The BIG mistake I did was not taking a stove (the weather was dry after all), and campfire would just not burn - the wood was soaking wet. I was successful to make fire once, but burned all paper - a printout of book I brought to read during long nights in the tent. This left me with insufficient amount of energy bars for the 2.5 days and no means to make the next fire and prepare food, so I cut the trip one day short... oh well.
Me and my dog Pepper started under sunny skies, but once we got to Wapiki Lake the weather turned gray, cold, and really windy!
The wind calmed down some time during the night, and the next morning was perfectly quiet and sunny.
It obviously dipped below freezing this night
After couple of hours of work to make a fire and prepare hot breakfast (success!) we set out back to the main trail, and hiked a steep trail to the foot of Lemei Rock. On the way, we had great views of Wapiki Lake, Goat Rocks, Mt. Hood and of course Mt. Adams. It quickly warmed up.
Wapiki Lake from the upper viewpoint
Mt. Hood from viewpoint above Lake Wapiki
Since I decided NOT to pick them this time, mushrooms seemed to pop up every 10 yards
Lemei Rock
Here, I made another mistake for the lack of research. There are two gullies by which one can ascend the Rock, and we ascended via the right-hand (wrong) gully which landed us on a lower, middle pinnacle. There's an obvious trail which made me believe it's the way to follow. To get to true top, we bushwhacked down through (and under) very thick fir thicket on the back side of the ridge - nothing hard but it cost us extra time, and when the day's so short every minute counts. On the return, we descended much more straightforward left-hand gully (left-hand if looking from the base) - one has to go towards a small arch on the ascent in order to find this gully, and once there it's fast and easy. The views from the top were superb.
St. Helens with a new snow cap
Bird Mountain
Rainier and Adams (I probably had some vertigo at the moment)
Pepper didn't want to pose on the summit this time. It was almost hot there under open sun, 70+ degrees for sure.
Lots of of ladybugs preparing to wait off winter at the summit
I found a golf ball on the lower slope and recalled VanMarmot's story about people playing golf on the top of Lemei Rock.
"Late variety" of heather
The remnants of snowfield I encountered below Lemei Rock back in the end of July
I also had some time to explore the terrain towards Lemei Lake - the trail goes through nice heather and huckleberry meadows. There's not much color overall, but some kind of dwarf huckleberry was quite showy in places.
Some berries are still green, many are red and lack taste, very few are fully ripe
October lupine! Well, I shouldn't be surprised
