10.5 miles of hiking • 4250' elevation gain •
Got a really late start, not arriving at the Aldrich Butte trailhead until after 11am. The skies were broken, and it wasn't raining here. (Poured buckets as I was driving through Camas!) Seemed like it just might turn out to be a good sky-watching day. :-)
Headed up the old access road, turning towards Aldrich Butte, before coming across a fresh landslide. Not much of an obstacle, other than its slurry-like consistency which held absolutely no weight. Yuck. Then I hooked onto a ridgeline trail, that entirely avoids further backroad walking, over the PCT. The yellow maples just lit up portions of the forest! Seems like the kiosk at the cutoff up to Heartbreak Ridge has turned into something of a bulletin board. :-/
After the grueling stretch up to Two Chiefs, I decided to take a new old way that avoided the talus scramble. (Have to advise against doing this, unless you're fully confident of your own self-rescue skills!) Portions were pretty overgrown, and in others there was a maze of game trails. In fact, found three deer legs along the way.
Eventually got back onto the main trail well above the talus, and then topped out shortly. There's a new marker-feature on top! Wandered out to the overlook, and soaked in some magnificent and rapidly changing views for a short while, just as a series of potent flurries blew in. Wow! This is why we climb mountains!!!
After killing about an hour wandering the summit area, I realized I had less than two hours before sunset. Yikes! Got in gear, and quickly headed towards the shortest path down -- Westway to Cedar Mountain. Boy oh boy, without Vitamin I rushing this descent would've been intolerable. Westway was its usual slip-n-slide self. And though I'd stayed relatively dry until now, the unmaintained route over to Cedar Mountain just drenched me. Yes, we're having fun now!
The sun set right around the time I was at the high point on Cedar, and darkness fell pretty quick as I tried not to avoid controlled falls down the muddy razor ridge. Startled what I believe were a pair of falcons at one point. I can report that the anti-gravity tree is still there, too. Finally, the roar of Cedar Creek rose up out of the valley below.
Tried to cross on the "bridge" just downstream from where the trail goes. But it was slick as slug slime, and a fall here, dark as it'd become, wouldn't be cool. So, being entirely soaked anyway, I just decided to walk across the creek. Why not?
Circling around the backside of Aldrich Butte, still without artificial light, something crashed through the forest about 50 yards off-trail. Holy crap... Okay, I paused long enough to snatch a flashlight, and got back to the jeep a bit before 6pm. This was the perfect hike for this particular day.
Mountainkat
November 12, 2015
Reading this, you had quite the adventure, beside the snow and dramatic scenery. Good times!