Had a trip planned to Orcas Island with someone, but it fell through in a big way so. I planned this trip very last minute. I had taken Friday off (07/20/07) and planned this just a day before I done did it. The idea for this trip came from Peggy Goldman's book "75 Scrambles in Oregon" [ISBN 0898867614]. In this book I came across the most amazing picture of a pointy pointy peak. This made my heart flutter, and Peggy was telling me I could do this no problem. From the looks of the picture it looks quite technical, but alas, no ropes needed! So I was set on doing this beast know as Mount Thielsen.A little about this rock in the sky. Known as the lightning rod of the cascades this spire is just north of Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon and is in the Umpqua National Forest. The peak is 9,182 feet, the trail is 8.8 miles and the elevation gain is 3,820 feet.
So off I was on Friday morning. It was nice heading south on I-5 at a time of relative un-congestion. Pretty uneventful drive down to Eugene, headed east on state hwy58, stopped in Oakridge and got a big plate of spaghetti at a pizza place there. Stopped at the ranger station there in the area and shot the shit with a ranger regarding the hike and bought my first NW forest Pass. Out of there continuing east to hwy 97 south to 138 west. Hours of driving, and I finally was in the neighborhood. Since it was noonish it was a little late to do Theilson, so I head south to check out Crater Lake. The approach from was interesting. One sees a ring of mountains as you pass through some alpine like meadows and then climbing to the crater rim and finally seeing the expanse of blue is quite nice. I wasn't too impressed by this site though. It almost seemed fake, I don't know, and the road around it with all the cars. I took some pictures and made friends with really tame ground squirrels and got out. On my way back I got some good views of Theilson to the north. The clouds obscured the peak at times and it looked dark and very foreboding, I felt a little uneasy as I imagined my self climbing it the next morning.
I headed back north and stopped at the trail head, which was right off the road. I intended to camp there near the trail head. I packed everything up and hiked in a bit and found a spot off the trail. I was about to set up camp and just had the weirdest feeling about the place. I have spent many nights solo camping in lots of different places but this justed feel comfortable to me for some reason. So I picked my pack up and hiked back to the car. I knew there was a maintained campground near by so I headed over that way. It was on the west side of Diamond lake and turned out to be nice. So I had some time to kill there before I headed to bed, read a little out of Under the Banner of Heaven.
Got packed up and got to the trail head by 7:00. There was just one other car there at the time. The skies were looking gray and crappy but I saw some spots of blue between them. I told my self they would burn off. It was relatively warm though maybe 60. I was wearing just t-shirt and shorts and decided to throw my hoody in for the hell of it, I didn't think I would need it. Off I was, slight climb, meandering switchbacks through some nice tall groves. My energy level was high and I was stomping up through the woods.
I burned all that energy off and I took a rest at treeline with my first good views of the summit. I was covered in sweat and soon was very chilly, it was not 60 any more, probably more like low 50s or below. I was looking up at a black summit that disappeared into the clouds and wasn't feeling too optimistic. I got up with my hoody on and kept on moving. Another 20 minutes or so of climbing and my fingers started to get very cold, the cold where you can't quite make a fist. Then I entered the clouds and couldn't see but 20 feet. I took another break in a nook between boulders out of the wind and tried to warm up. I very nearly decided to call it a day and head back down at this point. Instead I turned back up and started walking, and I am glad I did.
25 minutes later, after scrambling over some very interesting decrepit rock, I came to a saddle of sorts just short of the summit. Looking over the north side of this saddle was a bunch of nothing. I had passed a guy on the trail down below a bit and he told me it was about a thousand feet straight down, but all I saw an opaque white. The last hundred feet or so is nearly straight up and is a fairly easy yet exposed climb over large boulders. I found my self at the top and felt great, very happy that I had continued. Unfortunately I didn't have the view I wanted, but told myself I would return on a nicer day in the future. Down I started to go.
Ran into a gent from Fargo on the way down, and saw maybe 15 others on my way out. Felt good and was happy to see my car at the trail head. On my way back to Portland I stopped in Bend for some food. I had heard so many good things about Bend and was very disappointed. It was a traffic jam and looked like any other craptastic town I have seen, my second trip to this town a month or so later reinforced this image. Not a fan.
