Cascade Mountain and Porter Mountain
Date of hike: 7/2/2011
Vertical Ascent: 2300’
Length of Hike (miles): 6.2
Total Time: 9:30
Hiked with: Alex and Phil
This was a multi-generational hike with me (42), my son Alex (12) and my father-in-law Phil (70). We’d planned it a year ago, after the three of us hiked to Avalanche Lake, and Phil wanted to try a High Peak with exposed rock at the summit, to check out the geology there. I was eager to knock off Porter Mountain, which we’d passed up two years earlier when we climbed Cascade. We left from home after 8 a.m. and hit the trail at 10:30 a.m. The weather was perfect—clear and about 70°.
It proved to be a very rough start. Although eager for the hike the day before, Alex was an exhausted and grumpy kid for about the first half hour of our climb. Luckily, he persevered, and eventually snapped out of it. For entertainment, we ended up playing a game on the ascent with beginning/ending letter of living creature names (no dinosaurs or unicorns allowed!). As expected, the trail was in good shape, with lots of people on it. We hit the junction between the peaks and opted to go to Cascade first, where we took a break at a view from the big rock slab. Phil was in full professional geologist mode and started examining the exposed bedrock here in detail. We hit the summit around 1 p.m. Everyone did great on the ascent, and we took a nice, long break at the top, having lunch, talking with Libby, the summit steward, and taking geology photos for Phil. There were about 50 people at the top and views were excellent.
The geologist, pointing out just some of the many interesting features he identified on Cascade, while people enjoy the summit just above
Our boots on at the summit marker
Looking south from Cascade’s summit, with Big Slide’s slope looking like a child’s slide (not why it has that name), and the Great Range in the distance
We left the summit at about 1:45 p.m., and all proceeded on to Porter. From the junction, the trail dropped to a col, before reascending to Porter. The drop from Cascade was only about 300 feet, and the climb up Porter was about the same since Porter is only 39 feet shorter than Cascade. This trail was decidedly less used, and extremely muddy. Phil was noticeably achier on this portion but determined to push on. We summited Porter at around 2:40 p.m. and had a nice view looking out at Cascade’s summit. The view from Porter was nice, but it doesn’t equal Cascade’s. We took a shorter break here, then left at about 3 p.m.
Grandfather & grandson on the way to Porter, with Cascade behind them
The three of us at the top of Porter (along with a few others)
The descent proved to be rough going for Phil. He was having some cramps in his legs. We took it slowly, even though Alex was eager to descend as quickly as possible. Towards the end, Alex went on ahead of us, and just stopped to wait for us at various points. We arrived back at the car at around 5:30 p.m. tired, relieved, and excited about our success. As soon as he sat down, Phil was in major pain with massive leg cramping. Luckily, a few minutes and some ibuprofen did the trick. We got settled, stopped for some snacks along the way back, and got home just after 8 p.m.