Sol Duc River #40,High Divide #41 #38,Seven Lakes Basin #39

High Divide has always been a special place to me during my previous visits. When David and I began throwing trip ideas back and forth, this one quickly elevated to the top of the list, especially after learning that the flowers were still out.

David drove down to my place Friday night and we got an early Saturday morning start, arriving at the WIC as they opened. With permit secured, we were off to Soleduck.

Our permit was for Junction Camp, which is on the ridge at the junction of the Heart Basin and High Divide trails. We approached via the Soleduck. The trail has received much TLC lately, including new trail signs all the way to High Divide.

At the junction with the Appleton Pass trail, we stayed right and crossed the Soleduck River on a high log crossing with hand rail. It was an attention getter as it stems across a canyon with the river raging below, and the log was rather slick upon stepping onto it. David flashed me a smile once across, as if to echo my thoughts.

Once across the river, it was up to Soleduck Park where meadows of lupine, aster and paintbrush awaited us. The lupine actually looked early (not yet prime). I had to remind myself that is was only early September. Up high on the distant slopes we could see two bears grazing.

We marched on to Heart Lake where we watched a sow and her cub on the slopes above the lake. David stopped for some water while I continued up to set camp. Clouds banked against the south side of High Divide, providing a solid white curtain in the direction of Olympus.

Soon David arrived and we set about laying out our bivy sacks and eating lunch. David chose to take a short nap while I headed out to explore up the ridge to scout for photography options later. This was a bit of a challenge as I had to guess on the exact location of Olympus while figuring out compositions. I came back to camp feeling pretty good about my findings.

Around 5:30 the skies began to break. Olympus had played peak-a-boo with us a couple of times during the day for only seconds. Now all but the summit was visible. Carrie was also trying to make an appearance.

I hiked back up the ridge to my chosen spots to find none of them were in line with the mountain as I had previously thought! So the scouting began again…

While the flowers were still strong on the lower sections of the ridge, they are past and even gone on the higher exposed sections. I found a couple of exceptions.

David soon joined me for sunset. It was a pretty exciting show.

We descended back to camp pretty happy that we hadn’t been cheated out of the sunset. I had some dinner and then we called it a night. No sooner did we settle in to our bivy sacks did the wind pick up. It began gusting pretty good.

The next morning we beat it back up the ridge for sunrise. Then it was time to pack up camp and head out. We decided to hike out via the Bogacheil, completing the loop. Of course, a side trip into 7 Lakes Basin and a quick hike up Bogacheil Peak were also mandatory.

Along the ridge I saw quite the memorable sight – a single avalanche lily surrounded by lupine, with red huckleberry leaves nearby. What was wrong with this picture?

The wind continued to blow along the ridge. We escaped it momentarily during our descent down to 7 Lakes Basin, but it greeted us upon our return to the ridge. Upon arriving on top of Bogacheil Peak, I heard a strange sound and turned to see my permit flying like a kite to distances unknown. The wind ripped it right off my pack. Oops!

Flowers were out in force on the back side of Bogacheil and continued well beyond the 7 Lakes Basin junction. It was quite a show.

The rest of our descent was pretty uneventful. We arrived back at the truck at 1:30, well satisfied with our weekend choice of destinations.