Head in the Clouds

After summiting Shastina a few weeks ago, and standing atop its 12,300 foot crater rim with the Shasta cone looming over me mockingly, it was hard to not just turn around right away the next weekend and go back for Shasta itself. The climb had been the perfect mix of challenge and beauty, and I was looking forward to upping the ante. But, I knew that climbing 2,000 feet higher than I'd ever climbed before wasn't something to be undertaken lightly. Both times I'd climbed above 12,000 feet, I'd had some issues with oxygen deprivation, and the attendant disorientation and nausea. Both summits had been a near thing. So how the hell was I going to manage to spend 2-5 more hours at such an altitude while climbing almost another vertical half-mile? By choosing my moment very carefully, that's how. So, I spent a few weeks after Shastina painstakingly watching the weather forecasts, waiting for a dry day with little to no wind to pop up before launching my ULTIMATE SUMMIT ASSAULT. While I was waiting, not wanting to get out of practice, I dayhiked Mount Eddy, the highest peak in the Trinity Wilderness.

I chose Eddy for two reasons. First, I got an eyeful of it when I climbed Shastina, and I knew that summiting it would keep me interested in Shasta, which is visible from its summit, as opposed to driving to, say, Bend and climbing there. I didn't want to get distracted by all the other beautiful shit to the north, west, and east of my place of residence and forget about the White Lady waiting for me in the south. Second, I'd been reading about Eddy for awhile and everyone in the universe seemed to agree that the view from its summit was just about the most beautiful view from any summit other than Shasta in northern California...oh, and the hike in through Deadfall Meadows was supposed to be wonderful, too. So, I set off to check out Eddy and keep my calves and quads in shape. Things didn't go entirely as planned, as I summited but didn't actually see the summit, per se.

The drive down to the trailhead was excellent, straightforward, and picturesque (but not picaresque, really). The last few miles were on a nicely graded dirt road that snaked up into the foothills of the Trinity range, giving a great view of the valleys below while not requiring white-knuckle driving, as the road was just wide enough to accommodate two cars side-by-side. It was foggy, but I thought it to be early-morning fog, and enjoyed a particularly great moment of listening to Phish's anthemic song "Wingsuit" while winding up the road in the car, breaking in and out of the soup, taking in the occasional clear view down one of the valleys.

It was a bit of a tricky proposition to find the Deadfall Meadows trailhead, as it was past the "official" trailhead by half a mile, hidden inside the curve of a particularly nasty hairpin turn as the road descended back on the other side of the ridge it had spent the last five miles ascending. But on the third try, I found it. And then I was off through some literal meadows, probably the wettest, muddiest terrain I've hiked in since I moved out to the northwest. It was a surprise to be hiking in freaking fens, but fortunately it didn't last long.

Pictured: Freaking fens.

Soon, the trail gained a lot of altitude (as trails en route to mountain summits are wont to do) and things dried out. Eventually I gained enough altitude that I moved from fen to forest, and then the forest began to thin out as the ground changed from dirt to rocks, and I could see the Trinity range starting to open up behind me. At least a little, thanks to the clouds.

It was at this point that rain droplets started spattering my face and glasses and I realized that the clouds weren't going to just "burn off" as the day wore on. It was just going to be a shitty weather day. I slipped my rain jacket on over my t-shirt and kept going.

Fortunately, as I climbed up out of the forested area and got closer to the mountain proper, the hike really started to get beautiful, making it easier to keep pushing on instead of just being lazy and going home and eating tacos instead of trail mix. I imagine that the fen-area and the forest-area are probably pretty gorgeous on clear-weather days, but here they sort of reminded me of that area that Frodo and Sam hike through with Gollum before they get caught by Faramir in The Two Towers. The rest of the hike, though, was a perfect mix of what I like best about two of my favorite climbing spots: the Seven Devils in Idaho and the Wallowas in Oregon. 

The Wallowas are really interesting mountains, are varied geologically, have a lot of absolutely amazing-but-simple-to-follow trails, but the icing on their cake is the profusion of alpine lakes that dot the lowlands between the peaks. The Seven Devils are much drier, generally speaking, but their varied, imposing-looking cliffs and talus slopes are really distinct and keep drawing me back despite looking post-apocalyptic and being a bitch to climb safely. The Eddy climb provided both of these experiences while giving me an easy trail to follow all the way to the mountain's summit.

Alpine Lakes.

Imposing, dire-looking summit.

After leaving the forest, the trail wound up and around at least ten different alpine lakes, running the gamut from medium-sized to puddle-sized. Eventually I picked my way above the lakes, after bushwhacking off the trail a few times to get closer to the bigger ones, and found that the trail literally ran straight up to the obvious ridge below the summit. From there, I assumed it would be all easy scrambling.

Idiot-proof.

As I climbed, it became obvious how beautiful the views behind me into the Trinitys would have been had it not been for the extremely persistent clouds.

As it was, I simply took the trail to the obvious ridge that was climber's right of the summit, then followed some pretty obvious switchbacks all the way to the top. When I arrived precisely at the point that so many accounts had claimed was the most beautiful view in northern California, this is what I saw:

So, that was a little disappointing. Also, awkwardly, there was a group of 10 or so people on the summit constructing a crucifix out of large tree branches and reciting from the Bible loudly at one another. Taking a bet that they were just nature-loving Christians and not wandering murderer-zealots, I took a nap on the other side of the summit plateau, hoping when I woke up they would be done with their business and I'd be free to enjoy the summit. When I woke up 45 minutes later, they showed no sign of stopping. So I walked around a little on "my side" of the summit plateau and took a few pictures, then headed back down, not really feeling comfortable about exploring the whole thing in the middle of their ceremony or whatever it was.

This was the clearest it ever got while I was near the summit.

Unless they're glissading involved, descending is never as fun as ascending, and this case was no different. Not feeling tired after my nap and wanting to push myself a little, I pelted down the mountain for the first 1.5 miles or so, losing ~1500 feet of altitude at a run (in hiking boots, which my knees were sure to complain about the next morning), then polishing off the rest of the hike back to the car at normal walking speeds.

Though the summit experience itself was a little disappointing because of the weather and the hikers/cultists, the trail was easy to follow, led through some really beautiful terrain, and it was not hard to see how, on a day when visibility was closer to 100 miles instead of 100 feet, this would be an absolute gobsmacker of a hike. At two hours' drive from the house, ~7 miles round trip and ~2500 feet of elevation gain, it wasn't much of a workout to get to see such an incredible place and climb such an intense-looking, but ultimately accommodating mountain. This one's definitely on my list of mountains to return to later in the summer when there's less chance of an all day cloud-out. Maybe next time I'll bring the dog...