Wilderness Dancer

The rain comes.  We’re into day 3 of it.  Pretty wet, but my sleeping bag and sleeping clothes are still dry.  That’s all that really matters.  Made it around our last fire detour (a road walk/hitch that took us around the Mt. Adams Wilderness).

We enter the Goat Rocks Wilderness.

And we see goats!  It’s a good day.

Until we get an unexpected adventure.

The story that follows has a lot of understanding that came later with that 20/20 hindsight.  It’s the kind of thing that if you live through it, you will learn.

The best way to describe it would be to say: ‘it’s like going from Aslan’s Narnia into the White Witch’s Narnia.  And she wants you dead.’

Part 1    

Wet through.  We’ve walked about 10 miles today.  Looking for a lunch spot.  A mile before, Brr had said he was ready for a break, I wanted to go to the next trail junction in a mile so we would know exactly where we were for our midday break, so we continued.  We continued uphill.

The hill made Brr angry so he charged up it, and then didn’t stop at the jct.  I realized I was sweating too much and didn’t want that to make me cold when I stopped, so I slowed down.  I keep thinking he’ll stop soon enough.  Maybe he didn’t like all the little campsites we’ve passed.  (We’ve been throwing up my tent for our lunch breaks so we can get out of the rain for a bit.)

Gotta keep going til I catch him.  I’m really ready for a break now, but he’s not stopping.  (And I really need to pee, but I don’t want to deal with taking my pack off until we’re at our break spot) So I drink some water and keep marching forward.  The rain is getting colder.  The wind is picking up.  We’ve marched into a cloud.  Storm is getting worse.

I catch Brr at a Hiker/Stock jct.  He’s changing out his wet gloves for dry ski mittens.  Says he accidentally went too fast up the hill and then couldn’t stop because he would freeze.  The wind is getting pretty heavy, the rain is becoming ice.  This is no place to stop.  We’re above treeline.  No shelter.  Gotta move to keep warm.

We pause just long enough for him to get his pack on and book it for the Stock route.  We figure if there’s a stock route, it has to be easier.  Why else would they put in a stock route?  It must drop to a more sheltered area.

We were wrong.

So wrong.

Not a quarter mile down the stock route, we’re confronted by a glacier.  The Packwood Glacier.

Sheer ice.  Can’t walk across it.  No way we can dig steps into it.  

Look around.  Down the rocky slope a ways, it looks like the glacier gets pretty narrow.  Maybe fifteen feet across.  We head for that.

Picking our way down the boulders and rocks.  Finally get to that easy looking spot.  It is sheer ice.  No way across.  If we had crampons and an ice axe, it would maybe be doable.  You could at least catch yourself when you inevitably slip.

We look lower. Our options are now to go back up to the trail and turn around, or maybe there’s a way to walk around all the ice.  I think there’s a way to get around it.  So we go.  (it is always so difficult to go back.  No one wants to go back).

We pick our way slowly down to that lower spot.  What looked like just a few inches of ice between rocks, is four feet.  There is still no way across.

It’s amazing how distance can change from 20 miles a day being relatively easy, to four feet being impossible.

I call it.  It’s time to head back.  We’re both freezing cold.  We’re wearing base layers under our rain gear but everything is soaked through.  If I stop for more than a couple of minutes, I’ll be too cold to move.

We look back up the hill and realize just how far off the trail we’ve gone.  It’s a long trek up.  It’s a scary trek.  If one of us goes down, we’ve got a whole other mess of problems to deal with.  One foot in front of the other.  Hope the slope doesn’t slip too far when I take the next step.  Ride the rocks as they shift and take the next step.  We have to switchback a couple of times.  Walking side by side.  Don’t want someone below when the rocks shift.  Send a couple of bigger slides down.  It takes a long time to finally hit trail again. (a trail blasted through the rocks).

Take a breath.  Step 1: get back to the trail. Check. Step 2: get back to the jct. Step 3: get warm and dry.

One step at a time.

We beeline it back for the jct.  Check the map.  The hiker route goes up on top of a ridge. No glaciers to cross, but no camping for miles. It’s too late in the day, and we’re too cold to deal with hiking on top of an exposed ridge.

Don’t know how long we spent dinking around the Packwood Glacier.

Hoof it to the trees.  There is one patch of snow we crossed earlier.  We become very familiar with this snow patch.  It is icy, but there is a trench through the middle of it.  Slipping is not a problem.  You just stay in the trench.

Back across the snowfield, and we are relieved to discover that trees are closer than we remembered.  Into shelter.  My tent won’t go up on this kind of terrain and in this wind, so we set up Brr’s tent (luxuries of a self standing tent).  Shaking hands.  Trying to move as fast as we can.  I’m sitting on the tent to keep it from blowing away as we put it up.

Dive in.

Instant relief.

Pull off all the wet clothes, get the dry clothes and bags out.  It’s a slow process when your fingers aren’t working quite right.

Start up the stove for a hot drink.

Safe for now.

 

 

 

Part 2  Enter the Mouse

It’s amazing how quickly you can go from freezing, near hypothermic, to warm and making jokes again.

Dry inside our little safe haven.  Wind howling outside.  We have a lot of hot drinks.  Cook up dinner.

Wait for a slight break in the wind to dive out of the tent and pee.  (In adventure stories, they never talk about the bladder problem, but it’s a serious problem.  It takes a lot of bravery to get out of the tent back into your wet shoes and the freezing cold weather when nature calls.)

Snuggled into my sleeping bag.  Hood all the way up.  Sleep is almost there.

Hear a squeak.

‘Is that a bird?’  ‘Sounds like a mouse to me’ ‘I sure hope not.’

We ignore it and go to sleep.

The wind is howling.  I’ve convinced myself that the tent is thwapping on my head.  I even feel it thwap on my leg.  But it must be the tent.

Then Brr feels something brush his hair, he figures it’s the wind (although the wind just stopped for a moment).  He brushes his head.

‘There’s a mouse in the tent!’

Scrambling for our head lamps.

Oh God don’t let it get in my hair! Or in my sleeping bag!

Lights on.  The mouse has run around the tent and up one of the walls.

‘How do we catch it?!’

“Use a pot!” and I hide in my sleeping bag.  Hear a scuffle.

‘Got it!’

I peek out of my bag.

There’s a mouse in the pot.

What do we do with a mouse in the pot?

‘Make mouse stew?’

“No, I have to eat out of that again!”

“Kill it?”

“Not in my pot!”

We ponder the mouse in the pot for a while.

Can’t just leave it in there.

‘Maybe if we shake it up and huck it really far it won’t come back.’

Ok.

Well, Brr manages this sidearm huck that sends the mouse into the tree next to our tent.  It bounces off and the report is that it looked dazed.

We try to go back to sleep.  A little creeped out that a mouse had been dancing on my head for a while.  It must have given up on getting into my sleeping bag when it went over to nest in Brr’s hair.

Lights off.

Thirty seconds later we hear a mouse shuffling in the vestibule.

Lights on.

‘Get it!’

This episode continues for a while.  We try to put bait in the pot and set it up as a trap.  The mouse is too smart for that.  It keeps coming back as soon as the lights go off.  Eventually, we’re too tired to care anymore.  It’s at least in the vestibule and not in my hair.  We’ve already got all our food in the tent, and we’ve closed the zipper better so it can’t get back in.  Nothing to do but wait to see what the damage is in the morning.

Sweet dreams of mice.

Part 3 Get Out

The storm seems to be a little calmer this morning.  The mouse seems to have just pooped on everything and given us nightmares.  It’s time to get out of the woods.  We’re 19 miles from White Pass, walls and safety.

Time to try the hiker route.  We have a contingency plan to take the Nannie Ridge trail out to a big lake that has a road on one end.  Don’t know where that road leads or if anyone will be camping there, our maps don’t go that far.  But it’s at least a bailout point.

Hands freeze again packing up the tent. Once we’re moving life is ok again.  Cross our familiar snowfield, get to the stock/hiker jct.  Head right this time.

Wind is picking up, on the exposed mountaintop again, walking in a cloud.

We get to a sign that says “PCT”  That’s it.  No arrows.  Doesn’t look like much of a junction.  Brr climbs up to the left and it looks like it’s just a viewpoint that drops off.  We continue on the trail.  So we think.  (Should’ve pulled out the compass here).

Our trail soon becomes a scramble.  This doesn’t seem right.  Maybe we just missed the route.  It’s hard to tell what’s just rock and what’s trail up here.  Brr scouts ahead.  Finds a cairn and a windbreak, but there’s a class four scramble between us and it.

We’re definitely not on the real trail, but the sign of humans makes us think we just have to get to that point and the trail will be evident.

Windbreak.  Breathe for a second.  We’re both getting pretty cold again.  Scout ahead.  Find a route.  Scramble on.  This continues for a couple more stretches.

We get to a point where there’s big glaciers to either side of the ridge and it looks like a really technical scramble.  My map says we follow a ridgeline.  But this is not right.  Fingers are too cold at this point to pull out my compass.  I’m too cold to stop to figure out which pocket it’s in and dig it out.

I call it.

Turn around time.  If we can’t find an easy route through here, we need to go back. Take the side trail out.  Old Snowy Mountain has beaten us.

We’re already getting to the freezing cold point we were at yesterday.  Doesn’t take much in this wind.  We’re also wearing all our sleeping clothes.  Figured we could gamble wearing our dry clothes to stay warmer because we’re going to make it out today.  It’s only 19 miles. (Right. Only 19 miles when 4 feet was too much yesterday).

Part 4: No Really, Get the F*** Out

Make a hot drink at the wind break and brace ourselves for our next attempt to get out.

Into the wind again.  Visibility is maybe 20 feet.

Back to the PCT sign.  Brr climbs up to the overlook again.

‘Dances! Get up here!’

I climb up.  Around some rocks, relief from the wind and there before us is the trail.

Plain as day.

It’s too far to get out by the trail today.  We’ve wasted most of the daylight climbing up Old Snowy Mountain in a whiteout.

Assess the map again.  Compass out this time. 

Being back on the trail gives us some more energy.  We can still hike out on the PCT.  No need to head back to our bailout trail.  We eat a candy bar and start going.

Wind is maybe 40-60 miles an hour (assessed by Brr who has felt wind like this from a dirtbike).  We later learn that what we’re walking on is referred too as the Knife’s edge.

But life is good again.

Occassionally the clouds give a little and we can see an incredible view.  This is one of those moments that feels like we’re Sam and Frodo on our way to Mordor.  Epic.

Five miles walking the ridgeline.  Then we drop out of the wind and icestorm into a valley.  Into rain.  We see a herd of elk in a meadow and watch them climb up a scree slope to the top of a ridge like it’s nothing.

Onward we walk.  Set up camp 11.5 miles out from White Pass.  Sleep in all our wet clothes.  Even our sleeping bags are getting wet.  I’m glad I have a synthetic sleeping bag now. (Poor Brr’s down bag is not doing much good now).

It rains hard all night.

Daylight is a long time coming.

And it reveals snow.

We have a breakfast of champions. Spoonfuls of peanut butter and honey.  Our food supplies are really low.  I have rice left.  Brr has potatoes left.  We mix up some hiker crack (one of those caffeine energy packets that has no calories but tons of caffeine) and book it out of there.

11.5 miles out without food, in snow, damp clothes, wet boots, knowing that we’ll be fine just as soon as we hit the road.

I don’t know if I’ve ever been so happy to get out of the woods.

Utter relief as we’re surrounded by walls again.

A little wiser (we hope) as we look at the next stretch of trail we’re walking in to.  But that can wait for tomorrow.  Tonight we get beds, a heater and a room to yard sale our stuff in as it dries out.

Here we go.

Last state.

I go into Portland to be overfed by Grandparents and get out my cold weather gear.

It’s an entertaining foray into the storage unit.  I’m crawling thru a jungle gym.  My grandpa hear’s a shout. “I found it!”  A few minutes later, I emerge with my synthetic sleeping bag.

Repacking my bag with all my warm clothes, heavier, bigger sleeping bag, gaiters, ski gloves… I feel like I am prepping for Apocalyptic weather.

After all that I shove into my pack, it better snow.  I am ready for it.

My pack is overstuffed.  Every week, it looks like I have no idea what I’m doing.  Too full pack.  I’m walking around with it wearing a sundress, in October.

Ready to rock Washington.

With all we’ve heard about Washington, it sounds like it’s a black hole on the map.  Some really wild, wild place.  Sasquatch must live there.  It snows up North!  (If I had never been up in the North Cascades, I might be a little scared to continue).

Onward.

500 miles to go.

Just because I can.

It’s quiet in Oregon.

Real quiet.

Did civilization end?

I wouldn’t know.

There’s something to solo hiking, I suppose. Time for thoughts… except I don’t really have any interesting thoughts in my head.  They’re pretty regular thoughts.  Then you see something pretty, but there’s no one to chat with to say ‘ooh, did you see that?’

Most of the time, even if you are solo, there are people to run into and chat with.

I see no one for 3 days.

When I finally run into hikers, I am just ecstatic to have someone to talk with (besides myself and my cutout cardboard of Brave that was from a fruit snack box).  They are a couple returning from a day hike with their yellow lab.  Ask if I need anything.

I’m pretty full on food, just refilled water.  I’m set really. But thanks.  I have to resist the temptation to ask if maybe they could loan me their dog for a little while.

Into the Skylakes Wilderness.  Into some amazing country in Oregon.

Hiking as fast as I want. Lollygagging when I feel like it.  Finding lakes to swim in.

Time goes.  Miles go.  And then… I reach Crater Lake.

As soon as I enter the park, I feel like I’m home.  I remember this trail.  I remember all the trail names and where they go.  Worked my first trail crew gig here.  Two summers of fun, and dirt, and the occassional tourist asking if we were a juvenile deliquent group doing our community service time (because really, who is that dirty on purpose.  It also didn’t help that our crew leader wore full park service uniform with the radio and looked like a possible parole officer).

Memories flooding as I walk up to the rim.  Excitement pending.

See the road.  And then the world drops off. Cross the road to peer over the edge.  And there she is.  Stunning as ever.  Crater Lake.

It’s hard to fathom that much water.  That much pure blue.  The mind really can’t take it all in.

It’s another lollygagging kind of day.

And then I have to really put in the miles.  Got a rendevous at Willamette Pass. With Dad and trail friends.  Through the Pumice Desert, around Mt Thielsen and on to the next Pass.

We pass the ‘Welcome to Oregon’ sign going 60 miles an hour.

I’ve been looking forward to reaching the Oregon border since the beginning of the trip.  41/2 months later, we finally make it.  But not to the sign I was hoping for.

On the trail there is a California/Oregon sign at the border.  I’ve been dreaming of happily sitting at that sign (or happily collapsed on the ground beneath that sign for months).  But the trail was closed.

The recommended detour for this last Northern California fire is to take a bus to Yreka, another one to Weed, then take Greyhound to Ashland.  We considered hitching, but thought that making a sign saying ‘Weed’ would be counterproductive.

Third lifeline.  Call a friend.

We get to Seiad Valley, Grider Creek Campground, and are greeted by our good rafting friend Kevin. (Who has lots of stories of rafting this summer to share, which we listen to with envy).

Pile into the car and away to Oregon we go!

On our way to Kevin’s house in the Klamath Basin, we stop by our favorite pizza place in Medford, Kaleidoscope Pizza (this is a favorite for the end of rafting trips).

Hwy 140 over the mountains to the Klamath Basin.

It feels like coming home, and at the same time, everything seems strange.

Our farm is just 30 miles up Hwy 97.  It’s been about a year since I’ve been back in the basin. A year since I was helping my dad pack up the farm, and my parents were making a big move across the world to Malaysia.

Now we’re hanging out with good friends, enjoying the view from their house at the Running Y.  A huge window in the living room has a gorgeous view of the marsh and Klamath Lake.  You can see all the way to Mt Scott and Crater Lake.

I know this country well.

Enjoying coffee in the morning, Kevin says ‘It looks like it’s gonna be a great day.’  and I reply ‘Yes.  It looks lovely. I’m going to enjoy it from inside.’  Backtrack seconds this.

We plan our Oregon resupply strategy.  It still feels likes summer to me, but apparently it’s late in the season so some places on our route are closed.  Logistics.  Shopping for  twenty days of food.  Sorting twenty days of food to mail it. Figuring out where to mail it to.  And in between, eating lots of food and enjoying the view.

It feels so good to finally be in Oregon. Only 957 miles of trail to go!

After sixteen-hundred-something miles, that suddenly sounds doable.

Everyone asks. Are you done for the season? Gonna finish Oregon?

Our reply is: Still hiking North.  (Backtrack says, if I were to ever write a book of our adventures.  That should be the title.)

Still Hiking North.

I feel like I may just end up spending the rest of my life hiking North. (On the windiest route possible to get North).

The other day, in the Marble Mountain Wilderness, I found my first patch of huckleberries.  Life is very good when there are huckleberries on the trail.  The blackcaps really were a sign of hope.

I’m in Oregon!

But I’m not home yet.

This is it! One more stretch of California! And we’re walking West and Southwest!?

Isn’t the proper direction North?

We have maps again!  So I know we’re going the right way.  I’m also enjoying a new pair of shoes.  Post Office stops are fun.  Even the packages we sent to ourselves have surprises in them (Cause I’ve forgotten what I put in the box).  We sit on the lawn outside the post office and it feels like Christmas.

Before leaving Mt Shasta we stopped at The Goat and I had the most amazing burger of the trip.  Called the Wino Burger.  Wine sauce, goat cheese, and bacon.  And a pint of Lost Coast Strawberry Wheat.  (Yes, I’m writing about food again.  But it was really, really good food).

Full and happy, we get a ride to Castle Crags State Park and begin walking again.

Five days to Etna.

Stunning views of crags, Shasta surrounded in smoke, and valleys which we are high above on the side of a ridge.

We spend one evening at an amazing overlook.  We stop walking early because this spot is so cool (we also spent most of the day gaining a couple thousand feet of elevation and after so many detours, and days off the trail, we’re feeling lazy and out of shape).

TV for the night: watching the Bagley fire light up the hills (from a safe distance across I-5 and 16 miles into the wilderness).  The moon is bright and almost full.  As the sun sets, we can see spots of orange flame.  Nature, even when destructive, is incredible.

The miles start to fly.

During one break, a lizard climbs onto my leg and we chat for a minute, (before it realizes it is sitting on a human).

I find black caps (black raspberries). They make me very happy.  It is a sign of hope, I tell Backtrack, hope that soon we will find huckleberries.

We finally finish the last Ed Abbey essay in the book Beyond the Wall (Which I picked up in the first 200 miles).

Last 26 miles to Etna, we meet some firefighters at a road crossing, waiting to restock a helicopter.  We mention that our last day out to the town is usually light on food, and they give us gatorade and MRE’s.  Which we happily devour in the shade while chatting about all the fires in the area.  The night before some smoke jumpers jumped a fire nearby.  (So that was the plane we saw).  The word is that it was an escaped campfire.  Bummer.  It’s unfortunate that people don’t read all the signs posted that say ‘No Campfires’.

The MRE’s do inspire some creativity.  My new shoes have been hurting one foot.  My big toe feels like it is being decapitated, very slowly.  I’m eating a tootsie roll, considering how to fix this problem, when I get an idea from staring at the wrapper.  I can use the white cardboard from the wrapper as a splint.  The finished product looks like something traumatic has happened to my foot.  But it works! My foot is happy again. When we call Blaze later, I tell her the bear did it.

On to Etna.  Meeting two more hiking dogs on the way.