My Pacific Northwest: Monte Cristo and Silver Lake 7/4-7/6/19

Cedar hates fireworks and Luna isn't fond of them either, so I planned a little backpacking trip to get us away from the ridiculous noise, smoke, and masses of people. I wanted to stay somewhere that we could make little expeditions from our base camp to give us something to do each day, so I finally narrowed it down to Monte Cristo. We could walk into the town as often as we like and look around, and Silver Lake would make a nice day hike.

We left on the morning of the 4th, and got off to a bit of a late start due to an escaped rabbit and needing to relocate her hutch so she couldn't just follow her tunnel out again. The weather was cloudy and a perfect 60 F out, which is great hiking weather!

AppleWatch stats for the hike in to the campground: 5.01 mi, elevation gain 642 ft. This is a bit more than the typical walk from the parking lot because all lots were full and I had to park down the dirt road a ways. For the Silver Lake hike the next day 5.4 miles roundtrip, 1641 ft of elevation gain. For the hike back out this morning a bit less than 5 because I forgot to turn on my hike for a bit, and 141 ft of elevation gain. This hike follows an old railroad which was turned to a road (at least in parts - not sure exactly where the overlap is, so it's a nice wide, pretty flat gravel trail. This time of year it's lined with goats beard, foxgloves and other wildflowers.

For some reason the crazy awful bugs were not that bad while I was out! This hike can be bombarded by platoons of gnats, mosquitos and deer flies during the summer. I did see 11 garter snakes along one section - so many that it almost creeped me out and I like snakes.

I was worried that the Monte Cristo campground area would be full based on the parking lot, but only one other site was taken, so I got this lovely sunny site surrounded by ferns and vine maple, and with a view of this escarpment (I think called Foggy Peak?) that I could watch natures moods pass over - fog, mist, sun.

This campground has an open air toilet. Unlike others I've seen in backpacker campgrounds, this one sported one whole wall. It was up a hill under the trees and wasn't particularly fun or interesting, so I had to drag the dogs up with me each time after they caught on to where I was heading.

We were visited in our campsite by a couple mice and a chipmunk (Luna set them straight right away), a butterfly that landed on my bookmark, and this nifty alligator lizard. He was camera shy.

Backpacking with dogs is interesting - they have particular likes and dislikes, like to hog the most comfortable places, and are perfectly happy letting you chat away for days at a time without once contributing to the conversation.

We walked around the old Dumas Street area of the old town of Monte Cristo once, but went into the old resort area at least twice a day. It was full of gorgeous wildflowers - lupine, daisies, columbine, and more- and views, as well as this redbreasted sapsucker.

I always like to imagine this is my home, with rugged peaks all around, a meadow full of flowers in front and a icy frothing stream behind.

Just past the right side of this cabin is the hike to Silver Lake.

The stream you cross going into Monte Cristo was our water source. It was so pretty and I got to watch water dipper birds fishing in it as well.

Friday we headed out after breakfast (well, the dogs had breakfast - I stuck with coffee) to hike to Silver Lake. I wasn't sure what to expect. The WTA has Monte Cristo as a 8 mile RT hike, and Silver Lake as a 11 mile RT hike which would make it 3 miles RT from Monte Cristo at my calculations, however they also say Silver Lake is 2 miles of switchbacks going up and then a drop to the lake, which would make it a 4+ mile RT hike. Either way, it was steep, but a gorgeous hike. It switchbacks long and gentle through the forest, which includes some truly awe-inspiring trees, then you start getting peek-a-boo views of the beautiful rocky crags surrounding.

This far away falls was so huge I could hear it across the valley. It was amazing - I don't know if it has a name or if any trail brings a person close. I had never seen it until I hiked up this trail.

There were a lot of wildflowers in the forest as well. Bunchberry dogwoods and queen's cup were prominent.

Once you clear the forest, the switchbacks get more serious - a little shorter, a little steeper, a little rockier. There is one spot the trail is pretty narrow, but the drop isn't vertical so it didn't seem too bad.

After all the climbing you go through Poodle Dog Pass. This pass has been on my list for years so it was cool to finally be there - with my poodle dogs! haha They were unimpressed.

Coming down a little there were a handful of lovely little ponds, surrounded by purple and white mountain heather, as well as gorgeous little Jeffery's shooting stars. I was a bit surprised - I was expecting something more lakey and less pondish in a name like Silver Lake.

There was a little knob past the ponds that looked like it had been struck by lightning and burned. It was haunted by a sneaky chipmunk. I could see a waterfall past this knob, so decided to go farther.

Good thing we hiked farther! Silver Lake is a LAKE! A beautiful peaceful gorgeous lake. Cedar, Luna and I shared some tuna in tortilla for brunch and just watched the mist slowly lifting up the slides surrounding the lake. The only sound (other than aircraft which was annoyingly frequent) were birds. The peace was so wonderful!

This hike was fantastic, and the pups never would have made it as a day hike in its entirety. It would have been asking a lot even starting from Monte Cristo if it hadn't been a cool misty morning. Even so both dogs were wiped out for the rest of the day.

Zoomed in on sleepy Cedar's face, awwwww

All packed up and ready to go - Luna sees her harness and isn't so sure she's on board with the plan.

On the way out this morning, my camera spazzed out and changed each photo I took into about 5 different filters. I was pretty annoyed, but ended up liking this one.