[GranolaGirl]

Phelps Creek Trail head to Image Lake YES! Another epic hike with granola girl and Damian! Looks like I am not the only one to post a trail report recently of this hike but none the less here goes... So, the day started later than we wanted-I had bought a new pack from REI and it was available at the store the day before we planned on leaving but I was on set filming a horror movie all day and was to busy being covered in fake blood to pick it up so I had to wait until the store opened at 10am the day of our departure. Lame-o. But the pack was a great success, therefore the wait was worth it.

The Blaze!

WIN! Indeed. The pack is called The Blaze by Granite Gear and it is quite the sack of joy. About a 3 hour drive of chattin it up with the best hiking partner ever, my Dad Damian, we arrived at the trailhead. The air was hot as Scarlett Johanson outside. Well, almost that hot. The way up to Spider Meadows is a little lacking on the scenery but believe me this hike has more scenery than any other hike I have EVER done, so just hold out for it. Like many things in life, the best is yet to come, and it is worth the wait. (Or the 5 miles of forest that is still beautiful and peaceful.) The bugs are bad on this trip, by the time we reached the meadow we looked like windshields on a 5 hour family road trip to the grand canyon. We were walking bug grave yards. Brave flies and mosquitoes fighting for their country now found themselves in bloody graves on my epidermis. Bug dope will help eliminate this so don’t you dare use this as an excuse to do this hike. Don’t. You. Dare. Oh no my friend. You will face the bugs, and you will like it…. damn it.

Spider Meadows

Spider Meadows

Once you reach spider meadows the eye candy has just begun. A huge valley of foliage bursts into view and you suddenly find yourself in what I like to think of as “The Great Valley” from the film I used to watch as a kid called “The Land Before Time.” This is the kind of meadow you would find yourself running naked through in a dream. And all the animals would be wearing clothes. Yeah one of those dreams. No but seriously- It’s lush and thick emerald grass is dotted with tiger lilies, columbine, paint brush, lupin, daisies and many more gay and swell peddled color bursts of joy .

Our goal was to make it to Larch Knob that evening, but my hip was hurting from filming the day before and I wasn’t sure I was going to make it. This was probably because I had been filming a scene the night before in which I was running away from a murderer and he grabs my leg and we both go crashing to the ground…Which might have been fine but we had to do it like 12 times because you have to get a bunch of takes of it. Stupid thing to do before a 38 mile round trip hike. Note to self and other hikers- don’t get chased by murderers and fall the night before your hike. Oh and don’t do it like 12 times. Okay-ANYWAY, we still wanted to make it to Larch Knob. The top of the Knob’s trees glowed mysteriously in the setting sunlight and I knew I belonged up there in the heightened abyss of the Larch as opposed to the beautiful meadow of spider. Our destiny was about 800 ft above me and a mile out. We continued after a rest and some Tylenol and my hip began to feel more like that of a 25 year olds as opposed to a 90 year olds. Joy of joys, dream of dreams! The hike up to Larch Knob is stiff like a corpus and steep like a tea bag but with every step, you get more and more tantalizing views. Like a plumber bending over, every centimeter is increasingly more interesting to look at.

Spider Meadows from Larch Knob

Larch Knob

When I reached the top of the knob a toilet sign greeted me with a smile and I knew where my next destination was…the toilet. I followed the trail to a grand toilet with a spectacular view of the meadows. A serious poop with a view that toilet is mmhhhhhmmm. However, while using the toilet I looked to my right and there was a hiker a couple hundred ft away getting just as good of a view, but not of the meadow. But in the wilderness there are no walls, and so there I sat confidently facing the world with my face to the sun and my butt to the wind owning it. After this episode, the father unit and I went sniffin around for a good campsite but all the normal good ones were taken by wild humans so we had to get creative. A guy on the way up who reminded me of a garden gnome told us of an awesome site up past the peeping tom toilet so we decided to look for it. We ventured up there and sure enough the king campsite awaited us with a flat ground, solitude and beautiful views. A deer and a buck showed up while my Dad was making dinner (how convenient of them) and hung out for awhile.

"Excuse me? Do you have any Grey Poupon?"

DInner Guest

Dinner Guest

Dinner Guest

Night soon fell upon us and the sky was lit up with a garden of magnificent stars. The sky looked like a picture out of a National Geographic magazine minus the blood, pretty fish and starving people. Epic. The next morning my Dad was making amazing biscuits and gravy when I was suddenly greeted by the Larch Knob abominable snow man.

Broomer on the trail

He was hiking down the trail and noticed our camp and decided to stop by.

Broomer Watson

He told me his name was Broomer Watson and he had a southern accent (I don’t know where he got it from it was weird) and said he was a miner in the lower Lyman lakes area. He was a nice fellow, so I let him hang out.

Broomer and Damian

but soon things got weird. He told me he wanted to snuggle and climbed into my tent…

Hmmm something isn't right

"Lets snuggle"

"Hug?"

I told him that I would only melt his snow man heart and he got upset. He softened a bit when he smelt breakfast and his smile returned. He grabbed my bowl and asked if he could have some breakfast.

Broomer waiting for a breakfast that would never come

Broomer and Damian

I told him we only had enough for 2, and then the wrath of the snowman fell upon us.

He grabbed my Dad’s knife and gave me a huge lecture about global warming and how all hi friends were dying of heat stroke and the least we could do was feed him.

Arghhh

Biscuits and Gravy or the knife

"Dagnabit darn homo erectus melting my land!"

Well to be honest I felt bad for the guy, but apparently not bad enough. I wont get into the gory details but I ended the conversation with him.

It was self defense

Had it been a different breakfast perhaps I would have been more friendly and shared but it just doesn’t get much better than biscuits and gravy when you are hiking. And besides Broomer was kind of weird. After breakfast we headed off, or I should say up. Large areas of snow at Larch Knob and Spider Gap have what people like to call "Watermelon Snow" which is when the snow takes on a pink hue and when you step in it the hue darkens as if the snow is bleeding. This is caused by an algae called chlamydomonas nivalis.

Chlamydomonas Nivalis (the algae not the STD)

Our next obstacle was Spider Glacier. A huge glacier leading up to Spider Gap at the top of the mountain and then descending once again to upper lyman lakes which are incredibly beautiful glacier feed alpine lakes.

Spider Glacier

The glacier is easily maneuvered up without cramp on’s or an ice axe however it wouldn’t hurt to have them. A guy in front of us lost his footing and slid about 100 ft down the glacier-He wasn’t hurt but an ice axe could have saved him the time and effort of climbing back up and having to answer to all of us asking if he was okay. Once we reached the top it was well worth the climb, as I said before the view down to Lyman lakes is incredible.

Spider Gap and chlamydomonas nivalis,

View of Upper Lyman Lakes from Spider Gap

After basking in the sweet views, I changed into my rain gear and slid down the other side of Spider Glacier. It wasn’t as successful as I wanted it to be, seeing as things were falling off my back and I wasn’t even as graceful as a five year old sledding in Christmas snow, but it was really fun and probably a stupid idea which made it even more appealing to me. The glacier surface looked like the top of a lemon meringue pie with frothy waves of meringue just browned at the tops, or in this case just dusted with dirt at the tops. Needless to say I had my pie and I ate it too. After my flying by the seat of my pants event we continued on past the beautiful lakes and Lyman glacier which looked like a big hunk of freezer burned chocolate chip ice cream. Byos. (Bring your own spoon).

Granola and Upper Lyman

Upper Lyman and Damian

Soon we headed down through the woods to lower lyman lake which is larger and glowing with the same beautiful blue glacier hue as upper lyman lakes. Every spot on the map along this hike is a Christmas present just as beautiful or more beautiful than what you opened before. Apparently I was good girl this year because the views were insane. Next major land mark after lyman lakes is Cloudy pass which gives incredible views of lyman lakes again and mountain vistas as far as the eye can see. After this we passed through Suiattle pass and continued on to Miner’s Ridge. Miner’s Ridge is one of my favorite parts of this hike. The trail is sandwiched with meadows of a plethora of blooming flowers and one incredible view of Glacier Peak starring you in the face.

I couldn’t believe places like this actually existed outside of Disney movies. I would not have been at all surprised if a prince charming road up on a white horseover the hills of flowers. Glad he didn’t though. I would have had to tell him we didn’t have enough biscuits and gravy left for him either and that would have been awkward. I didn’t need a another fight that day, the one with the snowman was difficult enough. Finally we arrived at Image Lake.

Image

Image

Glacier Peak

Damian and Granola Girl at Image

Altogether we hiked 11 miles from when I had dueled the fearless snowman that morning. It was a long and glorious day. Image lake is small, and full of solitude due to the no swimming rule and no camping any closer than ¼ mile from the lake. We set up camp at the back packer camp and I stopped to take pictures of some whistling marmots who let me get surprising close. They looked like a mix of beavers and rabbits to me, in fact I think they should be called beav-its….Just throwing it out there.

Interested Beav-it

Beav-it

Beav-it

Crouching marmet hidden granola

While my Dad made dinner in our dust bowl of a camp site with an insane view of Glacier Peak, I blew up my Flyte weight flytepack raft and rafted on Image for awhile.

Damian and Glacier Peak

Granola rafting on image

Happy Granola on pack raft

With my ipod in my ears and the mountain views, I had to have been the happiest granola girl in the cascades. After retreating back to camp my Dad told me the toilet there was the coolest toilet in the world. I couldn’t imagine how it could have been better than the last toilet-Although I suppose this one could be free of a random hiker man watching me do the deed. But it was the coolest toilet, Glacier peak practically rises out of your feet at this depository in fact you could use it as a regular chair and just relax and enjoy the views. Or you could use it for it’s regular use, ya know what ever suits your fancy. Or whatever fancies your suit. We hit the dust early that evening and when I work up it literally sounded like a bee hive was right at the door of my tent home. I unzipped my forest mansion to find that there was not a hive but just a ton of bugs which had been an on going theme of the trip. My Dad told me this was nothing compared to other times he had been there, wooo that must have been gnarly then cause they were hungry for blood this trip that’s for sure. After a delicious breakfast of Spanish rice and vegetables we headed out a mile to the Miner’s Ridge look out tower. On the way we passed the current ranger staying at the tower for 3 weeks. He said his name was Fred but he seriously looked like the claymation character Wallace from “Wallace and Grummet”. Seriously. Clay man in the flesh. He was a really nice soft spoken school teacher. Cool guy that Wallace. I mean Fred. So then we got to the lookout . Humdinger! Wow. Words can not express my cyber friends, the views are even more satisfying than a sneeze you have been fighting to get out for a whole day.

Glacier Peak

View on the way to lookout

Lookout

Miner's Ridge lookout

What a trip! 360 views of a surplus of montages, rivers, trail swerving in and out of the plains and Glacier peak served up hot and fresh on a silver platter like breakfast in bed but with a side of salad. It was breath taking. I mean breath to the motha effin taking.

Granola Girl at lookout

View from lookout

View from lookout

View from lookout

Miner's Ridge Look out tower view

After this we headed back the way we came to camp at Lyman lakes. The trip back was very hot, as was the trip thus far in the high 80’s but it was okay by me! I was loving the hot weather and it made the scenery all that much more beautiful with a sunny warm back drop to help the colors pop. The hike back to Lyman was around 9-10 miles and we decided to stay at lower lyman so that I could raft on the lake and we could build a fire because they are not permitted at the upper lakes.

Lower Lyman

Lower Lyman

Once we built a fire the bugs some what dissipated like a fart in the wind. This was nice because we were running out of bug dope, my Dad actually had to water it down to make it go further. The rest of the evening was spent exploring the area, rafting and listening to my ipod, eating dinner and sitting by the fire… which I continued to throw wood onto making it roar with fiery rage and grow to be way bigger than I expected and we would have to take a few steps back. Like a little kid I did this a few times thinking for some reason the next time it wouldn’t happen. Oops. Oh well, it was warm and it doesn’t hurt to act like an annoying kid ever once in awhile, unless of course you are the one who has to put up with me ha. The next day we packed up and headed out. The climb was gnarly climbing from lower lyman to upper lyman and there we had to scramble up a rocky cliff to the bottom of spider glacier in which we then had to climb as well. When I finally reached the top of the glacier at Spider gap I wanted to stick a flag in the ground and claim the land for myself. (And to think, people climb mountains like Rainier and don’t stick flags in…after all that work? What are they thinking!) I decided this time to not be the 5 year old sledding kid and decided to boot ski my way down the front side of Spider Glacier which proved to be extremely fun as well. Although my boots didn’t work as well as ski’s they proved a joyous ride and a fun alternative to walking down the glacier (because apparently I can’t do anything like normal people do.) We managed to get through Larch Knob with out any snowmen coming to avenge their friend, I suppose that’s because they were all already dead from global warming like the snowman had said before. We took a break for a snack in the spider meadows and ended up making it out to the car mid afternoon for our long drive home. It was an epic trip that everyone here should do someday. Good times were had by all, except for Broomer. RIP.

[Chief Joseph]

Simply amazing as always, I especially like the upper Lyman lake pics. I think "Broomer Watson" might have been the Forest Gnome in disguise....."Lookin' for love in all the wrong places"....

[Opus]

Awesome!

[kleet]

I notice you do a lot of hikes with Granola Girl. Does that get confusing having the same name?

[Ingunn]

[alpinelakes]

Great report! Much better now that you're taking pictures, and the pictures are excellent. What sort of condition was the road in?

[Slugman]

[Sore Feet]

Today I learned that reading a GranolaGirl trip report whilst eating a bowl of cherrios is not a good combination. Fortunately none ended up on my computer bits.

[klock]

Ah the life and times of one Broomer Watson. Awesome trip report!

[Get Out and Go]

Entertaining reading for a great area. I also picked up the AC60 this season and I really like it. It forces me to reconsider the load I carried in my big pack. After two trips, I realized I couldn't handle the lack of a quick access pocket on top. I bought the Granite Gear Lineloc Lid from Backcountrygear.com. Another $40, 7 litres of space, and only 9 oz. in weight, but it is now a Blaze AC67! All is right with the world again.

No Lid Here!

[wallorcrawl]

Broomer had it comin'...nice work with the knife skills

[Z]

Kids these days! You tell 'em and tell 'em and tell 'em: If you leave a body in the woods, DON'T POST PICTURES!!!! (But another great report in any event.) P.S. Nice hat Domino!!