Mount Rose

This weekend Peter and I took a road trip about two hours west of Seattle to a small town named Hoodsport, so we could spend some time with Kelly and her family. We took the ferry across the Sound and then drove through the Olympic Mountains to reach Sue and Doug Foster's new home. It was comfortable and beautiful and I of course, took zero photos of it. Kelly and Chad were gracious enough to give Peter and I the guest house which was really cute and had it's own bathroom and kitchen. We got a great night of sleep before venturing out on one of the toughest adventures of our lives. Climbing to the Summit of Mount Rose. It took about 8 hours total, and was a grueling and relentless hike straight up the steep trails. About half way up (when I thought my legs were going to fall off) we saw a small patch of snow, and I wondered if we would be lucky enough to see more. We were. OMG, we were. A few minutes later, we completely lost the trail and found ourselves sinking into snow drifts about 5 feet deep. Slipping and sliding up the steep mountain we slowly made our way to the top, where we could sit and enjoy the fruit of our labor for about 30 minutes before starting the arduous trip down. 

We had a great time, enjoyed the beautiful views and vistas, and are excited to do more hiking in the future. Although, next time it will be a much easier hike, and we will have appropriate footwear. 

This beautiful picture was taken from the ferry.

We had an amazing sunset view for our drive

The picture below was taken at 10:25 PM and you can still see the sun setting on the horizon!

Preparing to leave for the hike

Reading with Heidi

Nice drive to the trail head

We all had to cross these small log bridges to get onto the trail. It was quite a rush!

                                         

You can see Lake Cushman behind the trees

Even from the beginning we were scaling steep inclines, not knowing things were about to get much worse...

You can see Kelly and Chad ahead of us on the trail

Kelly showing off some Yoga moves :)

Many hikers make it to this Horse Camp about half way up and turn back, not us though!

This was the very first snow we saw, I thought it was very cute and exciting at the time! 

Crossing into the snow line. After this we pretty much lost the trail and were just heading up any way we could. I didn't get too many pictures of the most treacherous parts because I was busy trying not to slide down. 

Converse- worst hiking shoes EVER!!

If it weren't for the walking stick Peter found for me, I would probably still be

stuck half way up that mountain.

We ran out of water and filled up our bottles from this delicious spring!

More log crossing...

"Which way should we go?"

"Holy Crap!! What have I gotten myself into??"

Shoes, socks, feet, completely soaked.

You can see Kelly and Chad up ahead of us

The mountain was so steep we had to take breaks about every 15 minutes to rest up. It did make for some good photo opps though!

I took a photo of this weird yellow moss for Granny- it was translucent and looked like yellow gumdrops on the side of a log. 

Amazing views

Finally at the Summit!! We were sooo tired and hungry, by the time we got here that all we could think about was eating our sandwiches and resting. We did sqeeze in a few photos though!

The BEST sandwich of my life.

Trying to dry out shoes and socks before hiking back down. It didn't work. 

Refilling water bottles at spring.

Back at home I snapped a picture of the guide where we found out about the hike. It looks so innocent from this page! 

Once we were home, we were exhausted but so proud of ourselves for persevering and reaching the top! It was a great feeling and even though it was reeeeeaaally hard, we had a wonderful time :)