Jim and I were looking for a fun trip with Kevin and Lisa. Plan A was the Olympic Mountains but when the weather went bad, we headed east. Though the forecast was for smoke, we only had it on our hike in and it never got that bad. We had views the entire hike in.
We decided to go to Snowy Lakes and climb Mount Hardy and Golden Horn. As we hiked the 8 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail, we were treated to our first view of Golden Horn and Tower Mountain.
When we got to Snowy Lakes, Kevin and Lisa had claimed us a spot. There were several other parties in the area but they didn’t affect us. The area is quite large and allows people to spread out.
We woke to blue skies and no smoke. Our camp spot was on the rock rib above the lake. We had 360 degree views.
Tower Mountain on one side….
Golden Horn on the other…
Mount Hardy on the other ….
Our breakfast rock was between all three.
We decided to climb Mount Hardy first since it was in the sunshine and then climb Golden Horn in the afternoon. It was right above camp so we could easily come down late in the day.
Mount Hardy has a beautiful summit block that looks like a bullet.
We climbed to the notch between the false summit and summit. Then enjoyed a class 2/3 scramble to the large summit block. We were on top by 11am.
The view of Black Peak and the north face of Goode were fabulous.
We all enjoyed a long summit stay.
We quickly descended back to the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail) and opted to run the ridge back to camp. We arrived just before 3pm and found our tent upside down with our gear spread around. We knew the wind had picked up but this was a surprise.
About the time we got our tent back upright, it started to rain. We climbed in the tent and proceeded to eat most of our snack food.
Once the rain ended, we had all lost our drive to climb Golden Horn. Instead we settled for an early dinner and decided to get some rest.
Jim and I were watching a little tv on my phone when the wind kicked up. We were in a floorless tent so with every strong wind gust, we got pelted with sand. Around 9pm, we’ve got hit so hard I got sand in my eyes. We were done. Packed up our stuff and move down to the grass near the lake.
It rain a little during the night and the temps dropped considerably. But we woke to blue skies over Golden Horn.
The blue sky was quickly consumed by clouds. We had discussed climbing Golden Horn before heading out but the summit had lost its appeal.
We packed up and headed out. On the way out, we were past by at least 20 PCT through hikers heading for the boarder before they closed it again due to fires.
The 4 of us were glad to hit the cars by 2pm. We have all had a tough August and were looking forward to getting home early.
We definitely hit the nice weather without the smoke. Jim and I considered ourselves lucky.
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