I couldn't figure out where to go last weekend, until I saw a WTA trip report on Monday morning that said Bethel ridge road was all melted out, as was the Ironstone Mtn trail. So I loaded up the car, kidnapped the dog and we were off for a little car/camp dayhike adventure.
Luckily I checked the WA DOT website so I learned that Highway 123 is closed for the year at Cayuse pass. I guess it didn't make any difference, since I went that way anyway and went over Chinook pass instead and down the American river and the Naches river to Highway 12 and thence to Bethel Ridge road. It was 175 miles from my house to the TH at Cash Prairie. One way.
Anyway, we got there at 8 pm on Monday, and found a fabulous campsite right on the cliffs overlooking Mt Adams and the Goat Rocks. Oh yeah, we saw a whole bunch of elk on the drive out, some in MRNP on the side of the highway, and a whole herd on Bethel Ridge road.
We started off from the TH at 9:30 am Tuesday, followed minutes later by a round dozen of friendly folks from Yakima. Of course they smoked us, beating us to Burnt mtn by about 1/2 hour. Daisy sure loved them, because they of course loved her. But since they had no binoculars (for the far-off goats) or tennis balls (for Daisy), we were not sad to see them depart Burnt Mtn at 12:30 pm, leaving the summit to us.
Well, we stayed on the summit of Burnt Mtn for 5 1/2 hours, reveling in the views of Adams and Rainier, drinking beverages, sleeping, reading The Hobbit for the umpteenth time (one of Daisy's favorites), and generally just enjoying the day. Oh yeah, we were going to go on and summit Shellrock peak, that was the original plan, but all that downhill followed by more uphill, 1,700 ft R/T from the summit of Burnt to the summit of Shellrock, just to be 400 lousy feet higher on Shellrock than on Burnt, well I said ""heck no!"" to that. So we ended up driving 340 miles to go on a four mile hike. But it was a darn good hike!
On the way back Tuesday evening, I decided to head back to Highway 410 via forest service road 1500. The sign said 22 miles, but it was a really nice drive, the last 10+ miles were paved, and it cut off about 25 miles of Highway 12 and 410, plus saved me the miserable 7 miles of washboards on Bethel ridge road. All in all a great choice.
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