[Slugman]

I drove out to the Wilderness Information Center in Port Angeles, WA, on Thursday August 9th, and got a walk-up permit for Deer Lake on Friday night, the missing piece in the jigsaw of reservations I was able to cobble together at the last minute. I was all done with that by noon, so I cruised on up to Hurricane ridge and Obstruction point to help while the day away. Clouds rolled up the hills, obscuring everything, then rolled away just as quickly, revealing the vistas once again.

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When I started to get hungry for dinner, I drove into PA for some human chow, and drove out to Ediz Hook to consume it. I love Ediz hook, so industrial at first, so peaceful once you get out there.

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Then it was time to find a campsite for the night, and I took the path of least resistance which led me to Klahowya campground, which is a perfectly pleasant place to crash for a night. Here's a picture of my smaller motor home:

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Friday it was time to get down to business, so I drove to the Sol Duc trailhead, stopped only briefly by the road construction. The flagger was being bothered by some biting gnats, so I gave him a partial can of bug spray I keep in the car for trailhead use and car camping. I got around to actual hiking at 11:30, and motored on up to Deer lake by 4 pm. I camped over by the small lake next to Deer lake, and it was pleasant enough, though ordinary. The main good thing about Deer lake is that it's halfway between the trailhead and the Seven lakes basin.

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Saturday I started at a more reasonable 9 am, and worked my way up to the tarns above Deer lake, then to the ridge leading to the Lunch lake overlook, then down to Lunch lake for, um, lunch. The ridge is where I started really seeing the flower show, and the beauty of the high country. Since I had left home two days before, it seemed about darn time!

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I had already camped at Lunch lake several years ago, so my plan had me continuing on to Morgenroth lake, which turned out to be an excellent choice. It's officially off trail, though there is a path, and there's only one campsite, so I had a rare thing in the Seven lakes basin: complete privacy. Even better is the trail to get to the path, the Wye lakes trail out of Lunch lake, which connects back to the High Divide trail one hump before Silver Snag campsite. But along the way are the beautiful, and still mostly frozen, Wye lakes, not shown on the topo maps of the area, yet still one of my favorite places.

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OK, apparently per the pictures I've now reached Morgenroth lake and No Name lake, and the campsite on the land separating them. The trail down to them takes off from the Wye lakes trail just after the last lake and just before reaching the High Divide trail. It's not easy to find the very beginning of the way trail, I only did on the way out but you will see it below you, just head down to it off trail. The hike from Lunch lake to Morgenroth was one of the most beautiful I have done recently, with flowers everywhere, and meadows, views, and the Wye lakes, which have an other-worldly feel to them, especially being frozen while everything else is hot and sunny. The sun was so strong, reflecting off the snow, I felt like I was in a Dutch oven, though it wasn't really very hot. 10 pm found me lying down on a flat rock, perfectly padded for comfort, sipping a beverage (50% Kahlua, 50% Stolichnaya vodka), when the sky show started: the Perseid meteor shower. I saw things you people wouldn't believe.....(apologizes to Rutger Hauer) It was an amazing show, no moon at that time (10 pm until maybe 1 am when I must have dozed off), no lights on the horizon. I saw large fast ones that left a plasma trail, sometimes white, sometimes green, and then there were my favorite kind, those that shatter and send pieces shooting off tangentially. I put some Pink Floyd on the headphones (Astronomy Domine, Careful with that Axe, Eugene, Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun, A Saucerful of Secrets, and others), and just grooved to God's own "laser light show". Sorry, no pictures, just memories. Sunday I headed back up to the High Divide trail, 1,000 vertical feet, and then it's up and down and then up some more on that trail, much more than the maps indicate, to the overlook of Heart lake, then down and down to the Cat basin way trail, for some more lonely camping. That journey was incredible, nothing but views, and flowers, hiking at its best.

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Cat basin is a cool spot, not spectacular, except the flowers and the company (humans, zero in two nights and a day, bears, well you'll see in a moment). Cat basin is supposedly a stock camp, but I found no evidence of that except for a couple of almost fossilized horse droppings. In the evening I was scanning the hillside above for bears, and guess what? I saw one.

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Then I decided to try my hand at some night photography with the camera's flash:

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Monday was a rest day, I did the short hike to the end of the High Divide trail just to keep the legs stretched out, but forgot my camera back in camp. I did get some flower and bee pics in Cat basin, though.

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Tuesday it was time to leave, and I was hell-and-gone from my car, at least 10 miles, with significant uphill hiking to do before the long downhill to the Sol Duc, and the long march out after that. So I'm sitting having my coffee, and who joins me for breakfast? Mr. Bear. He came within about 50 yards of my campsite, completely ignoring me. I got about 50 pictures of his butt but precious few of his head or profile. Someone needs to teach these bears how to "vogue".

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Eventually he disappeared up the basin, so I packed up and took off around 9 am. I thought I would dread the hike out, but the rest day had me "pert as a rutting buck" (guess the movie reference!) so I motored right on up to the overlook of Heart lake, and took a break.

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Then what did I see? My bear, who beat me by going over the ridge.

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Then I dropped down past Heart lake, through Sol Duc park, and down and down to the crossing of the Sol Duc river, seeing cool things along the way:

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Up to this point almost all the trail I had walked on had been pretty rugged, all rocks and roots, mostly just rocks, and not good rocks, but sharp, shifty rocks. I had already hiked five tough miles, either uphill steeply, or downhill steeply, on these cursed rocks. I prayed for some decent trail to hike on for the last five miles, and low and behold, the last five miles were about 80% pine needles and only 20% rocks. It felt good to be able to stride along normally, make some decent time for once. The last couple of miles were still pretty tough, my dogs were barking at the trail head. I did the 10 miles in 8 hours, partly due to taking my time to see the good stuff, and partly those danged rocks making progress slow even by my standards. Bugs: they were mostly not bad, but sometimes were really bad. I tried to stop at Silver Snag to have lunch Sunday, and hordes of mosquitoes descended on me, and they apparently think DEET is a vitamin. The whole High Divide trail was awful on Sunday, but hardly any were at the exact same places on Tuesday. I only set up my bug shelter at Cat basin, the rest of the time bug spray or moving locations did the trick. There were a few biting flies around, but never enough to actually bother me for more than a few minutes here and there. The fact that I went alone really made the trip better in some ways. Sure, I missed hanging out with my regular hiking crew, but there is something spiritual about being solo in the wilderness. Full wilderness immersion. No distractions from the beauty all around me. I did most of the trip in a rapturous daze, as if in a dream. The off-trail camping with no one else around for miles, the meteor shower, the bear, the riotous profusion of flowers, they made the trip special, more than the sum of its parts. And having five days for backpacking let me really get into the spirit of the hike, for most of the trip the outside world didn't even occur to me.

[iron]

good stuff. the lakes all look so peaceful and inviting. makes me want to get back to the olympics for a change.

[Hikingqueen]

Sweet stuff! Love the bear, i haven't seen on blackie yet this year...

[Magellan]

Sounds like a magical trip Slugman.

[Slugman]

Magical, yes, good word. I could have written more, a lot happened in five days on the trail and one car camping, but a certain amount of "report fatigue" sets in. Right now my fingers hurt like they just hiked 10 miles. iron, some of those lakes seem peaceful because I didn't show the other people there. Make no mistake, this is a popular area, some places are positively brimming with other people. In picture 598, of Heart lake, there was a whole family, including several talkative teenagers, just out of the camera's view, and I mean just out, like by inches. But I like it seeing others enjoy the same thing I am, and seeing a family getting the kids out for some exercise and away from all the distractions of modern life. The only time other people bother me is when they are "work-talkers", droning on and on about their jobs, etc, and I can hear them coming a mile away, and for a mile after they go by. As a solo hiker, I'm not making any noise, and that tends to amplify the noise others make. Dropping down to Morgenroth lake was well worth it for the solitude, I jumped at the chance to reserve that once I heard there was only one campsite in the area. But people come and go, so even at Lunch lake it's possible to have a quiet hour or three during the day, and for long stretches I saw no one at all.

[Backpacker Joe]

Some really nice pics there Slugmeister.

[kite]

Most excellent TR

[Bedivere]

Beautiful area - looks like a fantastic trip Slugmeister. Hiking solo occasionally is good for the soul. No worries about being on someone else's schedule, you can stop to sniff as many of the Lupine, Daisies and Paintbrush as you want (and if you're lucky you might even find a wild Rose), you can take all kinds of pictures and the only distractions are the voices in your head. You do have voices in your head, don't you? Or is that just me? Well, at least my voices don't talk about work! Thanks for sharing the pics and the report. I'll have to get out there one of these days.

[Slugman]

Good post, Chainsaw. My voices are mainly about worrying. Will I get my walk-in permit, will the hike make me so tired I don't enjoy it, do I have enough food, that kind of thing. I try not to let the voices win though. Saturday around noon, when I was up on the ridge and could see the gap for the drop to Lunch lake, I knew that I had made it through the hardest part, and the worrying just sort of evaporated. From then on I just enjoyed the trip, lived in the moment, even hiking uphill with a pack on didn't make me unhappy. Moderate temperatures and good breezes may have helped with that. I did have a few rough moments during the off day at Cat basin, my inner voice telling me to hike halfway out that day, make the last day easier. What a mistake it would have been to listen, I would have missed the bear. I just thought back to my last trip two weeks ago, the Eagle Cap loop with mike220, and how the last day I felt very strong after an easy day the day before. And it was the same, the whole hike out was fun and not work, except for the last two miles maybe. PS: when I got to the trailhead, all I had for food was one GU Chomp (about 20 calories). I got five day's food into one of the small bear canisters, a BV 450, practically a miracle.

[ree]

You certainly told that bear!!! Hey I like your neat mosquito netting rigging for the back of your suv. Wonderful pics. Looks like a beautiful trip.

[Slugman]

My first bear movie. The picture is a bit shaky from the zoom, the bear is really about 50 yards away, not 50 feet like it looks. The bug net, yeah that comes in handy. I can open or close the rear of the car and it works either way, gives me lots of ventilation at night. It can also be rigged to cover the front and rear door windows on both sides. REI sells them for under $20, Mombasa is the brand. http://www.rei.com/product/729007/mombasa-outback-travel-net-double Mine is slightly different, it doesn't weigh 15 ounces, only 12, and that's with a couple of ropes and two tent stakes, must be a lighter mesh. I got it free out an abandoned locker full of trash, so I don't know what kind mine is. It's nice to have in camp when the bugs are bad, being able to cook, or just relax, without any interference from our flying friends. I only bring it during peak bug season. I would have left it back in the car if I had known how manageable the bugs would be for almost the whole trip (with a few exceptions). I set it up at Cat basin mainly because I had it, and I was there for two nights.

[David¹]

FYI - pic 620 is an American Dipper

[Slugman]

Ah, I thought it was a water ouzel. I don't even know if that is a kind of bird, I just thought that's what it was. Hey, wikipedia says they are synonymous. Sorry about the lame captions to the pictures. I uploaded them in two batches, and somehow I never got to the convenient first screen at flickr where you can add captions all at once. Now the thought of going back in and changing them one at time depresses me.

[over the hill]

Thanks for the timely report Sluggo. My son and I will be doing the loop assbackward on the 27th with back to back stays at Sol Duc Park and Hoh Lake. Hoping also to go partway along the Cat Basin trail. Does anyone know how many sites are at Hoh Lake?

[bobbi]

fantastic! perfect weather and perfect time alone! awesome photos!