Carne Mountain

We decided to hike Carne Mt as a day hike out of Lake Wenatchee because we guessed that it would be snow-free or mostly snow free with it's south facing orientation, and that the high meadow would be in full bloom. Turned out we were correct on both counts! This trail is vastly nicer than the guide books or the map indicate, it switchbacks up through open fir forest, with many views of the Chiwawa range and Chiwawa vally through the trees and from open places. The lower part of this trail is obviously used as a deer highway, the deer tracks are thick all along the trail, completely obliterating any human tracks, and there are heavily used deer trails branching from the human trail at several points. We only saw deer along the Chiwawa vally road, not while hiking. The forest is home to a multitude of song-birds, the birdsong was incessant all along the trail, the only ones I could identify were evening grosbeaks and a western tanager. There were many other types of birds too. I sure hope the birds were eating the spruce budworm, all the fir trees looked ratty from that pest. Near the top of the ridge, the trail ascends into a steep meadow covered in a huge variety of flowers, varying from ceonothus and mt. ash, bluebells and lupine in bloom at the lower edge of the meadow, to more lupine, paintbrush, saxifrage, stellaria, phlox, cascade wallflower, scarlet gilia, buckwheat, hydrophylum, and even one yellow pedicularus under a tree. It was as diverse a mix as i've seen anywhere. We saw several pikas in a rock field, harvesting the bounty for hay. off to the side of this wonderful meadow is a good sized waterfall, coming seemingly from a tree-covered pass, this appears to be impossible, there's no-place for the water to be coming from. However when we climbed to the "pass" at the head of the waterfall, there was a hidden basin with a meadow and meandering creek at the base, and larch-covered slopes all around. Two trails lead to two passes out of the basin, one going the side of Carne Mt, and on to the rock creek trail, the other to the Gib Mt and Estes Butte. Both are snow-covered above the basin floor. We chose to climb to the lower one because of the snow. It was possible, but there is an old melting cornice all along the pass that we had to find a safe place to climb over to get to the views. All in all, a great day hike. Partly cloudy skies kept the heat moderate all day but there is plenty of shade along the trail, so even in hot weather this would not be so bad. Some mosquitos attempted blood-sucking, but not many.