Hiking a Honeymoon

Ah. It's November. Summer is finally fading here in Santa Cruz. Well, kind of. It's still 80 degrees out some days but cool enough in the mornings to wear boots to work. Maybe it will rain ... maybe ...

Our summer was amazing, largely because M and I got married (!!) and went on an epic, outdoorsy honeymoon adventure in Glacier National Park and Banff National Park.

We backpacked about 50 miles total, plus some day hikes. There are lots of stories to share, but for now, here are some photos.

(clockwise from top) Driving from Waterton Lakes to Banff; us at Waterton Lakes; our digs at Waterton Lake -- the Prince of Wales Hotel; hitchhiking efforts; us at Lake McDonald; signs of an active wildlife in Glacier National Park.

(clockwise from top) A chairlift ride at Lake Louise ski resort; Morraine Lake; the river in Lake Louise under full moon; a  glacier above Lake Louise; Canadian Rockies; the bucolic view on the drive from Waterton to Banff. 

Lake McDonald

The view from our campsite near Granite Park Chalet; the lake at Many Glacier. 

Hike This: Pilot Rock

We've been married just over two weeks now and are just back from the most epic awesome amazing backpacking honeymoon.... lots of photos and trail beta to share from that soon! In the mean time, I wanted to blog about this great hike in Ashland, Oregon (where we got married): Pilot Rock. 

Views from Pilot Rock.

Pilot Rock is a "volcanic plug" in the Cascade range and comes in just under 6,000 feet. You can read all about it in this BLM publication (it's also located on Bureau land, part of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument). We invited friends and family to join us for the walk/mountain scamper the day before our June 20th wedding because it's short enough for most people to handle, offers panoramic views of the Rogue Valley, Cascade Mountains and Siskiyou range, and it has a little steep section at the end that challenges the toughest of hikers. 

This hike, a spur off the PCT, is about 1.25 miles each way with 1000 feet of elevation gain. In recent years, the trail had been rerouted slightly and updated to avoid a sensitive bird habitat and prevent erosion. It's nice, and a bit more manageable to get up and down -- no more scree slopes -- but the rock climbing aspect at the end remains. 

The climb.

Possibly, I didn't fully explain the summiting information with the dozen or so people I convinced to hike with us before the wedding. I also maybe forgot how challenging that scramble is, despite doing the hike a few times in college and in the fall, when M and I took his parents and the dogs. That time, we all made it to the rock-climbing part of the hike. Mike and I summited while his parents hung back with the pups.

Luckily, the friends with babies and small children peaced out on the hike, so we didn't have to haul littles up two chutes and some low-grade free climbing. Instead, our crew grabbed beers and strolled up the trail, checking out wildflowers and urging the dogs along. There's not much to report in terms of how the hike went. We walked, most of us climbed the rocks and took in the views, then we walked back. No one got hurt and I even kept my manicure intact by wearing gardening gloves for the rock climbing. The whole hike takes maybe an hour. 

Pre-wedding group outing.

Driving directions: 

- From downtown Ashland, head SE on Siskiyou Blvd/99. Stay on this road through town.
- Merge onto I-5, heading South, just South of town.
- Take exit 6 towards Mt Ashland. Follow this past Mt Ashland and under the interstate.
- Turn left on Pilot Rock Road/BLM 40-2E-33.
- Follow this till a parking lot/old quarry appears on the right. This is the trailhead.

Backcountry Ski Trippin'

I'm new to snow sports.

Until the past couple of winters, my experience in the snow amounted to some sledding as a child and chaining up my '98 Mustang in college to get access to a snow-covered peak for a hike.

But the boyfriend is a snowboarder and, over the course of the past couple winters, I've learned how to get down a mild blue-square run and acquired all kinds of snow gear: the appropriate layers, snowshoes, waterproof boots and a complete snowboarding setup. 

Last weekend we put it all to the test by hiking in to the Benson Hut, a Sierra Club shelter three miles south of Sugarbowl and about six miles from Donner Pass. Our friends had, smartly, left a day earlier and made the five-mile hike from the ski resort parking lot in during idyllic conditions. 

The boyfriend, a buddy and I weren't so lucky. 

The only precipitation the Sierra has seen since the first week of December rolled in Saturday morning as we got geared up for the adventure. We cut off two miles of hiking by riding chairlifts up to the top of Sugarbowl, a cheat method that almost immediately knocked me out of the game because I didn't know how to snowboard with a 25-pound pack on. 

Kindly, the boyfriend carried both our packs (what a stud!) and we made it to the top of Sugarbowl, AKA Mt. Lincoln, elevation 8,400 feet. 

It looked like this: 

 

Yikes. Visibility was basically nothing. Winds whipped us, threatening to blow away stray gloves as we got our  gear organized and used a bike lock to chain our snowboards together between some boulders (for protection against blowing away, not theft). 

Then we hiked.

Three miles, even backpacking at altitude, should be nothing. We were able to hug the ridgeline enough to avoid getting lost (normally, it's a simple ridge hike and the path is visible throughout). But no one was having fun. Our buddy, hiking in Sorels with Yaktrax post-holed through the soft new snow. Once the boyfriend and I strapped on our snowshoes, we kept them on -- even when that meant crossing the rocks of wind-blown, snow-free saddles in the snowshoes. 

We hiked for two hours to reach the hut, quite off of the 30-minutes-a-mile pace we had accepted as the slowest we would possibly go. The boyfriend and most of the crew already the hut had made this same trek five years prior (one of them loves doing this trip as a birthday celebration) which also helped us find the way.

The hut was a welcome sight, nestled just below the peak of Mt. Anderson (8,500 feet). 

We spent the afternoon and evening sipping whiskey, making fajitas and enjoying the company of friends while it stormed outside. A few brave skiers in the group took their skis and skins out to test the fresh snow. I can't imagine being good enough at snowboarding to get a split board and skins and ski in the backcountry, but props to those who do. Resort skiing feels adventurous enough for me.

In the morning, we awoke to more snow and panoramic views. 

The return hike, with the sun shining and epic views surrounding us, felt like a walk in the park compared to our adventure the day prior. To avoid the snowboarding-with-a-pack debacle, get a little more cardio and ensure the guys got to a sports bar in time for the Niners game, I handed off my snowboard to a friend who had hiked in without one and chose to snowshoe down the ski runs with the boyfriend's sister. This added a little over two miles to our hike and was possibly the most pleasurable part of the weekend. Happy skiers paused to ask us about our adventure before zipping down the mountain. We trotted on.

The Benson Hut is open to the public for day use and as an emergency shelter. You also can book the hut for overnight stays and volunteer to maintain it (one of our friends does this, which is how we got hooked up with the hut). It's part of a network of huts on the Sierra Ski Trail in the Lake Tahoe area. Each are about a day's ski apart. 

After visiting, I'd love to go back in the summer.