Walks with Moss: Hall Mountain

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Hall Mountain - Spokane area

Hall Mountain – Spokane

After spending the 4th of July in Spokane my family camped at Noisy Creek Campground on Sullivan Lake. While we were camping there I made the hike up to Hall Mountain. Hall Mountain stands directly above the lake. I am not used to Eastern Washington heat, so I decided to get a very early start in order to make the summit before noon. When I woke up to the sound of thunder and rain at about 5am I decided it would be safer to sleep for another hour. I left my campsite and started my hike just before 6am. When I left the campground, the hoast was doing his first rounds of the morning. The campground host had an obnoxiously noisy diesel pick up truck and the noise of him doing his hourly rounds ruined the nature experience and scared the wild turkeys away.

I hit the trail at 6am and started hiking up in the rain. I soon got too warm so I took off my new rain pants and hiked up in shorts. Doing this caused my shorts to get very wet and at 4000 feet I began to feel cold. I ended up taking off my wet shorts and hiking up in my long underwear and rain pants. I had been worried at getting too hot on this hike but that was never really a problem. The rain finaly stopped about two hours before I reached the summit.

The lower trail is forested with small trees and bigger stumps. In the rain in the early morning hours, parts of the forest were quite gloomy. There was water available on the trail for at least the first 4 miles of the hike. I carried up lots of water because I want to get in shape for backpacking on Mount Adams later this summer.

The trail up gained elevation very slowly and I was worried that the final push to the summit was going to be very steep, butit was rather gentle. The elevation gain was evenly stretched out over the 7.5 miles. There were some disconcerting ups and downs though, and I had to regain some lost elevation few times and I had to do some uphill hiking on the way out. Hiking uphill on the way out when you are tired is a bit rough but it does give your knees a break.

The forest undergrowth consisted of a lot of the same stuff I see in the Olympics such as vanilla leaf, bear grass and boletus. But there was an orange flower in the composite family that I did not recognize. I found light pink Indian paintbrush and sagebrush in the sub-alpine meadows. I did not expect to find sagebrush up there so that was interesting to me.

It felt really good to break out of the forest gloom and into the bright sub alpine meadows. The meadows started shortly after the intersection with the Upper trail. There were some flowers in the meadows but I thought the bright neon yellow moss on the old snags to be more intersting then the flowers.

Slope on the way up

Slope on the way down

Sage Brush and "Indian Paint Brush"

Track Log, I don't have a topo map for this area but the trail was on my metroguide USA map

Sign and the trail intersection 1.8 miles from the summit

Elevation profile log

The summit was nice and the view was pretty good. Only a few clouds and patches of mist blocked the view. I was surprised to see that most of the lookout tower was still in place even though it was destroyed. I normally only find the footings of destroyed lookout towers but this tower still had its roof, footings and a lot of hardware such as hinges and insulators. There was even an old tin can in the rubble.

I found a geocache and a bench mark on the summit. My dog devoured her summit lunch and was still hungry so I know to pack more food for her on future hikes. An hour after I summated a forest service trail crew camp up the trail and then stopped to have their lunch. At about that time I decided to begin my trip back to my campsite.

I felt good as I started to hike out but I began to flag 13 miles into my hike and the last two miles out felt very long. About ½ hour before I reached my campsite the rain started again, and when I made it back to my campsite loop the host was driving around in his noisy truck. It felt like nothing had changed in campground during the 11 hours I was on the trail.

This was a long hike for me and even my doggie was tired at the end of the hike. Since it rained all day long my doggie was never in danger of overheating like she did on Grisdale. I have decided to only take my dog hiking when the weather is cool since she seems to be very susceptible to overheating. I kept my dog on her leash once I reached the ridge because she was intent on hunting pikas and I don't want my dog to disturb wildlife.

As far as wildlife goes, I smelled at least 4 bears in the forest but I did not actually see any bears. I assume they were black bears. I have been told that Grizzly bears are in the area but they have not made it to Hall Mountain yet. I saw some mountain lion scat and I heard what I think were Pikas on the ridgeline.

Time up 6 hours, time down 4 hours, summit time 1 hour.

GPS totals
15 miles round trip
3600 feet elevation gain.
My starting coordinates:
N48 47.355 W117 16.920
Trail head:
about N48 47.273 W117 16.929
Intersection between upper and lower trails:
N48 48.021 W117 13.832
Last water on the way up:
N48 47.146 W117 13.790
Summit:
N48 48.393 W117 15.368

The day after the hike I was not very sore but I was a bit tired. I know this means I am getting into good shape. I'll have to get into even better shape though if I want to climb Mount Adams in August.

During the ride home the day after my hike, I got what felt like both a MSG migrane and motion sickness at the same time. I was terribly miserable and ill. I first started feeling ill after we left Vangate. I had a cup of pop and and ice cream bar in Vantage and both might have had MSG in them. My husband drove over the mountains very fast and all the ups and downs had my ears and sinuses hurgint. The pain was to bad that when I got home I took one of the Vicoden left over from my wrist surgery. My head hurt, my sinuses hurt, the roots of my upper teeth hurt, my ears hurt, my eye hurt when they were open and I felt like I was going to throw up. I rode with my head cradeled in my hands and to my hands my head felt like it was smaller then it actually is. Also my teeth felt like they were too big for my skull. It was just awful, I can't remember the last time I was that sick. What ever it was, Vicoden killed it dead.

I think I will refuse to go on any more trips in my husbands car. He smokes in his car I always feel a bit ill after going for a ride in his car. Yesterday I had to ride in his car for over 8 hours and I think that is what set off my illness. The passenger side seat belt is starting to fall apart too so I don't think I would be safe in an accident in his car. Enough is enough!