Day 9: Treadway Mountain
On Saturday we hiked Treadway Mountain in the Pharaoh Lakes Wilderness Area. We chose this because it had been part of a backpacking trip I wanted to do from one of the many books. We didn’t end up doing a backpack because both Brian and I were in bad situations boot-wise. Of course, I didn’t bring my camera on this one. I don’t know what I’m thinking sometimes.
It was an 8 mile hike overall but without much vertical rise. I think it was supposed to be somewhere around 900ft.
The first half of the hike was really just getting to the Treadway Mountain trail. The trail went through really nice woods but because it was winding past so many ponds & swampy areas the bugs were many. They kept flying right into Brian’s eyes until he couldn’t take it anymore and put on his head net. They were hovering around my face a lot and driving me a tiny bit crazy but only 2 or 3 actually landed in my eyes. What the heck are they trying to do anyway? Lay eggs? Get a drink? They weren’t biting insects.
Near the top of Treadway we encountered a family heading back down that looked like they were NOT having fun anymore. They looked hot and angry and were coating themselves with a thick layer of bug spray. They were so angry, I think they didn’t even see us until we were right next to them on the trail.
From there to the top the trail wound over crumbly rock that was almost entirely quartz. The geology of Treadway was very different from all the other peaks we had climbed. We had the peak to ourselves for a very long time. Really the angry family was the only sign of human life we saw on the trail all day. I think Treadway ended up being my favorite climb of the vacation. Maybe it was because we spent a hour alone on the top or maybe it was because we couldn’t see a single sign of human habitation in any direction. I really felt like we were alone out there. (In a good way.)
On the way down Brian spotted a tiny ring necked snake. Neither of us had ever seen one before so it was a pretty exciting find.