On Saturday 13 December I headed out to try my hand at a six point unactivated summit in the southern Olympic range. I was excited to try and bag this summit after 1 DEC and get the 3 point bonus. My plan was to head out of the house at about 0600 but my weekends are important in that I try to catch up on sleep which I have missed out on during the week. So 0830 it was up and out the door. I was at the trail head at 0930 and hiking at 0945. The trail is clearly marked that it is very steep; 4400 feet in 2.8 miles if I remember correctly. It is every bit of it also! The trail is easy to follow and I made my way up to the saddle heading towards Wagonwheel lake and then caught the main spur to the summit. I was monitoring 146.52 the whole way in hopes that I would here Doug KY7S or Mark K7NEW on one of their activations. If the trail was steep, the ridge was even steeper. I continued to put one foot in front of the other but there came a time that I realized that I was just not going to make it. I sat down and enjoyed the view, tried a couple calls on the HT, and ate some lunch. I made a couple of calls for Doug KY7S to see if I could reach him, with no luck I started my trip back down the hill. I took out my phone and took a picture of the scree slope (below). Then my phone shut down on me... so there would be no more pictures. For some reason my phone has been shutting down on me with over 50% lately. Seems to happen more when it is cold outside. Probably one of the new iphone updates! I made my way back down the mountain.It seems these days the way down is harder then the way up. Up may take energy but down is hard on the knees and back. I will be back to try this one again when the days are longer and I will start a little bit earlier. I am like a diesel engine, I can move all day just not fast. Slow and steady the whole way. Thanks for reading.
Some usefull links to use if trying this summit:
Every Trail GPS Tracks - http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=3056225
http://www.summitpost.org/copper-mountain/769748
http://www.peakbagger.com/peak.aspx?pid=1047
Useful Summit Information:
I had verizon cell signal at the end of my track, I can only assume that I would have usable signal at the summit.
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| GPS Tracks can be downloaded at http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=3056225 |
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