Barclay, Eagle.. and Fishing 6/5/2010

I had spent the night before this trip pondering whether we should just take a hike, or spend the money on a pair of 1 day licenses to get some fishing in. Bottom line: I was dying to get a line wet and decided I should head back up to Barclay Lake and introduce Cassandra to the ominous Mt. Baring that resides on the south side. I don’t know if the lake is stocked or not but I figure if it is, there should be fish getting dumped in pretty soon and I want in on that first round.

We woke up around 8am, packed up, and swung into the the local market to grab some last minute items, including our licenes. Unfortunately we had some trouble getting out of the house and had done basically no preperation the night before, so it was nearly 9:30 by the time we actually hit the road. The only thing I don't like about Barclay is the drive to the trail head. It takes about an hour from North Seattle and frankly, I'm usually too excited to want to wait that long. I hike to get out into the woods, not sit in the car. But I digress...

Hit the trail about 11 with a rather chilly wind in our face, even though it was around 50 degrees and clear outside. Near balmy for mid-March on the west side! I was surprised to see that just a few steps in we noticed snow spots on either side of the trail. My last hike to Barclay about a month ago was on a cold, rainy day and there wasn't even a hint of snow anywhere. Apparently old man winder was insistant on getting one last cheap shot in this year.

A little over a mile in we came to what I call the "Stubborn Trees Doorway." Somehow a pair of trees on either side of the trail have decided that the best place to grow is on top of what I'd assume are old ice age boulderrs. As you can guess that doesn't lead to much nutritional value for the root structure, but as I've been shown time and time again; Nature Prevails. Somehow these tree roots have managed to grown over the top of these rocks and find theier wasy down into the dirt. The amount of time this took, and the struggle it must've been for these trees to survive at all is pretty amazing.

Just around the corner is the Barlcay Creek Crossing. Basically it's your typical woond log bridge, but pretty to look at nonetheless :)

We came into the lake around noon, feeling great and excited to fish. We could hear some people sitting down by the water, which is always disappointing to me but hey, gotta share the woods a little I guess. What was really disturbing was how frozen over the lake was! When I hiked in to Barclay a month ago probably only a third of the lake was frozen over, all in the shadow of Baring Mountain. This time about 90% of it was frozen! Make that two last cheap shots for old man winter... and so much for our fishing endeaver. Damn! Oh well. The kids that had been testing the echo of Baring (which really is pretty impressiver) had left so at least we had a little peace and quiet for a snack and some water.

I soon realized that driving all the way out here to sit by a frozen lake wasn't really what I had in mind, and began persuading Cassandra to make the trip a little more adventourous and see about continuing our hike up to Eagle Lake. I'd never been there but had heard there is an old cabin on the shore, and that the climb is steep and trail-less. Flags only! She must've had the same thought I did because it only took a few more handfuls of trail mix and half a tuna sandwich to get the official fiance green light. All she needed was a quick stop by the toilet and we'd be on our way.

Now we'd noticed a sign at the trailhead mentioning something about the toilet being maintained by one volunteer trail group or another and we figured because it was such an easy hike there must've been an outhouse at the top. I didn't ever really bother looking for it since there's always a tree nearby, but had noticed the sign for it at the east end of the lake. Hearing that the way up to Eagle was marked with flags near the toilet I figured what the hell, maybe I'll check it out. Well, it wasn't exactly an outhouse that waited for us. Sometimes pictures simply speak for themselves..

Relieved and ready for what may lie ahead we headed up the mountian. And I mean UP. The combination of no trail and gaining at least 1800 feet in just under two miles made this portion of the hike worth working up a sweat for, to say the least. It was definitely a little nerve racking at first because it takes a whilte before the flags even start showing up and you're basically headed out into the woods blind.

So being the experience woodsman I am, I pulled out my newly acquired iPhone, started up a GPS hiking app, saw that we should head northeast, spun the compass that way and prayed we weren't about to end up a news story. It was only a few minutes in though when we came to the "Entering Wild Sky Wilderness" sign and a few more flags starting show up along the 'trail'. The problem was there were orange flags, and there were pink flags. We figured they both followed roughly the same path and as long as we were in the vicinity of one of them, we were doing ok.

This thought process worked great untill we began running into snow that was steadily becoming less patchy, and more of a ground covering. Cassandra had made the unfortunate decision to skip the waterproof shoes that day and soon enough her feet were getting pretty cold, and leaning towards wet. It was also about that time the flags were becoming scarce again and the snow was making the trail harder to follow than ever. Oliver however absolutely LOVED the snow. I think it reminded him of his puppy days, since it snowed in Seattle just weeks after we got him.

I wanted to continue on regardlesss but Cassandra wisely persuaded me that it probably wasn't safe, especially considering the entire hike had been a two hour goat scramble straight up a hillside, and we still ahd God knows how much farther to go. I still argue we were no more than 500 yards away from the ridge, but let's not talk about that. It's still a bit of a sore subject. We decided (or rather Cassandra convinced me) that it really was better to scamper our was out on to an old rock slide, take a breather, and just enjoy the view for a bit.

This breather turned out to be a fantastic idea as the climb back down proved to be just as worthy an adversary as the climb was up. Between the terrain and the dog it's really a miracle I only suffered one minor tweak of the ankle. And you'd think that finding the way back down would be easier too since we'd just come up the hill, but boy did things look different. Turns out the flags are designed to be easy to see when you're going up... not so much on the way down. Between the compass and the everlasting view of Mt. Baring we would have done fine, but that wasn't good enough for Oliver. He put his nost to the ground and ensured we slid our way back down on pretty much the exact same path we went up. Before I knew it we were passing the same tree with bark missing on one side, and bing over the same log I had to help pull Cassandra up (as well as lift Oliver over)

Our attempt at conquering the wilderness had taken quite a bit longer than expected and it was nearing 4:30pm by now. The sun had dipped behing Mt. Baring and dusk was soon approaching so we high tailed it out of there, gettign back to the car in about 40 minutes.

As we drove back down the dirt road towards Index, knowing we bought fishing licenses and were yet to use them became more and more bothersome for me. Once again: iPhone to the resuce! We still had a good 2-3 hours of daylight and I planned to use every minute of them. We headed towards Gold Bar and Cassandra started doing Google searches like mad for lakes inthe area. The phone battery was getting seriously low by this point, about 20%, and if we were going to get directions we needed them in a hurry. The Google Map showd a place called Wagner Lake that was right near Gold Bar, open to the public, and more importantly year round. DONE! We bailed off on Woods Creek Rd and needled our way back into what appeared to be a scarce residential area. This made me nervous. There aren't a whole lot of public lakes in residential areas to my knowledge. I was expecting to hit a dirt road at the end of the last left turn. Yeah, not so much. Istead it led us to a dead end that was either a really nice house or some kind of resort. Figuring maybe the directions were wrong, we follwed a road we'd spotted that traversed the back side of the lake. Maybe there was a public dock on that side? And again we were lead through a series of turns and driveways that led nowhere.

Exceptionally frustrated at this point we both said 'screw it'. It was late, I was beyond cranky (thank you Cassandra for allowing me to vent through a series of yelling and incoherent mumbling. You're an angel) and we were both ready to be home.

Hooking back up with Hwy 2 we figured it'd be faster to take 522 back to Seattle. Never should have done that. Withing a couple miles of Gold Bar we saw an exit for Echo Lake, and again tried valiantly to get a hook out, even if it was only going to be for an hour, and probably n the dark. So once again we led ourselves back into a series of turns, and once again we didn't see anything resembling a dock. We were very clearly circling the lake however, and on our second loop we found the dock. And the locked gate in front of it with a sign proclaiming "This Gate Locked During the Hours of Darkness".

Flabbergasted I stopped the car, took a deep breath and pronounced "That's it. I'm done. Cassandra simply smiled and said to me sweetly "ok, that's good" and we headed home.

All in all a highly adventurous, if even a little frustrating day. We've since vowed to make the tripo back to Eagle Lake soon, this time armed with overnight packs and camping gear. We will get to that lake! I will sit on the porch of that cabin! And I WILL catch a fish! SO HELP ME GOD I WILL!

-BCnO

A Cast of Characters 4/24/2010

March 6th was a day to remember. It was the first weekend day of the spring that wasn’t a wet one. Not only that, it was sunny and pushing 60 degrees, ideal weather for hiking. I wish I could tell you we knew ahead of time the weather would be so wonderful and made an early start of it, but socializing with Kyle and Rachel the night before took precedence. Oddly it always does, and even odder it is seemingly impossible to make it to bed until after 3am… Good times!!

Nonetheless we were out of the house by ten with low consciousness, but high spirits. I’d heard a fair amount about the view from Rattlesnake Ledge from a co-worker, and was eager to see it for myself. A thirty minute drive on I-90 revealed I wasn’t the only one eager to take in its views. The parking lot was PACKED. Granted, it was around 11am, but needless to say I was a little discouraged to see the area swarming with high schoolers, middle aged couples and their near toddler aged children, a few brave seniors and everything in between.

Strike One.

My disdain must have made the transition to an audible groan because Cassandra was suddenly breaking my thought track and telling me “if it’s this popular, the views must be pretty impressive.” Alright… I’ll believe you. She usually knows best anyway, but I always find myself frustrated when I see other people on MY trails, in MY woods disrupting MY trips into nature. That’s not too self-centered right?

I slipped out of the car to let Oliver out of the back while Cassandra ran a quick inventory on the backpack. Sweatshirt: Check. Water: Check. Sunglasses: Check. Camera…. Camera…. Camera… Damn. No camera to speak of. But wait! We’re saved! Shannon had mistakenly left her camera in Cassandra’s glove box! This might not be such an unfortunate oversight after all! We excitedly rummaged through papers, spare napkins and other assorted junk and came up with the miracle camera. We lifted it proudly from its plastic sheath like King Arthur pulled Excalibur from that wretched stone, slid open the viewfinder, turned on the power button and prepared for a photo extravaganza of trees, moss, wildlife and stunning views…. And were greeted only with a flashing red symbol and a “change the battery” message mocking our pitiful attempt at pseudo photo journalism.

Strike two.

A simple shrug and a choice word or two (tastefully omitted for the sake of mother dearest) was all it took for us to get over the slap in the face from modern technology and proceed to the trail head. What started out as a concrete path quickly became an actual dirt trail and proved to be just as crowded as the cars in the parking lot had predicted. Now mind you, I really don’t have that big of an issue being around people, but when you’re constantly twisting a shoulder to avoid people coming down and making moves equivalent to that of an Indy driver to get around slow pokes the issue becomes a little more serious. Throw a beagle into the mix that insists on smelling everything that moves and you’ve got a down right problem. But hey, whadda ya gonna do. We came all the way out here and we sure as hell weren’t about to turn back. We actually started having a little fun whispering to each other little observations about the people sharing the trail with us.

Allow me to pause on this topic and make a point. What is with the recent trend of hikers using poles? Now don’t get me wrong, hiking poles can be a huge asset and save knees and ankles from abusive grades, but I hardly think it’s necessary for all the REI whores in their early thirties on a barely two mile hike up to Rattlesnake Ledge. You aren’t exactly traversing the Adirondacks here. Leave your poles, your Powerbars, and your hydration gum that you paid too much for at home. We get it. Stop trying to prove to the rest of the world how much of an outdoorsman you are. Everyone can tell you’re faking it because you still have your collar shirt tucked into your specialty Mojave cargo hiking pants. And now back to our story…

The three of us (including little Oliver) continued the climb and after about 45 minutes stopped to take a quick breather, and allow a group of obvious tourists that weren’t so keen on trail etiquette to gain a little ground ahead of us when we were amazed to see someone actually running up the trail. And I’m not talking about a 10 year old kid with his backpack bouncing over his shoulders. This guy was shirtless, with running shorts and shoes, and water bottles strapped to his hands and moving up the hill. I’m not sure I could have beaten him in a foot race if I were on flat ground. But then again, I’m hardly an Olympic sprinter. Our mouth must’ve been hanging pretty wide, and our eyes bugging out because a passerby snickered and let us know “that’s the third time that guy has passed me already.” Needless to say I was shocked. I’m in pretty decent shape and love my morning exercise, but really? Who does that? It’s a special person that wakes up in the morning and decides a brisk jog won’t cut it and they need to run UP a mountain at least three times. Wow. I can’t help but admire someone like that just a little bit. On the other hand I can’t shake the nagging remnants in the back of my mind from some comedian that said “You know that health nut? The guy that never drinks, never smokes, eats nothing but carrots, exercises every day and sleeps ten hours a night? Still gonna die.”

Another hour and we peaked. Up until then I had some glimmer of hope that maybe it wouldn’t be quite so crowded at the top. Why I thought that is beyond me, but maybe it was nothing more than a good source of motivation. The ledge itself is HUGE. It must be at least 80’ by 60’ and all of it packed with hikers sharing the same thought we were: Lunch with a nice view. Can’t say I blame them, the view was nice. Rattlesnake Lake below seemed like forever and you could really get a good look at it because the edge of the ledge is pretty much a straight drop. We found ourselves a nice little patch of rock and sat down to enjoy our Filet Mign-PB&J and take in the sights around us.

We got a little more than we bargained for.

The first thing that caught our attention was the teenager sitting in front of us. She had on a tank top, jeans, sunglasses, nothing too out of the ordinary. However what she was doing was anything but. Here she sat, having hiked two miles up an insanely crowded trail to a gorgeous viewpoint, only to stare at her hands as she painted her nails. And it’s not so much the activity itself that astounds me, it’s the forethought that must’ve gone into it. Much like the runner, who exactly wakes up and thinks “today I’m going to paint my nails at the top of a mountain.” Innocent enough I guess but… what?!
Second was the photographer with a death wish. Now that one actually made sense. He had what looked like a very expensive camera, with at least an 8 inch lens on it which he was using to get spectacular shots of the surrounds hillsides, I’m sure. I found myself wondering how necessary it was for him to be standing with one feet teetering over the edge of an 800 foot drop. I realize I’m just a tad bit sensitive to this issue, not doing so well with heights in my own life (hell a step ladder makes my toes start to tingle) but frankly I can’t imagine taking pictures of mountains in the distance would require you to get 4 inches closer to get that perfect shot.

But you know, I suppose neither of those is such a big deal. Not really hurting anyone else, unlike our last offender to the norm. Evil Knievel with the camera had finally moved away from the edge, Oliver had found a comfy piece of ground to settle into, and I was growing more and happy with our decision to make the trek, regardless of the crowds. Pretty sure the sun beaming down on us had a lot to do with that last one.

And then it happened. There’s always one. Anywhere you go these days, there’s always one. You just can’t escape it. It’s become a never ending nuisance. Churches, movie theaters, libraries, restaurants, and now mountain tops. Like an ice pick to the back of the neck a voice crept up on me not so subtlety.

“Hey dude, guess you’re not home or picking up or whatever but uh… just thought it’d be cool to tell you where I’m at. You know that lake off I-90 we go fishing at sometimes, and we look up and see all those teeny tiny people standing up at the top of the mountain? Yeah… well… I’m up here. It’s pretty cool. Anyway we’re headed outta here pretty soon. Should be back around four-thirty prolly. We should hook up and do something. Alright... uh… later, I guess.”
Ugh. Shut up. Please. I’m begging you. Just shut up. For the love of everything holy shut up! Do us all a favor and designate yourself the mayor of shutty-town. I’m not unrealistic, and I don’t expect everyone to turn off their cell phone on one of the most popular hikes near Seattle, but really? You really have to make sure everyone can hear you yelling into your buddy’s voice mail? And what’s more, do you really think your buddy cares that much? I realize the view is pretty impressive up here compared to the second story window of your frat house, but are you that excited that you couldn’t wait until you’re off the ledge? You’re hooking up with whats-his-name around 4:30 anyway! What will you talk about now that you’ve spilled the beans about your day?

Strike three, four, five, six, seven (jackass on the cell phone deserves three of his own)

End of the inning. And pretty much the end of our hike. We took in some more countryside, plowed our way back down to the lake, and enjoyed some much needed quiet time in the grass on the shore. To the lady with the Blue Heeler that had a long tail and was obsessive with his ball: You pretty much have the coolest dog ever.

Please folks, take it from me, when you go out on a hike leave your stupid phones off. Is it really that important? Mine is almost literally attached to the skin on my hip any other time but nobody cares that you made it to the top. So did the hundred other people around you. Get over it.

Until next time…

Return to the Wild 4/10/2010

The wilderness. A true place of comfort for me, and a place I’ve been notably absent from for quite some time. No more! I made the decision a few weeks ago that this summer will be the year I return to the outdoors to hike, fish, camp, and even take a few backpacking trips deep into the wild. But where to go? That’s always the problem I’ve had. I always just kind of figured that being in Seattle there wasn’t a whole lot of opportunity to really get out into the woods without driving for hours upon end or taking a ferry. In the future I should probably do a little research before I make such assumptions… So a few days of research and a few dollars later I was ready to conquer the great outdoors! New packs, new shoes, new fishing rod and new trails all waiting for a good break in.
I knew I needed to find a lake with easy hiking access (let’s face it I’m not in the same shape as the last time I was an outdoor enthusiast) and hopefully something alive in the water to make things more interesting. So again I turned to the trusty ol’ internet, and a few books I had on loan, and decided Barclay Lake was the place to be. Just over 2 miles in, supposedly great scenery and a lake that just might have a few fish in it.
I bailed out of the city alone on an early, drizzly morning with a full day pack, a full stomach and of course my trusty outdoor companion Oliver for a day of adventure. After all, if you’re basically a reborn novice at backwoods hiking it’s best to do it alone right? I must admit I was a little nervous about the idea. But determined to catch myself some dinner I pushed my nerves aside and found my way to the trailhead four miles up a dirt road just past mile post 42 on the Stevens Pass Hwy near Index.
Well thank heavens I had brought some trail reports and some directions from the Washington Trails Association website (wta.org) because as soon as I got out of the car I noticed three different trails leading off into the trees. One of these reports mentioned the trail “started off down into an old clear cut” so hoping for the best I took the trail that went down. When they say on ‘old clear cut’ they aren’t kidding. It must’ve been 40-50 years old because there’s no evidence of it now other than some stumps lining the trail. Not that I want to spend time criticizing the accuracy of the report or anything, because honestly I was just happy to be out in some fresh air. And boy oh boy was Oliver loving it too. I couldn’t make his leash long enough! You’d think he’d never smelled a bush before!


Oliver settled down soon enough and we were really trekking along, hell bent on finding a lake. As we pushed on I recalled some wise words the old man had given me back in our Pasayten expeditions: You have to almost make yourself look around while you’re hiking. It’s really easy to just get stuck looking at the trail so you don’t trip, but then you miss have the scenery”. I started spending more time enjoying the moss on trees, natures consummation of the clear cut stumps, the distant white noise of Barclay Creek and the whole process that was going on around me. Never did I appreciate my fathers advice more than when the trees to my left suddenly disappeared leaving a gorgeous viewpoint of… well some mountain.
A few pictures later we were back on the trail and a foggy mist started rolling in around us. Nothing blinding, but enough that I couldn’t see more than a hundred yards or so from where I was, and the drizzle that had been threatening all morning was steadily becoming more of a rain. “No way” I thought to myself. “Come hell or high water I am getting to that lake, I am catching a fish, and I’m GOING TO ENJOY IT.” The God’s must have given up because the rain lasted only a few minutes and returned to it’s drizzle right about the time I came to the Barclay Creek crossing. The directions I had said it was about halfway to the lake, which made sense because I’d been pounding the trail for 40 minutes or so. The crossing is nothing more than your typical trail carved log. Built to be functional without taking away any of the nostalgia of the woods. Oliver was not such a fan. For being an adventurous dog he wanted nothing to do with crossing over a log with water below. After a little coaxing he figured the best solution was to just get across the thing as fast as canine-ly possible. This would have been fine with me except that the rain had made things a little slippery. White knuckled with Oliver’s leash in one hand and the rail on the other I shuffled my way across, thankful to be dry at the other end.

Oliver did me a favor though because his hesitancy to cross gave me the opportunity to pull out my directions which indicated the trail turned “sharply to the right immediately after the crossing”. Not exactly. The trail in fact split with one well beaten path leading straight ahead and a more rugged option switchbacking to follow the creek upstream. Looking back now my thought it “of course you follow the stream up when you’re going to a lake” but we’ll just put that in the bank of lessons learned from almost getting lost. That’s a file that’s growing rapidly I assure you.
To my surprise less than 10 minutes later I caught a hint of water through the trees. It didn’t look like creek water, but the smooth topcoat of a lake rippling with the rain. Thinking the crossing was only halfway I began to doubt my decision to take the switchback but figured either way I was going to get a line wet so what’s the difference. As I approached the lake shore however it became abundantly clear that this was Barclay Lake. A little over 11 acres in size it drastically submits to Mt. Baring, who’s rocky face towers over the lake into the clouds. It stretches directly from the south side of the water nearly 2500 ft straight up, staring ominously at a poor little novice hiker and his dog like me as if to say “Go ahead. Just try to climb me. I dare you”. Not today Mr. Baring, not today… (I validated my excuse with an "I’m just here to fish" reasoning that seemed to work out for me)

The lake itself was mostly clear of ice, with just a thin layer remaining in the sun parched shadow of Mt.Baring. It looked like the perfect opportunity for an early season hiker to wake the senses of winterized fish with a brightly colored rooster tail. After the first few nightmare casts I regained my touch and before I knew it had spent a good 40 minutes or so throwing in line after line without so much as a nibble.
I’d been staring longingly at the pieces of the south shore that didn’t have frozen water in front of it the whole time, admiring how quickly the water deepend. “Gotta be fish there! They’re just hiding under the ice!” I reeled on in and spelunked my way around to the south end only to meet up with the creek that descended from Eagle (or Stone) lake and fed into Barclay. A bit muddy, and lacking any stepping stones to cross I settles on a sandy delta surrounded by yellow glacier water. I only made it about 10 casts in before I came to the conclusion I wasn’t going to catch anything here except the bottom, which I was quickly becoming an expert at. Once again I picked up my rod and headed back to the north end, hoping to find that sweet spot.
I hadn’t gotten a quarter of the way there when I noticed a small wooden “toilet” sign and a flag or two headed up the hillside. I had read about Eagle Lake in my research, another two miles of grunt hiking straight up the hill with no trail, but that the lake was three times the size of Barclay and the fishing was a lot better.
It only took me about 30 seconds of pondering before I started the slow, muddy trudge up the hill… and only another 30 seconds before I decided that totally alone, on my first hike out, in the rain, and with limited daylight it probably wasn’t the best idea to attempt a trail-less adventure into the Wild Sky Wilderness. Not today Eagle Lake, not today.
Feeling a little defeated, but with head held high I returned to my fishing spot confident that I could get those tricky fish under the ice by putting a bobber on and letting it drift on out. I threw some power bait on, cinched a bobber on the line and cast a few yards out with the bail open and sat down to enjoy a few bites of PB&J. My plan worked perfectly. Before I knew it the line was halfway out in the lake, steadily make its way towards the ice and I was positive I’d start to feel something before too long.And then the rain came. And with it a change in wind direction. I’d been sitting for 20 minutes watching everything go perfectly (and watching for flying sand as Oliver dug himself a bed to lie in directly behind me) only to watch my bobber change direction and come swimming back at me. Foiled again!

Another pair of casts proved two things: The wind wasn’t changing, and the rain was determined to stay. :Good enough for one day” I thought. Oliver was looking pretty wet and starting to get antsy, and I probably couldn’t have looked much better. We turned tail (or is it turned trail?) and made way back to civilization. Nature proving to me the whole time that everything I admired looking at so much on the way in wasn’t so admirable with mud caked shoes and a dog that was damn sick of having wet fur.
Wet, muddy and a bit chilly we returned to the car in record time. Oliver of course made quick work of dirtying up my passenger seat by jumping in before I could towel him off. One dirty dog, one dirty seat and one pair of dirty pants were all I had to show for my first woods expedition in several years. But I’d survived. And really, other than a guaranteed dinner with gills, that’s pretty much all I could ask for. Another day Barclay, another day…