b00 Member
Joined: 29 Sep 2003 Posts: 1144 | TRs | Pics
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b00
Member
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Mon Aug 18, 2008 9:59 pm
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kendall pk 8-12-08
with most of my friends busy this week, it gave me the opportunity to do other things - one all woman trip(except me) and two trips with kids in there 20's. i had promised to take one kid who works out at my gym up a mountain. he is a great guy that went to high school with my daughters. so with a great weather day that works for both our schedules we headed out to do my favorite beginner's trip - kendall pk. this kid is a workout machine and is very strong and to my surprise a real natural on uneven terrain.
we leave the pct north trailhead at snoqualmie pass and almost immediately head up the commonwealth basin trail. because he is so strong, we quickly reach commonwealth creek. the crossing looks pretty easy, but i want to check out the easy log crossing that i had heard is upstream. we follow a social trail upstream quite a ways. it dies out, but determined to find the crossing we push on with no complaints through moderate brush. we find the log crossing and cross. we both agree this crossing was too much trouble to get to and agree to just rock hop on way back at the original crossing. on we go and at the creek by the avalanche swath we fill our water. in no time at all we reach the last switchback on kendall pk and take off uphill to reach the climbers trail to the top. since we reached the top so quickly and easily, we decide to head over for a dip in ridge lake. after descending back to the pct, we soon encounter a family doing a backpack from pete lake. they seemed really nice so i let them know about the easy route up kendall pk - i felt they deserved to enjoy the really nice view. we walked them back to where the climber's path meets the trail and gave them instructions on how to get to the top. we then returned to our walk over to ridge lake. ridge lake is nice swimming. while walking back, we encounter the backpacking family returning to the trail from there ascent up kendall and they are beaming! the wife was overjoyed. the smile on there faces made us both feel better. they really felt a feeling of accomplishment. we left them and continued back to car after a fun day in the mountains. although he had been backpacking before, this was his first summit and he particularly enjoyed the "trail abandoned" sign we passed on the commonwealth basin trail.
By b00
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