Crossover Butte 4506' 11.04.14

I had hoped to head up to do this last week but life again had other ideas. I made it over the Snoqualmie only to find traffic at a standstill amidst the construction. As I patiently waited I heard some unpleasant sounds that I hoped weren't being emitted by my car. I was hoping that it was the truck behind me but when saw smoke coming from my engine bay I pulled over to survey the issue. Lucky for me I was in one of the few spots where there was actually room to pull over. I could see my fan belt was a molten mass of burning rubber but I the engine was idling fine. I was thankful hoping that my issue wouldn't be too serious. I was able to call my wife to come get me and she arrived at the same time as the tow truck. My AC compressor had seized which in my research didn't seem to be too expensive to fix. Too bad for me that anything Audi related is not cheap to fix.


Anyway with my car back in order I was off to finish what I had started the previous week. I also am contending with a stained plantar fasciitis coupled with the fact that  I have to drop my oldest off at school and I wanted to be home to  big her up since it was her birthday today.  The plan was to do both Crossover Butte and Cabin Mt further East. I exited towards Stampede pass finding some rather large potholes on the lower portion of the road. I took a left at the first junction finding much better road conditions. Soon I was at the spur road I wanted. I drove a ways up the road in order to hide my car since I saw quite a few people already which surprised me. I found a nice spot to park a short ways up the road. The weather was much better than what I expected but I had all my rain gear on just in case. I walked the road for a short ways until it quit climbing and I turned into the very wet brush. I zig zagged up the slope trying to avoid the areas of densely packed trees. Soon I crested a small point and I continued on the summit ridge to the summit. Since there wasn't anything to see other than the inside of  a cloud I headed down the road that leads to the summit. I gave up continuing when the rain and wind picked up considerably. I rejoined the mainline and headed back to my spur road. I was able to make it in plenty of time to pick up my daughter and have a memorable birthday evening.

Approx 3 miles 1:10 car to car 800' of climb