10 essentials, quarters, a boat, and machete

Our summer trip and it was our summer vacation and I put Alister in charge. Sure, I knew about the Pacific Northwest - but I had no idea about backpacking. My one introduction was 2 day trek on our honeymoon and Alister had orchestrated that, which left my knowledge at nill. I did just enough "research" to tentatively tell Alister that his original plan to hike the in Cascades probably wouldn't work.

"There is probably snow there in early June". My work completed I threw out the suggestion of Lake Chelan or somewhere in Oregon.

Three days before our scheduled 9-day hike, Alister had a loop trail routed out through the peaks of the Blue Mountains. While Mt. Misery didn't exactly sound like a good vacation destination, I was happy to have a plan and as long as we were stocked with food – I was more than willing to go wherever Alister pointed.
Two days before our hike – storm clouds began to gather. Friends warned us of a late spring – there might still be snow in them there hills. While this might not trouble some hikers, we had no snow gear and Alister had forgotten his hiking boots in Kiev. Also, we were going to be driving the black beast of a Chrysler, which might not be able to make it up mountain roads to the trailhead if there was still snow.

One day before our hike – we finally get to talk to the forest service and pick up a map of the Wenaha-Tucanon wilderness. The Forrest service told us that most of the trails weren’t open “You can hike them, there might be some logs you have to climb over though.” (HUGE understatement) As for snow – they couldn’t precisely say but believed there to be snow at over 4,500 ft. Most of our projected hike covered ridges above this altitude. We spent the rest of the day trying to figure out a new 9-day trail. We settled on a route- albeit subpar as over half of it was on mountain roads rather than trails.

D-Day – we didn’t make it out on the trail we were still packing and I contracted a migraine.

D-Day (for real)- We make the drive to Troy, Oregon, the lowest elevation trailhead we could find so we knew for sure that the roads would be clear and the car would make it. We started off the trip right with a big burger and fries at Boggan’s Oasis our last civilized meal for the next 9-days. In Troy, there was no sign of snow. None of the natives seemed to know anything about snow (though they did warn us about rattlesnakes). We decide to change our route again and go over some of the peaks as we originally planned. Having forgotten our essential roll of quarters - we make a credit card call to my parents to let them know of the change (the “slightly” more expensive cost of using this service ended up being $28 dollars more than if we had had quarters) We then hop in the car again and head to the HooDoo trailhead and hike the steep, 3.5 mile descent to the Wenaha river. The river was wide. The river was deep. The river was swift. We saw the trail on the other side – but there was no way to get to it. Obviously we forgot that among the 10 essentials, we should have stowed our rubber raft.
Too late to do anything else, we camp on a minute patch of ground by the river and try to sleep amid visions of bears and cougars fishing in the river by moonlight.

Day 2 of our hike. We retrace our steps climbing up the 3.5 mile ascent to the car. Our only comfort is knowing that the bags are 2 cliff bars and 3 cups of Corn chowder lighter. Back in Troy – we realize that we are desperately low on Gas and even if we make it back to our car at the end of the hike – we have little chance of making it to a gas station. We commiserate with the Garbage man and the property managers and work out for gas to be held for our arrival- “a week from today.” And off we start at the heat of the day on a 6.4 mile trek to our next campsite at the Crooked Creek Trail head.

We were beat. The sun on the canyon walls beat down on us mercilessly. Our packs filled with food, water, and everything else bore us down. Neither of us thought we would ever see the end of the trail. Including 3 rests – that hike took us more than 6 hours.

Day 3- we decide to leave a stash of food at the campsite since we will be passing through on our way back to the car. We try to leave the heavy stuff, and maybe it did make a difference. A late, lazy start – but our hips are killing us and after yesterday we just weren’t gung-ho to start.

The problem with hiking is that you never quite know how far you have traveled or how far you have to go to get to your destination. You hope to make it to your destination – but you never know the quality of the trail or the weather or how fast you really will be able to go. Our 3rd campsite ended up being less than 1 mile from our goal. Still it was a good campsite and already 7:30 pm – so we didn’t want to push our luck when we didn’t know how far away we were.

Our hike taught us the importance of reading maps. Our trail took us over lots of streams and creeks. When I say over – I actually mean through because there were no bridges, rocks or limbs spanning the water. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Alister forgot his hiking boots – we never would have brought my Chaco sandals on the trip as a back-up shoe for him. If we hadn’t brought the sandals – we never would have done as well as we did. Needless to say each crossing was an ordeal of taking off our shoes and socks, rolling up our pants, Alister crossing the river and throwing the sandals back over to me so that I could cross as well. Then we had to dry off, put our shoes back on, shoulder our packs, and start off again – only to repeat the process in a mile or two.

Our third day was also slowed by the fact that we saw a rattlesnake at the start of our hike. Rather I saw a rattlesnake. Even though it was curled up almost in the middle of the path, Alister somehow did not see the snake and managed to step over it and not get bitten. I, however, freaked out. The snake did not want to move. I did not want to squeeze past it. While Alister eventually managed to shoo it out of the way with a long stick, it made me super cautious the rest of the hike and I had to push away every bit of underbrush before I would go forward. Since the trail weren’t open, there was a lot of underbrush. As we had forgotten our essential machete – this left us to beat our way through with a stick. This method was so in effective in clearing a trail that we actually lost the trail on the return journey and couldn’t even make out where we had been before (which is why you need the essential compass . . ..) My vigilance was rewarded in that I discovered another snake at the end of our journey – also curled up in the center of the trail, but slightly more willing to slither out of our way. This one even rattled at us.

Day 4 – We camp at an elevation of 4,600 ft. Snow is present in drifts. Alister discovers lots of mushrooms which we think are snow bank brains. :-) We switch sleeping bags for t the night and alister finally believes me that my sleeping bag isn’t much warmer than a summer blanket. Again – we end up camping about 2 miles from our destination target.

Day 5 – Sunday. It rains and we spend the day in camp resting. We are a day behind in our route – but the difficulty of the terrain has really slowed us down. We decide to skip the loop trail and retrace our steps. Tomorrow we’ll leave our bags and do a day hike to the summit ridge at Indian Corral.

Day 6- It is still raining – but Alister thinks the day hike doable during a lull. Five minutes from camp, we come to a river crossing – AND it starts to rain again. I’m cold, wet, and miserable. We agree that I’ll stay in camp and Alister will do his day hike. I get to sleep and manage to start a fire (thanks to essential fire starters I made from paraffin and newspapers). Amazingly, Alister returns with more dry clothing than he started out with and he gets hot coffee, soup and a fire to boot – we are two happy campers – except that I get bit by a tick (and am now on antibiotics for lymes disease).

Day 7 and 8 – There are definite perks to retracing your steps. For example – we didn’t have to puzzle over how to cross the rivers – we already had our crossing strategies for each stream down. We also knew that there was an end in site. Plus, our packs were getting lighter by the day.

Day 9: remember that grueling 6.4 mile hike? With our new fit selves and our lightened packs we made the journey in 2 hours and 15 minutes!! Back on the Wenaha River trail – we saw our first people since we left troy 8 days before – all the rest of the hike had been in perfect solitude. The garbage man remembered us – though Alister had a face full of stubble and we had both lost some weight. Our first stop was Boggan’s Oasis – where we gobbled up a hamburger, fries, and a cherry milkshake – as well as filling up the car with the promised and gas they had set aside for us.

The trip was great – but definitely a learning experience.