The trouble dogs at the summit. Maisie on the right, as always.
Tinkham Peak
Saturday, Sept. 20, 2001, with the trouble dogs
Peter had a birthday party to go to in the afternoon, and so Heidi suggested I take the dogs someplace to wear them out. Max was staying with us for a week, and he gets pretty worked up when he's housebound. By this time, it was about 10:00, and it didn’t seem like there were a lot of options. I wasn’t that keen on going up to Snoqualmie Pass, because it was such a beautiful day I figured it’d be a complete mob scene. But I ended up taking them to Tinkham Peak, which is right next to Silver Peak, on the south side of the pass, across from the Snow Lake trail. And, we saw about five people the whole time.
The trail begins at "windy pass" where the access road (FR 9070) crosses the PCT (also called Olalie Meadow, where there was a sea of blueberries in fruit, but it looked more like a clearcut to me.) The tricky bit was actually finding the beginning of the road, since it’s camouflaged by what looks like a private development.
At the trailhead, you head south about two miles. The PCT has handy mile markers nailed onto the trees. The trail comes off the PCT to the right, up the hill to the Tinkham-Silver peak saddle. Beckey’s directions were a bit obscure, since he didn’t give a distance, but there was a bit of a cairn there, which helped. At the saddle, there are two trails, one which leads to Tinkham Peak, the other to Silver Peak. We headed south. (Actually, looking at the map in the comfort of my desk, it appears that it was Mt. Abiel, not Silver Peak, that the trail went over to.)
The trail follows the ridge, marked by prominent "No Trespassing" signs, denoting the boundary of the Cedar River watershed, where Seattle gets its water. The trail is pretty rudimentary at times, but the general idea is to simply head up the ridge, following the signs. Beckey says to keep to the south side of the ridge, which isn’t hard: the north side drops off absolutely vertically, or maybe overhanging. About a hundred feet from the summit, you finally break out of the trees, and it’s the same beautiful alpine scenery of a hundred mountains. It was pretty steep in places. Maisie did a lot of whining heading up there, and she and I got to the top while Max was still wandering around below, looking for shade. She just whined like mad, frantic and unhappy, until Max finally showed up, and I got a summit photo of them, and another of me.
And -- there was a summit log! The first one I’ve seen since, I think, Mt. Forgotten. The last summiters were a group of eight or so Mountaineers the previous weekend. Since I was feeling pressed for time, I didn’t spend as much time looking over it as I might regularly. My original intention was to just descend the route we came up, which is why I worried so much about keeping on the trail, but Beckey says the shortest access to the mountain is via Mirror Lake, directly below, so I figured we could just follow the trail down there, and do a traverse. The Tinkham Traverse.
Unfortunately, I lost the trail, and we ended up doing the vertical bushwhacking thing I so enjoyed on Big 4. The same berry bushes, in fact. I was following a rocky streambed, which was pretty easy going, but each time there came a steep bit, a four or five foot waterfall, the dogs couldn’t do it, and we’d have to go around. I was getting pretty misterable by the time we got to the last ten foot overhang, and had to traverse fifty yards or more.
The lake was beautiful; clear at least 20 feet down, and not particularly chilly. The dogs waded into the water and seemed to thoroughly enjoy it. After they’d drunk their fill, I pulled out the zip-lock bag of dogfood I’d brought, and gave them some. They scarfed it right down. More empirical proof that, when they're hungry, dogs will eat dry food.
There appeared to be about three other families around the lake. This on perhaps the nicest weekend of the fall. Once again, I’m pretty impatient with the claims that the back-country is overrun. It is if all you want to do is hike the Snow Lake trail, or climb in Icicle Canyon.
From then, it was a pretty straightforward hike out. I was a bit worried about finding the trail amongst the several trails meandering around the lake, but it was obvious once we found it. About half a mile to the junction with the PCT, and then two miles or so to the trailhead.
I brought two liters of water, and used most of it. Max drank basically no water at all the first half of the trip, and then was insatiable. Maisie drank every chance she got. I drank a good liter, and emptied most of a quart water bottle in the car on the way home, and was still pretty thirsty.