Sunday I met up with Missy and we headed out to explore the area along with a visit of Iron #2, which definitely needs a better name. First we drove along 3N17 and visited Little Gleason before taking the road for a short while toward Big Buck Campground. Unfortunately a large deadfall ended this though so I got some practice backing out on the dirt road, this would come in handy later in the day. After the obligatory semi-stop at the Station Fire memorial, we were able to drive to the summit of Mt Gleason. We picked up a lot of trash in the ruins of the hut plus more strewn around the large flat summit area. From there we took another dirt road to Messenger Flat campground where I was happy to find that the bathrooms were clean. Well at least the one I visited was clean... There were two people there with a one-person tent and no car, so I wonder what the rest of the story might be. Sometimes it's best to imagine something cool rather than finding out that mom was just out picking up a pizza. Anyway, moving on we took another fork in the road toward Iron Mountain, this time on a less maintained road. We ran into a downed tree which halted us and no amount of Missy's effort would move that giant log out of the way. To her credit, it was at least 20 feet long and probably weighs a few hundred pounds. Anyway I got to back out a much longer winding road to a wide spot where we parked to start our main trek. Here's where it got interesting, instead of walking down the road I figured we could go over the two little peaks (peaklets?) and catch the road a little later - down the road a ways. Turns out both of these were higher elevation than Iron, so this was the high point of the day. From the higher summit it looked like a nice slope down to the road, but once we started down the buckthorn got a little thicker and taller. Much taller. It was a struggle to get through some of it and we both ended up donating some blood along the way. I pulled some pointy things out of my arms for the next couple hours. After that lower degree of fun we bypassed the obvious route on the NE side of Iron with the idea that we could go up the short way on the other side. An old trip report mentioned a use trail but in walking around the brush was much too dense for any other route. After a brief consultation we gave up on this summit for the day and climbed a short way up to sit on a nice rock outcropping. It turned out to be a great snack spot so we sat there for a while telling stories and enjoying the views. An uneventful but warm walk back up the road followed, this time we didn't take any detours so it was also less of an adventure.
All in all, still a great day out in the local mountains and a nice reminder of why we want to live around here.
Some large tracks on the road to Big Buck.
Sun peeking over the water tank at Little Gleason.
Motorized travel stops here.
The high point of the day, second summit of our detour.
Looking at Iron from the higher summit. Still looks like an easy traverse.
Missy breaking through buckthorn. Yes, this was actually the easiest way down.
We got some nice view of the Pacific Ocean at times.
The first foray through the buckthorn made us wary of going over another slope so we didn't take the seeming obvious route.
Nice rocks to sit on, just above the road near Iron.
Indian Bend saddle water tank, good spot for second break.
"Argue for your limitations and sure enough they're yours".
Donald Shimoda
