TransTransOly Training Run

Report on June 2, 2012 Longmire to Muir: 

Although no one volunteered to accompany me, this time, based on miraculous portents Friday night of finding both my GPS and alpine hat, it was decided that I was meant to follow through on this planned adventure. 

I got an early start, leaving Olympia around 9:30 AM.  When I left Olympia it was clear, however, as I approached the Mountain it started raining and it was drizzling when I arrived at Longmire.  Hoping that the weather would improve in short order I waited around a while at Longmire and finally convinced myself to leave at 12:30 PM.  I envisioned an ETA at Camp Muir of about three-four hours later, depending on the consistency of the snow on the Muir snow field, etc..  It is about six miles from Longmire to Paradise and four miles more over the snowfield to Muir. 

On the way to Paradise I had the trail much to myself and so no one much after the Nisqually crossing. Typical for me lately, the trail closure sign was posted at the other end of the trail.  Not far from the Nisqually crossing several feet of snow remain with streams at times flowing beneath the snow along the trail.  It turns out that there is a word for this, as Holly informed me, “subnivean”.  These subnivean streams created a series of subnivean caverns.  The result of hikers traversing these subnivean caverns over an ever-diminishing snow pack is a series of five-foot deep post-man holes. In addition to the risk of punching though holes chest deep, there were some potentially treacherous bridge stream crossings.  Typically these bridges were six to eight feet above the water with another four or five feet of snow crust precariously stacked on top.  They had the stability of a slushy popsicle stick with ice only on one side of the stick. In several places the snow-ice portion of the popsicle narrowed down to a couple of feet wide or had collapsed down into the creek.  I’m sure Melissa would have gleefully danced across these but I remembered the advice that Bilbo Baggins gave to Frodo… "And it's times like that, my lad, when you have to be extra careful.". Indeed, I was careful enough, on the way up.  

I often had difficulty following the trail and lost it completely somewhere between Narada Falls and Paradise so I had to work my way over to the road.  This “shortcut” added another mile or so of distance. I was not particularly keen on running on the road because by this time I had snow-legs and was wearing my not-so-road-friendly Nike Houraches.  I wasn’t planning on any road running and though the Houraches would better protect my feet from the cold on the Muir field. 

I arrived at the visitor center at 2:30 PM, much later than I had anticipated.  It had started to drizzle a bit so I dawdled around and called Holly to let her know that all was going according to plan. I also reported the hazards of the trail to one of the Rangers and found it that it would be almost twice as far (12 miles) to return to Longmire by the road.  The thought of running 12 miles down hill on that road made me cringe. I could turn around now or keep going and risk again on the way back. 

I turned my GPS on and kept going up toward Muir. The snow was fairly compact and for a while I made pretty good time with my Houraches, calf compression socks, alpine hat, gaiters, and brand new z-poles. I could see the Mountain clearly but all around were dark storm clouds.  As I got higher, the winds blew harder and harder until finally my lucky alpine hat was blown away.  I had to chase it down the mountainside. Even though I was only 45 minutes outside of Paradise, I took it as a sign that it was time to turn around. I brought a pair of pants for glasading but wasn’t really geared well for blizzard conditions.  The jog back to the visitor center was quick and easy.  Once there I dawdled again and had a cup of cocoa as I debated with myself on whether to take the road back.

The jog back to Narada falls on the road in my Houraches sucked and made it easy for me to decide.

To get back on the trail I had to cross a big orange sign and ropes that said trail closed.  I found myself much more certain of trail direction on the way down and made much better time. Unfortunately though, I did have a couple of post-man-hole experiences.  One of which led to my exceeding the design limits of my z-poles.  As I lunged forward trying to prevent myself from landing in a subnivean creek I snapped one in two. I returned them to REI today and got a brand new pair.  I wonder how many times it is ok to do that?