Green River and Goat Mountain Hike

7/28/11

Map of our Hike

Our tent at the Green River Horse Camp, technically only for stock parties, but no one complained.

As we were making final preparations, this guy landed on the bird book in my lap, allowing for a quick one-handed photo opp. I was ecstatic about the results!

Pre-hike portrait

The common garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis) is the only snake species known to live in this area post-eruption. We saw this little guy right as we were starting out on the trail (going the wrong way). We walked past him a second time as we retraced our steps to begin in the correct direction. Yay for maps and compasses!

The hike began by walking down stream along the Green River through an area that had been heavily logged in the past. Despite being the worst scenery of the hike, according to the guidebook, it was quite nice.

Thinking we were fairly isolated, we were surprised to cross a road about a mile into our hike and further surprised to encounter people on said road. They drove in to see this waterfall, a short way down the trail. It was much bigger in person.

The scenery opened up to rolling meadows between groves of trees.

Underexposing this flower preserved the details of the petals. I also like the soft focus yellow flowers in the background.

At the edge of the meadow, a trail sign indicated that our trail was "more difficult." (It was almost totally flat and well-marked. More difficult than what, I wondered.)

Sub-alpine Lupine - these flowers are just opening and made awesome heart shapes as their top petal unfurled.

Gnarly spider that, along with all of his brethren, insisted on making his web across the trail (meaning we inadvertently tore down a million spider webs with our faces, fun!)

Mildly smarter than your average spider, this web was just above head height and survived our passing.

We camped about four miles in for the first night. There was this area in the forest that was great for cooking and sitting and even had a cache of wood tucked into the hollow of a tree (it looked abandoned, otherwise I would have felt bad about using it). The tripod afforded a self-portrait - well worth the extra weight!

Backpacker kitchen

To the untrained eye, this may appear to be mush; however, it was truly delish. Cheesy rice and textured vegetable protein taco meat. Next time we will make a point to visit a Taco Bell prior to leaving and there we will acquire several hot sauce packages that would make this meal even better!

We decided to use a large flat spot near the river for sleeping since there wasn't a good spot near the "kitchen." (It looks light in the picture only because I used the tripod to take a long exposure.)

 7/29/11
We awoke to a warm tent despite being mostly in the shade and ate a nice BK of cereal and dehydrated milk, plus hot choc, yum! 

Robert licked his bowl clean.

The trail in this section was a bit arduous. Fallen trees caused the trail to be rerouted so many times that the way was a bit confusing. This one in particular was so large that you couldn't climb over it without de-packing AND it was so long that a reroute wasn't feasible. Instead, there was a little crawl space underneath it, necessitating dropping completely to hands and knees. I misjudged the height and whacked the tripod pretty hard on the trunk, but it seemed no worse for the wear.

I got Robert to help me take the tripod out mid-hike for this picture. It was so dark in the understory that a picture was impossible without it. I liked this fallen tree with exposed roots because it is supporting at least four baby trees in the dirt between its now-airborne roots.

Pictures abound in this section of the trail. This slug was giant. We are fairly certain that he is a Ariolimax columbianus, or pacific banana slug, which by the way is the second-largest terrestrial slug species in the world! They can be bright yellow with dark brown spots, like an overripe banana, and grow up to 25 cm in length, so really our friend is on the small side (about 8cm) and kind of boring in color. We liked him though.

More wildlife? Yes, indeed! This toad was quite a good sport. He hopped under a log and hung out. He just didn't like when you made a shadow over him.

Bridge over clear brook and forest beyond

The trail turned sharply to gain some elevation and suddenly we walked out of the forest into a great view.

You just had to be there. (This, my friends, is a cougar track.)

As the trail climbed "steadily" (I would say relentlessly), we crossed multitudinous streams lined by moss-covered rocks.

At lunch Robert became narcoleptic. (Another interpretation: Robert is practicing chewing with his eyes closed. My brother, Ben, is about to take a 1200km bike ride from Paris, France to Brest, France and back. Advice he was recently given was to close his eyes at any non-critical times, like while chewing. Good luck, Ben!!)

Originally mistaken for a potato, this fungus made me want to learn how to identify edible wild mushrooms so we could add them to our back country meals.

Are we there yet? I am attempting to increase my good karma by picking up trail trash like an ancient Squirt soda can.

Avalanche Lily (Erythronium montanum) - became common as we approached Vanson Lake

Eventually we reached Vanson Lake, where we camped the second night. It was full to bursting with black newts. They swam in such an awesome way.

Here is another newt picture. Check out the yellow-orange underbelly of the little dude in the bottom left of the frame.

Beautiful Vanson Lake

Did I mention that I brought a tripod? Mmm, ramen noodle soup. (Don't mind our terribly unruly fire. All the wood was wet and uncooperative, but we prevailed.)

7/30/11
 Packed up camp and did the breakfast thing and headed up to scale Vanson Peak.

Some non-advantageous bushwhacking led us to the top of Vanson Peak. (We took the trail down.) Mt. Rainier presides over the background.

Mt. Rainier, our new favorite mtn (visible from Seattle on those rare clear days, she is an elusive lover)

Vanson Peak is pretty in her own right and there I am on top of her

The next section of trail was marked by lots of snowy bits. We lost the trail occasionally, but never for too long. (Robert is descending Vanson Peak; our packs are stashed at the trail fork.)

Our reward for trudging through the snow: Deadman's Lake! It was shallow and sandy-bottomed and slightly sun-warmed...perfect for a swim.

Doesn't the water look delightful? I got really far out without getting my shirt wet, save for the elbows, oops. (Robert refused to brave the water so far out.)

We waited for previous campers to leave and then stole the premier campsite. It was right on the sandy beach and windy, which is a good thing in mosquito territory! I was in charge of the fire and Robert made us a ramen snack.

All the trees around here were festooned with moss

Standing on the beach, looking back at our tent. We put our tent in the same place as the previous couple; they had cut fresh branches and made a little pad out of them for under the tent. Why? Any ideas? (We haven't seen it before, but came across it again later.)

 7/31/11
Our breakfast ritual was truncated today because the blasted mosquitoes were so thick. Robert claims to have killed 10 on my head in one swat!

I was in no mood for taking pictures and regretted stopping even for this picture as mosquitoes swarmed me from all sides.

Bird ID? We think he was a juvenile, maybe a blue grouse?

Cascades Penstemon (penstemon serrulatus) and sky

Robert

Orange Agoseris - don't you just love flower names? I will never remember it.

Columbia lily on the left, Subalpine lupines on the right, North crater of Mount St. Helens in the background

We didn't know we were looking at Mount St. Helens until we complained that she was hiding from us to a couple we met on the trail. They assured us that Mt. St. Helens was visible - oh yea, she blew her top in 1980. From this vantage, she just looks like a snowy ridge.

Although it is next to impossible to tell in the picture, Robert is pointing to two distant volcanoes. From this little knoll, a total of FIVE stratovolcanoes: Mt. Rainier, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams and Mt. Jefferson.

We ate lunch on the knoll with some new found trail friends, Doug and Patty. They were already sitting in the only stand of trees large enough to provide any amount of shade and they were willing to share. We chatted with them until they moved along and quickly did so ourselves. The temperature and barometric pressure were dropping and the mosquitoes were brutal. We opted to hike all the way out today instead of sleeping out one last night. Dividing a 20 miles hike into 5 days of hiking wasn't as easy as it seemed - we wanted to go farther each day than there were miles to go! We ate our last backcountry meal in the front country and even managed a hot shower with river water.