21 miles of hiking • 4750' elevation gain • 1 night
Four years in the planning, dreaming, delaying, ... We finally did it! Looped around Spirit Lake. Nearly. As it turned out, we had two vehicles, so we shuttled the four paved miles between Windy Ridge and Independence Pass. That gave us the time to tag a number of fun peaks along the loop, and the luxury of starting and stopping under light of day. (Not to mention being able drive out of the worst of roads before dark!)
We began the day enjoying a brilliant sunrise at Windy Ridge. Not a cloud in the sky! After some coffee and a bit of breakfast, we drove to the Independence Pass trailhead and the real adventure began. This stretch, from trailhead to Boundary Trail, was new to me. Huckleberries in abundance! And a few washouts, though none too tough to get across with a little care and thought.
Norway Pass was as picturesque as ever. We continued on along the Boundary Trail, past copious fields of Fall colored huckleberries, choosing not to turn off towards Whittier this day. Soon enough, we were at Mount Tomroy, named after Tom, a fallen friend of ours who went by Roy online. This, his most favorite peak of all, was unnamed before but memorialized in his honor by PortlandHikers following his untimely death in 2015. I missed the original observation, so was quite pleased to finally get this chance.
The views from Tomroy were all they were cracked up to be! Just magnificent. Perhaps the best in the Backcountry. Three mountain goats watched us from across a small divide, as we cavorted about the mountainside, while lonely bull elk bugled plaintively farther below. From Tomroy, it's just a short hop over to Mount Margaret, the next peak on our itinerary. We'd hoped to finally establish which is higher, and our GPS units seemed to tell us it was Margaret, despite hearing reports from others that Tomroy was actually a few feet more. The mystery may continue, it seems.
The summit of Large Marge was swarming with some sort of flying termite-like creatures. Standing still only momentarily caused them to descend in hordes. We didn't stay too long. A few miles later, we arrived at the base of The Dome, our next destination. Neither of us had ever made it to the top before, so this may have been the other big highlight of the day. Again with the bugs! Yowsa... But the views were, again, simply spectacular. A little sketchy coming back down the 45° slope, covered only in dry grass, but we lived to tell about it.
Onward, the views of Saint Helens Lake just got better and better as we proceeded west. We chose to skip the climb up Coldwater Peak, as we'd both been there so often in the past and the day was wearing on while we were still only halfway around the lake. But we did enjoy second lunch at a most favored viewpoint - the saddle overlooking Saint Helens Lake. I will never, ever tire of that view!
The rest of the hike was more pedestrian in nature. After working our way up and through the rock arch, we bombed down the hill towards Harry's Ridge, and actually started encountering a few other hikers. We turned off Boundary onto the Truman Trail, and from here it was just a cruise over the rolling hummocky terrain of the Pumice Plains. Still lots of little creeks flowing freely, though the flower show had long since passed.
The last few miles dragged on for far longer than they seemed due. But the blastzone is brutal, and definitely takes a toll. We were both glad we didn't face the 4-mile paved stretch of FR99 to officially complete the entire loop on foot.
All in all, it was one of those days that will always be remembered. So glad we finally got to it! :-)
