Cow Heaven

Eight of us Senior Trailblazers drove to this trailhead yesterday in dense fog, which we hoped would let up sometime during the day. Looks dark and uninviting, doesn't it? The hike is well known as being a real ass-kicker, which is why I am up early the following morning to post this. I was just too tired once I got home and took a shower to do anything more than collapse. I found a link about this trail in the Washington Trails Association archives, and this short paragraph describes our adventure well:

Here's the beef on Cow Heaven. It's a steep and demanding climb through thick forest culminating in lonely alpine meadows. The cows are long gone from this former summer grazing area high above the Skagit Valley, but you can feast to your heart's content on splendid views of snowy North Cascades summits. A great conditioner and good choice for solitude, if you're feeling energetic, follow this steer-way to heaven all the way to the rocky Helen Buttes for even grander views.

Well, we did little feasting on "splendid views," since the fog and mist stuck around most of the day. We did, however, cross this stream numerous times, with some pretty stupendous views of falls now and then.

It was a very challenging hike, with a pretty constant climb from 400 feet elevation all the way up to 4400 feet! The trail had lots of switchbacks, which help, but it just didn't let up from the time we started on the trail until we got to the top. The trail was pretty, however, green and lush, and while we were ascending I was able to look around a fair amount. I got this arty shot of Ray in the background and a small friend in the foreground:

We were bothered by mosquitoes for much of the day, and we all agreed that DEET is neat, even if you don't particularly like the feeling and smell of it, neither do the bugs. I've got some itchy spots this morning, but they are nowhere near as numerous as they would have been without the bug spray.

As we got closer to the summit, we ran into, you guessed it: snow! Fortunately for us, our intrepid buddies Mike and Fred had gone ahead and pointed the way through the snow with markers in the trees and even some stick arrows. As the rest of us huffed and puffed our way to the top, the sun tried to break through the thick clouds, but our view was limited at best. Most of us didn't go any farther than the flat spot on the top, unwilling to budge until we had recovered a little. The consensus is that this is probably the hardest hike we have ever done, with words describing it like "strenuous," "hiker hell," and even "gorgeous!"

This tantalizing view through the trees shows some of what we MIGHT have been able to see once we got to the top, but it was just not to be. The trip back down was treacherous and required constant vigilance not to slip on slick tree roots and trail detritus that kept wanting to make you fall. In fact, every single one of us fell at least once, but nobody got more than scraped elbows and bruised egos. Al, in the front, said that the sounds coming from behind him were quite entertaining: "whoops!" "eek!" "yikes!" (thud)

But we did finally make it to the cars and headed immediately down the road to the Buffalo Run, a restaurant in Marblemount that provided a nice repast to end our day's exertions. Although they have a buffalo ranch and offered burgers made from several different animals (elk, buffalo, beef), they also had an entire page of vegetarian offerings. I got a loaded baked potato that was pretty good. As you can see from the place where I was sitting (front right), the red and white wine was already being enjoyed by several of us. That's Amy toasting our adventure.

It was indeed that, an adventure, but I think I might actually skip the next trip up to Cow Heaven. Either that or I'll need to get in better shape first! If it hadn't been for sharing the pain with good friends, I wouldn't have enjoyed myself nearly as much as I did. Until next Thursday, which is looking like yet another hike in the rain, I think I'll stick to shorter and less demanding walks.
:-)