Buckhorn Mountain - June 13-14, 2023
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 had originally intended to join my friend Holly on an overnight trip to Buckhorn Mountain, but she woke up with a migraine the day of and had to sit this one out. She’d gone up Buckhorn before so I didn’t do much research on the hike itself. Five minutes before leaving Seattle I created and downloaded a GPX track of the trail, at which point I found out that this shock-my-body-into-shape hike consisted of 4500 ft of elevation gain. Whelp. I told myself I’d go slowly and it would be fine.
I arrived at the trailhead around 2 PM to intermittent drizzles, mist, and fog. The grade of this trail is very steady – not too steep but enough for you to feel it with a heavy back and out-of-shape body. The cloud cover and mist was honestly refreshing and kept me from sweating or overheating too much. About 5 hours later (including many, many breaks) I reached the false summit of Buckhorn and set up camp in the flat areas below it. The wind was fierce and chilled me to my bone as I spent at least 20 minutes trying to fix my old tentpoles which had lost most of their tension. By the time I finished my camp chores and spent some time taking photos, I was literally shivering despite wearing my down jacket and standing in direct sunlight.
As the sun set, clouds drifted towards Marmot Pass from both the east and west and gave a really nice inversion. On the downside, the wind picked up dramatically and really didn’t die down until well after sunrise this next morning. I was a little bummed that I didn’t get to see a proper sunrise due to high clouds in the far east blocking the sun’s initial ascent, but it was more than made up for by the inversion.
I watched the clouds drift between peaks before quickly tagging the true summit and heading back to camp. The hike back to the trailhead was spent dreaming about all of the hikes I had left to do in the short month I’d allotted. Somehow, my “to-do” list of hikes seems to only grow longer year after year.
Side note: I had spent October to June working on my dissertation and doing almost no physical activity. This isn’t necessarily all that different from how my off-season usually goes, but I generally at least work up to longer overnight trips first by doing day hikes. This year, I jumped right into it with Buckhorn Mountain. I found that by being very deliberate with my pace (very slow) and taking breaks every 45 minutes to an hour even if I didn’t feel hungry or thirsty really helped me power through without any injuries. I was sore for about three days afterwards – much longer than I usually am – but was able to do all of my other hikes this spring and summer without issue.
