Mildred Lakes Trail Yellow Jacket Danger

 

This was a photo hike with my daughter, so I left the video camera at home and am making a normal blog post for this instead of vlog.

We hit the trail at about 8:30 with our two dogs.  Just a little way up the trail we all got stung and chased by a huge nest of yellow jackets.

There are so many yellow jackets in the woods right now that you can hear a constant and steady background buzzing noise. 

We met a hiker who was coming down from spending two nights at the lake who had cuts on his chin.  He had fallen on his face trying to get away from yellow jackets.  He was in one of the root and rock sections of the upper trail where it is hard to move quickly.

We will be back after the first frost comes and kills all the nests.  

We spent so much time taking photos we only got out a few minutes before the sun set at 7:20.

Even though we did not go half way to Mildred Lakes, we were worn out.  

Polytrichum moss

Salmon Berry

Blueberry

Protozoa aka slime mold

Shrimp russula

Mosquito Lakes

The vlog includes aerial footage.

 

Mildred Lakes trail to Huckleberry Lake

Alpenglow on Mount Pershing

The night before, I decided to  torture myself by going up the Wagon Wheel Lake trail, so I  packed really light, even leaving my mushroom knife at home.

Then I remembered that the Hamma Hamma was open again and how pretty the fall colors are there and I changed my mind.  I decided to hike the Mildred Lakes “trail” to Huckleberry Creek and back. 

That would be too short of a short hike.  Then I remembered the lake off trail near the creek and made that my destination.

I don’t like to go off trail alone all the time, so I invited Phil and he quickly said yes.  He had been wanting to see the lake and the forest around it. 

Phil was running very late so I started my hike without him knowing that he would catch up eventually if I hiked slow and took lots of pictures.

Shortly after I crossed the Creek I heard Phil calling me.  A quick cup of coffee at the creek and we were off, off the trail to look for the lake.  The lake was easy to find and it was pretty but with no nice shore line.  While we were off trail I found a very nice buck knife to make up for forgetting to pack my mushroom knife.  We also found two Mylar balloons.

After we bagged the lake we decided to explore the forest up Huckleberry Creek.  The forest was Beautiful!  So beautiful that we had to turn back before we wanted to. 

The days are getting short and the Mildred Lake trail is not fun to do in the dark.  I have done the entire length of it from the creek to the car in the dark before and I did not like that.  I’ve also done the last half from the creek to the car in the dark and that is not too bad.

We ended up needing our headlamps for about half an hour.  My headlamp batteries were low, but I did not have to change them since Phil had good batteries in his.

I always have a spare set of batteries for my headlamp in my pack along with a small secondary light source that I can use to see while changing batteries.

When we got near the trailhead we encounted two men who were preparing to climb Pershing in the morning.

The woods are very dry this fall.  There are no mushrooms to be found.  I am sore today.

That poor old lady is still missing on the creepy Putvin trail.  

6 miles with 1,300 feet elevation gain on a very rough trail.  I slipped a few times and bashed my left knee cap into two logs and I tweaked my right ankle.  I’m having a clumsy week.

Gomphidius mushroom, not good to eat, but not poison

dried up tarn

Add caption

Bucket with a bag full of shit and piss and a tin can.  The overflow crowds from Seattle
are coming to destroy the Olympics.

Huckleberry Creek

Sage trying to not get shot during hunting season

Spahgnum moss

Deadly poison?

off trail in the oldgrowth.  

Angel Wings, some have died after eating it, but they had bad kidneys 

Honey mushrooms, so peopel have a bad reaction to these

Fig Newton time

Our route

Big mushroom

Amanita vaginata

Mildred Lakes

This was supposed to be a backpacking trip to catch both the sweet light and the fall colors, but my hiking companion backed out and just wanted to do a day hike.

This is the camera I use on all of my hikes now:



Got some okay photos, but no sweet light.  We left home at 6:45 and reached the trail head at 8:00.  I ate breakfast at the trail head and the hike started at 8:10.  Phil got there first and started hiking and he left notes with time stamps on them.  His pace was slightly faster because he was not stopping to take pictures.  We met up with him at the creek.

I had a fairly easy time hiking up to the top of the hike.  Taking care of my Iron stores has made a tremendous difference.  I'm going to have to watch it though.  I need a new way to measure how tired I am and how hard I have been working.  I used my extreme breathlessness to pace myself in the past.

We hit the top at about 1 and the first lake at about 1:30.  My hiking partners looked tired and I was feeling it too.  I suggested that we turn around at the first lake and my partners agreed.  I wanted to go to the second lake anyway and made a very short false start at it before I turned back.

We had a long lunch at the first lake.  We were back to the ridge top at 3:30.  We hiked the rest of the way out with out taking any breaks.  We were running out of light and did not savor hiking this trail in the dark.  I have hiked this trail in the dark from Huckleberry Creek to the trail head.  On this hike we only had to use our headlamps for about half an hour.

We were back at our cars at 7pm.  I don't know where the time went.  How did we spend 11 hours?  Even if we only hiked 1mph then that means we spent 4 hours not moving.  I don't get it.

Sadly I had to leave Sage at home.  She will not ever be up for this hike with her bad hip.

I took both my Ricoh GR II  and my Nikon D90 for this hike.  My Ricoh with its prime lens outshone the D90 on every comparison shot.  The Nikon was equipped with an 18-55 lens.

7 miles with with 3,100 feet TOTAL elevation gain on this up and down route.

This is the camera I use on all of my hikes now: