Mt Daniel Southeast Ridge, September 26
There are good and bad points to having a significant other who likes to climb. One thing is that I kind of spend every weekend together, which means it’s got to be something he wants to do. Sometimes it’s nice to have a break. The significant other in question has been doing a lot more mountain biking and is not really into climbing and hiking lately, so he wanted to spend the weekend in Cle Elum mountain biking with our friend Chris (who’s moving from Cle Elum to Reno). That meant I had about half a day to myself, which I decided to spend hiking somewhere near Cle Elum. Mt Daniel is the highest point in King County, and while it’s much closer to Highway 2 than I-90, it happens to be most conveniently accessed via the Cle Elum River Road and FR 4330.
The Cathedral Rock Trail is wide and horse-friendly, and the 2200 ft up to the PCT through shady forest and meadows carpeted with evergreen shrubs and autumn-red huckleberry bushes goes quickly. The dotted line Peggy’s Pond trail around Cathedral Rock is a bit more difficult, but not much a problem with the cool breeze and my light pack.
Fall Colors, Vegetable Department
From Peggy’s Pond there is a maze of twisty little climber’s trails, all alike, heading up the basin towards the Southeast Ridge. I ended up following some cairns on the south side of the ridge and ended up almost at Circle Lake before I headed straight up 1000 ft on loose scree to get back on the ridge. So, don’t trust the cairns, and when in doubt, go up. Once you are on the pointy part of the ridge, it is pretty obvious where to go (photo is looking down on the SE Ridge from the East Peak):
Looking SE on the SE Ridge
The ridge looks pretty pointy from this side, is actually pretty wide and easy to follow. I like ridge hikes in general since you can see in all directions (including where you are going and where you came from). Also, some of my nemeses like devils club and slide alder do not grow on ridges. The only thing that is sometimes unpleasant is weather, of which there was a bit of the wind-type. It was mostly not so bad, until I got to the East summit. I happened to be wearing wool so I was only having problems with my hair (and occasionally with my pack, since it was almost empty of water), but two other people wearing shells were having some luffing issues.
The East summit is where the “Mount Daniels” USGS benchmark is, but it’s not the true summit. In fact, the Beckey guide suggests that you bypass the East summit altogether to traverse to the Middle and West summits. I only had about 9 hours for the round trip and had already used 5 (the pothole dodging on the drive in took more time than I thought), so I didn’t think I had time to go to the other two summits. I still started poking around to see if there was an easy way down to the East/Middle saddle instead of backtracking and taking the loose-looking trail traversing below the East summit. When the wind picked up some small rocks and threw them at me, though, it confirmed my inclination to turn back. Sometimes it’s nice to have an excuse to return, too.
One of the things I like about hiking by myself is that I don’t have to worry about the pace. I can go as fast or slow as I want, I can run down the trail just because it happens to be flat and not have a bunch of roots in it, I can stop for half an hour and look at ptarmigans.
Fall Colors, Ptarmigan Department
Aside from their names starting with the enticing silent p (which, according to wikipedia, is entirely decorative — the word comes from Gaelic, not Greek), ptarmigans have some of the most perfect camouflage for the high alpine meadow environment. I am convinced that there are different ptarmigan feather patterns for different kinds of rocks, and that if not for their red eyebrows, they would be invisible even to other ptarmigans. Also, since they are not often eaten by large creatures that walk on the ground, they do not mind you sitting and watching them peck at heather berries.
Of course, spending half an hour looking at birds (and, um, some more time eating tasty huckleberries) meant that I had to hurry down the trail to make it back to Cle Elum by dinner time (with a stop in Roslyn for some afternoon coffee).
- Mt Daniel, SE Ridge