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North Lake,
Columbia River Gorge |
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What better thing to do before a Christmas holiday season than to hike to a lake of which you have never seen. Something I learned as a young hiking apprentice is the peace of the trail during inclement weather, especially one of this difficulty. North lake is a lake 5.5 miles in and 3800 feet up. After the mandatory coffee and bagel from Bagel Land, we sped to the Wyeth Campground and parked the Volvo outside of it's closed-for-the-season gates. The hike started gentle as we crossed over a small creek and began the ascent. The air was filled with vapor as it was as spooky as it was peaceful.
The solitude of the trail was just what Bob and I needed after the difficulty of the week at work wore our nerves past the protective sheathing. We hit snow at around 2500 feet and had a short sit.
As my wife was happy to be safe and warm at home, I believe I was happier to be here, at this place, at this time.
Once we crested out at the top if the climbs, we looked around for the lake. I figured according to out topo, the lake was still far, far away. We had a sit as it began to get cold rapidly. We dawned all our clothing and rested for a spell.
We did manage to get some good views through the trees as Mount Defiance came into view. As it was getting close to opening hours at Walking Man Pub, we decided that route finding was better left for another time and headed back down to the car.
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