Walks with Moss: Mount Rose

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Mount Rose

I started my hike at about 10am. The trail head sign said the trail head was closed due to bridge construction, but everyone ignored that and just hiked. Mason County says the bridge is out of compliance. The new bridges were put in by the city of Tacoma. I guess I should like the nice new bridges, but they look a bit out of place. I kind of miss the rustic look of the old bridges. The old bridges are now being used as curbs. One big alder tree was cut down in between the new bridges.

I forgot to tank up on water at the bridge crossing and was worried that Patches would over heat and I would have to turn around. But a nice buff hiker coming down the Mountain gave me all of his water and Patches was fine. I found nice cold spring eventually and filled both of my bottles there. That cold water tasted sooooooo good! But the yelping puppies caught up to me there.

One the way up I kept hearing noises that sounded like either yelping dogs or kids or something. I had hoped the noise was down at the lake. But nope, it was 4 women. They were not loud but I sure could hear them. I think one of them had a voice that carried really well.

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I found this on a different hike, I think it's Agarikon

Brushpickers had picked the flowers off all the beargrass except for right at the summit. I hate that and I wonder if it's legal.

I saw lots of mycoheterotrophic plants as usual, including a huge ghost pipe cluster. I saw 12 other people on the trail, that’s a mob for Mount Rose. One group was really loud and walked at the same pace as I did, there was no escaping them. I stepped off the trail for ½ hour to get away from them. I had the summit to myself and stayed up there for about ½ hour. I would have stayed longer but I was worried about getting sunburn on my legs. It felt great to finally make it to the top of my favorite little mountain after all the health troubles I had; it’s been 1.5 years since I’ve been up there.

I noticed Polytrichum pilliferum moss on the summit rock and of course bon-fire moss on the burned areas.

I think most of the other people on the trail had wanted to do Mount Ellinor. Too bad the signs saying Mount Ellinor is closed is not placed on 101. The first warning that the trail is closed is way out on the dirt road where you turn left to go up Ellinor. I wish the FS would place all trail closure notices on 101, it would save a lot of driving for a lot of hikers.

I took the longer route down to complete the loop. Some idiots had a big trashy campfire near the meadow. I’m glad they did not start a forest fire. I don’t normally see any trash on Mount Rose, but I saw a lot of trash on it today. I don’t know how much of the trash is due to extra traffic caused by Mount Ellinor being closed.

I made it back down at 5pm and I felt pretty good. I know I’m getting back into shape because going down was harder than going up.

The city of Tacoma was surveying everyone driving out to see where they went. It seems that Tacoma wants the forest service to pay for road maintenance and is trying to prove that most of the traffic on that road goes out to Staircase or the National Forest and not to the lots on the lake that are leased by Tacoma.

3,400 feet elevation gain AND loss 6.2 miles RT