A midnight hike in the mountains

The weather has taken a decidedly chilly, autumn-like turn here in the Northwest, with temperatures last week struggling to hit the mid-50s during the day and falling to the upper 30s at night. In recognition of this seasonal change and in anticipation of the dark, cold winter months ahead, I've decided to take a look back at several of the outstanding hikes I did this past summer in Washington state. (That's the official explanation for this post; the unofficial explanation is that I'm tired of political commentary co-opting this blog in the past month. Granted, it's to be expected right now, but even I grow weary of it, and I suspect some of my readers do as well.)

The first installment in this series will be my midnight hike at Granite Mountain, which I did with about six friends in mid-August. It's a beautiful area about 50 miles east of Seattle in the Cascade Range. Our goal — as evidenced by my description — was to hike through the night to the top of this peak and watch the sun rise from the summit. That's exactly what we accomplished. Check out my photos of the trip here.

We hit the trailhead at around 12:30 a.m. and reached the top at about 3:30 a.m, conquering about 4,000 feet of elevation gain. The first two miles traversed through dense forest (and, by the way, it is creepy to hike in the woods at night, so luckily I wasn't alone) and then opened up to a gorgeous alpine meadow. Coincidentally, we were blessed with a full moon on this particular evening, which rendered our headlamps almost unnecessary after we were out of the forest.

The rest of the hike to the summit included some fairly steep switchbacks and a short boulder scramble just before we reached the top. From there, we were treated to some spectacular views of the night sky, and — with the presence of the bright moonlight — a bit of alpenglow that just slightly illuminated Mount Rainier's massive, snowy profile to the south. There was even an old fire tower at the summit that, unbeknownst to us, hosted a couple of sleeping campers who were less than thrilled when we tried to climb up in there with them at 4 a.m.

If you've never watched the sun rise from the top of a mountain, I would highly recommend it. There's a certain magical quality in sitting from a vantage point where one can literally observe the faintest orange glow appearing in the eastern sky, which soon develops yellow hues that materialize into daylight, making transparent the attributes of the surrounding area that were previously hidden in darkness. In our case, those attributes were craggy mountain peaks in every direction, meadows and forests below, and alpine lakes similar to the one I visited in June.

On our way down from the summit, we ran into a black bear cub, perhaps a perfect way to cap an overnight adventure in the wilderness. Luckily, the mother was nowhere to be seen, and the little bear seemed far less afraid of us than we were of him. And I learned my first lesson on how to respond to an encounter with a bear in the wild: Make lots of noise. The last thing you want to do is startle the creature.

Stay tuned — photos and details from my other hikes this summer will follow.