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| Rattlesnake Wilderness |
On May 12th, I set out to climb Stuart Peak. I had decided to cut my dreads off and wanted to do it in a great place. Stuart Peak was where I chose to do it. I had wanted to get up Stuart for quite a long time and a dreadloch-cutting mission was what was going to get me up there. As it is not an easy peak to get to--18-mile round trip--I chose to do my first bike-and-hike of the season.
I rode my bike up Spring Gulch for about three miles until the Wallman Trail and then I pushed my bike up the trail to the next trail junction. I was not in any sort of biking shape and once the trail became steeper, I could not ride any longer. I didn't mind though, as I knew I could at least ride down it. I stopped and rested at the junction in the sun and looked at the map. Since there was no snow there and since the trail seemed to mellow out a bit I decided to continue pushing my bike up the hill.
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| Final ridge heading up Stuart Peak |
I made it to about 5600 feet before I started running into big snow drifts. It was at this point I decided I would stash the bike. When I finally decided I would take the bike off trail I looked behind me and saw another hiker. I was shocked that anyone else was out there. She had snowshoes on her pack like me so I assumed she was going for the peak as well. We stopped and talked for a bit and looked at my map together and then she carried on while I stashed the bike.
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| Final photo of the dreads |
The snow was pretty consistent from this point on and I finally caught up with the other hiker when she lost the trail. We had been following snowshoe tracks from a day or two earlier and they had stopped. Once I caught up we chatted some more and decided to hike together and take turns breaking trail. The snow was more consolidated than we had thought and we did not use our snowshoes. I broke trail for awhile, following the actual trail until we were quite high and a switchback was taking us away from our destination. At that point, we left the trail and headed up toward where we thought the trail would eventually cross the saddle.
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| The new Jon |
At the saddle we picked up snowshoe tracks again. It seemed like someone, or a group of people, had camped near the saddle over the weekend. There were tracks headed toward the peak and the other hiker, Kate, led, following in the snowshoe tracks. We were no longer following the trail but were heading directly up the ridge toward the summit. The snow on the ridge was softer and we contemplated putting on our snowshoes for a bit until we located the old tracks again--they had been snowed over a bit from the storm over the weekend.
Kate continued to lead and I fell further and further behind as I was out of shape and hungry. Eventually I saw her up top and heard her hoot and knew she was on the summit. I pushed on and made it to the top. The snowy views were incredible. I had wanted to make it to this summit for some time and to make it into the Rattlesnake Wilderness, and here I stood, on the summit, on the edge of the wilderness looking right into the snowy mountain ridges and snow-covered lakes of the Rattlesnake Wilderness. It was beautiful.
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| Mosquito Peak in the Rattlesnake Wilderness |
We hung out on top and ate some food. It felt quite chilly once we had stopped moving. Eventually Kate left and I stayed and chopped off my hair. One by one I cut my dreads off and threw them into the wind. It was a good way to do it. Once I finished, I looked around one last time, snapped a few more photos, and headed back down.
Following our tracks down was much easier than slogging up the mountain. Where it was too flat though, it was difficult as the the sun had melted the snow enough that I sunk in more than on the way up. Fortunately the flat spots were not too many or too long. I made short time of getting back to my bike. I pulled it out and enjoyed a speedy descent back to the car.
Elevation gain: 4380' Total gain: 39,265'
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