Mount Zion — Monday, May. 9, 2011

Olympic Peninsula > Hood Canal

This was my young son (see 9 months) first real backpacking trip with me. We've done 2 mile short trips, but nothing that involved real elevation and today we saw snow-plenty of it too! The trailhead parking lot was empty and I suited up the lil man, knowing it would probably be pretty cool at the summit- the weather report indicated mostly sunny by the afternoon, so I was hoping for a nice summit view- when I left at 1140 it was covered in clouds. The first 10 minutes in my body revolted, reminding me I hadn't seen any real hiking since my son was born and the 45lbs I was carrying made it evident that this hike was no conditioning exercise. I bucked and dug down, never having backed down from something I started, even if I was going to blow out a lung. I figured my years of backpacking/hiking/cycling coupled with having quit smoking 5 months ago would get me over and sure enough, it did. About 30 minutes in, my muscle memory took over and I got my legs under me, making the trip a lot smoother and more fun. At around 3000' I started to see some snow and by the time I got to the first view point, I wish I had brought my trekking poles like the people that hiked Sunday did; a pair of gaiters would've been nice too. At the view point, we were roughly an hour in, so I took my son down for some snacks and water- during this time I could see we were nearing the cloud layer above and that there wasn't much hope it would subside for our summit. Ah well, we carried on. At around 4000', the snow got pretty deep, maybe 3-5' and there were some pretty soft areas, but nothing too difficult to manage. About 35 minutes or so later, we hit the summit- making it up in around 90 minutes. As I figured, the summit was covered in snow and clouds- almost zero visibility and about 7' or snow I'd guess. My son fell asleep just before we got to the top, so his summit photo is of him in the pack wedged in snow, sleeping LOL. I broke out my camera for some shots on the way down and we had a great time. I can't wait to go back this summer!