Mount Catherine (W7W/CW-066) / Denny Creek Water Slide / Wynoochee Falls

On Saturday 30 July Lily (12), Brookelyn (7), Kimber (3) and I headed to Mount Catherine for a hike and SOTA activation. This was the second time that Lily and I had done Mount Catherine. Peyton was with us last year but his year he was visiting his dad in Montana, he will be back next weekend with hopes to hit Mount Townsend (TBD).

I had talked to Chris, WX7EMT, a couple days prior and I knew that he was planning on doing Mount Defiance also today. I figured that I would be able to work him while I was driving up to Catherine and possibly get up in time to get a summit to summit with him. It turns out that Chris got a late start due to his wife having a flat tire and decided to do Catherine also.

On the drive up 146.52 was really busy with SOTA activators. I was able to work KG7VIZ on Mount Pilchuck, WX7EMT on Mount Catherine, and K3OG on Big Snow Mountain just on 146.52 on the way to the trail head. I know that there was a couple other activators on frequency also, one was on Green Mountain and another on Fremont lookout but not within the activation area for SOTA.

We got to the trailhead and started hiking at 1330, a little later then planned but this is what happens when you head out with young kids. As you can see by my Fit bit profile below the hike was 1.83 miles with 1,407 ft of elevation gain and took us 1:17 minutes. We really took our time with Kimber (3 years old) but we had a fun trip, Little 3 year old legs do not move very fast, but she is doing great considering she has juvenile idiopathic arthritis, she does really great all things considered. Sometimes dad gets a little more exercise when she needs to be carried.

On the way to the summit we were able to meet Chris, WX4EMT, coming down from his activation.

Once I got to the summit I quickly decided not to do HF (Sorry Chasers)! The summit block is very small and there was quite a bit of hikers up today. With Kimber I also wanted to keep a close eye on her because it would be easy to fall off the summit in all directions. So we sat and enjoyed the view and I used the Kenwood to work contacts on VHF. The first contact I got was K3OG. Peter was nice enough to wait for me to get to the summit so that I could get a summit to summit contact. I wanted to work him so that he could start his trip off the summit. I knew that he had a long trip down from Big Snow Mountain. 

I ended up getting 7 contacts with the HT and did not have to work hard at it. In fact my first 3 contacts were on frequency waiting for me to get to the summit. Thanks Peter, Chris, and Doug for being there waiting for me!! 

After we made the hike off the hill we headed down to Denny Creek to the natural water slide. Here is a link to the Washington trail association hike: http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/denny-creek

The site states that it is 6 miles round trip but if you only go to the water slide it is less then three miles. We hit the water slide at just over one mile and the other half mile was exploring. There is a lot to explore and it is a great time!!! Pictures below show our waterslide trip.

 On Sunday we did a day trip to Wynoochee Lake and Falls. This is another short but fun hike with swimming for kids. Here is a link for that: http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/wynoochee-falls If you are ever in this neck of the woods and you have kids they will love these places. See pictures below.

I shared a little more about our weekend then just our SOTA trip but there is so much more that we do on a typical weekend then just SOTA. We are a busy family. I drag my kids to much more then just mountain tops! 

My wife and I were just commenting how we never have pictures of each other. I guess we are going to have to get better at that. 

Thanks everyone for reading my blog. I love the comments and emails that we get on them and they are a lot of fun. It is also a great way to keep memories to look back at later. 

See you all on the next one...thinking Mount Townsend on Saturday 6 August with Lily and Peyton...of course everything is subject to change in the Conover family!

Lily is working on a Video of our trip right now and I will upload to YouTube and attach to the blog when she is complete. She loves shooting video and editing so it will be great to see what comes out.

73,