This summer was one of the rainiest in the Sierra in recent memory. I had tons of weekend hikes that ended up with me holed up in my tent for most of the trip and even a drive over Sonora Pass with heavy hail, lightning, and rockslides. Multiple people would console me that this is just not normal out here and I’m not entirely sure I believe them yet. On this fated Labor Day Weekend, I spent a very soggy weekend at Hungry Packer Lake in the Lake Sabrina area.

I have been wanting to check out this set of glacial lakes for years, ever since I had seen some gorgeous photos of the jade/teal color of Ritter Lakes. They’re nestled in the Ansel Adams Wilderness, probably my favorite area in the High Sierra. I was able to convince my friend Nicole to join me on this trip. She’s not as comfortable with off-trail travel but we made it through with only some minor mishaps. Due to the extremely high snowpack this year, none of the glacial lakes really took on their jade colors...which just means I’ll have to go back next year!

I recently finished up my Ph.D. program and took a month off before starting my new job. I don’t usually spend much time in Washington in the spring but thought experiencing the mountains in a different season could be a nice change of pace, and boy was I right! Cool temperatures, a refreshing mist on the trail without rain, zero mosquitoes, and cloud inversions for days were just some of the benefits I reaped on my first backpacking trip of the season.

I thought I’d dedicate a quick post to some of the easier hikes I did that didn’t feel like they warranted their own posts. Many of my favorite day hikes involved more driving than hiking on the east side of the Cascades, and yet I’d still say it was totally worth it. I felt like I didn’t hike as much as I’d wanted to this summer, and this fall was going to be when I made up for it. And so on an unseasonably warm Friday morning, I set out from Seattle at 4am for a quick hike in the Chelan-Sawtooth Wilderness.

After just having got back to Seattle from another trip to the Chelan-Sawtooths the night before, I grudgingly woke up at 5 AM for a weekend backpacking trip. The plan was to camp at Libby Lake and then catch sunrise the next morning from Hoodoo Peak. It was definitely a late start for this trip meaning that I didn’t get to the trailhead until 10. There were three cars at the primitive trailhead when I got there and two more that arrived as I was getting ready.

Continuing with the theme of doing easy, popular hikes during larch season, I planned to check out Wing Lake in the morning and then head up to Maple Pass at sunset with my friend Holly. I ended up doing the whole loop and boy was it a treat! This is definitely a hike that’s popular for a reason.

I normally wouldn’t write about such a short hike but felt this trip warranted its own report since I surprisingly enjoyed it so much. I’ve only hiked once in Mt. Rainier National Park, halfway up the Skyline trail in 2014. The only reason I haven’t been back since then is unfamiliarity with the trails in MRNP while also having a huge backlog of hikes to do in the Cascades. On Friday, my friend Holly asked me if I’d be interesting in doing a sunset hike up to Tolmie Peak Lookout. I had had plans of doing Vesper Peak but figured it would probably be better to ease myself back into hiking after taking a month off, so Tolmie Peak it was.

I had already been up to Monte Cristo and Glacier Basin earlier in the summer as a conditioning backpacking trip, but my plans this weekend fell through and I decided to head back up there for a solo trip up Cadet Peak. I’d never been up any of the Monte Cristo Peaks so this was a real treat for me in near perfect summit conditions.

On a hot day in early August I convinced my friend Holly to check out a place in the North Cascades with me which I had seen on a list of scenic cross country hikes. I knew it would be a bit of a slog – a bushwhack plus scramble – but given the relatively short distance, I felt it would be okay and certainly within our skill levels. Well, Holly called me a demon for dragging her on this hike when all was said and done, ha ha ha ha ha.

It’s been a really hectic eight months but I wanted to finish writing about fall escapades before moving on to other trips. I took two days to rest after Stuart Lake/Horseshow Lake hoping that it would allow my knee to recover. I planned to do a day hike on Thursday and then head out to the Chelan Sawtooths again with my friend Tobin. While I’d initially thought to head to the North Cascades, I decided at the last minute to do a thru-hike of the Enchantments.

I took a chance and used my last week off this year to do some hiking and backpacking in the Cascades – just in time for larch season! For those who don’t know, the alpine larch – larix lyallii – is a species of deciduous, coniferous tree found on the eastern slopes of the Washington Cascades. Their needles typically turn golden yellow in late fall (late September and early October in the mountains) before dropping for the winter.

This year, I decided to apply for advance permits in the North Cascades. Usually, advance reservations aren’t necessary if you have flexibility in your schedule (and especially if you have weekday availability), but I decided why not? The plan was to do Copper Ridge and then check out Tapto Lakes; I ended up scoring permits for Silesia Camp, Graybeal Camp, and Tapto XC zone in that order. My friend Holly joined in and we were psyched for a trip to a place that had been on both of our bucket lists for a while now.

In mid-August, I headed back to the Cascades for a solid outing with my friend Tobin. We got a leisurely start from the Seattle area around 9 AM and from what I remember – my memory is a bit hazy at this point – were on the trail by noon. I won’t write too much about the approach up to Gunn Peak except to say that it was straightforward but strenuous. Lots of gain in a fairly short distance.

Our original plan was head to the Chilliwacks in the North Cascades – I had even been extra careful to remember my passport for the border crossing – but a poor weather forecast caused us to reconsider at the last minute. I threw out the idea of a leisurely three-day attempt at Buck Mountain and Tobin assented. And even though this trip felt like a consolation prize at first, it actually ended up being my favorite hike of the year and even one of the best hikes I’ve done in the Cascades.

This was a fun solo trip on the tail end of my trip to Washington this year. I had wanted to camp high up near a summit to catch sunrise and sunset but also didn’t want to commit to some of the more remote locations in the North Cascades. I settled on Chikamin Peak on the recommendation of several friends who mentioned that they did the Mineral Creek approach and it was easy.

This was one of the first backpacking trips I did in 2019, which really seems like easier times now. I had just passed my qualifying exams and took two weeks off to hike in the Cascades. I convinced my friend Bryce to go on a three-day out-and-back trip from Phelps Creek to Lyman Lakes and then Image Lake. She also brought along her dog Arlo (a border collie mix) and we all had a great time checking out this beautiful part of the Glacier Peak Wilderness.

Over Labor Day weekend, I took a gamble and booked a flight back out to Seattle for some prime time in the North Cascades. The past few weeks had been hot and smokey, but I had three blissfully clear – if cold – nights in the mountains with my friend Holly when I thought my summer was already over. The plan was to scramble up Fisher Peak and potentially Mount Arriva as well. With three days, it would be a fairly leisurely trip. Or so we thought.

The summer is approaching its end for me and the work is beginning to pile up. I had originally planned to get out to the North Cascades to climb Black Peak last week, but plans changed, my hiking partner had to cancel, and I had relegated the trip to next summer's list. Fortunately, Lucas mentioned that he and a friend would be attempting a car-to-car (i.e. day hike) of Black Peak on Sunday and had invited me to join.

I’ve got a bit of a rocky relationship with this mountain. In 2015, I tried to climb it with no prior scrambling experience (I did have a helmet, though!) which ended in failure. I remember looking up the north face of the peak and thinking I surely wasn’t meant to climb up that steep rock. Fast forward to 2017 and I successfully made the summit, albeit without any photos because a child almost stole my DSLR (more on this later). In 2018, I decided to go back up for sunset with my friend Lucas.

Earlier this summer, I took one of those no good, very bad trips into the backcountry. The kind where it seems like everything that could possibly go wrong does. Where you forget to pack multiple essential items and all of the factors out of your control decide not to cooperate at the same time.

My friend Holly and I decided on a leisurely three-day trip to La Bohn Lakes with a trip up Mt. Hinman which I had failed to successfully summit the year before.