Eugenious

Mission: accomplished! Summer might already be over, but I finally climbed three volcanoes this climbing season: Mt. Bailey, Diamond Peak, and Mt. Scott.

Volcano 2 1/2: Leslie and I attempted Mt. St. Helens on a rainy weekend in September. We chatted, I ate nearly all of her homemade cookies spiked with coffee, and we read for hours as the rain pattered the roof of the van the night before the climb. The mountain remained socked in. After reaching about 6000 feet and having a difficult time seeing from one trail-marking post to the next, we decided to go down, get dry, and go to Powells. Good choice.

Volcano 3: I decided I needed to find a sure thing before the snows come. Mt. Scott, on the edge of Crater Lake, seemed like my sure thing: 5 miles round-trip, 1300 feet of elevation gain, great views if the weather gods smiled, and an easy walk-up I could do alone. At 8926, it’s the highest point in Crater Lake National Park, and it’s higher than I’ve climbed in a while.

I drove into the park last night at 7 p.m., 2 hours and 20 minutes after leaving Eugene. The sign at the entrance read “Lost Creek Campground will close on October 11, 2010 at 2 p.m.” I still had 19 hours! As much as I’ve avoided this reality, autumn has truly set in; my drive through the park was dark and foggy, and I feared driving off the edge of Rim Drive. An hour later, I reached the campground, precisely on the opposite side of the lake from where I’d entered the park.

If you’re a parent, a writer, a lover of the outdoors, or a soul with simply too little time, you’ll understand how I relished the hour and a half I then spent journaling while the winds pushed the treetops around. Then I read. As the clouds blew off and the stars gave the sky its depth, I slept. I found out later that the temperature dipped down to 27° F.

I awoke at 6:30, and I was on the trail at 7:05, after driving 6 miles to the trailhead. It was fully light, although the sun hadn’t yet risen over the shoulder of Mt. Scott. I set off alone over the gravelly cinders, through a forest of whitebark pine, mountain hemlock, and Shasta red fir (which may have been subalpine fir; I’m not a fir girl, a connoisseur of Abies). After some photos, wind, switchbacks, and talking to myself, I was at the top in an hour. From the ridge near the summit, one can peer west to Crater Lake or east to Klamath Marsh, irrigated and channeled into straight lines. At the top of this ancient “satellite volcano” that sits on the flank of of the much larger and younger Mt. Mazama—the beast that erupted to form Crater Lake over 7000 years ago—a solar-powered fire tower is perched.

I walked along the ridge, seeking a sunny breakfast nook. I found it, and I also met a friend, a marten who was not really afraid of me but who was eager to move past my verbal greetings. This marten was about 12 feet from me when I snapped the photo.

After 30 minutes on the summit ridge, I’d finished my hard-boiled eggs and self portraits, so I donned my gloves and walked back down.

In another 45 minutes, I’d reached the van. I stopped a couple of times to enjoy the view, then I headed back to Eugene, where I picked up the kids at 3 p.m. and brought them to my rehearsal at 4. Thanks, family, for indulging my mountain madness.

This entry was posted in the categories Julie, Oregon, outdoors by julie on Monday, 11 October 2010, 23:34. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.