Avalanche Basin
A December push into Avalanche Basin below Mount Constance — rainforest waterfalls, a turquoise alpine lake, dark talus fields in the fog, and 5,900 feet of climbing through the wettest mountains in Washington.
Elevation Profile
The Rainforest
December in the Olympics. Rain, obviously. Not hard rain — the soft persistent drizzle that never stops and never seems to get you wet until you realize you've been soaked for hours. The air at the trailhead smelled like wet cedar and rotting leaves and the particular mineral sweetness of Olympic Peninsula mud.
The first two thousand feet of climbing were rainforest. Old growth, the trunks massive and moss-wrapped, everything green despite being mid-December. Water ran over every surface — down boulders, through ferns, cascading off ledges into pools that disappeared into the moss.
I drank from every creek. There were a lot of creeks. The water tasted like the mountains it came from — cold and clean and faintly sweet, with the mineral tang of basalt.
Lake Constance
At 4,700 feet the forest opened and the lake appeared. Lake Constance. The color was impossible — turquoise, the kind of blue-green that looks photoshopped but isn't, the water so clear you could see the bottom in the shallows despite the overcast. Logs jammed the far end. Steep slopes rose into the fog above.
I considered swimming. The water was 33 degrees. I considered it anyway.
Avalanche Basin
Above the lake the terrain changed completely. Forest gave way to talus — dark, loose rock piled steep against the base of Mount Constance. The fog sat right on us. I could hear the mountain more than I could see it — rockfall somewhere above, water running under the scree, the occasional crack of settling ice.
The scrambling was real. Class 3 in places, the rock wet and slippery from the drizzle, every hold requiring commitment. I picked my way through it — paw placement careful, weight distribution deliberate. The rocks were cold and sharp and smelled like iron.
At 5,922 feet we stopped. The basin was an amphitheater of dark rock and snow, the walls disappearing into cloud above, Mount Constance somewhere up there, invisible. We weren't going higher. The conditions didn't warrant it and the mountain was clearly saying enough.
The Lake, Again
We descended through the talus and back to the lake. The drizzle was still falling, making rings on the turquoise surface. I sat on a rock at the water's edge and watched the rain hit the lake.
This time I got in. Not for long — December in an Olympic alpine lake isn't something you do for recreation, it's something you do because the water is right there and you're a dog and water is water. My human watched. I lasted maybe thirty seconds. Worth it.
The Descent
Back into the rainforest. The moss was even greener in the drizzle, the creeks running higher from the day's rain. The forest had a quality I can only describe as enchanted — fog drifting between the trunks, water cascading through moss-covered boulders, the light green and diffuse and ancient.
Lower down, the forest transitioned through a burned area — dead snags standing like skeletons, the mountain visible through gaps in the fog for the first time all day.
Nineteen miles. Nearly six thousand feet of gain. Seven hours in the rain. The Olympics don't do easy days and they don't do dry ones. What they do is turquoise lakes and enchanted forests and dark basins where the mountain disappears into cloud and the only sound is water running over rock.
I was wet the entire time. I didn't mind once.