| Solo around Cannon Trip Report |
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| Solo around Cannon   | 
| Page Type: Trip Report Location: Washington, United States, North America Lat/Lon: 47.50290°N / 120.8013°W Date Climbed/Hiked: Aug 7, 1986 | Page By: Dean Created/Edited: Dec 31, 2002 / Object ID: 168792 Hits: 737 Loading... Page Score: 86.8% - 3 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
I had to work a little later than I normally would have before I was able to get out of my office and head for the Icicle Creek area. Originally, I had a couple of other companions lined up but they both back out at the last minute, a sometimes common occurance when the weather looks threatening. I made good time to the Colchuck / Stuart Lake trailhead and soon was making good time up towards Colchuck Lake, where I would now spend the first night. I made it all the way around the lake on the south end and camped near a big boulder not far from where the Aasgard route starts. I had my camp all set up when a couple of other people arrived, having hoped to find this spot empty. They found a not so great spot near by and at least I had some social company for the evening.
The next morning dawned and I was up and gone before my neighbors had even stirred. I like to get up Aasgard before the sun hits the west side but since it was cloudy today, it wasn't the reason for the early start. Today I planned to go up Dragontail, traverse over to Little Annapurna and find a campsite on or near Rune (Perfection) Lake. When I got to the top of Aasgard the wind had really picked up and after taking a good look at the Snow Creek Glacier, I decided not to try that route since I had no crampons with me. In those days I always had my good ole orange MSR thunderbird ice axe as it was long enough to double as a hiking stick. The wind and icy conditions on the glacier said "not today"
I headed straight down thru the uppers and made my way to Talisman where I had lunch. It was still too early to camp so I decided to head on over to Shield's Lake. So it was, down to Rune Lake, up to Prussik Pass and down the hill into Shield's, a lake that was 700 feet below the pass. As I got near the lake I was greeted by the pests that make Shield's mosquitoe hell.
I carried no head net in those days and I didn't care to slather on half of my DEET. I was surprised to find two guys fishing the south end inlet of the lake, standing in the water about ten feet out on the sandy bottom, seemingly oblivious to the mosquitoes and getting their fair share of fish to boot. I made my way down the left side of Shields until I was near the south end of Earle Lake when my map reminded me that I had never been into Coney Lake. "Why not" said I so I started to contour north up and away from the lakes until I came to a small notch in the ridge and without too much difficulty and a little class 2-3 scrambling, made my way into the Coney Lake valley. I found a faint boot path and aided by that and where obviously the lake would be, I fought some brush and eventually came upon Coney Lake.
Coney may be the loneliest lake I've ever stayed at by myself. There was only was one decent place to camp (on the small extension of this heart shaped lake) and I found an old fire ring and some rusty tin cans of long long ago. The weather had stabilized and I just slept out in the open and I slept well as the day had been a true workout.
In the morning, I followed an obvious gully on the southwestern edge of the lake and followed it with class 2- 3 scrambling to the top of the ridge. I worked myself around to the east side and basically walked up the familiar summit. Still no register (that i could find but there was still some snow iced into the summit rocks and it could have been underneath some of that if there was a register finally. I pulled out my camera to take what I thought would be plenty of summit pics and discovered that I had been using a 20 frame roll instead of a 36 frame one (doh).
so I kept the pics to a couple of the heart shaped Coney Lake below and to one I wanted to take back along the ridgeline. Three trips, not enough photos. I vowed to come back and get the job done someday. Cannon Mtn had turned into my black hole. (several slides that I took I can no longer find as I seem to have lost a carousel of slides somewhere, which I'll probably find someday stuck in with a box of my wifes china) Oh well, I snapped a lot of mental images and spent about two hours on the summit, just soaking it all in. One other solo climber came up and tagged the summit while I was there (I moved off the summit so he could do so as there isn't much room on top). Can you believe it, this guy had no camera. Didn't like to carry the extra weight. Oh well, I'll bet he had plenty of fishing gear back down at his Shield's lake camp (turned out to be one of the two guys I saw the previous day down at the lake). Instead of going down what is now referred to as the Northwest ridge route, I worked my way across a fairly broad saddle off of the ridge and started down pretty much directly for my car. I cliffed out a few times but I was able to work south each time and eventually came to a creek bed that I tried to follow. I started to hit a lot of brush which made slow going (if my wife could have seen me then).
Slide alder and devils club had me sweating and cussing but finally I came to the Stuart Lake / Colchuck trail and glory be, the cold drinks that I had placed in the stream were still there. What a treat although I had never planned on doing a loop when I started this little outing.
Did I mention the bee's nest I stepped on at the top of one of the cliff lines? Well I moved pretty fast and they only nailed me about four times as most of my skin was covered up. Fortunately I had on long pants and long sleeved shirt which I had planned to change out of a few minutes later so somebody was looking out for me. I kind of had to tight rope, pack and all across the top of the cliff until they gave up the chase. Why do bees have to build their nests on the ground? Don't goats and deer step on them too? Probably not since they seem to be smarter than us humans at times. Got me on the back of my neck and hands. Hurt like hell for awhile but it could have been worse and the descent down through the brush absorbed a lot of my attention and the bee stings were pretty much put on the back shelf. The trail seemed like a super highway and in less than ten minutes or so I was back at the car. I stopped at the Burger Haus on the western outskirts of Leavenworth and wiped out all the aerobic gains I had made by ordering a big greasy burger, fries and soft drink. Sure tasted good. I didn't smell real good so I was eager to get home to Kennewick and get a good hot shower. The one last interesting event of the trip was almost hitting a deer up near the Blewett Pass summit. Seems like if I had been going a little faster or had gotten there a little sooner, I would have had deer meat all over the car.
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