OLYMPIC NATIONAL FOREST: Marmot Pass in the Olympic Mountains

Our tent on a ridge, with Warrior Peak and Mount Constance and the incredible starry sky in the distance

3,800′ of vertical gain. Yes, 3,800′. With a full backpack, in about 5.8 miles. It was an exhausting climb–especially the last 300 vertical feet, which had the steepest pitch. But we did it!

Yes, we knew Marmot Pass was a difficult hike, since we had done it once–23 years ago. We had vowed not to do it again, because we remembered the difficult hike, and the rainy night at Camp Misery, about 4.5 miles in. Oh, did I say Camp Misery? I meant Camp Mystery, as in: it’s mysterious why anyone would want to camp there, in a tangle of dark trees that still sport the stink of decades-ago campfires.

Picking Wild Strawberries at the trailhead

We arrived at the trailhead at about 10:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning, thankful for the spider web of logging roads that gets hikers closer to the pass than would have been the case decades ago. We pulled on our hiking boots, adjusted our packs, hung the trailhead pass from the rear-view mirror, then walked over to the bulletin board to sign in, where we read the standard warnings about fire and cougars and bears. Oh my.

The Big Quilcene River cascades quickly from the Olympic Mountains

There were four of us on the trip, with three of us training for the steep ascent into The Enchantments in about three weeks. We started up the trail, light in heart if not in load. My pack and camera gear weighed 45 lbs., which is about 12 lbs. lighter than I will carry in The Enchantments. (Note to myself: remember to pack the Ibuprofen for that trip.)

For the first several miles, the trail parallels the raging and beautiful Big Quilcene River as it tumbles down toward Puget Sound from the steep eastern slope of the Olympics. This area is a real tangle of fallen trees, but the WTA (Washington Trails Association) volunteers recently did a great job on this section of the trail, cutting huge trees that had fallen across the trail and improving drainage with some innovative techniques.

We steadily hiked upward, accompanied by the incredibly complex song of the Pacific Wren, the incredibly off-key song of the Varied Thrush, and the incredibly haunting song of the Hermit Thrush–which may be the most beautiful birdsong I have ever heard. I stopped at a few points to photograph lichens and mosses, which are the intricate little wonders of the lush Olympic Peninsula forest that grow around the bases of immense Western Hemlocks and Douglas Firs.

Lungwort lichen, one part of the lungs of this moist forest

We stopped for lunch near Shelter Rock, about 2.5 miles in, where there were perhaps a dozen tents set up by a boy scout troop. Karen and I ate Dubliner Cheese, brown rice Triscuits, fresh sugar snap peas, and a handful of mixed nuts and dried Michigan cherries. All good energy foods.

We needed the energy for an even steeper and unrelenting grade that people have called Poop Out Drag. The effort was balanced by the mountain meadows here, which sweep steeply up to the crags of Buckhorn and Iron Mountains. These meadows were filled with thousands upon thousands of blossoms of brilliant reddish-orange Indian paintbrushes and bright indigo larkspurs, as well as scores of other species. Spectacular!

Larkspur and Indian Paintbrush wildflowers fill the lovely meadows

We reached Camp Misery, pausing only to pump water, since water availability above this point is iffy and depends upon snowmelt. Camp Mystery wasn’t as bad as I remembered, but this was a sunny day and I’ve been taking my meds. Several small groups were setting up camp along the trail, and others passed by on the way to higher campsites. This proved to be a busy weekend on the trail: we estimated that we saw several hundred people making the climb to Marmot Pass. With the Dosewallips trails access limited because of a landslide about a decade ago, hiking is concentrated here more than ever.

We resumed our trek, soon entering more beautiful meadows on the way to Marmot Pass, and passed a pudgy blonde Olympic Marmot–a species found only in The Olympics. Up and up, we finally got to Marmot Pass, and were disappointed to see that we really needed to go higher on the ridgeline. Three of us were almost devoid of energy at that point, but we shifted into what my dear wife calls “creeper gear” to make it to the top. There we were rewarded by one of the most spectacular views in this spectacular state, with rugged mountains all around, except for the look back at the valley we had just come up, with Puget Sound sprawling in front of distant Glacier Peak.

Trail crawling steeply to a high ridge above Marmot Pass

We set up camp with our three tents in a mountain meadow, with perhaps another ten tents around us in what one hiker passing by disdainfully called “Tent City.” We set up our tents in a pattern that I thought would make a good illuminated tent photograph after dark (I was, of course, playing the part of the always-irritating photo director!). Then we heated dinner on our camp stoves, rationing the hot drinks a bit because we didn’t have unlimited water at this location.

Snowfields lingering on the slopes of Warrior Peak

Tree shadows crossing the snowfields below Warrior Peak

Mount Constance catching the last rays of the day

One of our group contemplating the dramatic view across the valley of the Upper Dungeness River

Unidentified distant mountains in the rugged Olympics

Alpenglow illuminates the sky after sunset

Then we settled into an evening of watching the sun sink below the mountains on the western horizon and feeling the air grow chillier. We got into the tents and found it was harder to get warm than we thought it might be, probably because we had used so much of our energy on the long climb. Shortly after 10:00 p.m., I unzippered the sleeping bag and tent and proceeded to take a long series of tent photographs, directing the occupants on how to better create even illumination on the tent walls. Finally, content, I let everybody drift off to sleep and went to bed myself.

Our three tents, with Mount Constance to the right in the distance

Karen woke me up at 1:00 a.m. and said she was cold–especially her feet. We cuddled for a long time, and finally I had the idea of giving her my down jacket, which I had been using as a pillow. We slipped her legs into the armholes and finally she got toasty warm. One side effect of the really lightweight new tents, like ours, is that they are largely made of mesh and easily let the breezes in. My estimate is that for every pound of weight that you save in using a lightweight tent, you need two additional pounds of sleeping bag and clothing. There are no free lunches in backpacking equipment.

Nature called later in the night, so I walked outside to talk to her. The Milky Way sprawled across the entire sky in a glorious show that our ancestors observed on every clear night. What a sight!

When my alarm went off at 5:30 a.m. on this slightly frosty morning, I went outside to check on photo conditions. The night wind had ceased, and I was immediately comfortable. I was the first one up in all the camps (so give me a gold star!), and I enjoyed the quiet sunrise. Two Mountain Goats walked through a camp farther along the ridge, then departed to the lower meadows. Perhaps the three dogs in that camp growled at them.

Our tent in morning light

Two Mountain Goats feeding in a high meadow

Looking across the morning mists of Puget Sound to Glacier Peak

Actually, this was a doggy kind of hike. I would guess that we saw about 25 dogs, mostly very well-behaved, including several in close proximity to our camp. Since this hike is completely within Olympic National Forest, dogs are allowed along the trail. Had it been across the valley in Olympic National Park, there would have been a stern ranger giving a warning or writing a ticket to each of these dog owners, and instructing each to vacate the park immediately.

I didn’t hear any barking during the night; perhaps the dogs were as tired from the hike as the humans. One adjacent camp had two little children; I would guess their ages as four and seven. These kids had hiked up a very long ways and were having a great time in the dramatic campsite with their extended family.

The next morning we enjoyed identifying wildflowers and building a snowman. Yes, Karen, you can blame yours truly for the basic construction that led to a catastrophic snowman collapse. At least my engineering didn’t result in a bridge falling, which is reason number 27 as to why I am a photographer instead of an engineer.

Indian Paintbrush near our tent

Mountain Wallflower on a high ridge

Davidson’s Penstemon

The beautiful magenta Olympic Mountain Paintbrush

Silky Phacelia

Alpine Lewisia: this was the first time I had seen this flower, which was named for Meriwether Lewis

Our snowman named Zeus

This was a nearly clear day, with just a very few scattered shreds of clouds. I said we should place bets on when a cloud shadow would briefly darken us, and it didn’t occur until mid-afternoon.

At noon, we shouldered our packs, now slightly lighter with less food and water, and slowly descended to the pass, stopping at several places to identify and photograph wildflowers. Then we went lower and dined with the blond Olympic Marmot we had seen the the same place the day before (though she did not appear to like our company and got up from the table and left–I’ve got to stop telling blond jokes around the PC crowd).

Pretty blond Olympic Marmot below its namesake pass

Weathered wood on an ancient tree at timberline

The beautiful meadows below Marmot Pass, with one tent among the krummholz

The rest of the hike out was fast and uneventful, and we reached the trailhead at 4:45 p.m. The destination had proven to live up to its reputation as one of the premier hikes in The Olympics, and made me glad that we live in the one place that hosts The Olympics every year.

Definitely not rolling stones; photographed in the Big Quilcene River near Camp Mystery

For someone thinking about hiking to Marmot Pass, the Olympic National Forest website is a good place to start. Go to Marmot Pass Trail.

Go to LeeRentz.com to view the range of work by Lee Rentz. Work is available as metal or archival paper prints, and most are available for licensing for websites, magazines, and books.

May 13, 2008 Mystery of the Misplaced Trilliums

This is a tale of that beloved wildflower family, the Trilliums.  Several years ago, while I was jogging along a floodplain trail in Battle Creek, Michigan, I noticed some pink flowers off to the side of the path.  Even without my standard issue baby boomer lineless bifocals, I could see that these blossoms were trilliums–those beautiful Midwestern spring wildflowers that start out as pure white, then fade through stages of pink into deep magenta.  Then I spotted a second variety of trillium–a yellow toadshade with leaves patterned in light and deep shades of green–that I had never seen before.  After getting off the trail, I drove back to my in-law’s home, where my wife and I were staying, then told my story and brought back reinforcements–my wife and her parents.  Together we found two more species of trilliums in the same vicinity.

Three years later, I’m back in Battle Creek, inhaling the rich aroma of corn flakes cooking at the Kelloggs factory.  It is the same time of year as before–that wonderful time in early May when Michigan reawakens from its long winter sleep in shades of bluebirds and blue skies and yellow warblers and green oak leaves newly emerging.  The same bunch, plus my mother, walked out to the trillium trail to see if the forest was as alive with trilliums as  it had been before.  It was!  We saw the same species as previously, plus we noticed enough variation that we felt there was probably some hybridizing going on among these related species.

Now for the mystery: why are these trilliums here?.  They are growing in a floodplain forest that includes such flood-loving woody species as Sycamore, Hackberry, Silver Maple, Cottonwood, Poison Ivy, and Box Elder.  When we looked at the range maps for the trillium species we identified, it appears that all could be here on their own, without any help from wildflower gardeners.  And some of these species seem to be little-known, except among botanists, because they grow in formidable habitats (as in, “watch for poison ivy!”).  But they are growing in a linear strip perhaps 20 feet wide, paralleling the trail for about 200 yards, and just off the mowed portion of trail.  The thing is, I can’t find a single trillium anywhere else along the trail.  Yet these trilliums are thriving on their own in this one location.  Were they planted as a garden club project?  Is this just the last surviving patch of the native spring flora?  I wish I had a botanist’s 911 number that I could call to help with this emergency!

The photographs below represent my best from about two hours of photography.  I used a digital SLR at ISO 400 (to help with a wind problem) and a ball-head tripod for all these shots.  In addition, I also variously used a 100mm macro lens, a 24-105mm zoom lens, a polarizing filter, and a diffusion screen to cut contrast on these sunny days.  And Adobe Bridge and Photoshop to clean up the leaves and petals.  You will notice that for some frames, I wanted every detail to be tack-sharp; for other pictures, only I wanted only the focal point to be sharp.

Like many originally Midwestern nature photographers, I started out my photography by photographing wildflowers, and I still return to the subject every year with renewed passion.  In the last decade, nature photography has fallen severely out-of-fashion, as the sophisticated crowd has moved on to European and exotic travel (think of traditional National Geographic portrayals of unfamiliar people) and still-life photography as being the oh-so-trendy subjects.  Even in outdoor magazines such as National Geographic Adventure, Outside, and Audubon, photography that does not include people is considered too static–as if readers don’t have the imagination or creativity to see themselves in a wild scene.  I think this parallels American alienation from nature.  Many people call themselves environmentalists or love action sports in wild places–but few have developed a deep love of the very elements of those places.  Environmentalists too often think in abstractions and adventure sports enthusiasts too often look at wilderness as a challenging outdoor gym.  I prefer to move through the forest, camera in hand, with a sense of wonder at all that surrounds me.  And if that leaves me hopelessly unfashionable, so be it.

 

This is part of a weblog documenting my travels and photography. I am primarily a nature photographer, and you can see more of my work at http://www.leerentz.com

Click on the photographs below to see a larger version with caption.