[Stefan]

Monday it was raining. I went up some peaks outside of Winthrop up Falls Creek Road. On my drive up Falls Creek Road to start my outing, at around 3400 feet, all of a sudden a cougar leaped and bounded in front of my car going from one side of the road to the other. He could not have been more than 15 meters away. This was my first time EVER seeing a cougar in the wild. Of all my years, I have never seen a wild cougar! What a treat! The dude was muscular. This convinced me I would never want to get in a tussle with a cougar! Farewell/Ike/Doe I left around 4500 feet at the entrance to an abandoned road with LOTS of downed trees from a previous fire right from Falls Creek Road. Eventually it was a short lived downfall experience for this section and I started ascending the SW general ridgeline of Farewell Peak. This area is also burned…except has really good travel with no brush and the occasional downed tree. No snow was experienced at all until 7200 feet shortly before the top. Cloudy up on top and it was just spitting rain. From the top all the way on the ridge traverse to Doe there was snow. I traversed down Farewell and back up Ike and over to Doe without anything special to mention. Fog, spitting rain, and snow. I left Doe and came down the SW ridge. I experienced a LOT of downed trees between 6200 feet and 5400 feet. What is weird is that in between a lot of the downed trees I found the occasional cow patty. How on earth would these cows go in and out of these downed trees to find miniscule grass??? Anyway, at 5400 feet is an abandoned road that is in between Bud Creek and Alex Creek. I cut the switchbacks a couple of times. At some point I just stayed on the road because there was a lot of snowbrush and cross country travel did not look appealing from the road. The road exits out at a motorcycle gravel pit which is just south of where Bud Creek crosses the Falls Creek road. I had stashed my ebike there. I road my ebike back to my car further north. Peak 5802 I had some extra time, so I took the road that is on the west side of Falls Creek at 4000 feet. This road starts right where Bud Creek crosses the Falls Creek Road. This road goes to 5600 feet on the southeast side of peak 5802. Most cars can make it to here—but I was wary of one area on the road for Old Goat (aka Sienna minivan) to make it across. So I popped out the ebike and road the remaining section on the ebike to the end. The green trails map shows there is a trail at the top ridgeline—I was wary of this information because I never saw any trailhead as I was going up. So I went straight up from the end of the road to the top ridgeline easily and low and behold I found an old cat track and a former trail that is at the top of the ridge. I walked this now abandoned ridgeline trail to the top which has three potential boulders for the summit. Spitting rain the entire way!

[Brushbuffalo]

[cascadetraverser]

Stefan: Its been quite a year for sightings for you! This one loads more pleasant than the last. Lucky you to see a cougar! Given how much you get out, it seems appropriate that you finally saw one. Hopefully I will get to see one someday.