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Click the Photo for the Full Size
This panorama took a while for me to be able to post due to the space limit, so I had to reduce the quality and size of this. This was taken from Hex Mountain on November 23, 2008 with my friends Gimpilator and EastKing. Also I stitched this together with photo smart premier 6.5 and resized and cropped with picasa 3.
Here's more about the Trip:
It's been a while since I been hiking... about a month and a half, and for me thats a long time. I've been sick a few days earlier with the flu, but have the desparate desire of hiking even if I am weak and will be very tired during the hike. I called Gimpilator's house and stayed there, and was so lucky to have this oppertunity. I could'nt sleep well that night... around 3-4 hours of sleep, due to my sickness and waited until we would get ready. By this time it was Sunday Novemver 23, 2008 and as luck turns out the weather was absolulty perfect! We headed to the place which we met up and East King drove us to Hex Mountain. On the way there the heat inside the car was too much for me, but the views of all the mountains were wonderful. So many mountains. We were thinking about doing Jolly Mountain, but someone said it was too snowy. At first we had troubles finding the right way, due to our instruction in some book being bad, plus there was no sign saying which one it was. Finally we decided on this one that looked like the one. It was freezing when we started so we geared up for the hike and headed out.
We started hiking along a forest road and kept coming across forks in the road, but stuck with the ones that looked most likly to be the one. As we walk along, we get a great view of Lake Kachees and at the end there was a delta, which I usually do not see too often. After a while I start to get borded of walking along a road instead of a trail because trails give a more natural feel than a rocky road. Fortunatly and unfortunatly as we are going along we realize that we headed to far north so we take out the map, and have to head East which we go strait up the mountain. As we go up, there are a lot of prickly bushes still left, which I did not like one bit. After that we end up on another road, go north on it for a while, then go back up East again off trail. At one point we reach a point which we can see the ridge above. So we head down and unfortunatly there is thick bushes and trees everywere. I hear the Picket Range has lots of thick pushes... so because I thought this was bad, I wonder how bad they are? I keep getting wacked, and caught in so many trees, I had a hard time keeping up because I kept getting tangled in a mess. Not sure if I have ever been though so many thick trees on a hike. Towards the end I left up my polls so that they don't get caught, and hold them near my face and practically run thought, which was much easier when my face is protected. We hike up and get up yet again on another road, exept this time it is the one that takes us to the trail. It felt like we picked up the pace a little more, or my sickness was some what getting so me. As we head up, I momentarly fall behind, which in ways was a mistake, I had one long rush ahead. My group yelled for me because they went around a corner, and I wanted to quickly get out my long sleeve shirt because the winds were blowing at this point and it was cold once again.
I did not want to worry my group so I made a rush to them, and Gimpilator told me that I could slow down once I got to him, but I wanted to catch up to EastKing. We kept going up and up, although it was not very steep, I was very tired at this point because now I was in constant motion, and would not stop until the summit. At times I was very tempted to stop, but I did not want to hold up the group, and plus I wanted to see how long I could endure. Near the top I saw that Gimpilator took a short cut and was the first to summit that day, and East King and me came second and our other partner came after. At the summit, I just layed down for a while and rested.
The summit was beautiful, with many snowy mountains, and in the East we could see the Stuart Range, and Mount Rainier to the West with clouds blowing off of it. Then we had some food and water and looked down the steep East face of the Mountain... it was'nt so bad, but would definitly be a terrible tumble and would would result most likly in a injury. The group went along the ridge to the false summit while I lay there in exausion. I took a few more photos and made a movie, and got my hands very cold to get a shot of EastKing. :-)
The way down was great, atfirst I had troubles getting down from the summit due to the loose ground, but found a alternative. We hike down through the woods, which was so much easier. Later we get back to the road, but Gimpilator decideds we should take the ridge which sounds way funner, and ends up leading to the trail. At this point I was tired and dizzy, but I still enjoyed myself and had some nice conversations on the way down. It was acually funner the route we did were we took our own way up and the trail down. It was one very much worth going to, and turned out much better than I expected. I can't wait until next weekends mountain wonders. Which ended up being Norse Peak.
Enjoy! :-) |
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