[mhutch]

I'd been wanting to get up Mt. Aix for a while, so I decided to head over and git er dun this weekend before it gets too hot over there. First stopped on top of Chinook for a quick look at Rainier.

Made it to the Mt. Aix trailhead friday afternoon, the road is paved to Bumping Lk. and not too bad after that. There are some large rocks and holes in places, just don't go too fast and keep an eye out for them and any car can make it. Planned on camping for the night but there was still plenty of light left, so I went walking down road 1808 past where it's blocked off, to see what the deal was with the washouts that have the road closed indefinitely. It took awhile to get to the first one, but the road was indeed taken out up there. Several other spots in the next few miles were washed out or in bad shape as well.

1st washout, sorry for the blur, mosquito swarm caught up

2nd washout

looking back at the 2nd

more washouts up further

wetland/swamp/meadow?

water

I don't see it getting fixed any time soon, it'll take a lot of work and $$$. It was actually a pretty cool road walk though, pretty wild seeing nature reclaiming the road and all the flood damage from the last few years. All the downed trees across the road are cut and it's obviously getting some bike, foot and horse use. I ended up at the Copper City sign in about an hour, alternating fast walking and jogging when the mosquitoes started swarming me too bad, yes, they're as bad around there as they say . Turned around a little past the Copper City turnoff. Wanted to make it to Deep crk. cg but it was getting late. Wish I would've known Copper City was so close to the TH, would've gone to check it out real quick. I'd like to head out to the plateau this way again later this summer/fall, when the mosquitoes are gone...

Came back after that, set up camp by the car and crashed. Forgot my sleeping pad so it was not a very comfortable rest. Was up before sunrise, packed up, got ready and hit the Mt. Aix trail before 6am, turned out to be a great decision as I was in shade until the crest of Nelson Ridge. Be sure to take plenty of water. It's a long climb up... Really hot on the way down in the afternoon. But the views are amazing, big mountains to the north, south and west. Adams, Goat Rocks, St. Helens, Rainier, Lemah, Daniel/Hinman, Stuart etc. Well worth the hike up. Decent flower show up on Nelson Ridge right now too, nothing too spectacular but there are some nice flower covered slopes up there. Took the scramble route up to the summit of Aix and back down. The spot where it splits from the main trail was marked with an empty gatorade bottle, not the most aesthetic trail marker, but it works I guess... The route looks a little sketchy until you start going up, but it's not bad at all, lots of solid rock and nothing too crazy. Someone should throw a new notebook in the register, I had to sign a rolling paper from a book of them someone left in there, heh... Noticed a bunch of smoke billowing over the ridge to the south while I was on top, above hwy12 (Bethel ridge?), forest fire?

First views of Adams and Goat Rocks from Nelson Ridge

First view of Rainier

Hindoo Cr. Basin

Garden in the rocks

Looking back at Aix

Rainier from Aix

Adams, Goat Rocks, St. Helens, Bismarck Pk. from Aix

ALW Peaks from Aix

Stuart range from Nelson Ridge

Me and Rainier from Nelson Ridge

After some time on the summit I headed back down the ridge to the Nelson ridge trail junction, ran into another early hiker heading up aix, and decided to head up to Pt. 7537' from there just because. Spent a while up there and had a long, hot walk back down to the trailhead, ran into a few more people heading up. Getting an early start is definitely recommended if you do this in the next month or 2, there's plenty of camping at and around the trailhead. It was great to finally get up there, especially on a good day for views ...

Looking along Nelson Ridge to Pt. 7537'

Ridge flowers

Bumping Lk.

Mt. Aix from Pt. 7537'

Looking towards junction from Pt. 7537'

Rainier ditched the clouds for a little bit later in the day

[Magellan]

First close up of goats I ever saw was on Mt Aix. I was thoroughly mesmerized watching them prance along a 45 degree scree/talus slope dislodging barely a rock or two.

[slood]

Nice! I've never hiked Mt Aix. Gotta go there some day.

[mhutch]

cool, I've read of goats around there and kept an eye out but didn't see any. lots of goat trails around though, I figured they had somewhere cooler/greener to hang out this time of year... found this info on the fire, it's out in the N. Fork Ahtanum area: http://www.inciweb.org/incident/1727/

[belowfellow]

nice work Matt