I drove almost three hours to get to the end of Forest Road 150 which is where my hike started. This is about a 30 minute drive north of the of town of Trout Lake. From the end of the road FR 150 I embarked a 1/2 mile hike stepping over dead, downed and blackened trees that burned from last year's Cold Spring Fire. I had to hike through this burned over forest since there was no trail to begin with in order to reach Trail #11 so I can hike to Trail #9 which is another 2 and 3/4 mile further. All this hiking was uphill starting from the 4500 feet elevation to the Gotchen Creek Meadows and beyond at about 6300 feet elevation. From there you can see Mt Adams up close her southern flank. All this took me 6 hours of almost non-stop hiking with water breaks and snacked on GORP along the way to help keep my energy up. The hike up hill took me a little less than four hours and the 2 hours to come down. It got a little hot coming down with temperature getting up into the upper 80s and was especially noticeable in the burned out forest part.
Below are my pictures of my hike today. Enjoy!
At the start of my hike to Gotchen Meadows which is 3 1/2 mile hike...up...from 4500 feet elevation to 6400 feet. Took me 3 1/2 hours to get to the meadows plus another 1/2 hour hikeing past that. The burned trees are from last year's fire on Mt Adams' south flank known as the Cold Spring fire.
I see dead trees!
More dead, blackened trees called "Widowmakers," and for a good reason, too.
Walking among the dead, blackened trees. Good thing it is sunny and very little wind. Still, these dead trees can fall over at any time. The sign says "Snipes Mountain Trail # 11." My hike is to Trail #9 which is 2 3/4 mile at that point but it took me about 3/4 mile just to get this point. The rocky stuff you see behind the sign? That's the Aiken lava flow (10 miles long and about 1 mile wide) created some 3,500 to 6,000 years ago.
Pretty yellow wildflowers.
Slowly getting out of the black.
Up on a bluff looking across the burned trees and in the distance you can see the Aiken lava flow. It was too hazy in the distance to see Mt. Adams.
Gotchen Creek Meadows "gate." Sign says to please keep the gate in place and help protect Gotchen Creek Meadows (mostly from cattle).
Gotchen Creek Meadows. One meadow out of a series of them on the way up. In the forefront you can see purple, white and some yellow wildflowers.
Mike at one of the Gotchen Meadows. Some snow can be seen behind me. Elevation about 5600 feet. Lots of mosquitos here. I can't stop for a lunch break. So, I eat on the go and keep moving so mosquitos won't have much of a chance to land on me.
Gotchen Creek. Elevation approximately 5700 feet.
The sign behind me says: "Yakima Indian Reservation Boundary Tract D. Welcome." Elevation approximately 6200 feet.
Another Gotchen Meadows and you can see Mt Adams up close.
A little wooden bridge that crosses Gotchen Creek. Elevation approximately 6300 feet.
Standing in front of Gotchen Creek waterfall. I was blocking it. Next photo below shows it. Elevation approximately 6300 feet.
Gotchen Creek waterfall. Hard to see. Had to reduce my picture definition...running out of memory.
The return trip back to my vehicle took me about 2 hours instead of 4 hours walking up.
Boy, am I beat today! But it was a very good day!
5 comments:
No Bigfoot sighting yet? Ha. Great pictures of the area. Seem like a great place to hike, Mike.
No Bigfoot sighting. Sorry. LOL. It's a great place to hike if you're up to and in shape.
Too bad you wer'nt above the treeline where you could eat without the skeeters bothering you. Then again, it ain't pretty above the treeline, lol.
Tousi
Lovely photos! Makes me miss my hikes in Colorado (I worked at the dude ranch in Clark, CO for three summers... loved it!)
Missed the hikes I had in El Dorado National Forest, west of Lake Tahoe. It was awesome! We camped out at around 8,500'. My friend and I hiked up to 9,200' or so.
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