Trip Report: The Wilderness Tri-Hard
BY LAURA BEHYMER
When I hear of another forest service road being overtaken by the nature it was carved from, I mourn the loss even as I begin scheming for the possibility of, what I call, a Wilderness Tri-Hard. My kind of triathlon involves a gravel bike ride up an abandoned forest road, then a backpacking trip to a swim in an alpine lake. A unique check-list, requiring a bit of planning to find the right combination. For my newest “event,” the Monte Cristo area in Washington’s Cascade Mountains fits the brief.
First developed as a booming lead-silver mining town in the 1890s, the area’s industry had been squashed by 1907, thanks in part to frequent flooding of the South Fork Sauk River. A December 1980 storm proved to be the last straw for the maintained life of the road into this remote town. Today, the 4.3-mile road is locked in a tug of war between nature and volunteer maintainers. It provides the first phase of our adventure.
Riding a bike with backpacking gear increases your weight and center of gravity, making turning and stopping squirrelly, but the real challenge is when you eventually have to negotiate inevitable wash outs, carrying and pushing your cumbersome load across rivers, rocks, and downed trees. The challenge is worth traveling in minutes what would have taken hours on foot.
At the terminus of the road, we stash our bikes and pass through the ghost town. As we ascend, there are plenty of downed trees to negotiate, and in the late afternoon heat, I’ve built up a sweat. Beyond Poodle Dog Pass, we receive our first glimpse of Silver Tip Peak and Silver Lake. With the sun just starting to dip behind the peak, we throw our tent up, rush down to the lake shore and into the cool, refreshing water. Snow still clings to the far side of the lake, but the more shallow west shore is one of the more comfortable temperatures I’ve experienced in alpine lakes. Still, hand warmers and warm socks await in my sleeping bag.
The next day, we wake to low clouds and try for Columbia Peak, further east down the ridge line. Alas, 300 feet from the summit we are stymied and return back to camp. The third day of our trip, we pack out and practically fly back to the trailhead in two hours, coasting the majority of the way down the road after retrieving our bikes.
We may not have accomplished our scrambling goal, but we came away with beta for our next attempt for Columbia Peak, along with the completion of our fifth Wilderness Tri-Hard. It’s just a matter of time before we point our bikes back that direction, even just for the fun of trying.
