Mt. Stone - Thunder Bolts and Lightening Very Very Frightening 8/18/2008
Trip: Mt. Stone - Thunder Bolts and Lightening Very Very Frightening
Date: 8/17/2008
Trip Report:Went out to Port Townsend this weekend and did some paddle boarding and rollerblading
out at Fort Worden in the perfect sun, looking forward to Sunday being the same. Unfortunately it wasn't, but we still managed to have a good time!
Mt. Stone is positioned south east of the Brothers, northwest of Mt. Washington, and north of Mount Cruiser. Its summit is a nice position, giving views well into the Olympics, plus interesting views of the peaks on the eastern side.
The easiest access to Mt. Stone is the Putvin trail. The Putvin trail (named for Carl Putvin, a trapper who died when a tree fell on him while hiking out to get medicine for his daughter in the winter of 1912-1913) is a pretty steep hike, reminding one of the Lake Constance Trail or the Mailbox Peak trail at times. Up at the top of the trail is the Lake of the Angels, were Putvin had his cabin.
We passed the second headwall on the hike in, and suddenly what looked like bird poop started falling from the sky. Giant globs of water, a sign of the weird weather to come. At the point where you break off from the Lake of the Angels trail and join the way trail up to Mt. Stone we got sprinkled on again, but this time the thunder and lightening came out, filling the chamber between Stone and Skokomish echoes. I started to doubt we would be going all the way to the top, but we continued up after the rain stopped just to check things out. At the headwall under Mt. Stone (just west of St. Peter's Gate) the thunder and lightening roared again, and being closer to the little pass near the final scramble, we ran up there to get out of the way in case any rocks were rattled loose by the shaking ground.
At this point the thunder and lightening intensified and I was crapping my pants and seriously wondered what the hell were doing up there. However, Steve found a little overhang and we chilled out, watching big thunderheads to both the north and south of us. The wind in the little pass picked up to a howl, but our little shelter kept us out of it. To the south you could see Mt. Washington and the Sawtooth Mountains as well as Skokomish and Henderson.
We could see that the mass of thunderheads were not coming towards us, but rather moving to the north (from west to east) and to the south (west to east again), so when the wind died down we scrambed up to the summit where the wind was blowing pretty fast. The summit block:
The views were dramatic.
Cruiser
Olympus
Anderson Massif
Middle Peak and North
We high tailed it back down, and when we finally hit the Putvin trail the skies opened up and dumped rain for 1/2 hour, drenching us to the core with a warm summer rain. All I had was a windshirt over a t-shirt and it was the perfect wetsuit. The hike down the Putvin is so steep as to be equally difficult on the legs on the way up as it is on the way down.
Good times. The thunderstorm at night on the Seattle skyline during the ferry ride back was amazing!
Gear Notes:next time i'm bringing my trekking poles
Approach Notes:Up, up, up.
