Brothers mountain, WA July 23-25
- This topic is empty.
-
I got lucky and ended up with 3 days off during the middle of the week. I work nights but I tried to make the best of it and got to the trail head at 9 PM. This was my first hiking experience alone at night and I found I would much rather sleep at night than hike. That said I set up camp, after only 2 hours on the trail, just past Lena lake and soon after I got under my quilt it started to rain. I woke up early and started to make my way towards Brothers mountain in light intermittent rain.
The weather was poor on the mountain with high winds, rain, and dense clouds.
I lost the main route to the summit because I missed a blaze and the clouds blocked the view of the saddle and other landmarks completely but I still continued on. Finally, since I was alone, half lost and wet, I made the smart decision to turn around and head back. after only 30 min into my decent the weather started to open up and I saw my missed blaze.
Then it really opened up and I was finally able to look around and see just how close I came to the top before I turned around.
With the weather getting nicer by the minute the wildlife started to check things out.
On my second night I stayed at the brothers mountain base camp on lena creek fork.
Later that evening a familiar face visited my camp.
The next day, on my way out, I saw some packs that really made me appreciate my ultra light load.
LOL, nope I haven't pet one yet. This one was a male. He got very close many times but never made any signs he was going to charge which he later did.
I guess they love/need salt and will dig up and lick the spot where you urinate for a long time. I hung out in that area for an hour and a half and he stayed with me the whole time. Then I left him behind and walked the 2 miles back to camp. About an hour later he showed up again we were fine with each other until I went to hang my bear line. When I came back to camp it was dark and I kind of startled him.
I took another step to get a picture and he started to kind of snort. Then he reared up and charged me. He was about 10 feet away so I dove sideways and ran behind a tree. I was scared he was going to charge again so I took lots of flash photos, threw sticks and yelled to try to get him out of my camp. I had to do this many times because he just wasn't scared of me.
After he was gone I was shaking pretty good from the adrenaline rush and when I went to sleep that night I shut the door on my DuoMid.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
