Isn't she just the cutest little thing...?
I woke up to a heavy overcast, and a forecast for more of the same through about Tuesday. It was a pretty bitter disappointment, since I’d been relying on good weather to attempt Mt. Buckner on Sunday. I was moping around, and Heidi told me to just get out and go hiking somewhere. So, I took Maisie, headed north to Pick up Max, and we hiked up Mt. Pugh.
Doing Mt. Pugh in the summer is nice because you can drive up to the trailhead, saving half an hour of hiking on the road. Most of the hike is an unending series of switchbacks through the forest. I was mostly focused on keeping Maisie’s activity level down, worried that she would wear herself out before the outing got interesting. This was her first experience on a climb.
Because there was no snow on the route, there were a dozen more switchbacks through the woods, paralleling the rockfall. (I don’t know what the proper name of the lower rocky area is; it’s not a scree slope; the rocks are big as living rooms.)
So, when we finally got out into the open bowl, it got much more interesting. Unfortunately, we were in the clouds, so visibility wasn’t good. There was a surprising number of wildflowers still in bloom; Indian Paintbrush and columbine, and a lot of purple thistle. I tried to get a couple of photos of Maisie on the trail around the splashes of color, hoping especially for by the thistles, but she was too active, and kept running up and down.
It was fun to see the terrain in such a different look; as the trail switchbacked up the final narrow couloir, the rocks on the left looked pleasantly familiar (insofar as I could see them in the mist.)
At Stujack pass, I thought we’d stop for a few minutes. Instead, Max and Maisie dropped down the other side to eat snow, and play in it. Maisie was rubbing her face in it, and sliding, and Max was eating it in a very businesslike manner. So, after a few minutes of "resting" and some photo opportunities, we headed on up onto the ridge.
That part is FAR easier in summer than in winter. In the past, this has been the most harrying part of the climb; this time it’s just switching back through the heather and the small pines. Travelling across the ridge was not particularly difficult; the notorious catwalk that’s supposed to be so scary didn’t seem very dramatic at all. We stopped partway across to give the dogs more time to walk and play in the snow down the east side.
At the end of the ridge, it steepens up to a stiff class 3, and Max just didn’t go. He didn’t even try, he just turned around like he was heading back down. Since I’d left him behind on Sloan Peak, and he was fine then, I figured we’d just do the same thing. There were a lot more people and dogs up here, but he was fine with it.
Another twenty minutes or so, sometimes a bit of a scramble, and once I had to boost Maisie up, and we were on the summit – out of the cloud cover, and enjoying a fabulous view of Glacier Peak, and Mt. Baker, the top of Sloan Peak, and Mt. Rainier off in the distance.
Maisie had been whining for most of the way up since we’d left Max, and she was still whining. So, we took a couple of summit photos, honoring Maisie’s first summit, and I gave her some water, and we headed back down. There was a USGS marker up there, just like McClellan Butte, but I didn’t take a photo because the altitude was worn off.
On the final ascent, I saw the site where I’d turned back last time, and I really was about ten or twenty vertical feet from the summit. Turns out that the actual trail goes around the right side of the summit dome, not the left the way I went.
Max was just fine, as I’d figured. We passed several people descending on the summit pyramid, including one couple with a rather small white dog, like a miniature Samoyed or something, and I was a bit worried that Max might take out his frustrations on that dog, but apparently he was a perfect gentleman.
The descent went fairly quickly and uneventfully. At Stujack Pass, we stopped and I had a bagel and chatted with a couple of guys who were also coming down. One of them offered his apple core to Max, who turned it down of course, but when he offered it to Maisie, she took it and ate it! I figured she must be really thirsty, but neither of them took any water.
On the descent, Maisie was perfectly chipper. She chased a couple of rocks down the hillside (thank God she didn’t do that up above on the catwalk!) and Max went after a couple of marmots that Maisie ignored completely. She's supposed to be bred for that, what's her problem? The trail passes over what looks like a couple of marmot holes, and I was concerned that Maisie might go after them and get maimed, but she couldn't have been less interested.
At the lake we stopped and rested again. The dogs refused water there too, and I fed them the last of their snacks. On the descent from the lake to the car, Max was clearly tired, and kept stopping me for a rub and a rest. When he's tired, he cuts in front of me and stops; I saw this first on Forgotten Peak. This is something that I never thought I’d see: Maisie outperforming Max on a climb.
We returned to the car, and it was 6:44 (I’d forgotten my watch, so I had no way to gauge time the whole climb.) We left the car a little after noon, so the whole thing took us about six and a half hours. Not too bad; much faster than I’d expected.
Afterwards, looking at Beckey, he says it should take five hours to the summit; I guess we must have done it in four.
At Max', Phyllis fed Maisie what I thought was twice what she’d eat, but the polished the plate. She was one hungry doggin. Max just plopped down on the rug in the entryway, he was totally spent, I guess.
It was nice to finally get to the top, but I feel like it was a reconnaisance, and I still want to do it as a winter climb.