards and cash and other “important” papers, and started the strides up this truly exemplary rain forest valley, skis hooked to my pack like alien antennae. The lightweight pack was a joy to carry, and I felt good about the safety factor of being able to travel fast, with goose down warmth and ripstop nylon protection being all I needed on this trip. The sky showed the first bit of light as I rustled through the maple leaves on the Wolf Bar bottomland three miles upvalley. I put down my pack and detoured over to the river, dropping through a series of ten foot deep glades that would, in a normal year, be filled with water. The deep blue pools of the main river contrasted with the black bedrock, and the green mosses and ferns added a watercolor look to the scenery. For a moment, I thought my eyes were playing tricks, but then I caught it again…a chromium flash! Then another, and another, in yet another rendition of nature’s silvery swirls. The salmon were spawning, the big females surrounded by various males, all gracefully dancing in their element, vying for opportunities. The Dolly Vardens hung just downstream from the Big Ones, waiting for their feast of errant fresh roe from the frenzied mating. I stopped to eat my sandwich at the 13 mile mark, just after wading the knee-deep main river, my feet screeching with discomfort from thawing back out, having been numbed after just the first few steps in the icy water. Two Harlequin Ducks came barreling in from the canyon up the valley, putting down the landing gear and going to “full flaps” to brake their landing. The water sprayed up in a silver swirl (!) and they taxied to a stop within inches of a large rock. I hefted the pack again, and started the 3-mile grind to the top of the valley and Low Divide. I soon encountered the hard and sketchy snowpack, slipping along clumsily until it was consistent enough to don my instep crampons. These proved to be very valuable for the rest of my time in the land of snow. It was mid-afternoon, and I was sweating in the sunlight on this day before Thanksgiving! The sun was going down quickly, and the shadows were already forming over Mount Seattle. As the trail leveled out at Low Divide, I caught my first glimpse of my objective, Mount Christie and it’s stunning Christie Glacier! My stomach did the usual flip-flop of anticipation…a combination of seeing the beautiful rock ramparts, the rock-solid and consolidated snows, and the sheer audacity of being able to be here so late in the year. I set up camp in a group of venerable old Mountain Hemlocks that formed a great semicircular windbreak (not that I needed a windbreak in this truly sublime weather). I fished out the half-pint of Jack Daniels and took a rare pull…holy smokes!...my face screwed up like some kind of screaming banshee as I danced from one foot to the other…I’m not used to this stuff, seeing as I probably take a swig of whiskey every ten years or so! As my stomach warmed up, I kicked back for the evening and watched the moon come up over Mount Delabarre. Two more very careful pulls, a little less dancing, and I was asleep. Thanksgiving morning dawned cool and sunny. There were some wisps of fog over the willowed meadow, and the blue sky looked like velvet. The snow was wonderfully consolidated and averaged about a foot deep between the bare ground patches, with about 3 inches of “new skin” over the top. I could hardly contain my anticipation, although the effort of the next couple of miles up to Martin’s Park certainly helped my concentration. I worked my way up through rock portals and steep little hemlock clifflets, to finally break into the lower park. The scenery was just a mindblower, with the stunted trees showing deep green branches alongside the dark creek waters bordered with snow. The gully that serves as a portal to the ridgetop above the Christie Glacier looked perfect! This was the crux that I was concerned about. If it was in bad shape, I would not have gotten to the glacier. Now, that wouldn’t necessarily be a BAD thing, but since I knew it was a go, I could hardly contain my excitement. I started humming some obscure tune as I crunched my way for 1500 feet up the broad gully. The sun was beating on my face as I crested the ridge, and the foehn wind was drying my sweat with a warm embrace. I literally gasped as the pristine and classic mass of the Christie Glacier hove into view about 800 feet below! I sat down hard, and just grinned at it all, kicking my legs like a toddler in the sheer joy of the moment. Mount Christie itself formed a perfect horseshoe around the glacier head. The right hand flank of the highest point culminated in a rock horn with 2000 feet of black rock plunging into the headwaters of Christie Creek, which roared in a frenzy of foaming waterfalls and silver swirls through neoglacial gravels full of quartz crystals. I stomped steeply and carefully down to a rappel point that would drop me to the snout of the glacier, and hooked up the “9 millimeter” with quadruple-redundancy anchors. Overkill? Perhaps. But, I wanted to enjoy this opportunity, and figured that killing myself…or even worse, injuring myself…would not be what I really wanted out of this trip. I checked my anchors again, checked, and checked, and checked yet again, then checked and rechecked my connections to my harness, and slithered down into the world of ice. I pulled the rope, knowing that I would exit the glacier into upper Martin’s Park via the Rabbit Ears. I set up camp on a great exposed gravel rise to the left of the glacier. The view up the glacier was awesome, and the view out the Quinault Valley faded into consecutive ridgelines marching off to the blue horizon, with the southern hulking shoulder of Mount Zindorf beetling to the valley in a quarter-arc of green. The sun was dropping into the ocean, and I had enough time to grab about 30 turns on perfect snow. The glacier itself is in the act of receding, and the only real crevasse danger was on the far side of the lower glacier. Gosh…the days go quickly. This was the morning of the third day, and I ate my granola (does that make me one of those “granola eating hippies”) while waiting for the sun to hit the snow for a while. Finally, I couldn’t stand it any more, and packed my gear up to the Rabbit Ears, a double-pronged rock formation on the east edge of the glacier. From here, I aimed for the head of the cirque, climbing the quintessential white highway right to the krummholz summit at the top of the rocky horseshoe. The view from here is nearly in the center of the Olympic Mountains, and I was completely surrounded by an ocean of peaks. I yo-yoed like a knee-dipping snow fairy for six hours, finally exhausting my quadriceps in one last exhilirating series of medium-speed turns from summit to my pack, the snow allowing for wonderful arcs in this postcard environment. I felt like I was in the Alps…but then, why compare to the Alps? Hell, this is the Olympics! Good enough! Better than good enough! The pack seemed lighter as I threaded my way through the Rabbit Ears. Perhaps it was just my mood and the feeling of fortune in having this unique opportunity to be here on this date. I linked turns down the northeast glacier/snowfield for nearly a mile and 800 feet elevation down to the pass above upper Martin’s Park, then just kicked and glided and tele-turned where appropriate, to the lower rock portals, taking me down to Low Divide again. The sun was starting to sink, but I decided to headlamp my way down to below the snowline for my last camp, knowing that the river would put me to sleep, not to mention those last few pulls from that dreaded Jack Daniels.

Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
reststep
Member
Member


Joined: 17 Dec 2001
Posts: 4757 | TRs | Pics
reststep
Member
PostSun Feb 23, 2003 12:40 pm 
Great trip report. Do you have any pictures? Are you the same Larry that used to write trip reports in Pack and Paddle Magazine? I always enjoyed reading your reports there. Glad to see you here on nwhikers forum.

"The mountains are calling and I must go." - John Muir
Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
   All times are GMT - 8 Hours
 Reply to topic
Forum Index > Trip Reports > Thanksgiving Trip to Mount Christie, Olympic Mountains
  Happy Birthday speyguy, Bandanabraids!
Jump to:   
Search this topic:

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum