Spider Meadow/Gap

“Pixie, Durante616, SeaCoyote, Rainrunner and myself had a fanfreakingtabulous weekend!!

The trailhead is at 3500 feet. From there we had rolling hills, gaining 1200 feet or so over 5 1/2 miles to Spider Meadows. OMG What an incredible place! Flowers and marmots all over the place. My pics come nowhere near to doing it justice. Pixie and SeaCoyote had a little dance ala the "sound of music" in the meadows... Then it was onward and more upward to camp.

In bloom? LOTS!!
twinflower, bleeding heart, mt ash, valerian, monkey flower, paintbrush (3 kinds!), partridge foot, pink and white heathers, jacob's ladder, red elderberry, thimbleberry, penstemon, veronica, cow parsnip, arnica, lupine, yellow violets, sticky false asphodel, phlox, virginia bluebells, douglasia, hawkweek, nipplewort, water hemlock, pearly everlasting, red osier dogwood, anemone (hippy on a stick!), strawberry, great false helbore, tiger lily, lousewort, sky pilot, rose columbine... and three I couldn't ID, white, purple and yellow flowers.

We had a slightly tricky crossing of Phelps Creek at 6 miles in, 5100 feet. We kept hiking up and up, more or less following the creek until we got to camp, about 8 mile in, below Dumbell mountain, about 5400 feet. We had ourselves a nice, small fire (we couldn't find anything that said we couldn't do that...) and some wine and songs around the fire. Durante616 even did a little rap for us! The fog and wind kind of settled in on us as we headed off to bed Brrrrr... It took me a LONG time to get snuggled in and warm, and the wind was whipping my tent all night. Then it rained a little early in the morning. But the deer and marmots were out in full force... I saw a couple of marmots and LOTS off deer over the course of the weekend. Pixie saw a pika.

The next morning, the peaks were still socked in, but Durante616, Rainrunner, SeaCoyote and I decided to hike up to Spider Gap anyway. 1100' of gain to the toe of Spider Glacier, then up, across the snowfield, some more to 7100' at Spider Gap. The clouds blew over and we finally got some good views... The views were INCREDIBLE!! Spider Meadow, Mt Maude and Seven Fingered Jack to the south, Red Mt to the west and Lyman Basin, North Star and Bonanza to the north. Cloudy pass and peak were...well in the clouds!

After relaxing and taking lots of photos at the Gap, it was time to head back to camp to meet back up with Pixie. Talk about a quick descent! We glissaded down the snowfield on our butts. That was SO MUCH FUN!! We got back to camp to find Pixie sunning herself on a rock, reading. Then it was time to pack up camp and head out.

Pics are here:
http://community.webshots.com/album/162279265XMZMQV”

“Spider Meadow is just a little ways from Lake Wenatchee off Hwy 2 in the Washington Cascades.
In addition to the flowers mentioned we also saw aster and heather.”

“I recall that trail a few years, but turned off at the trail that goes up to the meadows directly below Seven Fingered Jack. Got an even better view from the summits of Mt. Maude and Seven Fingered Jack looking down at Spider Meadows. There were a lot of wildflowers, but couldn't identify but a few of the ones you mentioned.

Bonanza Peak is one peak I really wanted to climb, but never got around to it. Maybe in my next life. ~sigh~”