Mildred Lakes Aborted

 
I got off to an early start because the days are getting short and I had a tough hiked planned.  It was tougher then I expected.  I kept losing the trail.  I wasted so much time searching for the trail that I knew I had to turn back before the lakes.   Stupid orange ribbons led me astray.  I ignored the damn ribbons on the way back to the car and I only lost the trail once.

I made it to Huckleberry creek and lost the trail.  I mean really lost the trail, I just could not find it so I turned back.  After I turned back I found the trail but then lost it again thanks to a misleading orange ribbon.  Why the Fuck was that ribbon there? Anyway I found the route but by the time I found it I decided it was too late.  It was 11:30 and turn around time was only 1 hour away.  I still had to gain 1000 feet even though the lakes were only .60 of a mile away by crow.  I looked back at the trail to my car and up to the trail to the lakes.  My car had more appeal then the lakes did.

The only possible way I could have made it to the lakes and back before dark would be to hike like superwoman and never lose the trail.  I knew from the guidebooks that the trail is really bad beyond the river and I was not feeling like superwoman after all of my wandering around lost.

Damn those orange ribbons. The striped ribbons were great and the red ribbons were OK but the orange ribbons were misleading and should be torn down.

According to my GPS I hiked 6.29 miles and my TOTAL elevation gain was 2,100 feet.

I'll try again in the summer when the days are longer.

I made it back to my car at 1:45, 4 hours up and 1 hour 15 minutes down.

On my drive out I saw a van parked on the side of the road near the icicles.   A Mom and Dad had parked there to let there kids out.  The kids were destroying the beautiful icicles.  I would not have allowed my kids to do such a thing.  It's destructive and thoughtless.  Maybe they were type who think mother nature is there just for them to exploit.


On the way back home I stopped and walked on the Hamma Hamma Beaver Pond Trail.  It is a lovely little trail that I'm sure my family would enjoy hiking.  Just over 1 mile long with only 200 feet of elevation gain.  On the Beaver trail I found a cauliflower mushroom that was frozen solid.
I don't know if they thaw well so I left it alone.   I found a 20-30 pound cauliflower in Oregon this year so I've had my fill of them .  I saw several frozen bears heads on the Mildred Lakes trail as well.

The only mushrooms I brought home today were a couple of huge hedgehogs. It's been a great mushroom year and I'm getting burned out on eating mushrooms.






My aborted track log


Trail head sign


My aborted elevation profile




It was cold today



This may as well have been the ridge between me and the lake.

Steepness vs. Miles

This graph shows a slight relationship between the length of my hikes and how steep they were in terms of feet gained per mile.

Now if I toss out my beach hikes and valley hikes the relationship between steepness and miles is strong



The shortest and steepest hike (dot in the upper left) is Mount Ellinor from the Upper trailhead. The longest flattest hike is Big Creek (Quinault) to about 1 mile past the steel bridge.





Now if I only keep the hikes where I gained over 3,000 feet in elevation ( Duckabush to 6 mile
Mount Muller Loop, Mount Rose, Mount Jupiter, Putvin to Lake of Angels and Camp Muir)
I get an extremely strong relationship.  Proving you can "prove" just about anything with statistics.

Annual Skokomish Salmon Kill

The chum run has reached it's peak and the Skok flooded last Friday leaving these salmon stranded when it receded. The river floods with every heavy rain because the channel is filled with sediment thanks to all the logging and logging roads upstream. Ninty percent of the South Fork Skokomish river drainage has been logged. Almost all of it by Simpson during the 100 year "sustained" yield agreement between Simpson and the Forest Service.

"Research published by Montgomery and S. Chereé Stover in the Journal of Hydrology shows that the amount of water carried by the Skokomish hasn't changed appreciably, but the river's main channel has gotten 5 to 6 feet shallower since the early 1960s because of sedimentation. "

Fun with stats

I've been learning how to use Excel to make graphs and do statistics this quarter. So far this year I have gone on 31 day hikes and on my dayhikes I have hiked 282 miles and climbed 67,454 feet. My Average dayhike was 9.1 miles with
2175 feet elevation gain.

I'm not done yet, there is still over a month left this year. I have also hiked 32 miles on a backpacking trip this year and I've gone on several 1-2 miles hikes with my family. No wonder I go through so many shoes!





The R Squared Value is .016 showing there is no relationship between the length of my hikes
in miles and the elevation gain in feet.

Looking at the chart the dot that shows the highest elevation gain represents my hike up to Camp Muir. The dot that show the highest combined mileage and elevation gain represents Mount Jupiter.

My hikes on Rialto Beach and Dungeness spit were of the lowest elevation gain.
My hikes to Camp Muir, Lake of Angels and Mount Jupiter had the highest elevation gains.




Just a fun little bar graph.




This shows that Mount Ellinor is the steepest in terms of elevation gain in feet per mile and Rialto Beach was the least steep. This graph reflects elevation change from trail head to end of hike and does not take into account ups and downs in the trail.

The Brothers Campground

Lena Lake from Lunch Rock




I woke up for the umpteenth time last night but this time was different. This time my neck did not hurt and it was actually morning. Not just any morning, it was hiking morning! My neck has been hurting since my field trip, I think its mostly stress. The pain reached its peak last night after I argued with my husband.

I arrived at the trail head at 9:00 am. I enjoyed looking at the Hood Canal on the way up. Most trails south of the Hama Hama have been closed until April 1st so I made the trip North to the Brothers trail. The Brothers are the most distinctive peak in the Olympics when viewed from Seattle. I used to look at them from the window of my downtown apartment, I did not know their names back then but I often wondered what it would be like to sit up on one of those peaks. Finally 10 years after I moved out of that apartment I got my chance to find out. I've been on the summit of Mount Buckhorn but not on the summit of the Brothers.

I saw an amazing sight at the trail head. I could not believe my eyes! There was no one parked at the Lena Lake trail head. I don't think I've ever witnessed that sight before. The days are getting short and I had just seven hours of daylight to work with so I gave myself 4 hours to hike up and 3 hours to hike down I decided that at 1:00 I would turn around no matter where I was.

The lower trail is not my favorite hike but the lake is pretty. I've never been very far up the Brother's trail so my goal today was to hike to where the brothers trail ends at base of the Brothers climbing route. I had to hustle a little bit to make it up there and back before dark.

I made it to the Brothers camp at 12:40, that gave me only 20 minutes to have lunch. I brewed up a tea and drank it there and cooked my lunch but carried it down to the lake before I ate it.

I was amazed to find a certain type of mushroom on the trail. This trail is so busy with hikers that I assumed that particular mushroom would not make my list. Well there it was. In fact someone had picked it and then left it. They must not of known what it was.

Other mushrooms I spotted today were chanterelles all past their prime and tons of yellow foot chanterelles but I did not have the time to pick them. I also found but did not pick shrimp russula, russula brevipes, pigs ears and witches butter.

My best find of the day was a large bears head fungus. It is starting to yellow but I think it will still be good.

I did not see anyone else on the trail until I got back down to lunch rock. I think the weather forcast kept hikers away this weekend.

I made it back down to my car at 4:00 on the dot, sunset was at 4:30 . I try to get off the trail 1/2 hour before sunset so I timed it just right. Today's
Stats: 13.2 miles and 2,400 feet elevation gain. I'm tired but I enjoyed my hike.

As an added bonus today my husband actually cleaned the house while I was gone. Normally he does not pick up after himself and I have a load of housework to do when I get home from hiking.








Bears Head Fungus


I did not go high enough to see the burn




A big grill for the back country.



Area Overview




One way profile




One way Track Log




The barometric pressure changed so the elevation log is not symmetrical