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Lena Lake Olympic Mountain Summit Register and an Out of Control Dog

I’ve been bored a lot since I finished college.  Most days if I’m not hiking or taking photo’s I am bored.  I did not feel good this morning but I went hiking anyway to fight off the boredom.  At least gas prices are very low at the moment.  At this rate they might go below $2.00 per gallon.

I needed to move the Olympic Mountain Travelling summit register to another summit but it is January and most summits will be inaccessible to all but mountain climbers soon.  So I needed to find a nice low place the put the cache.  I had many options but in the end I opted for a super popular trail.  I did not want to advertise any of my special spots and on this hike I got a good reminder of why I don’t like crowded trails.

When I started my hike at about 9:30 there was one other car at the trail head.  I felt pretty good as I had stopped and got a cup of coffee in Hoodsport.  Too bad the price had gone up by almost ten percent to celebrate the New Year.  My COLA this year was 1.2 percent but a cup of coffee at Hoodsport coffee when up by 10%.  My COLA never actually keeps up with inflation.  I’ll downsize and from now on I will order the small instead of the medium drip to make up for it.

I made good time getting to the lake. Okay not really, I stopped and took a lot of pictures but I was hiking strong.  When I got to lunch rock I saw two women there eating.   The lake had a lot of logs in it and it was green rather than blue.  One woman commented it was the first time she had seen the lake any color other than blue.

 The sun was shining in my eyes so I quickly left the rock and headed for the farthest away campsite on the lake.  The campsite was in mixed sun and shade.  I wanted to sit in the sun, but I did not want the sun in my eyes, so I sat in the shade.

I made a cup of tea and I cooked my lunch there.  I gave Patches two Cliff bars but she refused to eat them.  Patches has figured out that Cliff bars are dog food and being a dog she naturally does not want to eat dog food, she wants to eat human food.  I get Cliff bars 4 for a dollar at an expired food store, so I have been feeding them to Patches on all my hikes in an effort to trick her into thinking she is getting human food.  I don’t like Cliff bars, they are too sweet and the texture gets boring.  Patches ignored her Cliff bars and begged for my lunch.

Patches ignores the Cliff bar at her feet and begs for my lunch

Patches was in luck, I felt queasy and was only able to finish half of my lunch.  I felt a little bit sick all day.  I was light headed and dizzy whenever I stood up too fast, but I attributed that to a recent loss of blood.  While I was eating lunch I realized there was more than that going on, I had some sort of bug.

I did not find many things to take pictures up of the way up or at my lunch break.  I had really been hoping to be able to take some nice pictures, but it was not to be.

One the way back down I passed a few hikers.  Whenever we see other hiker on the trail Patches stops and takes a couple of steps towards me so I can grab her collar or put her on her leash.  I did not train her to do that, she figured it out on her own since I always leash her when I see other hikers coming.

On this occasion I grabbed Patches collar as a woman came into view.  She looked at us and said

“Oh you have one too”

I said “yes, and she’s not very friendly” as an off leash dog that looked like a greyhound came into sight.

The dog, upon seeing Patches rushed headlong at us.  The dog was not on a leash, the dog’s leash was in the owners hand.  At the sight of a dog rushing at her Patches growled and then the dog started barking and snarling and lunging as if it was going to attack.  I was scared, since I was holding Patches right next to me I thought the dog was going after me.

 I was holding Patches collar with one hand, I yelled “whoa!” and with my free hand I positioned my trekking pole between Patches and the other dog.  That made the other dog even more enraged and I was sure it was going break through my trekking poles and lunge at me or Paches.  The woman was chasing her dog but she was unable to catch her out of control vicious off leash animal.

  The horrible beast suddenly moved to my side so I repositioned my poles to my side and the woman yelled “Go!” at her dog but I was not sure if she was yelling at me or her dog, the dog ran past us and the woman went around us chasing her dog and mumbling an apology as she left.

I was not happy, this incident triggered my PTSD.  I hike to sooth my PTSD but this hike had now made my PTSD worse.  I had a huge shot of adrenaline and I was shaking.  I wished that I had yelled at the woman or the dog, yelling would have gotten some of the adrenaline out of my system.  But it had all happed too fast and I had been unable to say anything other than “Whoa!”

Patches in the car with her rock

At that point my hike was pretty much ruined but I still had three miles to go, so I hoped that in those three miles I would calm down a bit.

 I felt a bit better at the end of my hike but I was still frazzled and so was Patches it turned out.   Patches she did something she has never done before, she took home a rock. She likes to carry and then bury rocks that I accidentally kick loose. But today I think she was afraid to bury her rock on the trail with another dog being there, so she took it home instead.

I ended up driving all the way out to 101 before I realized that my emergency brake was on.  This experience reminded me of why I like solitude on the trail.  It’s too common to have bad experiences with other people and dogs on popular trails.  Even when the popular trail is not crowded it still seems to bring out a certain type of people who lack proper trail etiquette.  I’m glad I did not put the trail register in one of my special places and then post about it.  The internet has a way of ruining trails, just look at what happened to the Vance Creek Bridge as an example.  One tweet sent out the hoards from the city and soon it was all shut down.  All hell is about to break loose near Lake Cushman for the same reason.

When I got back down to my car I was surprised to find five other cars there, that is a lot of cars for a winter weekday.  The WTA recently advertised Lower Lena Lake as the place to go in the winter on their website maybe that is why it was so crowded there today.

Patches and I will be hiking in much more obscure places for the next few weeks and I won’t be sharing my track logs.

7 miles 1,300 feet elevation.

A tree stuck the bridge

Steaming logs

Cob web

View from lunch rock

Lunch time

Mount Walker, Ranger Bruce and the Olympic Mountain Summit Register.

All three volcanoes could be see from the South viewpoint.  There was in interesting low inversion
that made the distant views better and made Seattle skyscrapers just barely stick out of the fog

My first hike of 2014.  I did not hike much over the winter break with my daughter at home and the interference of Christmas and New Years day.  We had a lot of rain this week, nearby Aberdeen is under water.  I did not really want to go out and get my feet wet, plus there was something I needed to grab on Mount Walker, so I headed for the rain shadow where the trail was sure to be dry.

I rode the bus as usual; I see no reason to drive all the way up there and back when the bus will get me there in almost the same amount of time.  The bus dropped me off at the Walker Mountain Antique store at 9:30.  I felt strong hiking up and that was a surprise, since I was quite groggy from lack of sleep the night before.  I made it to the top from the bus stop in one hour and forty five minutes.

Patches was kind of bad on the bus, she wanted to hike and she did not want to sit on the floor

There was one car at the gate when I started (I wonder why they don’t put the gate at the trailhead?) and two people who were on the way down passed me when I went up, so I figured I had the top to myself.  I know that no one else rode the bus up there. 

Why don't they put the gate at the trail head?

When I got to the top I was surprised to see a man up at the North Viewpoint.  He was in the area of the summit register that I had come to get.  Something about him seemed familiar, but I ignored him and started taking pictures of Mount Constance.  Suddenly the man yelled “Patches is that you!”  I spun around and looked at the man again.

“Bruce?” I said?

“Yes”. He said

It was Ranger Bruce and he was there to retrieve the summit register too. 

Bruce did not know that it was well hidden and could not be found without getting directions from the person who placed it there.  I convinced Bruce to stand in front of me so I could snap his picture with the Mountains in the back ground and then we went to search for the register.  The register was buried and not in the normal easy to find geocaching way, it was buried in dirt rather than pieces of bark or piles of sticks or rocks like.

Ranger Bruce

I offered the register to Bruce but he said I should take it, so I did and then Bruce and I both went to the other view point where I like to have my lunch.  We had a nice conversation about trails and then a couple joined us at the view point and they knew some secrets that a certain trail crew seems to be telling to everyone, so I was able to talk to them about that and learn a little bit more.

The Olympic Mountain Travelling summit register

The couple left while Bruce and I were still trying to talk the hind legs off a donkey.  At 1:30 Bruce decided to head back and at that point I left too.  Bruce opted to hike down the road while I opted to go down the trail.  I made it back down to the gate at about 2:20 and the couple that I had seen on the summit were still there in their car.  They wanted more info about secret stuff.  Since they were going to Olympia, I boldly asked them if they would give me a lift home and they did.  Thanks! 

On the way home the woman got a cell phone call informing her that her aunt had just died so that was sad and it put a damper on things, but still it was  a pleasant ride and it was nice to get home a few minutes early and not have to fight with bus drivers about Patches.

I don’t want a cell phone.  I don’t want to be out on a nice hike somewhere and get phone calls about crisis situations at home.  I can’t do anything about a home crisis while I am in the mountains.  So if someone dies while I am out hiking I’ll just have wait until I get home to find out about it.

I did not take many pictures because I spent so much time hiking and there is nothing much to take pictures of up there anyway.

The trail is in good shape other than one large downed tree about half way up.  There was no snow.

 5 miles with 2,100 feet elevation gain.

Large tree down across the trail about half way up

North view point, Quilcene is under the clouds

2014 Statistics

This R squared value means that one variable does weakly predict the other.  This low P value means that the odds of this happening by chance are low.  So in other words racking up more miles in a year does weakly predict that I will gain more elevation over the year and the odds of my hiking more miles in a year causing my elevation to go up was not subject to mere chance.  It's real, if I hike more miles in one year I will probably gain more elevation (duh).  I have to look this stuff up every year because I forget what it all means.  

Here is the same chart with one of the outliers eliminated the R squared value here is quite strong.The P value is unchanged because I did not run the statistical analysis without the outliers.  Just ignore the P value on this chart as it is not correct.

Cushman Wandering

Mount Lincoln reflections

I followed a recent survey line to see where it went and I ended up near the Dry Creek trail.  Then I wandered out onto the lake bed and checked out the new Osprey nesting platform near the old rail tracks under the lake.  The lake is low for the winter so one can walk among the stumps.  The city of Tacoma plans to make more stumps and cut more trees to help the wild life.

I did not hike on any trails and still racked up 5 miles.  I found some interesting stuff along the way too.  I've been having fun exploring all the little nooks and crannies that I always meant to explore but did not have time for because I was off doing big miles on some trail some where.

It's almost time for me to add up my miles and take my annual statistics refresher course.
I hiked 630 miles this year, most of it on trail, but a lot of off trail miles too.   I also gained 117,040 feet in elevation this year shattering all of my old annual records for elevation gain and mileage.

Following a survey line

A twisty tree on the survey line

Little waterfall on the survey line

New Osprey nesting platform in the middle of the Lake

Ice covered Climacium dendroides moss

freezing weather helped me to keep my feet dry

freezing weather helped me to keep my feet dry

The things one finds when they wander off the beaten path

Old Railroad under Lake Cushman

The original dirt road to Lake Cushman can be seen when the lake is this low

Old rail road track under Lake Cushman

Mount Rose named after Pioneer Alfred Rose
Alfred died of smallpox leaving his wife to run the farm on
the shores of early Lake Cushman before the dam destroyed the valley

Sparkle ice, stumps, water and snow