Monday, August 21, 2006

3 Fingers Mountain: 08/19/06

This past weekend I went on one of the best hikes I've ever been on. I went with two of my roommates, Ann and Dave.

We did the Three Fingers in the Central Cascades off the Mountain Loop Highway. It took a while to drive the 17 miles of bumpy dirt roads. ...but we made the 6.2 mile hike to Tin Pan Gap Pass in short order. Ann was thoroughly satisfied with what we had done.

She was enjoying the views of the surrounding mountains like Baker.

...but Dave and I were hungry for more
Ann decided she didn't want to spend any more time traversing the snow since we didn't have crampons and ice axes.



Not wanting to leave Ann behind, Dave and I decided against going up to the lookout. As a consolation, we did a fun, little scramble up a false summit to get this cool near-bird's eye view of an adjacent false summit
Then we saw two guys pondering the glacier traverse to get up to the lookout.
Dave was pondering joining them.
I was pondering bringing my skis next time.
The two guys decided against going, but Dave and I were too close to giving it a go. With Ann's blessing, we changed our minds and decided to give it a go. Onward and upward we continued. Crossing snow when we had to...
...and avoiding it when we could. We followed the contours of the mountain toward the summit.

Finally we reached the top

The outlook house was cool


The views were great

Not even goats are safe from survey people these days

We wanted to stay longer, but it was getting late.
So, Dave and I made our way back to meet up with Ann down at Tin Pan Gap.
We met up and made our way back to the car. I was amazed that the wildflowers were still in bloom.
Along the way, we met up with this guy.
We reached Goat Flats, and I realized how late it was getting.
I could've stayed there all evening.
Our views became more obstructed as we descended, but the colors became increasingly more interesting.

The day faded before we did. We pulled our headlamps out and continued to the car. We arrived, physically tired, but mentally charged, from a great day iin the mountains.

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