When winter ends, there is only one thing ski and snowboard addicts can do -- find a new outdoor activity to entertain yourself until the snow falls again. I used to like mountain biking more than I do, but after slicing my ankle open and watching my boyfriend get the gash in his forearm stitched up, I've decided I would rather stay grounded. The consequences due to failure in such an activity are much greater than what I'm comfortable with. If you fall, you will undoubtedly get hurt.
After picking up a copy of Backpacker at the airport on my trip to Florida, I came across an article outlining a trip to a place called Spider Meadow. The photograph was beautiful, and the trip seemed doable for our first real backpacking trek. Only 14.1 miles, and we had three days to do it. After getting my shift covered last minute, we headed out around lunchtime last Monday. Two and a half hours out of the city, we turned on a dirt road that wove along the Chiwawa River. We spent 22 miles on that rough road, and finally reached the trailhead. Phelps Creek Trail. We had about five miles to go before we hit our first campsite. It turned out fine, but we were definitely doubting ourselves as the sun slipped behind one of the surrounding peaks. The trail crossed several creeks, some of them proving to be much trickier than others. After hiking a little over five miles, we reached the first series of campsites around dusk...right at the edge of a meadow surrounded by thundering peaks. It was gorgeous, even as night was falling. I couldn't wait to see it in the sunlight. We set up camp, ate some freeze-dried spaghetti (that stuff actually tastes pretty great!) and enjoyed the evening together next to the fire under the star-studded sky.
It was kind of a rough night of sleep. The wind was howling, and pine needles were pelting the sides of our tent. As always, I had that slightly dormant fear of large game sneaking around our campsite, but we had hung our bag of food a great distance away from the campsite so I wasn't that worried. Even still, the wind kept me up for most of the night and I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized it was morning.
Now, I knew that the view in daylight of the valley would be incredible, but I had no idea how incredible.
I was in awe. After freezing through most of the night, we decided to pack up camp and head out to find a better campsite, hopefully sheltered from the relentless wind. We set off hiking through the meadow.
The meadow was beautiful, but it seemed that an avalanche in late season winter had ripped through part of the bowl, tearing down most of the trees and creating large piles of debris, and now melting snow.
After hiking about a mile across the meadow, we reached another small group of campsites. One of them was very small, but seemed just big enough for us to pitch a tent and make a fire in the pre-established fire pit. As we were exploring, we saw what we thought was a beaver sunning itself on a rock.
Turns out it was a marmot, which is a large ground squirrel. We saw a few others along the trail, and they make really loud whistling sounds. You would never guess those sounds come from large rodents.
We pressed on, planning to set up camp later, and tried to hike to Spider Glacier. The glacier was spread across one of the large towering peaks that are so common to Glacier Peak Wilderness.
The trail description told us that we would be hiking through some forests, cross Phelps Creek, and then climb sharply up the mountain to the glacier where the melting waters would rush right to our feet. It turns out that early season backpacking can be deterred due to large amounts of snow still covering the trail. After hiking around a snow field for about half an hour staring longingly at the glacier above, we decided it would be better to just turn around. The trail was completely covered in snow, and so was the creek. There was no way to determine where it would be safe to cross. I suppose it would be best to go back later in the summer if we wanted to camp up near the glacier. Both of us were frustrated.
We hiked back to our original campsite and packed everything up in order to move to our new site. After setting up, we realized we made a great decision. We were at the edge of the meadow, overlooking the entire valley, set up right next to a creek.
It had gotten pretty warm outside and we were able to sit out on a rock right next to the creek where we ended up cooking dinner.
All around, we could see waterfalls cascading from the bases of the melting snowpack. It was quite a site, and more waterfalls than I've ever seen in one area.
We enjoyed a dinner of salmon pesto pasta (I took my love of cooking into the backcountry) and went to bed satisfied. We woke up the next morning to another beautiful sunny day, although it was bitter cold. It had dropped below freezing during the night and we woke up to a layer of frost slowly beginning to melt off.
Once the sun started coming out though, we were able to thaw out and start packing up camp for the six mile hike back to the truck. I was sad to leave the meadow, but I was excited to take a shower again.
The hike back left nothing to be desired. We had spent most of the hike to the meadow racing the setting sun. This time we had plenty of time to explore. There was a waterfall that we could see about a hundred yards upstream from one of the creek crossings. We hiked up and found quite a beautiful site in front of us. It would be a perfect spot to stop for lunch on a day hike here.
As we neared the parking lot, we came across this incredible view.
Backpacking is something that really puts me in place as far as my size compared to the rest of the world. There are so many peaks to climb, valleys to explore, rivers, lakes, waterfalls, and forests, that I have never heard of or may never get a chance to see in my lifetime. Being out in nature really gives me time to forget about the real world and all of its annoyances. I can't wait to go on my next trip.
