Mt. Spokane for Real!!!!

Ok, I moved to Spokane in 1985. I have no idea how many times I have been up to Mt. Spokane State Park to hike, ski, snowshoe, camp, and just goof around and I have NEVER, EVER, ACTUALLY HIKED TO THE SUMMIT. Until yesterday, of course. Walter and I had such a super-duper wonderful day I can barely contain myself.

As I posted earlier, I have a four day weekend. I think I mentioned something silly about working around the house. Where exactly did the term "pipe dream" come from? Anyway, we slept in late and were at the hairpin turn parking lot and on the trail by 10:30am. Wally and I headed up trail 100 to 110 to the big trail junction on the saddle between Beauty Mountain and Mt. Kit Carson. Oh, and a trail map can be found here... http://www.mountspokane.org/images/mtspokane_trailma.gif... if you want to follow along. At the junction is a pit toilet and I always refer to this area in my head as the toilet junction. There were also TONS of huckleberries and I had quite a few. From the junction we then took 135 all the way to the summit. This is an interesting bit of trail with some really steep parts that just about did me in. About half way between the toilet junction and the summit there is a spur trail called 135a that goes to the CCC Cabin. In this area is the first sighting (or at least my first sighting) of the "Black Tower." It is a cell tower just poking up in the woods. It was just a weird thing to see and it kept coming back to me (read on).

Past the Black Tower the trail really gets down to business. Because of the slope and the fact that mountain bikers have torn the trail up, it is incredibly dusty. I had long pants on and when I got home and stripped down my legs were filthy. Walter and I ended up in the shower together because we were both so gross (oh come on, it is not that big of a deal). Anyway, I had to employ my steep hill climbing strategy. As a native of the flat lands of Illinois, I had to learn to climb hills when I started backpacking in Colorado. When it is really steep, like the kind of steep that hurts like hell, I just count paces. Like, I count each time my left foot goes down, usually around 50 times, then I stop to take a 30 or 40 second rest. The last time I had to do this was when I was climbing over boulders on Sherman Peak.

Eventually though, we reached the summit and the Vista House. There were quite a few people up there (they drove up) and Walter got a lot of attention. For some reason people find the name Walter novel for a dog. I dunno, make sense to me. And have I ever mentioned that I named him after my great uncle Walter? So Walter and I had lunch up at the Vista House. It was so windy, and I had been sweating so much on the way up that I had to put on long sleeves to keep from freezing. The view was fantastic. Aside from the emotionally abusive parent who was mean to his kids that I wanted to shove off a cliff, our lunch was great. We had hiked about four miles in two hours and gained around 1,500 feet in elevation.

After we left the Vista House, we got back on trail 135 and at the Black Tower Junction we got onto 135a. This area of the park has damn confusing trail signage and there are several trails and roads that all come together. I got a wee bit screwed up, though at no time was I in any danger of getting lost. We connected with the CCC Cabin and then hit a junction with trail 130. I turned the wrong way on 130 thinking I had to go down to the Loop Road (closed to vehicles) and then head in the direction I wanted. We walked down the Loop Road for about a quarter of a mile before I was certain that it was not the way I wanted to go. We could have kept going and ended back up at the Toilet Junction and saved about three miles and a couple of hours, but I wanted to go back a new way and make an actual loop. So we turned around and went back the other way on 130. Then, I got totally frustrated because 130 took us back towards the Black Tower. It just seemed like a spur trail from 135a to 130 would have saved some distance and some confusion.

Trail 130 has some tiny ups and downs but is pretty level, or as level as you can get on the side of a mountain. The trail hooks up with the Bald Knob Campground and picnic area, then heads down to the big parking lot at the junction of Mt. Spokane Park Drive and Summit Road. And again, the trails can be screwy because there is 130 and 130a and 130b and lots of trails that seem well used that just peter out after a bit. From the big parking lot we got on trail 100 which heads uphill again to go around a ravine, then heads back downhill to the hairpin turn parking lot.

In all, Walter and I did around 10 miles with our little detour. It was an incredible day. The more I go up to Mt. Spokane the more I appreciate the park. And we have only begun to scratch the surface of the trails there. The mountain bikers are, in my opinion, a bit of a problem. At least some of them. On our way up 110, some guys came down and if Walter and I had not heard them and moved out of the way they would have run us over. And I heard one of them say that he wanted to stop for a smoke. Yeah, in the woods in August during a high wind. Sure, go ahead numb nuts. But then on the really steep part of 135, some other bikers totally stopped when they saw us and they were really nice. So I guess it just pays to watch out and listen for the sound of loose chains hitting clusters. And then get the hell out of the way.

Though I was a wee bit bent that Nancy went to Mexico and was not around to house sit so Walter and I could go up to the Kettle Range, it turned out to be a good thing. Last weekend I replaced the front brake calipers on the Festiva. This was after a new drive axel, which was after new bearings, which was after a new muffler. Well, on the way up to Mt. Spokane my transmission started slipping. This morning there was a huge puddle of transmission fluid in my driveway. And yep, sure enough, there was a $227 problem. Considering it was a transmission, it could have been worse. And I could have ended up in the mountains on logging roads with no extra transmission fluid. That would have sucked. Especially since I went through a whole quart just today. To appease the goddess Autemis, I bought a new sticker for the back window of the Festiva. Who knows what else Walter and I will get up to this weekend. Whatever we do I am sure I will be posting it right here on Travels with Walter.

Pictures: Wally and me on top of Mt. Spokane; a trail sign that sort of makes sense...if you also have a map!!!; the Black Tower Junction; looking back down at the way we came (the mountain is Mt. Kit Carson and we came up on the saddle just in front of it), looking out at the view, the parking lot on top of the mountain and one of the ski lifts, looking back up at the top (with the Black Tower in the background); the CCC cabin.