Temple Mt. 4.13.10

While this was most assuredly not the goal for the day it did provide a fun outing. I had an early morning meeting to attend on my day off so that ate up some valuable time. One of my co-workers had shown some interest in joining me so I waited after my meeting for Blane to arrive losing even more time. The weather was a steady downpour so I had doubted Blane would be in for a long day in the rain. To his credit the weather was never an issue. I had some reports of recent climbing activity in the area and the snow conditions didn't seem like they were going to be very good. I thought it best to once again pirate someone else's hard work. I had heard that a group at tried for Cleveland via the traditional logging road approach so I thought that would be a suitable goal. I was able to drive to the first switchback putting the Subaru's ground clearance to the test. I did a 100 point turn and parked. The rain had stopped enroute and the skies seemed to becoming brighter. We walked the road for around 1.5 miles before switching to snowshoes. The going was easy and we made good time. I grew weary of the road walk so we cut some switchback and actually found good snow conditions in the shelter of the trees. After cutting one switchback we popped out on the road to find no trench. I had assumed previous group had used the road until it's end. I wish I would have continued on the road but I wanted to use as much of the broken trail as I could. We headed left(down) and rejoined the trench. I was amazed that I could barely follow the trench in the trees. After attending the Mariner's game yesterday with my wife and not seeing the kids for the entire day, I started to feel guilty because I knew that I would be back to work and wouldn't see them too much in the next two days. I decided that Temple Mt. would have to do to allow some time with the little ones. I thankfully was able to spend a couple hours of great family time before they went to bed.






Approx 8 miles 1800' of climb 4 hours car to car