Distance Roundtrip: 6.4 miles RT
Elevation Gain: 3500 ft.
Highest Elevation: 4301 ft.
Location: Olympic National Forest
Lettering Medium: Watercolor
Images taken with an iPhone6
We’re in training mode for Mt. St. Helens in June (and maybe Adams in July?). Mt. Rose provided a good opportunity for a climb and we were rewarded with a beautiful day. This spring is being a bit odd shifting between sunny and rainy but I’m embracing any sunny days that come our way.
Dustin and I are also in the midst of getting our pup Winston up to speed on this whole hiking thing. Our vet says “he’s just like a human” and needs to work up his endurance as well. We’ve been walking a mile or more every night and a bit in the mornings as well and then trying to get him out on the weekends. We had a semi-successful trip to Heather Lake a couple months back where we raced to the top. On the way down he called it quits, and gave my arms a run for their money. Turns out he does okay swung around your neck. After that I’ve come prepared with a pack that has room for him. He made it up and down West Tiger 3 without a problem which was promising! We thought with Mt. Rose we’d walk him as far as he could and then carry the rest. It turns out he’s in better shape then we gave him credit for — he made it all the way to the top and down on his own! I did force him in to my pack for a 1/4 mile down at the top where it was really steep and we were post holing.
The summit at Mt. Rose is quite small and we were lucky to be the only group there. Dustin and I stayed away from the ledge (you won’t really find us near them … #fearofheights) but my bestie Kristen never shies away from a cliff/ledge/dropoff (much to the angst of her boyfriend) so you can see them out there eating lunch. After soaking up some sun, we gave our spot up to the next group of tired legs and began our descent.
Like I said, we forced Winston into the pack … he tends to whine when he feels lost and there was little to no trail near the top with the snow. He’s still working on the whole adventure pup thing but I have faith! He eventually demanded to be released by way of scrambling and clawing out of the pack and the five of us attempted to almost trail run back to the car. I mean that’s a little nicer on the knees right?
Reaching the parking lot we discovered someone had kissed our bumper real nice (appreciate them leaving a note!). This isn’t the first time this has happened with our new suburu—we’re becoming real familiar with the auto shop :/
We finished out the trip with a stop outside of Hoodsport for some grass-fed burgers and a sunset ferry ride home. Life is good.
