South Cascades Archives | One Hike A Week / 每週一行

Norse Peak VI / 諾爾斯峯之六

The pup and I continued our Thanksgiving week tradition on Norse Peak.

Gilbert Peak was my objective two years ago until I drove up to the seven-mile road closure sign.

Today the plan was to go through a handful of old trips. But instead, I found myself start packing for another outing.

While researching recent outings, I came upon an alternate approach from Olallie State Park.

I first took notice of the two peaks while climbing Burnt Mountain across the Carbon River Valley.

In an effort to avoid the potentially dire Thanksgiving weather, I decided to move our pilgrimage to the peak ahead by two days.

Saturday snow level along the Highway 2 corridor was around 3,000'; today the first patch of snow appeared just above 5,000'.

Last September we had a good run up to the very last weekend before weather conditions worsened.

We hadn't set foot in the area since three years ago. The year before that I went up Tolmie Peak just south of here.

All the years of staring at Crystal Mountain (aka Silver King) from across the basin, we finally got the chance to pay a visit.

On the spur of the moment I decided to take advantage of today's partly sunny weather, for an afternoon hike to this new destination close to home.

The awesome weekend weather was too good to pass up, especially after yesterday’s outing