Adventure at Castle Lake
Well, I'll start this off by saying when you go a place like Castle Lake, prior planning is a must. We headed out towards Castle lake at 9:00 am using a Washington atlas from 1995. Apparently alot has changed since then, because it took us until 6 pm to get to our desired destination. Castle Lake sits at about 3200 feet, and the closest road is somewhere near 4000. It's quite a hike. After getting some bad advice from the locals we bailed over the hill on the wrong side. After about 2 hours of hiking we realized we were doing something wrong, as were still about 600 feet above the lake and surrounded by cliff's. Managed to make it back to camp by 11:30pm, just as a very thick fog rolled in. We spent sunday driving around, and eventually found an old logging road that is not driveable anymore, but makes for a fairly easy hike compaired to the stuff we were dangling off.At least we were prepared with ropes, climbing gear, food and water, and 5 flashlights and headlamps for 5 people. Motto: Poor preplanning can lead to an unsafe experience. We are headed back here next weekend with a little more information, an 8 am start, and hopefully taking the right trail. If anyone has any information about Castle lake please email me, I want to verify that our route down this time is the proper one [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
Thanks
Jeff
[ 07-16-2001: Message edited by: Luthian ]
|
Linear Mode
