Criminal

what kind of motorcycle Criminal? Nice.. I have a couple myself.. I enjoy dualsporting to get to some of the caches in the hills.. let me know if you want to take a ride some time I placed this one last year via my dual sport.. http://coord.info/GC2FRT0 you can drive up to it with just about any vehicle, but the fun way is to take the multi-use trail up from the Naches River area Sounds like fun! I just need to get a motorcycle carrier for my receiver if I'm going to venture out that far. The bike has a top speed of ~65MPH so I don't really want to do much (if any) highway travel on it. Also, my butt-in-the-saddle time is pretty short.

what kind of motorcycle Criminal?

OK, but if that doesn't work maybe you can try messing the place up until they lift the moratorium. You know, the old switcheroo.

I think it was the end of the season, so everything was out of stock. I'm noticing that most of the gear companies have restocked and have new items in now.

Saturday is out, I need to be in Tacoma in the morning. Sunday may be on the plate, we'll see. We need more three day weekends!

I'd like to get out this Saturday (26th) to do some snowshoeing. I'm still considering the where. I might want to go back and give the Colonel Bob summit a try, but that's a get-up-way-early hike. I'll see how I feel later in the week. It'll be an Olympics hike nevertheless.

I'm looking at a motorcycle on Saturday. If I can get some stuff done, I may be able to work up an Oly hike on Sunday. The freeze level went way up, so I don't know what it looks like up there.

If one hike a month isn't enough for you, or if you miss any of the monthly planned hikes, I'll post my last minute short (or no) notice plans here. Of course, anyone else with short notice plans are free to post them here as well. Anyway, I'm looking at hiking/snowshoeing in to the Tunnel Creek shelter either on Sunday the 16th or Monday the 17th. The trailhead is only 2600' so the Jeep should be able to make it. The shelter is a little less than three miles in and at 3700'. It's an easy grade, so not too steep. If energy and time permit, I may try to make the ridge top, but it's a brutally steep climb in the summer so I'm not holding out much hope of making it in the deep snow. Beg, borrow, steal, rent, or buy a set of snowshoes- it should be a great hike. I'll post a time if there's any interest, if not I'll go whenever I wake up. Radio traffic will be difficult without climbing to the top of the ridge, as the trail sits down in a deep canyon, but I was able to hit one of the Bremerton repeaters the last time I was in there.

I gave up that stuff for lint.

I will be unable to attend, for reasons we discussed (unless you can change it to Sunday ). I hope there will be a good turnout for this, it sounds like a lot of fun!

I had a lot of trouble with the pictures of the snowman at the trailhead- it's tough to see due to the lack of contrast. Here's a couple shots. Someone spent a lot of time making it! And a crop of one of the summit group shots (I took three):

All I can say is....WOW! This turned out to be a fantastic hike! We barely made the trailhead due to deep snow, and I was glad Ironman had his higher clearance truck along. Oddly, the lower part of the trail itself was almost bare, but it got deeper as we went up. It turned out we didn't need snowshoes at all, and we made the summit in two hours. My radio battery was dead, but TL was able to raise Dick on the Bremerton repeater, although the signal was poor. The cache is deep under the snow so we spent very little time on that. The summit is forested so we only had good views to the north, and peek-a-boo views to the east. We had lunch and coffee and started down, making the trailhead in only an hour. Trip Report posted.

I had pretty good luck on Bremerton 146.620 last time. I don't remember the PL tone though. I'll be calling you this afternoon Dick. We'll probably all push VHF common 146.520 while we're walking.

Just in case we get some last minute joiners, and for everyone else, we're meeting at the Kitsap Mall near the Barnes & Noble bookstore (west side of the mall) at 0800. If you're coming from the south (thru Bremerton) take exit 45A and turn right towards the Kitsap Mall. If you're running late, give one of us a call so we'll wait. Be watchful for black ice!

We just need another 4x4 to get you in. Since we're meeting in Silverdale, we can leave the low clearance cars there and 4x4-pool to the trailhead (assuming we can get that far).

Now that's optimism!

If you're going backpacking I think I would pass on this one. Putting aside the idea of buying a tent from a tire store, realize that your shelter is an essential piece of equipment. I'm sure you've read up on hypothermia and how it can easily kill you, so you're aware of the importance of staying dry. Where's the rainfly? Other questions that pop immediately to mind are, who is Broadstone? How much does it weigh? What is it made out of? Why don't they list the specs? This might be a great tent for car camping or for the kids to use in the back yard. It looks like a toy. For backpacking I would stick to names like Marmot, Big Agnes, Mountain Hardware, MSR, Eureka, REI, North Face, or NEMO. It really doesn't take long, and isn't at all complicated, to set up a tent.

Is the parking lot by the Barnes & Noble in Silverdale at 0800 too early? We can always slip it an hour if you need more time. If there's only the three of us we can take my Jeep.

Are you sure you won't be better by Friday? I'm shooting for one last hike before the end of the year, or maybe a first for 2011, if I can reach the trailhead. The feds have Friday off (for some reason) so either Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Mt. Zion is pretty short at under 2 miles, but it's pretty steep.

Geez, give a rest dude. We can't all just head out at the drop of the hat. Who was it that couldn't go on the Decemmber HOTM because they had better things to do, not that there's anything wrong with that sometimes life just gets in the way. I really think you're swell though. Reading a forum post is one thing but sometimes schedules have to be checked, plans made and/or rearranged or a multitude of other things and that can take a lot more time than it takes to just read this thread. Oh yeah I'm in. I'm talking about the many people who never go on these hikes/snowshoes. It seems like the same handful of people, seldom anyone new. Why? I can only guess they are nervous about being in the forest, or lack confidence in their ability, lack the gear, or some combination thereof. Everyone is invited! Give it a try!

95 views and few replies. It’s soapbox time… C’mon people, you’ve seen the beautiful pictures, you know how to walk, so there’s nothing stopping you from snowshoeing. If you can walk around the mall, or scoot & loot on a cache machine, you can easily strap on a pair of snowshoes and walk in the beautiful and serene forest. Last Sunday, Maggie, Kevin, and I stopped just to listen to the sound of the falling snow. That one minute made the whole day. If you lack the equipment, you can rent snowshoes cheap, or just buy an inexpensive set. I’ve seen them as low as $15 on craigslist! Ask around, you probably know someone with an unused set in their garage or basement. Poles are nice, but not required. If I cannot attend this one, you can even borrow my shoes and poles at no charge. If you only lack confidence, then this is the perfect hike for you. TL said this is a beginner’s snowshoe, so it’s perfect for someone that has never tried it but thinks it might be fun. You will not be left behind, you will not get lost in the woods, and if you get tired you can just plop backwards into the soft snow and rest a bit. If you don’t think you have the physical ability or endurance, just give it a try- you may surprise yourself! If you want to go slow, go slow. We routinely get separated by speed and get strung out in smaller groups as we go along. We always keep track of who is with who and where they are (except for the Mt Aix hike but that is the only exception). You have, at any point along the trail, the option of turning around and following the tracks back to cars. There’s no shame in turning around, we have all done it! If you have any questions about what to bring or wear, just drop one of us a line and we’d be happy to help you. But seriously, it’s far easier than you may believe, and much more memorable than an afternoon of guardrail caches.

Heres a few more pictures from yesterday, just to rub it in a bit. The TR is posted. Kevin axes the log if it would kindly move out of the roadway: It refused, so we went to work on the other end: Lead change, Kevin moves around to take the lead breaking the trail: A beautiful day: Parked in the deep snow:

Wow! We had falling snow, sideways blowing snow, blue skies with falling snow…it was a beautiful day! We did have to remove a blow-down tree across the road with a hand saw and an axe just to get in. Much like the time I said, “You don’t need a tent in August, it never rains!” or the many times I said, “It’s a three hour hike!” or the several times I said, “We’ll be out before dark easy!” – my plan that we would get at least midway up the trail before we would need snowshoes was WAY off. We hit deep snow in several places miles from the trailhead, and had to stop at the Y in the road to the upper or lower trailheads. We decided not to try to go any further and park there. The Jeep was high centered on its skid-plates and it took some doing to get it pointed downhill again. We snowshoed up and started walking to the trailhead, and after a bit over two miles we arrived, ate lunch, and turned around again. The snow was deep! We arrived back at the car as dusk was falling, and drove out in the dark. We stopped in Silverdale for burgers and beer. I’ll post up more details and some pictures tomorrow.

I really wanted to sleep in this morning....REALLY. I'll have the radio and will try to call out on either Northbend or one of the Tiger Mountain repeaters from time to time. The trail head is almost at 3000' elevation, so there may be snow right from the start, but I'm not sure. I figure we'll hike up as far as we can, and as far as looks safe. See you at the Noble bookstore! I'm poking the cursor around the map on this website to check elevation weather.

Also, it will likely be snowing....hard. Bring goggles if you have 'em.