But I digress; my allotted time for this hike was 8:40 to
3:15 school bus stop to school bus stop. That’s
not a lot of time, so I opted for Mount Rose.
Rose is short and steep and kind of close to home. I’ve been avoiding Rose due to the crowds up
there and the small summit that is not built for crowds. I had hoped that getting off to an early
start would help me to avoid the mobs.
I started my hike at 9:25, by my calculations that gave me 6
hours to hike and 45 minutes to drive, so I went up the Mountain at the fastest
pace that I knew I could maintain. That
is the pace that is just slow enough to keep my calves from cramping. I had hoped to make to the top in 3 hours;
the goal was 12:30. I generally am happy
if I can gain 1,000 feet an hour. Rose
has 3,200-3,500 feet elevation gain, so I knew I would have to do slightly
better than 1000 feet a mile.
I made
very good time at first, but after horse camp I lost the trail in the snow for a bit, still I
made it up by 12:00pm and ½ hour ahead of my goal.
It only took me 2.5 hours to summit. I think listening to my iPod helped
me to power up the hill. Thank you Jello
Biafra and Lynyrd Skynyrd! No thanks to my IPod for being so hard to figure out
how to use.
 |
| Pano shot with an iPod |
As usual Patches turned her nose up at most of her dog food. But camprobber jays were happy to eat her food. Well Patches is a bird dog, so that pissed her off a bit, I mean, her food (birds) were eating her food! She chased them off and finished most of her food. Classic Dog in the manger.
 |
| How to piss off a bird dog 101 |
I figured I would need two
hours to hike down the short route, or maybe 2.25 hours to hike down the long
route. I decided that 1:15 was my mandatory
turnaround time. On the way up I saw a rough skinned newt but I
did not have time to photograph it.
I had the summit all to myself for 45 minutes, well all to
myself and Patches and the camp robber jays. I had tea and a few handfuls of trail mix on
the summit. I began my trip back down at
12:45 and I decided to take the long route since I was a little ahead of time
and I know the long route a bit better than I know the short route. I had no trouble finding my way back down
except were all the windfall was.
It was a shame to have to rush through this beautiful forest:
There
is wind fall on the long route; most of it is near the creek with
the foot bridge not far from horse camp. Only one of the
windfall trees is large and it fell straight down the trail with a large rotten snag.
 |
| Smaller windfall trees over the bridge |
As I headed down I saw another hiker (oh the horrors!) and
his dog. They were both sitting in the
middle of the trail. I leashed up
Patches yelled down to warn them that I was coming through with a dog. The guy really did not understand why I was
warning him but he did hold on to his dog.
His dog was a black labs and labs tend to want to play with Patches, but
Patches NEVER wants to play with other dogs. After I had finished walking AROUND the hiker
and dog in the middle of the trail I unleashed Patches.
 |
| Green stuff on the summit |
I reached my car at 2:25 that gave me plenty of time to get
stuck behind a log truck on the way home.
It also gave me time to get gas.
I should have bought gas in town but I did not know if I had enough gas
to make it back to town. (I did) So I filled up in Hoodsport $40 to fill my
little car. Wow! My Jeep is staying home for awhile. They always raise gas prices before Memorial
Day Weekend, but they really jacked them up fast this year. I’m going to look into taking the dail-a-ride
to some of my hikes.. I wonder if Patches is allowed on dail-a-ride? I’m pretty sure I could catch dial-a-ride to
the Big Creek trail head, but I don’t know if the times would work for me.
I took most of today’s pictures with my iPod as I forgot to
put an SD card in my point and shoot (again!) and I opted to leave my heavy
DSLR at home.
7 miles with 3,500 feet elevation gain
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