{"id":5281,"date":"2009-07-04T02:31:22","date_gmt":"2009-07-04T02:31:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/?p=5281"},"modified":"2024-07-29T02:35:02","modified_gmt":"2024-07-29T02:35:02","slug":"observation-peak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/2009\/07\/04\/observation-peak\/","title":{"rendered":"Observation Peak"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had no hiking companion available yesterday, but I was determined not to waste such a gorgeous 4th of July. I wanted a hike with views so I could take advantage of the clear skies, but I also wanted to see wildflowers. So I settled on Observation Peak, in the Trapper Creek Wilderness. I was not disappointed: I got my fill of both wildflowers and views!<\/p>\n

The first bit of trail had quite a bit of bunchberry blooming along it.<\/p>\n

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That quickly disappeared and the next section of trail had hundreds and hundreds of glacier lilies. Beautiful!<\/p>\n

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After 1.1 miles, across from the trail to Sister Rocks, I checked out the boulder viewpoint, which has great views of Mt. Rainier….<\/p>\n

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…and Mt. Adams.<\/p>\n

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After this point, the trail descends, which means you have to climb back up it on the way out! It was also at this point that I encountered swarms of mosquitoes. This I was not expecting! I put on my headnet, and put on bug spray, which seemed barely to deter them. So I just kept moving and swatting, moving and swatting.<\/p>\n

At the junction with the Big Hollow trail is a little campsite with a sign that says Berry Camp. Cute! I can only assume this name comes from the fact that there are lots of huckleberries along this trail. But not now, of course. Give it six weeks. Yum!<\/p>\n

Just before the summit I could see the beargrass blooming in abundance on the slope above me. Hooray! I love bear grass! There was quite a lot of it blooming up there and it is at its peak.<\/p>\n

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As if that weren’t enough, the views are tremendous! Good ol’ familiar Mt. Hood to the south. To the east and north Mt. Adams, Mt. Rainier, and Mt. St. Helens. A huge swath of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, and of course the Trapper Creek Wilderness, lay before me. Green trees and blue skies and white snowy mountains. Glorious!<\/p>\n

Mt. St. Helens…
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Mt. Rainier…
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Mt. Adams…
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Mt. Hood…
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Lots of beargrass!
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Unfortunately, the bug situation was so bad that I couldn’t linger at the summit to enjoy the views. After 10 minutes of view enjoyment and pictures, I had to start heading down, eating my lunch as I hiked. I hate doing this, but I was hungry, and standing still for even a few moments to eat meant being swarmed by bugs.<\/p>\n

On the way down I explored the side trail to the “secondary summit” that Sullivan describes in his book. It climbs up a little ridge and has views of the three Washington volcanoes, pretty much the same view as the summit had.<\/p>\n

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I had encountered no one along the trail on the way up. On the way back down I encountered a group of about half a dozen people, a couple who looked woefully under-prepared for the sunny buggy day, two backpackers, and a lone man. Every one of them told me they envied my mosquito headnet. I was once in the position of envier and after some particularly bad mosquito hikes a few years ago I went out and spent $5 of the net at Joe’s and it was the best $5 I ever spent!<\/p>\n

The hike out was uneventful. I sped down the mountain, glad for the shade of the forest on such a hot day. My car was sitting in direct sun and it was hotter than hades inside. I stopped at Government Mineral Springs on the way home, just because I had never been there before. I took a quick sip of the water. Blech!<\/p>\n

I think I have about 100 bites on my arms and legs. It’s like having chicken pox again. But it was still a great hike.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had no hiking companion available yesterday, but I was determined not to waste such a gorgeous 4th of July.<\/p>\n

Continue readingObservation Peak<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[187,259,161],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5281"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5281"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5282,"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5281\/revisions\/5282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}