Going Up After Work
Thursday evening, late August. Eighty-two degrees in the parking lot. I hate that. My human loaded me into the car after work and by 5 PM we were at the Ira Spring Trailhead pushing straight up — thirty-four hundred feet of gain to the summit of Defiance, then a ridge traverse to Putrid Pete's Peak before dark. After-work missions are my favorite kind. No crowds. Just us racing the light.
The heat was miserable low down. Thick forest, no breeze, the trail baking. But the views started opening fast as we climbed — layered Cascade ridges fading into summer haze, the I-90 corridor lost somewhere far below. The air cooled with every switchback and the smells shifted from baked dust to something green and alive. I caught a whiff of something musky in the brush — deer, bedded down recently — and flagged it with a pause and a look back. My human read me and nodded. We kept moving. I could finally breathe.
Standing on Defiance
5,584 feet. One of the best viewpoints on the west side of Snoqualmie Pass, and I've checked most of them personally. I stood on the summit rocks and looked out over the entire Alpine Lakes Wilderness — rows of peaks stretching to the horizon, Mason Lake a dark mirror far below, the mountain's shadow thrown long across the valley. The wind was cool up here. Finally. The smell of warm rock and distant wildfire haze, but underneath it, that sharp alpine nothing that means you're high enough.
The clouds were building into towers — late-summer evening theatrics, the sky showing off. I stood on the summit edge looking out through scattered subalpine trees at peaks and valleys in every direction. The golden light hit my fur and the rock and the clouds all at once. Good evening to be a dog on a mountain.
The Traverse
From Defiance, we dropped into the col and started west toward P3. Just the two of us on the ridge with the sun getting low. A pointed peak ahead caught the golden light and I trotted along the ridgeline trail through heather and scattered trees, the warm air rising off both sides of the ridge carrying the smell of sun-baked rock and blueberry leaves. My human was right behind me, matching my pace. We move well together after all these miles.
Putrid Pete's
P3 sits at 5,220 feet on the ridge west of Defiance — named after some famous mountaineer. The scramble up is class 2 on loose rock with exposure on both sides. The kind of terrain I like. You have to read it. Pick your line. Commit.
From the top, I looked back at Defiance — the big peak catching the last golden light, sunset clouds stacking behind it in layers. My human had the camera out again. I held still because the view deserved it.
I scrambled down the steep slabs on the far side with sunset clouds glowing behind me. Exposed rock, drop-offs on both sides, the kind of footing that punishes hesitation. I picked my way through without stopping. My paws read the rock better than boots do.
From a rocky perch, I looked straight down into the Thompson Lake basin — the lake reflecting the fading sky, talus and forest spreading below, the horizon turning pink and purple. The light smelled like the end of something good.
The Last Light
The sky kept getting better as we descended. Pink and orange clouds lit up over the ridgeline — Defiance and the surrounding peaks silhouetted against the evening. Every few steps a new color.
Nine miles. Four thousand feet. A summit, a ridge scramble, and one of the best sunsets of the summer — all after work on a Thursday. The heat was gone. The light was gone. The mountains were just shapes against the sky. My human drove with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on my back. I was asleep before we hit I-90.