9/12/2010 Posting

In my off weekend between a backpack trip and climbing Mt St Helens, my plan was to hike up Mt Pugh. But as it’s a bit of an exposed scramble, I only wanted to do it in dry, sunny weather. Unfortunately, today it was neither dry nor sunny. In fact it was one of the soggiest days I have ever hiked on. Plan B was to hike up to Tin Pan Gap near Three Fingers and look down on the glacier below the Three Fingers lookout—about a ten-mile roundtrip hike. However, it was so wet and unpleasant that we only made it to Saddle Lake—about five miles roundtrip. We were pretty happy to get out and do that given that it poured the whole time we were out. The fun meter was definitely hovering around zero. We did have the trail all to ourselves however…

A participant requested that I put together a list of hiking resources that our hike leaders use to plan and prepare for hikes. Here is a website on the Seattle Hiking Branch page that has some resources: http://www.mountaineers.org/seattle/seahike2/Resources.html

I also polled the hike leaders and this is what they use the most:

Books: Mountaineers Books Day Hikes series

Trail Info Web Sites:

· Olympic National Forest trail information: http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/olympic/recreation-nu/trails_1.shtml#trailinfo

· Northwest Hikers: http://www.nwhikers.net

· Mt Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest: http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/mbs/conditions/road_conditions_report.shtml

· Washington Trails Association: http://www.wta.org/

· Google "Karen Sykes [name of hike]" to see if she’s written a trip report on it

Mapping Web Sites:

· http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/

· http://mapper.acme.com/

· http://mattj.net/overlaymap.html

· http://greentrailsmaps.com

Other Web Sites:

· Sunrise/Sunset times: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=234

· Weather: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/

· Pass conditions: http://www.skimountaineer.com/MtnWebCams/WA-MtnWebCams.html

Graduation Party:

Hold the date of Saturday, October 2^nd on your calendar. The evening will be spent celebrating your graduation from the 2010 season of CHS. You should have received an invitation through email by now. Remember that in order to be recognized as a graduate, you must have also completed your trail maintenance requirement. If you have not completed your trail maintenance requirement you can schedule an outing on a non-CHS trail maintenance trip with either WTA or some of the other outdoor organizations. Once you have completed your trail maintenance requirement, please email me to let me know what date you did it on

September Hike Signup:

September hikes are available for signup for more than two hikes. Hikes with space still available:

CHS1:

9/18/10—Deer Lake/Bogachiel Peak, Barry Kellems (16 miles, 3450 ft gain)

9/25/10—Cathedral Rock/Deception Pass Loop, Jan Davis (14 miles, 2300 ft gain)

CHS2:

9/17/10—Copper Mountain, Sue Shih (20 miles, 6000 ft gain).

9/18/10—Pacific Crest Trail from Snoqualmie Pass South, Bill Shecket (20 miles, 3000+ ft gain)

9/25/10—Mt David, Mark Harniss (16 miles, 5000 ft gain)

CHS Pictures:

If you took any pictures on your hike this weekend, please be sure to forward them to chshiker2008@gmail.com to post them on the picture site for everyone to view. You can access the picture site through the CHS Web Site or directly by going to http://picasaweb.google.com/hiker.chs. The last date to submit pictures for inclusion on the graduation DVD that we hand out to all graduates is Sept 26^th.