No Croakin' on Frog Mountain

Summit #16 of 70--July 22, 2023

No jokin’. The only things croakin’ on my late afternoon hop yesterday up the new Frog Mountain Trail near Skykomish were the two or three black flies I annihilated with a slap on the way up. Sorry, flies. That was about it for wildlife, although I did spot a couple of birds and a garter snake slithering off the trail in the meadows. I do wonder about the frogs though.

I’d recently read about this spanking new, highly-rated trail with the big views and a moderate grade, gaining 2,100 feet over four miles. I’ve pretty much hiked everything else in the area, so this was a must-do kinda thing. Kudos to the Washington Trails Association volunteers for making it happen. A longish drive up the Beckler River Road would get me there.

Glacier Peak from the Frog’s summit

After completing a little work on my buddy Mel’s new walk-in shower in Everett, I calculated I had enough time to race over to Sky, and hike up and back before dark.

On the other hand, since I had a free evening, I could opt to go visit my old hiking buddy, Taylor Swift, who was apparently in town for a quiet get together with 140,000 close friends. She and I go way back, a few years anyway, to the time I crossed paths with her and her bodyguard at a beach in Rhode Island. Actually, we were walking in opposite directions after sunset on a short path to the shore. But hey, we were in the same place at the same time for more than a nanosecond, long enough for us both to smile and nod, which is about when I did my double take.

We’d heard earlier that she had a place nearby, so I doubt I’d have recognized her otherwise. Kris and I were out touring the Wilcox ancestors’ old stomping grounds near Westerly, Rhode Island. We go back ten generations there, to the mid-1600s, and I was eager to get a good look at the old farm, perhaps locate the family cemetery, and imagine my kin herding cows or launching a lobster skiff at the beach. We’d also planned to enjoy an upscale dinner at the historic Wilcox Tavern, but alas, it had closed for the season a week before. One of my ancestors was a founder of Newport, so we had plenty of poking around to do. (My Destiner story will get into all that Wilcoxian stuff in much more detail later.)

In any event, I suppose that brief encounter with Ms. Swift makes us like old buddies now. More seriously, it must be a little sad not to be able to go for a walk on the beach or a hike in the hills without the risk of getting mobbed. Fortunately for her, I’m not the mobbing type and left the camera dangling from my neck.

Back to the Frog. (Sorry Taylor, the hike won out.)

With temps in the 80s, I made a quick stop at the deli in Skykomish for a maple nut milk shake. A real milk shake, prepared by a real kind woman with a real traditional shake-making machine that spun and groaned like a deranged cow. Since I was very concerned that the deli might be closed after my late-in-the-day hike, I snagged my milk shake before the hike instead of after. I was being proactive.

I slurped the maple-y walnuts at the bottom of the cup just as I reached the trailhead near Jack Pass a little after 4:00 pm. It was still 83 degrees out. The parking lot must hold 40 cars or more. However, there was just one car left when I arrived, and its driver came bounding down the trail while I was putting my boots on. He was gone in a jiffy, so it would be just me hiking solo up a fairly popular trail. Cool! I mean hot. I packed two litres of water.

A hundred yards up, the first trailside feature was a nicely crafted bench toilet with a removable lid, of which the wilderness could use a whole lot many more these days. If we were fully civilized, we’d see a pumpable vault toilet at every busy trailhead and at least a bench toilet in every backcountry camp area that sees regular use. As a recent study made clear, our poop has a long reach of measureability, to be polite about it.

The trail headed up multiple switchbacks on both old logging road and new trail, before entering the Wild Sky Wilderness not quite halfway up. Views really began to open up the last mile-plus, especially as I approached the summit ridge. Columbia and Monte Cristo Peaks dominated to the north, with Glacier Peak well to the right beyond West Cady Ridge and Eagle Mountain. I could just make out Pilot Ridge, our exit route from a backpack several years ago. To the west, Spire Mountain loomed darkly, almost foreboding.

Columbia and Monte Cristo Peaks, with the sharp horn of Sloan Peak behind

Looking south, the prominent peaks of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness were, well, prominent. And to the right of conspicuous Chimney Rock, the top of Rainier poked above a cloud. Below, a long, steep meadow of ferns and fireweed plunged into the seemingly lush valley of the Beckler River, though it was heavily logged over the years, and then partly burned last year during the Bolt Creek Fire. Across the way, I could just barely pick out the lookout on Evergreen Mountain.

Beckler River valley and Alpine Lakes skyline

The rounded tippy top of Frog Mountain is in subalpine meadow amid pockets of trees, with a potential tent site or two close by. The true summit is a hump of ground in the woods, so I wandered over to make official my 16th summit. An unseen yellow jacket was thoughtful enough to give me a little sting on the calf along the way. Ouch.

So, a nice hike indeed. I had a strong cell signal on top and texted a pic to Kris, then pointed my dusty toes downward, contemplating the number of milkshakes I could enjoy having not splurged for a Swifty ticket.