To Rock Pile Lake

 Showers (the kind that come from plumbing, not from the sky) are really a wonderful thing.  I liked the one I took my first day in Big Lake Youth Camp so much that I decided to take another one really early in the morning before we left.  Muddy brown streams ran down my legs and into the drain the first time I showered, and I had to scrub with a piece of pumice to get all the brown off my heels, plus, working around the blisters was a challenge.  This time I just washed because I liked the feeling of the hot water and the clean smell of the soap.  I used up the last of my body butter, put back on my clothes and tossed the dirty towel in the hamper.  How great that the camp lets hikers use the shower rooms free of charge, but that might be self-defense, they let us eat in their dining room too.  It was about 6:30 when we left camp, squeaky clean and well rested.  The morning was beautiful!  Orange and red clouds streaked across the sky, the horizon was a deep shade of pink and the trees, even the burnt ones, left their dark silhouettes on the edge of the morning.

The first five miles went very quickly, through some forest and some burnt forest, and then we crossed a highway. People often ask me if I feel safe walking out in the woods- they worry about cougars and bears and other wild animals and things that might get me.  I have had to listen to countless stories about people being attacked by bears or falling off cliffs.  I am frequently asked if we carry a pistol or at least bear mace.  Here’s my answer: I don’t worry about bears in the wilderness any more than I worry about muggers in the city, and if you want to look at the statistics, 28 fatal bear attacks in CA in the decade of 2010, compared to 1,974 homicides in CA in the year of 2011. Although this site http://www.scaruffi.com/travel/calendar.html says that no fatal bear attacks have occurred in this decade. Yes, I feel safer with the bears. And though I could not find a single listed incident of a hiker being run over by a Mac Truck, crossing highways is really the only time I feel unsafe.    Well, and an occasional river crossing.  And once in a great while on a rocky ledge.   But bears I do not worry about. 

I expected the day’s hike to be rocky and uphill the whole way, seeing as we were rounding a ridge and hiking right below Three Fingered Jack.  There was a lot of fire damage again, but being an older fire, there was also a lot of wild flowers and undergrowth.  It was pretty steep in some places, and I am glad we did not have to hike it in yesterday’s pouring rain, but it was not the scary ridge walk I expected.  Sometimes, when I needed a bit of a breather, I would stare out at the landscape far below. The valley spread out like a carpet, green with trees and then grey and black from the damage of many fires.  I love days when the mist still hangs in the air and the mountains fade out in layers of blue and purple along the horizon. I spent a lot of time that day trying to figure out how to paint that scene, or capture it in a quilt for my new grandchild.  Something about that particular view of blue and purple layers of mountain is so peaceful and encouraging.

My journal says that I got a nap at lunchtime and that I washed my feet and changed my shoes.  I do not remember the nap, I do remember the mushy little lake deep in a burn area where I tried to get water and wash up.  The edge of the lake was so deep with ash that every step caused muddy rings to form and ebb out.  I finally found a rock to which I could wade/hop out, where I perched to fill my water bottle.  Washing my feet was useless- they just kept getting dirtier.   When I was done fetching the water I sat with my little towel and dried my feet clean, changed my socks and put on my sturdier Keens.  Then it was time to dig a little hole before we hit the trail again.  Finding a discreet spot is not easy when there are no trees and little underbrush, so I wandered away from Snickers and down to the left a little, where the undergrowth proved a little thicker.  I was just in the process of unbuckling  when I heard a whistle and then a voice.  A hiker walked right by me- not more than ten feet away!  It seems that the trail winds a bit more than I realized right through there, and though I had walked my 100 feet away from the trail in that direction, I had wound up right next to it on this side.  A few minutes more and that hiker would have had more scenery than he might have cared for!  We continued on and had a nice, uneventful afternoon, coming finally to a lake where we thought we might make camp.  To finish at Cascade Locks by Friday, though, we would have to do twenty miles every day until then. This lake wasn’t very picturesque, and it was only at mile seventeen for the day.  We took a rest, and then decided to move on.  The next lake, Rock Pile, was four miles away and supposed to be a good spot, so we heaved our packs back on and headed North.  It was a pretty steep four miles, but we can feel that two days rest and know we are getting stronger when a 21 mile day doesn’t kill us anymore.

From my previous posts it may seem that everyone on the trail is friendly and we are all out here having a party.  Not every hiker is immediately your best friend.  Two men that we met at Elk Lake kept crossing paths with us.  They were quiet, hardly said hello, kept their mp3’s plugged in and kept hiking.  We never learned their names and they never seemed glad to see us.  We had established camp at Rock Pile Lake and were in the process of making dinner when these two came in.  We waved hello, they nodded curtly in return.  Rather than go over and make friends we decided to keep to ourselves, too.  We had a nice burrito dinner with butterscotch pudding with ginger snap crust and listened to our audio story for a while.  A brisk, cold wind came scooting across the lake, but we were snuggled down inside our warm sleeping bags, watching the stars blink on one by one as the blue sky deepened and turned to purple, then to velvety black.  

2,000 Miles

The morning’s hike was hard work on rugged lava.  I have heard other hikers complain about it, and now I understand.  Besides just being hard and rocky, the uneven surface causes you to concentrate more and work harder to keep from turning an ankle or slipping.  I could feel the sharp edges through the soles of my shoes and with the sun out, the heat reflected back on us.  But it is kind of surreal and alien, so interesting in that sense.  I worked on capturing my shadow with the camera a bit today; I think I got a good shot or two.  Something about the monotony of the landscape increases my awareness of light and shadow.  I also notice my brain is more creative when there is less to look at- less trees, less foliage, mostly just rocks and more rocks.  The formations were often interesting, but still, there was nothing but rocks for miles.

We stopped for our morning break and dried out the bags and ponchos from last night’s rain.  Shortly after we packed up and moved on we came across a South Bound couple who had all their gear spread out on ferns and in trees too.  We had a nice little visit comparing notes and gear before we got back to the business of hiking. These were important miles and we were keeping track with the GPS, because today would be the 2,000 mile mark.  Pretty incredible to think that over the last ten years my husband has walked 2,000 miles.  Though I have done over half of it with him, this really is his goal we are working on, and the credit all goes to him.  I was so enormously proud of him, and for once he didn’t seem to mind the attention.  When we got to the spot on the trail where someone had written “2,000 miles” in stones, he let me take his picture and even posed. What an amazing accomplishment!  Not so much when you compare it to the hikers who have done that many miles in just four or five months, but still, how many Americans can say that have walked that many miles?

We moved through a large burn area and up some steep rises.  I stopped often to look at, photograph and take small samples of the wide variety of wildflowers growing in and around the old burned trees.  There were lots of bees buzzing from flower to flower and some gopher hills too.  It is amazing to me how quickly life springs back after the devastation of a fire.  It takes decades to replace the trees, but it does not take long for the flowers, the thistles and some shrubberies to fill in the empty spaces left by the downed trees.  Snickers was a little tired and stopped fairly often too, which is what allowed me time to do my wildflower thing.  Because guidebooks are too heavy to carry and pictures don’t capture things really well, I will often break off a small sprig of a flowering plant and press it in the back of my journal.  When I get home I can look it up and identify it and find out if it is useful for anything.  I know quite a few plants that are good as remedies (yarrow is good for fever or bleeding, chamomile will help relax muscles, pennyroyal keeps off bugs and when brewed as a tea can help with menstrual cramps..) and am always eager to learn more.  I know a lot of plants that are excellent sources of food, too, although many of Oregon’s greens were new to me.  Mostly, though, I just like the little flowers and find that it makes me happy to press them in my journal.  After finding out about them, I have used the dried wildflowers to decorate stationary or to frame as pictures.  A great hike is where I come back with lots of flowers pressed into my journal. By those standards the JMT was a great hike, and this one was only so-so.  It’s not really Oregon’s fault, this was late August and not so many flowers bloom then.   Berries, though, we had lots of berries!

At the end of a long burn area we came into our next resupply station, Big Lake Youth Camp.  The fire, which was huge, burned right up to the camp’s borders.  I could imagine all the Seventh Day Adventists standing in prayer and holding back the flames. Looking back, I’d have to say this was my favorite resupply stop on our journey.  The camp itself was the kind you see in movies and read about in books. There was a horse corral, an arts and crafts cabin, archery, and all manner of water craft (including ski boats), a BMX track, and a huge air bag out in the bay that kids jump onto and fall off of.  The cabins were cute and clean and numerous.  Little tufts of bear grass and pine trees grew in between every little nook and cranny. Immediately I had the notion that I had done my kids a great injustice by not sending them here for their summers.  The grounds were well kept and the buildings quaint, but where were all the campers?  The place was deserted- eerie quiet, no one in the business office and no one near the horse corral.  Finally we spotted a hiker who wandered over to us. It was the guy from Shelter cove whom I though looked like Harrison Ford.  All clean and looking spiffy, he said he had been there for a few hours and that a maintenance man had told him that today was their day off between camp sessions.  The door to the laundry facilities and the room where hiker packages were kept was open, and we were free to grab towels and take showers too.  Which we gladly did. 

More hikers wandered in throughout the afternoon.  Two very handsome young brothers from Boston and a cute young couple from Portland all lounged around in their towels waiting for laundry to dry.  Good thing there were no teenage girls in camp- those Boston boys were pretty dreamy with their tanned skin and buff muscles showing off in those white towels.  I never learned the girl’s name, but I call her curious. She and i sat in our towels at the edge of the patio and enjoyed the little treats I had tucked into this resupply: cocoa body butter, cucumber heal cream, and moisturizing hair treatment.  There was never a more beautiful day spa, as we sat in among the trees looking out at the lake and the mountains.  We felt a bit decadent, maybe even a little guilty, but it was so nice to share this little luxury with another woman hiker. 

We had done our laundry, showered, gotten our resupply and packed our food, visited with the other hikers and relaxed. I foraged through the hiker boxes and found a very nice down jacket in the lost and found. It was getting to be dinner time.  We had hoped for a meal in the dining hall, but since it was the workers’ day off, that was not going to happen.  As we were debating where to set up camp and what to cook for dinner, the camp director and his wife drove up. Very friendly and open people, they invited us, and the other hikers as well, to their home for dinner..  What a great meal we had with the five other hikers and this adventurous (he is a mountain climbing guide and has hiked the Himalayas) and gracious young couple.  We all introduced ourselves and explained our trail names, and as our friend from Shelter Cove did not have a trail name, we happily dubbed him “Ford.” It was great to have a meal based on vegetarian food, though they eat a lot of pasta, and everyone was full and happy. At the end of the meal the director got called off to remove a splinter from the foot of a resident child, and his wife went to put their daughter to bed.  The rest of us cleaned up as best we could, then wandered down to the beach to set up camp.  A family of ducks was very curious about these humans on their beach as they visited each tent, mostly looking for food I think, and then waddled off when none was offered.  We set up the shelter, mostly for privacy, and snuggled into our bags to watch the sun set over the lake. 

There was breakfast in the dining hall the next morning as all the new staff gathered to be briefed for the week and get their duty assignments.  We sat with the hikers but a lot of the counselors and staff came over and said "hi" and a few even sat at our table and engaged in conversation.  We felt so welcome. We were told that the assistant director, Ashleigh, was heading to town and could give us a ride through the burn area and up to the road, a skip of about five miles.  We were to meet him by the office, so we gathered our gear and headed up there.  Just as Ashleigh walked up, the clouds let loose and gave us a good wetting.  We asked if he knew what the weather report was, so he looked it up on his smart phone and reported that there was a 90% chance of rain with thundershowers.  Ugh.  We decided to stay.  That would mess up our time line, but we did not want to be out on an exposed ridge in a thunderstorm.  Ashleigh offered us a cabin for the day, and the night if we needed it, so we headed over there and made ourselves comfortable.  Jeremy and Curious joined us too, but the Boston Boys headed south and Ford had taken off before breakfast.  Throughout the day more hikers came in and out.  Some, like Ugly Sam the Lawyer and Lion Heart just stayed long enough to eat lunch or get their resupply, but others decided to spend the night in the cabin with us.  One Pint came in without a pack on; she had skipped this little section a day or two before to get a ride into Bend, and, committed to walking every step, had slack packed from the road to make up the miles.  Her partner, Quattro Via, who did not have the same commitment to covering every foot of the trail, was waiting with her pack at the road.  It began to pour, but, undaunted, they all put on their rain gear and headed up the trail, laughing and talking as they went.

We stayed cozy and dry in the cabin, did some mending, made a reservation at Timberline Lodge and talked to the kids. Campers and their parents started trickling in just before the down pour, and the air began to fill with the sounds of excited children and nervous parents.  After the (wonderful) dinner meal, we headed down to the fireside program and enjoyed the camp experience- songs and skits and a video introducing all the counselors and camp activities.  We stopped in the dining hall for brownies and ice cream, and i surrendered my wonderfully warm down jacket back to the lost and found.  The concrete floor in the cabin was hard, and we didn’t sleep as well as we had on the beach the night before, but we were warm and dry and grateful to be with other like-minded people- both the camping families who had come in that day and the hikers with whom we were bunked.