Silver Lake With Ma

I wanted to go camping for a few days. I fancied myself hopping from one isolated alpine lake to another, blue waters to bluer, jumping in, drying off, jumping in again, drying off again. My family, however, was not swept up in the romance of my solo lake-hopping weekend plans. Instead they envisioned an isolated, hazardous journey through the backcountry, where big animals roam, where unknown humans wander, where rogue rocks fall, where unexpected accidents happen, where even sasquash is whispered to exist.

I am not naive to these things, to the lurking lions and tigers and bears, or the logistical hassle of twisting an ankle in the backcountry all alone, or scariest of all, an encounter with a gun toting human. But I wont let the possibility of those things get in the way of jumping in alpine lakes, just like I don’t let the very likely possibility of a crash limit the use of my car. I will however, bend to the reasonable requests of my family, who frequently endure the stress of my solo travels.

So I resigned my weekend to be one spent with my mom in Port Townsend. I would get coffee at my favorite spot, read on the beach and still jump in ice cold water, not a remote, powdery blue pool carved by glaciers and surrounded by peaks, but the cold waters of the San Juan Strait.

Then, in the middle of dinner, my mom suggested she accompany me. She was not up for three days of camping, but quickly she gained enthusiasm for one night at Silver Lake. We planned our menu, and gathered our gear: she would use dad’s sleeping bag, a bright blue one, apparently years ago it was a different shade of blue. I worried she would be cold, and several times interjected with various scenarios in which she was too cold in the old sleeping bag, she laughed and said, “I have been cold before, and there have been many nights in my life where I didn’t sleep a wink, I will be fine.” That is exactly the attitude you want to go spend a night in the wild with.

Most of the way to Silver Lake was familiar, a path we have both trodden many times to reach the top of Mt.Townsend. Though called a “mount” this summit is more so a rolling hill top, but the hike delivers you quickly into the alpine with beautiful meadows of flowers in the summer, views of rocky peaks as the Olympics stretch across the Peninsula to the west and south, and on the most crystal clear days, the view to the east includes every volcano and peak in the Cascades: from the Canadian Coastals and Kulshan (Baker) to Loowit (Helens) and Hood.

Fortune was on our side as we (myself behind the wheel trying to get in as much practice on mountain roads) pulled up into the parking lot, there was one spot left. We unloaded and headed up the trail at a leisurely pace. Sometimes on trail I can find it challenging to take things slow, so it was refreshing to take my mom’s lead. We stopped to enjoy fresh water from each stream along the way, and a few times we stopped so that my mom could better tell the story she was working through. We stopped for lunch by a small pond where frogs serenaded us. Further inspection of the pond found huge collections of frog-spawn and tadpoles, some with hind legs some without, every gestation of frog represented here in this wee pond.

Even though we had taken our sweet time, it was only just past noon when we arrived at Silver Lake. We made our way to the south end of the lake where a solid patch of snow still remained, but where several trees looked to have melted away two patches of snow that looked to be the perfect size for a campsite.

We claimed our spot and sat in the shade for a little while listening to the highways of bugs zooming around busily. A few groups of people appeared, day hikers, but no one ventured to the opposite side of the lake where we were, perhaps because of the snow. At some point I decided to circumnavigate the lake, to take a few pictures and find a good spot to jump in for an icy swim. If I was taught one cardinal rule by my parents it is that, within reason, no cold, clear water way should go un-swum.

I had almost completed my walk around the lake when I climbed on top of a huge granite boulder, “dropped by a mile-high glacier during the ice age” I said to myself in my dad’s voice as he has said to me many times before, and found my swimming spot. The rock was warm, baked by the sun, and I lay stomach down for a few moments before stripping down and jumping in. My mom, who by this time had begun her own walk around the lake, was sitting on a paralleling granite boulder and I decided I would swim over to her. I got about half way before the water began to feel too cold. I like cold water and the lake is not very big, but I turned right around and swam back to my boulder, pulled myself out of the water and lay belly down on the warm rock.

Once I had dried off, which at the height of the day took very little time, I rejoined mom at our campsite under the shade of a big pine tree. As we sat, enjoying an afternoon siesta of snacks and closing our eyes, the breeze traveling off the surface of the lake and across the icy summer snow surrounding us was so chilly I had to dig out my beloved green puffer.

We decided to move to the north end of the lake, for there, right next to where the trail delivers you to the lakes edge, is a large clearing that lends itself to camping. We found a nice flat spot and began to unpack some gear. We wanted to sleep under the stars, but in case of mosquitos I staked down my tent and we made our beds on top of it, as if it were a tarp. That way we could quickly pitch the tent and escape the harassment of whatever bugs came out at dusk.

Before setting in for the night, I wanted to hike up to the saddle beyond the south end of the lake. All afternoon I had been eyeing this saddle and the two peaks flanking either side of it. At the time I was unaware that there is actually a very well defined trail leading up to the ridge and traversing the peaks surrounding the lake, for all the maps I had previous studied indicated the trail ended at the lake. Plus, the residual snow completely obscured the trail from view.

But then, while I was drying off after my swim, I watched a woman and her dog circle around the east side of the lake and continue until they disappeared up and over the saddle. I asked her about it as she later passed me by and she highly recommend I scurry up there. I would go but try to wait for the light to turn gold with evening before heading up.

The view from the saddle was unexpectedly grand with Tahoma dominating the horizon to the east, Mount Constance and her fellow Olympic peaks looking sharp to the south. I scurried up a peak to my left and looked upon the lake below. It is always cool to gain enough elevation above an alpine lake to see it in its entirety, the shape of its edges, the gradient of the waters’ colors, your mother taking a sneaky skinny dip.

The saddle itself was a beautiful golden-green meadow, south facing and so completely free of snow, dotted with clusters of alpine flowers: pink, purple, yellow and white. There were also two distinct bivy spots with a ring of rocks between the beds where someone had made a fire. The view in the photograph above is the view from the bivy, an epic spot and had I been alone I might have run back down to the lake and hauled my pack up here for the night, next time.

When I made it back down from the ridge the lake was in shadow and it was dinner time. I scarfed down some food and recounted the view from the saddle to mom while she got cozy. I was still buzzing how the seemingly small addition of elevation had offered such a huge reward.

We snuggled into our bags for the night but as my eyes grew heavy I fought to stay awake. I wanted to see the moon rise over the most eastern peaks and take a photograph the pair. At first the occasional mosquito helped me to stay awake, but as the sky turned a soft, dusky blue the perfect breeze picked up and blew away the tiny winged annoyances.

From my bag I watched the moon until it was where I wanted it to be in the photograph I imagined. Then trying not to wake my mom whose breath suggested she had drifted off I snuck down to the lake to take the picture. On the way back I snapped the photograph above of my mom asleep among the trees and it has since become a favorite of mine.

The day dawned with a chorus of birds, one in particular that sounded less like song and more like an alarm clock. It must have been 4am, there was barely light in the sky, but we made coffee and watched the first warm, golden rays of daylight shift slowly across the rock peaks. By 5:30am we were walking down the trail, heading back the way we had come.