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McDonald Peak Trip... |
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| McDonald Peak trip with hiking route from July 10-12, 2003.
End of day 1.
Hours on the trail:
End of day 2. Hours on
the trail:
End of day 3. Hours
on the trail:
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The Mission Mountains are perhaps the most amazing mountains that I have ever seen. They seem to magically appear from the valley floor, and I often try to tell myself that they are simply a collage of cardboard cut-outs that someone has pasted against the eastern horizon. The few trails within the Missions are very steep, poorly maintained and hard to find. Yet, if you can find any semblance of a trailhead and can get past some major league bushwacking, the hikes in the Missions are well worth it. A few hikes that I would highly recommend are: Moon, Long and Frog Lakes to Summit Lake and then to Mollman Lakes; Mount Harding; Ashley Lakes; McDonald Peak; Kakashe; Lucifer Lake; Upper and Lower Riddell Lakes; Lost Sheep Lake to Buck Lake to Whelp Lake and finally to Gray Wolf Lake. The weather soon broke and we were once again heading up hill. We decided to try and climb McDonald Peak via Kakashe and “Flat Top”. In other words, we started at Mission Dam and headed north and east. We dropped off our packs at the pass between Kakashe and Flat Top and cruised up to Flat Top for some lunch. The views were spectacular and we could easily see a route east towards McDonald. Once you get on top of the western ridgeline of the Missions and look east, the mountains really open up and you get to see some spectacular terrain that few people ever get to see. We crossed a few ridgelines and eventually were heading east, following the stream that flows into Ashley Lakes. Then it started to hail… I ‘unhooked the plow’ and hurried over to some boulders that had a space in between them big enough for my head. Unfortunately, Eric didn’t have any place for his person and so he was hitting me in the rear end, trying to make me make room for him amongst the boulders. Needless to say, we both got a little wet. But at least my head was dry! It was soon getting close to dark, we were cold and wet and tired. Of yea, and we couldn’t find any place that was remotely flat enough upon which to sleep. Oh yea, did I mention the fact that we were “minimalists” on this trip and decided not to bring a tent? Yea, not one of our brightest moves to date…. So, Eric and I, somehow with toil and sweat of our brow, rigged-up a $.99 cent rain poncho (probably from Army Navy) as our tent. Eric must have bought the ‘mucho, mucho grande’ poncho because somehow we were miraculously able to both sleep under the green contraption. Then again, I think we had to spoon…. The next morning we literally ran, skipped and jumped up the southwestern ridgeline of McDonald. There was snow on the peak and we even found grizzly tracks at 9,820 feet. (I guess some crazy bear had shown up early for the moth frenzy and decided to go back home for a few more days. Thank goodness, because I’m pretty sure there isn’t enough room for 2 smelly hikers and a bear on the top of McDonald Peak!) Oh yea, I was going to put on my jacket up on the summit, but then came a gust of wind and away flew my jacket. Yea, it was sad, but I think I was more disappointed about losing the Snickers bar in the pocket than I was about the jacket… We then decided to try and climb the Sheep’s Head. In order to do that, we had to traverse the madly steep snowfield that sits to the north and west of the peaks. We had ice axes and were being quite cautious, but I still lost my footing and went for a crazy ride. Eric, who was positioned above me, said that I self-arrested immediately and came to a quick stop, but then I looked to see where I was and started sliding again. Anyways, we made it to the top of the Sheep’s Head. My legs and arms were shaking terribly and I was sure glad to get off of that snowfield! We met a group of hikers from Missoula and they said my sliding technique only warranted a 9.275… At this point, we had already passed Eric’s deadline to be back before church. We were going to follow the ridgeline off of the Sheep’s Head and eventually end up at the Ashley Lakes’ trailhead. Unfortunately, there was some serious climbing between here and there and our heavy packs made moving around and doing ‘Cliff Hanger-like-moves’ a bit more difficult. When you are on top of these peaks, it really looks like you can just reach out and touch Ashley Lakes. So, of course, we both decided to just drop down to the lakes. Yea, it sounded like a good idea at the time… We dropped mad vertical and encountered sooo many cliff bands that led nowhere. And did I mention the vegetation? Yea, bear grass is perhaps as mean, if not meaner that any bear I’ve ever seen or heard of! After traversing around too many cliff bands to count, we decided to climb down one of them. This one ledge was just a bit too high to really climb with our packs on, so we decided to simply throw our packs off the cliff and hope that they would get stuck in the bushes and small trees below. (I know. Looking back on this it sounds like a pretty stupid idea, doesn’t it?) My pack went through the bushes like a bowling ball on the way to getting a strike. It started going end over end over end and then suddenly, there was a brilliant spray of water everywhere. The pressure from my pack crashing down the mountain had caused the bite valve of my Camelback to explode. Yea, that sucked. And as if that was not the worse thing, WE DECIDED TO DO THE SAME THING WITH ERIC’S PACK! And yea, it boonied through the bushes, went end over end over end and his hydration system exploded as well. (My mom was right, maybe the two of us shouldn’t be alone together!) The vertical feet kept coming and coming, our dogs were tired and we were thirsty. Eventually, we arrived at the east end of the upper lake and honestly, just as we were ready to take a big gulp of water (we were both pretty sure we had drank water from the lakes before and weren’t scared of the ‘beaver fever’…) a stinkin’ beaver swam by us! So, we busted out the iodine kit and started to treat some water. The only problem was the fact that the water had to sit for about 20 minutes or so…longest 20 minutes of my life! After some major league bushwacking to get around the upper lake, we found the trail that would lead us home. But did I mention that this area is in the heart of the grizzly bear conservation zone? And the fact that it was going to close for the season the very next day? Somehow, Eric decided that I knew the trail better than he did, so manned with one head lamp, I led us into the night and through the bear’s lair. I think our singing might have scared the bears away because we did not see anything on the way out. We were happy to be back on a trail and to have some water. The current problem was the fact that our vehicle would not be waiting for us at the end of the trailhead. Furthermore, nobody was expecting us to come out at Ashley Lakes. But then again, I only live about 3 ˝ miles away. Walking home wouldn’t be that bad, right? We stopped at the first “friendly” house that we came to and asked to use the phone. Granted, it was around 1 a.m. or so and we woke the lady up, but still she didn’t really have any right to deny us access to her phone. (At least that is my opinion.) She said it was inconsiderate to bother her at this hour and simply out of the question to ask to use her phone. So, we walked…. Soon we saw headlights coming out of the mountains and driving down the road from behind. We were both convinced that it must have been the hikers from Missoula that we had seen earlier. Since the group consisted of a handful of extremely attractive members of the opposite sex, Eric and I decided that if they offered us a ride home, we would just chuckle and say that we only had a few more miles to go and we would walk. (Instead of getting a chance to talk to them again, in our delirious state we thought the story back in Missoula of these burly two young saps from the Reservation would score us some points….) They stopped. We told them our story. They drove off. We laughed. Then we cried. Man oh man, was that a bad decision! Anyway, two cold Dr. Pepper’s awaited us at my house when we arrived at around 2:30 a.m. Monday morning. And I believe Eric described his feet as “two bloody stumps that he would like to amputate”. Looking back on it all, I’m not sure if I would have changed a thing. Sure we made stupid mistakes and bad judgment calls, but then again…As Eric would say, “the worse it gets, the better the story. And you know how I love a good story!”
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