The Sky Lakes traverse is a hike that can include 5 to 7 summits, depending on how enterprising you’re feeling. I’ve been trying to do it since my first fall in Klamath Falls because Sky Lakes is second only to the Lake Basin in the Wallowas when it comes to beautiful alpine lakes, and besides, it’s hard to pass up a hike where you get to climb seven mountains in one day. Bad weather has stopped my attempts to complete the hike an almost comical amount of times over the last two years, and so when there was a little rain in the forecast yesterday, I hesitated. But, I’d already kenneled the dogs for the weekend, this was likely the last weekend of the year that I’d be free to hike before there’s snow in the passes and on the trailhead roads, and I hadn’t climbed a mountain since Whitney. So I went.
My plan was to hike the five main peaks along the cirque plus Shale Butte, which is just south of the enchainment along the PCT. Then, I wanted to circle back to the Alta Lake Trail and hike to Alta Lake, snag the easy Violet Hill, and camp next to the lake, then hike out on Sunday morning. Incidentally, this plan would also bring my total number of summits climbed to 102. I’m not much for numbers, usually, but 100 is a big number.
Anyway, I did it, mostly. I got the entire enchainment, including Shale Butte and the eastmost Lee Peak, which involved an unexpected class 3 (4?) scramble that I probably shouldn’t have done and will probably have nightmares about at some point. I got my 100th summit and got to have a few beautiful minutes for lunch at the summit cairn, watching the sun start to peek out behind the bulk of McLoughlin.
But it rained pretty much the entire day. I was basically soaked (save for my rain jacket) for about 8 straight hours, and a number of the climbs involved a lot of slogging uphill on wet, loose talus...and then coming back down the same way. By the time I was circling back around to my gear cache and Lake Alta (and peak #7), the rain had stopped for a bit, but I was seriously reconsidering my camping-out plan. Should I skip camping and the final peak and go back to the car? Or should I try to stick it out and spend what would likely be a cold, wet night on the already-sodden ground?
Well, literally right when I reached the trail intersection with the Lake Alta Trail, the rain cut loose with a fury I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced before in southern Oregon. Within a minute or so, it was hail. A minute after that, I had to use my GPS to find my way back to the trail because I couldn’t see ten feet in front of me. It was hard not to take this as a sign: it was time to get the hell out of Dodge.
The next three miles of the four mile hike back to the car were surreal: the downpour had almost immediately turned the downhill trail into a creek. And I don’t mean it was wet, I mean it was a creek. Within a few minutes, parts of the trail were filled with water up over the tops of my waterproof boots. Within a few more minutes, every step cut into the trail had turned into a miniature waterfall. Had I put my Nalgene under one of these, it would have been filled in a few seconds. I’ve hiked a lot in the Appalachians and southern Ohio, especially in the summer, and I’ve never seen this much rain on a trail. By the time I got back to the car, it had stopped raining, but it took me a good fifteen minutes to change into dry clothes because my hands and feet were both completely numb. I hadn’t expected to need waterproof glove liners on this hike.
The whole experience wasn’t so much miserable as it was just surreal. I’d glad to have done it, definitely glad to have crossed #100 off of my list, and just a little disappointed that I didn’t have a chance to film a video of the trail-river because it was so amazingly weird. I was definitely keeping all my camera gear wrapped in plastic at that point in the hike, though.
Anyway, hiking all of these mountains over the last few years has taken me to all sorts of amazing places and so many varied landscapes, but I can’t say I’ve hiked any of them, really, in the rain. In the snow, sure, but not the rain. So Sky Lakes obliged me yesterday with an apocalyptic rainfall. But at least it was nice enough to wait until I’d finished six of the seven summits.
I’ve got a lot more to say about the whole 100 summits thing, but that can wait for another day.
