Kaleberg Archive for Keyword: hurricane hill, Page: 1

For more on the Hurricane Hill Trail, visit our Hurricane Hill website.

We've been watching the snow melt at Hurricane Ridge on the park webcams, and we've been following the snow depth at the weather website, but we had to drive up and see what is happening live.

The Kaleberg Report - The snow is melting rapidly. We were quite surprised. The phlox is in bloom a bit below the Switchback trailhead, so the high country is opening for the season. The biggest surprise was the state of the road to Hurricane Hill. It was blocked off by a barricade of orange highway cones, but instead of the usual high ramparts ending in a wall of snow, the road seems to have been plowed, at least as far as we could see. It may even be open now as you read this.

There's more and more grass showing.

We are reminded that summer is coming.

More signs of melting snow

The ramparts and the barricade

but, the Hurricane Hill Road has been plowed and may soon open.

Keywords: high country, hurricane hill, hurricane ridge, weather

11/12/12 - Hurricane Ridge Saturday was sunny, so we headed up to Hurricane Ridge to check things out. The road to the Hurricane Hill trailhead was closed and covered with a thin layer of snow, so we hiked from the lodge to the trailhead. We saw some wonderful things.	Just a touch of frost
The grasses are golden	That's the Hurricane Hill Trail. It's still walkable, but we were too tired to continue.
A red branched bush	Another view of the Hurricane Hill trail
The mountains and clouds	More mountainas and clouds
There is just enough snow to make things look beautiful.	The road
A view through the trees	Mount Angeles

Keywords: hurricane hill, hurricane ridge, winter

10/18/12 - Hurricane Hill in the Autumn Unlike New England, the Northwest is not known for its autumn colors, but Hurricane Hill tends to put on a good show. The fields turn a rich gold, and there are bursts of red and gold. The flowers of the alpine summer are now dried specimens waiting for their winter covering of snow.	Golden fields and - oh yeah - mountains
More golden fields	Another view to the west
Red gold	More gold
Red and gold in the valley	More red and gold
Dried flowers	The hanging gardens, ready for winter
A touch of gold	A touch of red

Keywords: autumn, flowers, hurricane hill

06/27/12 - Marmot City Hurricane Hill is so full of marmots that we're thinking of renaming it Marmot City. We saw at least ten of them, including one so large we were thinking of counting him (or her) as two. The snow is melting apace, and we're getting more used to hiking the high country, so stay tuned for more news from Marmot City.	These two were tussling, like something right out of a nature documentary.
These two are digging their digs right near the bench and the new marmot sign.	They are fearless.
A proud profile	This one lives at the summit of Hurricane HIll.
Another marmot lurking	Some token scenery
Yup, more scenery	Most of the trail is easy going, if you don't count having to climb a bit.

Keywords: hurricane hill, marmots

06/19/12 - Hurricane Hill Despite the cool spring this year, we made it up to the top of Hurricane Hill before the solstice. We took advantage of one of those great sunny, un-June like days we've been having and drove up to Hurricane Ridge. The Hurricane Hill access road was open and most of the parking lot cleared. There was some snow on the trail, but we had our trusty YakTrax and hiking sticks, so we had extra traction on the trickier stretches. The hard part was really that we weren't used to the altitude, but the blue sky and amazing vista pulled us upwards. Marmot Rock, a rock that looks like a marmot, had survived the winter, but we also saw a real marmot chittering and playing sentinel now that we humans have returned to the high country. There was some phlox in bloom along with a bit of Indian paintbrush, some yarrow and a lupine or two, but otherwise the landscape had just melted. It took us a fair bit longer than usual, but we made our way up to the summit and admired the views of the Olympic Mountains, the San Juans, Vancouver Island and the great white meringue of Mt. Baker.	One of the views
Last summer's grasslands, now faded	This is sort of what the trails look like, but the snow is melting rapidly.
Another view, this one from the summit	The real marmot - Click this caption for some shaky video, marmot calls and our heavy breathing.
Blue sky	The view east from the summit
Phlox	Indian paintbrush
Another view	Yet another view

Keywords: high country, hurricane hill, spring, animals, flowers

06/08/12 - It's Going to Take a Lot of Melting

We've started our seasonal Hurricane Ridge watch, waiting for the high country trails to open. There's still a lot of snow up there, and the webcam points at a southern slope, so it doesn't reveal much about how clear the trails are. Another useful resource is the real time Hurricane Ridge weather report which gives the snow level. The park posts its own trail condition reports, and while things are thawing, the cool spring means that much of the high country is still closed. We'll be heading up to the ridge now and then to see what things are like, and we'll post a note when we get our first high country hike of the year.

There was a lot of snow.

These ramparts are lower now, but there's still a lot ot melt.

We walked the road to Hurricane Hill a bit. When we last checked, it wasn't plowed far.

Keywords: high country, hurricane hill, hurricane ridge, spring, trails, weather

01/17/12 - Hurricane Ridge Shortly before the recent storms, we drove up to Hurricane Ridge and did some snowshoeing. The snow was crunchy having been compacted, melted and refrozen, but it was easy enough going with our steel foot claws, our snowshoes. It was a cloudy day, so we managed to capture some of the strange color that the mountain sky gets when the air is unsettled. It was a good workout, and, now that the storms have settled, we're hoping to get back up there.	Some of the strange sky
A bit of blue sky - There were colors for every mood.	The mountains and a pale gray sky
Vancouver Island across the strait	More strange and angry sky
Hurricane Hill in the distance	The trail itself

Keywords: hurricane hill, hurricane ridge, snowshoeing

11/07/11 - Frost On Hurricane Hill This was a hard post to compose. There were so many amazing photographs of the gray skies, majestic mountains and frost covered trees and grasses that we just gave up and chose eleven pictures when we could have chosen dozens. Judging from the webcams and weather reports, the ice seems to have melted on Hurricane Hill, so we are glad we managed to capture our amazing walk in the sky.	The summit
A view down	Frost on the grass
Mountain sky and frosty trees	A field of ice
More mountain sky	Windblown
Grasses and sky	Another view down
Did we mention the sky?	It's almost Christmas.

Keywords: christmas, hurricane hill, weather, winter

10/14/11 - Journey to the Land of the Snows We recently returned from a journey to the land of the snows. We climbed Hurricane Hill, starting in autumn and climbing up into winter. It was something of an adventure. The short, wet summer kept the hillside vegetation green late into September, but now it had all turned to gold. Here and there we could see the fall colors with browns and golds and here and there brilliant red. Above us loomed the bulk of Hurricane Hill, its summit dusted white above us. We walked through autumn, but as we ascended, panting and wheezing as is our wont, the season changed on us. First there was first snow by the trailside, then on the trail itself. The golden grasses were covered with a lacework of light snow. It grew colder. As we neared the summit we were in winter, surrounded by snow, with snow dusting the gnarled trees. At the peak, it was winter. We were in another land, the land of the snows.	The looming snowcap of Hurricane Hill
A hawk of winter	Fall colors below
White lace on the golden fields	Entering winter's frigid domain
More lacework	Towards the summit
The view from the top, in the land of the snows	More winter in the high country
The side spur	Mount Angeles and a deer family

Keywords: autumn, high country, hurricane hill, trails, winter

10/07/11 - Signs of Christmas While we were hiking on Hurricane Hill, we couldn't help but notice signs of the season. Yes, there was some autumn color, but when we Kalebergs say "season", we mean "Christmas season". So while the stores are still pushing Halloween candy, stage makeup and costumes, we Kalebergs are already leaping ahead to the real thing. We usually don't jump the gun like this, but there were the signs: the first snow and the brilliant red and green of the season.	Snow by the trail
Snow on the trees	Look, Christmas trees
and more Christmas trees	We've really got to start decorating.
There's the red and green.	Deck the trails.
OK, so this is a bit autumnal.	That might make a nice tree blanket.

Keywords: autumn, christmas, hurricane hill, trails

10/06/11 - Hurricane Hill in Autumn This year the high country grasses stayed green until almost the last minute. Usually they turn to gold by late August, but this year was much moister, and the snows melted much later. Now, they are turning golden with a vengeance. We were a bit disappointed with this year's crop of corn lilies. We took the side spur and found a number of spikes, now dried and brown, but the taller corn lilies were fallen with no signs of their blooms. Even the mouse on a stick seemed a bit dispirited, but there were a few flowers left including yarrows and harebells.	Scenery
more scenery	and, good grief, more scenery.
The little snow melt lake is gone. The snow you see is old snow that never melted.	Golden grasses
A last harebell, almost translucent	Some corn lily spikes
We love the way water beads up on the lupines.	Wild flowers
Wild fields	Yarrow and harebells

Keywords: flowers, high country, hurricane hill, autumn

09/24/11 - Hurricane Hill Was Crawling With Critters Hurricane Hill was crawling with critters on our last visit. There were marmots, chipmunks, and blue grouse wandering about. The flowers of summer have passed for the most part, but our big disappointment was the corn lilies on the side spur. We had hoped to, at long last, catch them in bloom, but they don't seem to have blossomed this year. Still, there seem to be a lot more of them.	A golden marmot
Chipmunk alert: watch your shoelaces!	A plump blue grouse
A couple of marmots	The disappointing corn lily crop
Early autumn colors	More golden grasses
and mountains	and more mountains

Keywords: autumn, flowers, grouse, hurricane hill, marmots

08/16/11 - Hurricane Hill Corn Lily Update We took the side spur off the Hurricane Hill trial to check out the meadow where the corn lilies grow. They are most definitely growing. They are even spreading with corn lilies appearing in areas we had not seen them in before. The views, not surprisingly, were spectacular. The corn lilies have not yet bloomed, but lots of other flowers have.	Corn lilies of the field
The corn lilies are not blooming yet.	We always take a picture or two of these rocks for some reason or another.
It pays to look closely.	The snow is melting and the water is trickling down this part of the trail.
Some anemones	Among the other flowers, a glacier lily, a sign of recent melt.
Corn lily shoots coming through the snow	More scenery - There is more to life than corn lilies.

Keywords: flowers, hurricane hill, summer, high country

08/15/11 - Hurricane Hill Revisited We took the trail up Hurricane Hill again today. It has been a few weeks, so we expected the snow to be gone and the season to be passing. It is mid-August. In fact, the snow was more or less all gone, but the flowers are still blooming in earnest.	There are still some pretty spectacular views, even this late in the season.
Yep, another spectacular view	The blue seasonal snow melt lake is forming
Is this sweet cecelia? We aren't sure.	Lupines, apparently good for the memory
Pink paintbrush, or so we believe	There are lots of flowers
There are avalanche lilies under the pine trees where the snow lingered.	Bright colors
Our camera does not do justice to the scent of wild roses.	Those masses of white flowers are dirty sock plant. We call this area the hamper.

Keywords: flowers, hurricane hill, high country, summer

07/09/11 - Hurricane Hill We were always fond of those mountain climbing movies from the 1930s with their portentious narratives, and their imagined voices always seem to accompany us on our ascents of Hurricane Hill. Maybe it's the park signs for Folded Rock and Lingering Snow. Maybe it's that there is a stretch "so full of dirty sock plant, they call it 'The Hamper'". Well, those voices are back, and we've made our first Hurricane Hill Ascent of the season. The snows are melting rapidly, and most of the trail is clear. The shaded section through the trees (from The Bench to The Hamper actually) still has a fair bit of snow, but it's well packed and the footing is obvious. The area near the Hurricane Hill Trail side spur is also still covered with snow, but melting rapidly. The side spur is already walkable, at least for a ways. The views, as one might expect, are spectacular. There is still a lot of snow on the mountains in every direction, and the alpine flowers are coming into bloom, even near the summit. The fields are adorned with a carpet of glacier lilies, and we saw at least one marmot. It may have been two, or it may have been just one who followed us to the summit. All told, the high country is open for the season and is as spectacular as ever.	The view hasn't changed much. There is a fair bit of snow on the big mountains.
Golden glaciers lilies	Melting snow
More glacier lilies and melting snow	The view from the summit
More view	Even more view - There is lots of view from Hurricane Hill.
The trail through that shady stretch of trees is still covered with snow, though passable.	The marmots are back.
This may or may not be the same marmot.	Marmot the Bold, in profile

Keywords: flowers, high country, hurricane hill, marmots, movies

07/01/11 - Hurricane Ridge to Hurricane Hill We've fallen behind updating our web page. That's because we've been busy. We've been into Seattle a bit - more on that soon - and we've been getting up to the high country. The road between the lodge at Hurricane Ridge and the Hurricane Hill trailhead has been plowed, but not yet opened to traffic, so we've been walking it and a tiny bit of the Hurricane Hill trail. It's rather hypnotic, and the flowers are already in bloom. The avalanche and glacier lilies are among the first, but it is the scent of the phlox that is the real sign of alpine summer. In fact, it seems that everything is blooming at once. Everything is late, but everything is there. We aren't sure when the park will open the road, but until then, we'll use it as a trail. Spring has come to the mountains.	The snow is melting.
Phlox is back.	As are these little violets.
And more phlox	Early lupines
Indian paintbrush	Melting snow on the Hurricane Hill trail
Avalanche lilies	A high country mushroom
A glacier lily	And the mountains

Keywords: flowers, high country, hurricane hill, hurricane ridge, spring, summer

10/23/10 - Wild Sky at Hurricane Hill Winter is teasing Hurricane Ridge even now. There's already a touch of snow on the lodge roof and a fair bit more fresh on the distant mountain tops. There's still a lot of autumn color, but now that is starting to fade. We started our latest hike with the mountains shrouded in white cloud and a light sleet, but the clouds parted and swirled. The sky was gray, nearly black, then white, then gray again, then blue. It was quite a show. It made up for the lack of marmots, now sensibly drowsing, we presume. It won't be long before the dominant shade is white, and getting to Hurricane Hill will require skis or snowshoes, so this might be a good time to say goodbye to autumn.	An unprepossessing sky
Autumn colors
	Light and mist
Quickly moving shadows	Harvest gold - it looks better here than on one's refrigerator
Early snow	More autumn color
More wild sky	The glow of the sun

Keywords: autumn, hurricane hill, hurricane ridge, marmots, winter

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