November’s hike was Mt. Mitchell, near Mt. St. Helens in Washington. Pics are here. The pictures make it look pretty gnarly. It didn’t feel as gnarly as it looks.

I compiled a Google Earth file, but something is amiss with the track and/or geotags. The photos are all on the trail, but they’re in weird spots. Not sure what the problem is, but next hike I’ll run two tracks: one going in and one coming out. That way I should be able to better narrow down any problems.

Anyway, the hike was fun, even though there was significant snow at the summit (around 3 feet in the drifts). We anticipated a wet hike, but the night before we left I checked the weather and it was calling for snow. So I just figured we’d get some flakes at the higher elevations. Apparently it’d been snowing up there for quite some time. The mountain was shrouded in fog at the top, so we couldn’t see the summit from the road to know that there was snow up top. I brought gaiters, but left them in the car–a choice I later regretted, but only marginally. My pant legs were pretty wet near my feet, but my feet stayed warm and dry the whole time. Ron’s feet were soaked by the end–his pants were a little shorter, leaving his socks exposed to the snow.

Saw a TON of elk hunters in the area. Ran into one old dude as we were coming back down the trail, near the bottom. He asked whether we’d seen any elk sign. We hadn’t. We wondered to ourselves, once we were out of earshot, what this 70-year old dude would do if he actually shot an elk. There’s no way he could’ve hauled it out alone. Back down at the trailhead we ran into his hunting partner, who wasn’t actually hunting. I think this partner guy was the muscle if the old guy shot something.

Overall, it was a fun walk in the woods and we snagged three geocaches in the area post-hike. Looking forward to December’s hike!