It had been five full days since our last highpoint, Mount Constitution in the San Juan Islands, but in the meanwhile we had done quite a bit: 3 days poking around Seattle and checking out the standard Seattle sights including the Space Needle, the flagship REI store, the Pike Street Fish Market and a lunch out on Alki Island. My wife Beth used to live here so she knew the area like a tour-guide, and we had fun taking in the sights. We were also attending the 2004 Highpointers Convention in Puyallup. Afterwards, we drove up into British Columbia and stayed at a small resort town called Harrison Hot Springs. The Canadian border agent going in was a wound-up little twerp who gave us a hard time because we did not have our birth certificates with us. Who the heck carries those around with them? We got in, had a good time at the hot springs, then spent an enjoyable day driving through the mountains of B.C. toward the border city of Osoyoos, Washington. Coming back in, the border agent was pretty cool. No problems at all. Our plan was to stay at the Lake Osoyoos State Park that day and evening, but a massive forest fire near Vernon BC was spilling smoke everywhere our way. We decided to back out of camping there that night, and drove the extra 60 or so miles to the small town of Republic, the county seat of Ferry County. Still kind of smoky, we decided to nix camping outside altogether and got a hotel instead.

Republic is a really neat, quirky little place. The population is just below 1,000 people, and the main drag still looks much as though it did back in 1900. This is a logger's town, although we spotted a fair amount of outdoorsy types and the usual hippies. Republic is tucked into the hills pretty tightly; there isn't a whole lot of flat space for anything. Even our hotel was built on sloping land. Our room was on the bottom floor. We noticed something was askew, literally, when the toilet had a gentle lean to it. Also, there were obvious 'step-offs' in the floor, covered by carpeting. The whole damn room was tilting! Outside, we could see the patio slabs completely broken up, with 4-5 inch wide cracks in them. We guess this was also present in our room. Needless to say we had a very genuine fear of having the whole building collapse right on us and possibly slide down the hill! Nevertheless we had a very restfull night's sleep and got on the road early the next morning. The prevailing winds gave us a break and blew the omnipreset smoke away from us, at least for awhile.

From Republic we followed state route WA-20 east right about 20 miles, passing Sherman Pass in the process - at over 5,000 feet, the highest paved road in the state of Washington. On the other (east) side of the pass evidence of a massive 1988 forest fire was still present; although there was much new green growth, there were still many glades of dead, standing snags. A sign along the highway mentioned the burn. We turned off the highway onto Albian Road (Forest Road 2030) and followed a good, well-graded dirt road north about 7.3 miles to the "Old Stage Road" trailhead, also known as the "Old State Road". This road was built around 1890 and was the first state-funded thruway in the state of Washington. We drove in a short ways to the nice large parking area at the trailhead. It was about 9 a.m. and we had clear conditions, a bit cool, but nice. The smoky air was not a problem.

The route to the summit starts past the nice, well-constructed trailhead/gate. For the first half of the hike, about 1.5 miles, the route is along the old road (trail 75). It makes just one switchback turn and gains very gently through the forest. After just over a mile, we came into a section still bearing the scars of the 1988 burn. Ironically, these burned areas allow for better views down to the valleys below us and of the gentle, rounded summit above us. We passed through a simple wire gate along this section then shortly came to the main saddle, placing us just north of the summit. It had taken us less than 45 minutes to get here, with a gain of about 600 feet. We didn't even stop for a breather! Continuing south very briefly along the road (trail 1), we then turned left onto the Kettle Crest Trail (trail 13). Steeper than the road, our pace slowed but we still made good time. We took our only extended break at the first of the two switchback turns. Shortly, we resumed our hike and achieved the elongated summit ridge. The summit was still maybe a quarter-mile away but it was mostly flat walking along this stretch. It was quite pretty! Not as heavily forested, it was mostly small stands of pine amid open grassy meadows and lots of rock piles (and cairns). We achieved the very top in short order and took our normal half-hour snack break here. The views were quite pretty. To the east we had clear, crisp conditions, while to the west the views were slightly occluded by the smoky haze. The summit itself features literally over a dozen large rock cairns, as well as some evidence of a long-ago lookout up here. A rusted bed frame is not far from the summit rocks! We also noted a newly placed plaque for a Tobias Buchanan, who apparently passed away in 2002. The climb had taken us under two hours, covering about 3 miles one way with about 1,700 feet of vertical gain. The only downisde were the incessant insects - bees, big flies and a little critter that would bite us everytime it landed on us. We got moving after a short while.

The hike down went quick. We found a nice compass just laying on the trail toward the bottom, so we picked it up for our collection. We were back to our car in just over an hour, for a total time out of about 4 hours (I think we were something like 3:57). We drove back to Republic for a lunch, then made our way south for a number of miles, eventually getting a hotel in Moses Lake. After a rest day, we tackled Strawberry Mountain in Grant County, Oregon next.