The Struggling Bear on Blowout Mountain

The Struggling Bear on Blowout  Mountain

It had been a long since I have been on a hike with my husband EastKing. This is largely due to the fact I have fibromyalgia and do not do well in the recent surge of extreme heat that has hit the Pacific Northwest this summer. I have deteriorated dramatically in terms of any progress with my weight with it now over a very negative milestone and that has been hard to swallow emotionally. I know I have to take more action to do something about it but I know it is going to be hard to find any hiking partners who are patient enough to go and who would be willing to endure my slowness and current physical limitations. I may struggle now I but I soon hope not to struggle as bad in the future.

I was very slow on the hike up this mountain. EastKing could not have picked a better mountain to go up but my fatigue and recent weight gain was making this mountain a real struggle. I could feel the pain from the lack of hiking I have done this year. After all how can a 5 mile, 800 foot elevation gain walk-up with no scrambles be so hard? Despite all the struggles heading up the mountain, I really LOVED this trail. It is so scenic and beautiful. What really made it stand out was all of the thousands and thousands of spruce trees that dot the landscape, making it look like a tranquil wonderland in summer.  It would have been complete if waterfalls were dotting the landscape, but one cannot have everything!  The total hike is high on the ridge so there are not any good water sources on this trail. There were huckleberry bushes all along the trail and they were in season. Eating these huckleberries made EastKing and I take longer going up to this summit and coming back.

The views on the summit of Blowout Mountain are SO REWARDING. Outside of a couple trees in some spots, the views here were completely panoramic. To the north lied distant view of Stuart, Daniel, and hundreds of mountains that I can only dream about getting to the top of. Rainier was unfortunately covered by clouds but the mountains to the east of Rainier were out and very beautiful. At the very top of the mountain lies an amazing rock to sit on and enjoy the views. Getting to the summit was so WONDERFUL after the summer I have been having and EastKing and I really savored the view from the summit and spent some real quality time together, which we needed.

I personally find the dirt road that is at least seven miles up to being very nerve-wracking.  The initial part of the road has potholes, but then it evens out, but the road gets steeper and curves around the mountain with more exposure. For those of us with vertigo, it is scary at times. The road is in decent shape and is doable with a passenger car but it can be narrow in places which terrified me. Evening sunsets on this road can be dangerous so wait until the sun is below the horizon before taking this road back down. At times we were blinded by the sun on the way back.

I have to say that I really need all of the emotional support and encouragement that I can get from other hikers.  I am now at a dangerous weight and I am the heaviest weight I have ever been that is a culmination of many different things and I am already beating myself up for it. If you read this and want to on some really easy but beautiful hikes, let me know. I am motivated to keep moving and getting outside and have a good list of smaller mountains that I want to do this year. Hopefully I one day will be able to write up a much better adventure in the future.

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