Washington Exposure: Mt Catherine and the OUCH!!!

Now thinking back to this wonderfully difficult and injury resulting hike it is one that I had some of the most fun with this last summer.

Back at the end of August I had been doing a lot of thinking of the different hikes that I had been on and had decided that it was time to find a mountain to go and climb instead of the hiking up to a lake or falls as I had been doing up to that point. The other part of it was that I had wanted to do an overnight-er. Well I started thinking of the places I had been and looking at the maps of the area and finally the good old guide books. I finally decided on Mt Catherine and Silver Peak as two mountains that I really wanted to climb. The good part of it was that both where close to each other and Mirror lake and thinking that it would be a fun place to camp. I put my plan together.

Day one drive to Windy Pass and climb Mt Catherine and then take the PCT to Mirror lake to spend the night. Day two climb Silver Peak and then Hike back out to Windy pass. Now that might sound a little ambitious at first till you learn that the Mt Catherine trail is only a little over a mile and a half and then only a three and a half to Mirror lake. As for Silver Peak well the trail for it is about a mile back towards Windy Pass down the PCT and it was said to be only a little over a mile up to the summit. So in summation a little over 5 miles the first day and only about 4 the second day. Not all that bad. I choose the weekend of September 2nd to make the trip.

Windy Pass Camp Sight

By Friday the 1st I was all set to go and decided to drive up to Windy Pass and spend the night there in my car and get an early start on Mt Catherine. I arrived at the pass with about 2 hours of day light left so Molly and I decided that if we could just find a good spot a little ways up the PCT we would not have to sleep in the car or on the gravel road. So we headed south on the PCT through a not to long ago clear cut. In less then a quarter mile we where heading into the trees and just to the right I spotted a great little spot where we made camp.

I awoke Saturday morning to the sound of some ones dog making a round through my camp sight. It surprised me that Molly was so well crashed out asleep that she missed it. I let Molly go do a little exploring off through the Blue Berry and Huckle Berry bushes. She had a grand time at it. I made scrambled eggs and bacon with coffee for my breakfast. Molly was attentive as always preferring my food to her's. So when I finished what I could eat and she had not touched hers I added the last of my eggs to her kibbles and she lapped it all up in no time at all.

My goal was to make the summit of Mt Catherine by noon so that I could enjoy my lunch while writing and enjoying the vista's that I had read about in my guide books. I also use the Washington Trail Association's web site as the members are always writing reviews on the trails so that you can get a feel for what is ahead of you. One of the last review told that there were so serious blow downs and that the trail was hard to fallow through that part. Now I have ran into blow downs before and have never had much problems with them. How ever this was to be something of a new experience for the two of us.

We headed from our camp sight back to the car and I got my day pack together and headed down the road to the trail head for Catherine. The first part of the trail follows what is left of a logging road for about a half mile or so then heads into the woods and starts the switch backs up to the ridge that you follow to the summit. Along the way you get to peek out through the trees here and there with views across the valley to Tinkham Peak. Well about half way to the summit in those switch backs we ran into the blow downs.

Now I was anticipating maybe 3 or 4 trees by what I had read but what I saw in front of us gave me pause for the first time. I never did get a picture of it all and that was because we were way to busy finding our way through to take pictures. Through might not be quite right either as it was up and over, down and under, along with trying to find a way around not 1, 2 or 3 trees but at lest 40 or more. At one point Molly had the right idea of it. She had had enough of me wanting to go up and headed down hill out of the mess I had lead her into.

Once we were across the section of blow downs and I had Molly headed back up hill it was time to pull out the compass and map along with the GPS so I could get a bearing on where the trail should be as there was no trail left. At first we skirted the north side of the blow downs heading up the ridge but soon ran into the cliff edges which I did not want to be close to at all for myself or Molly. So we started heading back into the mess as I started calling it until at last I found the trail once again.

As we got close to the top there are some great views to the north. In the distance you can see Snoqualmie Pass and the ski area's there.

The last little bit of the climb is almost staight up. There are cables there for you to hold onto as you make the last accent to the summit and what a view awaits you there. I was so proud of Molly as she climbed that last bit as I was not sure if she could handle such a steep climb. But she did. So water and treats she got.