Walks with Moss: Capitol Peak via North Rim, Rock Candy and Mount Molly

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Capitol Peak via North Rim, Rock Candy and Mount Molly

My track in google earth

Rocky Trail

Mount Rainier, radio tower and Mount Adams

(towers on the Peak)

This Capitol Peak is in the Capital Forest outside of Olympia. This is a working forest, that means that is it very ugly compared to the national park or national forest wilderness areas. But it is low elevation so can be a good alternative when the real mountains are snowbound.

This was my second attempt at this route. I waited until the weather was forecast was "mostly sunny" so I could see the views.. I did not see much sunlight and I got cold in the breeze, but at least it was not cloudy. I started my hike at 9am and finished at 4pm. My average moving speed was 2.4 MPH. My goal was to find my way to Capitol Peak and back before sunset and then take my kids to a potlock. I met my goal today.

I parked about a mile above the rock candy entrance and seem to have started my hike on the North Rim Trail. Some of the trail signs seem to be wrong, even some of the road signs were wrong, so it is hard to know for sure what trails and roads I was on. In this part of the Capitol Forest ORV’s are allowed and the trail is not every nice for walking on. There are huge ruts and mud puddle to be negotiated and my right ankle was not pleased.

I avoided Sundays mistake and did not have to climb Rock Candy Mountain. But to get to the Capitol Peak I had to hike up over a shoulder of Rock Candy and then back down it, so I had to regain some elevation on the way out. On Rock Candy Mountain I found a caramel colored rock that looked like candy.

Route finding was pretty easy for me this time and I never once had to pull out my capitol forest map. I had studied the map so well when I was home that I did not need to use it on the trail. I was helped along by some waypoints I had entered in my GPS that showed the road. Also, two geocaches helped me to know where I was.

At one point I had to make a detour around a huge road washout by bushwhacking straight up a hill to the nearest logging road.

When I finally made it onto the Mount Molly Loop I found the trail to be much nicer, as that loop is in the biker and hiker half of the forest where no ORV’s are allowed. I saw some trail work that was signed by the Friends of the Capitol Forest or FOCF. On the Mount Molly Loop trail I also found a rebound knob and a pair of glasses with the initials K.J. on them.

One of the geocaches that helped me to navigate was hidden by "moun10bike" and is one of the oldest 1% of caches left in the state. "moun10bike" is one of the founders of geocaching.com. His cache was right on the trail so it was really helpful. The other cache was on capital peak and it helped me too. The trail I took to the peak contoured below the peak and it was not obvious when I had passed the peak. But seeing the Geocache waypoint come and go told me that I had passed the peak. When I realized I had passed the geocache I bushwhacked up a bit and then found a trail to the peak. The peak had a nice enough view, but I still found it to be kind of drab. I only had 20 minutes to rest and take pictures on the peak if I wanted to make my turn around time of 1pm. From the peak there was a good view of the Cascades. I saw Baker, The Mountain, Mount Adams, Mount St. Helens and Mount Hood. I also saw the valleys and waterways around Olympia. There were only peek-a-boo-views of my beloved Olympic Mountains.

The view of Mount St. Helens was a bit marred by huge smoke stacks. I think those are the smoke stacks from TransAlta Corporation’s coal-burning power plant in Centralia. The plant is used to generate electricity to sell to California. The plant does not meet California air quality standards, so it was located in Washington instead of California. It is putting mercury into the high country lakes, contaminating the fish and blocking the views in two of our National Parks.

There was one workman at the top and he didn’t really know what to make of me being up there, so we ignored each other. I packed a large ham steak for my dog to eat and the silly thing would not eat it unless I hand fed it to her. What a goofy dog she is. I get frustrated with her not eating her food and instead begging for my lunch. I never imagined she would turn her nose up at a giant ham steak I packed for her this time. I hand fed about half of it to her and the rest got left behind. From now on I’m only going to pack dry dog food for her and I am going to tie her up where I can’t see her begging. Why should I carry a heavy ham steak for her to only turn her nose up at it as if it were dry dog food?

When I left he peak I bushwhacked back down to the trail because it was the most direct route. I’m not sure if I would do that again, as I had to go through a huge patch of salmon berries and devils club.

Salmon Berry and devils club trap

Walking the long way might have been easier. All in all, I did manage to cut about half a mile off the distance of my return trip by taking more direct routes.

On the way back to the car I started to feel relaxed and felt a bit of hikers high or had my moment of transcendence. This was good because and the start of the hike I was not too happy. It was nice to end the hike feeling good. I had really been looking forward to this hike all week, so I was surprised when did not feel like hiking this morning. I enjoyed the last half of my hike and did not find my self looking forward to getting back to my car like I sometimes do, but my car was still a welcome site. I don’t know if I would do this particular hike again but I do want to do more exploring in the Capitol Forest. And this hike made a nice change from my usual hikes in the Olympics.

13.7 miles
3,300 feet total ascent
car to car 7 hours
Average moving speed 2.4 mph