Adventure Log: Green Lake & Ranger Falls

30 Thursday May 2019

Posted by Gretchen Staebler in Adventure Log, writingdownthestory in Photograph

Tags

#adventurelog, Adventure Log, Carbon River, Green Lake, hiking in the PNW, Mt. Rainier National Park, Ranger Creek, Ranger Falls, solo hiking, Washington Trails Association

I spent two hours Monday night trying to find a hike that 1) appealed to me (e.g. has a vista view), 2) isn’t snowed in, and 3) isn’t two to three weeks out from wildflowers I want to wait for. This is not an easy time of year for a semi-casual hiker around here. I had nearly given up when I found Green Lake on my Washington Trails Association wanna list. It doesn’t have a vista view, but I was desperate. And I’m a sucker for waterfalls.

I hit the coffee kiosk at 5:45 and head east on the Thurston County back roads, cruising past Rainier, Yelm, and McKenna, and on to almost ghost-town Wilkeson and nearly non-existent Carbonado. It’s between McKenna and Wilkeson I have lost my way every time I take this route to the west side of Mt. Rainier National Park. It changes highway numbers several times, making turns with confusing signage. I’m determined not to mess up this time and arm myself with handwritten, detailed instructions. Success!

I wind along the curving road up the mountain after Carbonado. I glance down at the map screen on my dashboard, wondering if I should have paid attention to the detour sign and look back up in time to realize I had narrowly missed hitting a deer, seeing only the blur of white spots. I breathe the second of the three great prayers: thank you. I don’t know nor care to whom or what I express thanks for beauty and bare misses, maybe a greater being, maybe even my parents in the beyond. I only know I am not alone.

I drive past the Carbon River ranger station to the end of the road. My boots are on the trail at 8:15. I’m not sure what happened to the sun that was supposed to break through the clouds right about now. I’m glad it’s not a vista trail, or I would be disappointed. At least it’s not raining, and I’m confident there will be sun at some point.

I’m five minutes behind two hikers leaving the parking lot, but I won’t see them again—or anyone else—until I get to the lake, which they are leaving as I arrive.

The first three miles are on a decommissioned road, official vehicles only. Generally I don’t much like walking on roadbeds, but this one—a soft bed of hemlock, fir, and cedar mulch—is easy on the feet, and flat. It extends through a rainforest I had no idea was here. The WTA says this about it:

[It] is considered the only inland temperate rain forest of its kind, being well beyond marine areas. But just like the valleys of the wet Olympic coast, the Carbon catches showers in its trajectory, holding them longer, and making its own fog when it needs to. In other words, this valley lives and breathes differently from its neighbors.

It is beautifully full of mother logs dripping with moss and licorice fern, the fallen giants embracing the next generation in loving nurture whether lying on the ground with trees growing on their backs, or still-standing hollowed out trunks with new trees growing through their core, or being the core. Others, newly felled by more recent storms, wait to be the umbilicus for new life.

Sword fern and devils club blanket the forest floor in rich green. The Carbon River flows in the distance changing the landscape at will, sometimes near enough to hear it tumbling along to the sea, while Ranger Creek babbles alongside the trail. Otherwise it is so quiet. The mist hanging over the tops of the hills on the other side of the river and down into the trees makes the primordial forest even more eerie. It really does breathe differently, and so do I.

Corydalis

I reach the trailhead and start up. A map of the area greets me with the usual cautionary tales, including “Don’t hike alone.” Why doesn’t it say, “Be aware of the risks of hiking alone”? Like anyone who drives 2-1/2 hours then walks three miles on a road bed to the trailhead is going to turn around and go home because the sign says don’t hike alone. I feel like a scofflaw. Anyway, I rarely feel truly alone on a trail, even when I see no one. Still, I put my bear spray in my jacket pocket instead of buried in my knapsack.

It’s a moderately steep ascent of human-made natural steps as well as some formed by tree roots, linked by easier going trail sections past uprooted old growth trees with beautiful and stunningly huge root systems that I can’t even get in a photo frame without using panorama.

A mile in I hear the roar of Ranger Falls before I see it. “Holy crap!” I exclaim—the third great prayer—when I spot it through the trees. As I stand at the viewpoint, awestruck by its enormity and power, I think for how many eons snowmelt plummeted 172 feet down through this narrow rock slot choked with these same boulders along with felled giants before anything that walked on two legs knew it existed. I am humbled to be standing before it.

I tear myself away from the falls and continue up the trail through long, lazy switchbacks, past last stage trillium, and over a demure section of Ranger Creek that is oblivious to the coming trauma.

I arrive at the small, very green mountain lake just as the sky clears to blue. Tolmie Peak, which boasts a lookout I have hiked to from Mowich Lake, peaks through a crotch at the other end. I am enchanted. I love hidden mountain lakes. I walk out onto the long jam—a little gingerly, aware of my age—and sit down to eat my apple slices and homemade trail bar while fish jump in the lake. The camp robber shows up too late to share my lunch.

Shortly after I leave the lake, I meet another couple, older than I, which always gives me hope that I will be able to do this for a few more years. They and the couple I met on my arrival at the lake are all I will see on the trail (along with a few on the road bed). My favorite happenstance on an in and out trail: knowing there is someone ahead of me and someone behind, but not sharing the trail.

Back down at the road, there are two bikes chained to a structure. I wonder if they belong to the older couple. I wish I had a bike; this hike is almost ten miles and I’m ready to be back at the car. I don’t stop to gawk at mother logs, shaving a little time off the road walk. I’m back home before 4:30, managing not to end up in Puyallup and on I-5 as I have in the past, and wondering where I can go next week.

Adventure Log: Oyster Dome-Lily Lake

23 Thursday May 2019

Posted by Gretchen Staebler in Adventure Log, writingdownthestory in Photograph

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Adventure Log, bellingham, Bellingham Bay, Fairhaven Village, Gaian Tarot, Herbcrafter's Tarot, Joanna Powell Colbert, letters from World War 2, Lily Lake, oyster dome, Pacific Northwest Trail, Samish Bay, Skagit Valley, Washington Trails Association

Not all who wander are lost. I did some wandering today.

I’m in Bellingham, writing with my dear friend Joanna Powell Colbert in her new home in Historic Fairhaven Village—a fun adventure in itself, across Bellingham Bay from her old home on Lummi Island, where I have also visited her. For those of you who don’t know Washington, Bellingham is a hop skip from Canada. I met Joanna at my first writing retreat, four months after I moved back to the PNW; which makes it an unbelievable six and a half years ago.

She is an earth mystic and creatrix of the Gaian Tarot deck and the soon-to-be released Herbcrafter’s Tarot, and I love her. She reminds me not only to observe the natural world, but to honor it; and is a guide to unlocking its secrets.

Like my home in SW Washington, Bellingham is sandwiched between water (Puget Sound with its San Juan Islands and the Pacific Ocean beyond) and mountains (the North Cascades and Mt. Baker, or Koma Kulshan).

Today, wanting to take a hike outside my usual hike zone, but not wanting to take the time away from writing for a drive to the mountains, I chose Oyster Dome, an ascent up Blanchard Mountain to an overlook of Samish Bay and the Skagit Valley, the Olympic Mountains beyond.

Somehow I missed the driving instruction on the Washington Trails Association website for the exit to take off I-5, and thus began my wander. When I had descended into the valley, I stopped and asked directions at a convenience store. The clerk had no clue; I could ask next door, she suggested. That would be either the Joint Store or the Tattoo Shop. I picked the Joint Store. She didn’t know either, but she Googled it and wrote down instructions for me. Guess I could have done that, though my smart car had been no help.

I reached the trailhead parking lot shortly after realizing I had forgotten my homemade trail bar. No worries, I expected to be back to town by lunch time, even with the delay. The view from the overlook parking area was spectacular.

The trail through the forest was beautiful, and the many switchbacks doable because they were in the shade. It’s part of the Pacific Northwest Trail—a 1200-mile hiking trail running from the Continental Divide in Montana to the Pacific Ocean.

Sword fern and bleeding heart were abundant and, with the filtered light streaming through he second growth forest, a favorite kind of forest walk.

The writing project I’m working on is compiling the letters my father and aunt wrote home during WWII. My father began his service in officer training in the canyons of New York City, determined to see and do everything he could while he was there—in part so he would never have to go back. After a childhood in Michigan farmland, he took a first job in east Tennessee and hiked the Appalachians. He wrote home:

“Occasionally the trail will break out into the open on a mountain peak and you can see for miles and miles and thousands of acres. I get a lot bigger kick out of it when I have to walk several miles and then come on it unexpectedly.”

That wasn’t this hike, but I know that experience.

My aunt, on the other hand, was a nurse with the 36th Hospital Unit awaiting deployment to Europe in Colorado. When they weren’t bivouacking on steep trails and narrow ridges, she went hiking for pleasure, determined to see and do all she could while she was there.

“I’m getting tough and rugged. It’s so pretty in the mountains that words can’t express it. Being out here is just like a vacation to me. I’m beginning to feel like a hardened mountain climber.”

I took her with me on this hike.

I reached the overlook, where several hikers—some loud—and dogs sat on the rocks at the edge of the cliff. The view is spectacular, though frankly no more so than from the parking lot, just higher. I didn’t stay long.

I had decided to take the short spur trail to Lake Lily on my way down, and I was eager to get there. Besides, I had no trail bar to enjoy while I looked over the bay. And did I mention loud people? The trail to the lake was lined with the biggest not-yet-blooming skunk cabbage I’ve ever seen, with the slight skunky odor. There was a small marshy pond, and I wondered if that was the lake. If so, quite the disappointment. But it was not.

Lake Lily took my breath away, really. It was utterly silent. People free. I swear I could hear the water striders hopping across its surface. It was one of those lakes clear enough to see the silty bottom. Lily pads dotted the surface in a Monet painting.

I nearly fell off a log at the marshy edge to get a photo of this crazy flower growing in the water.

There are campsites there, and I wanted nothing more than to set up a tent and stay for days. I sat on a bench, and sat and sat, completely overwhelmed with my good fortune to be in the tranquility. But I had to go.

Halfway back to the main trail, I heard voices. Loud voices. The six women weren’t on my trail, but their voices were. Eye roll. The first one immediately said, in some astonishment I thought, “Are you hiking alone?” “Yes,” I said. “Do you like that?” she said. “Oh yeah.”

And then things went a little south. A ways down the trail I came to a sign (signage is good on this trail), and I realized I was not where I wanted to be. Well, I wasn’t where I needed to be. Next time I will skip the Dome and do the Lily and Lizard Lake loop, but not today. Though I was tempted.

I retraced my steps and turned onto a trail that said Max’s Shortcut. I remember seeing something about that on a WTA trip report. There was also a map, and it clearly went back to the parking lot. Still, I was unsure if I should take it, or keep trying to find the trail I came in on.

I took it, and was anxious the whole way. It seemed longer. Was it headed to the right parking lot? What will I do if I get there and it’s the wrong one? Why is it crossing a road? Ach! It was beautiful though, and there were more wildflowers—many of which I even knew the names of—and fewer switchbacks than the trail I went up on. And I did meet a couple of people, I wasn’t alone; and there were blazes on the trees. I wasn’t lost, just wandering. And hungry. And getting a little tired.

A mountain biker on the road I came to confirmed that I was headed to the parking lot. I tried to let go of the niggle of fear. Also my phone was almost out of battery. I sent Joanna a text and told her where I was if she didn’t hear from me again, and just kept walking. I’ve never been so glad to see my orange car. Well, maybe a couple other times.

As I write this, I see I took a picture of that trip report so it would be on my phone. Too bad I forgot.

Adventure Log: Silver Star Mt./Ed’s Trail

12 Thursday Jul 2018

Posted by Gretchen Staebler in Adventure Log, writingdownthestory in Photograph

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

#adventurelog, #ilovewhereilive, Adventure Log, Anne Lamott, Daughter on Duty, Ed's Trail, Gifford Pinchot National Forest, Help Thanks Wow, hiking, hiking in the PNW, Lewis River Region, Silver Star Mountain Trail, Washington Trails Association, Yacoult Burn State Forest

Dateline: July 11, 2018

Help. Thanks. Wow!

The prayer that is sufficient for everything is applicable for this hike in all its essential bits. The impassible road; the belated arrival at the parking area; the soul-expanding, eye-popping majesty of Creation.

The day starts at 5:30 at the espresso kiosk where my favorite barista is on duty. She hasn’t been there the past couple of times and I’ve had to tell the replacement my order. As she whizzes up my 16 oz. extra-hot latte without asking what I want, she asks me about the hike I had been off on last time she saw me, remembering it had been my birthday. (That was three weeks ago.) I tell her about the unexpected adventure and we chat about where I’m off to this time. She asks me if I’ve been to Goat Creek (yes). I give her my blogger card so she can read about this adventure, and I’m off, off to a great beginning.

It is, again, my favorite kind of morning to drive south on I-5: the sun’s promise glowing just above the horizon through the fog, blue sky above as it clears. I’m going three-quarters of the way to Portland, so I settle into Flutterby’s comfy seats (made by NASA, I’ve heard), with my latte and recorded book.

I should have used the exit instructions on the WTA website, but Google Maps had a different idea so I have two sets of directions. It’s probably a short-cut from the north, so I take it, later wishing I had consulted an actual physical map first instead of waiting until I get lost. I have a pretty good sense of direction and a compass on my dash, and I like depending on them. With not much help from Siri, I get back on track eventually. Part of the adventure.

I heard about this trail in the Lewis River Region for the first time from a friend of my sister’s who was there over the weekend. “The road is the worst I’ve ever been on,” she told me. “Worse than Goat Creek?” I wondered. Now that was a bad road. WTA warned of the road to Silver Star too. “Must have a high clearance vehicle and 4-wheel drive.” Check and check.

First you drive 6.6 miles up a bumpy DNR road creatively named L1100, then you turn off onto Road 4109 “a road to the right going uphill.” It’s unmarked, as are several roads going uphill to the right before it. I watch for the clues offered by the WTA and hope for the best.

The “best” cannot be attributed to Road 4109. It’s not just potholes, but abysses. I go .4 of the 2.7 miles to the trailhead and stop at the grand canyon of ruts.

Help!

This is a road?

In spite of all-wheel-drive, Flutterby’s rear wheels are spinning without purchase. She’s digging in her heels, screaming “hell no!” The ravine on the right as I scrape vegetation on the left will swallow half the car if I fall in. Maybe, I think, CuRVy’s wheels—my 20-year-old Honda CRV that is no longer mine—could have hugged the edges, but Flutterby’s wider body is not going to flit by; there will be no return from a missed calculation. Plus I don’t know what’s coming up.

I briefly wonder what other trail I can find in the area, foiled again by a road as I was on my birthday. But, no! The road may defeat me, but the goal will not! There just happens to be room not only to turn around, but to park out of the way right there before the chasm. I will walk.

I lace up my boots, unfold my trekking poles, and take off.

I know I walk uphill at about 2 miles an hour, and I figure this will be all up. But there won’t be any photo ops, so I project an hour for the 2.3 miles. I’m already behind the time I thought I would be at the trailhead, what with chatting with the barista, getting lost en route, and the surety that Google Maps didn’t take the condition of L1100 and Road 4109 into account in their projections. Still, it’s only 8:45 and the hike itself is just 5 miles RT. I can for sure add 4.6 miles, albeit boring ones.

As I walk, my mind strays to my years as Daughter on Duty. I lived with my mother for almost five years before the road defeated me; but the goal did not. There was not a good option then for staying on the road I started off on, there is no option for this road but to choose another mode of transportation. I tried through those 5 years at home with Mama to take the high road, but often found myself on the edge of the rut I kept falling into, never learning that you can’t fight dementia with reason. You just can’t. Moving her to assisted living was not defeat, nor is this, they are just different roads to the same end.

At exactly the one-hour mark, I round a curve and there ahead the road ends in a giant keyhole, and the horizon opens up.

Thanks!

I would have felt the road hike worth it even if I went no farther than the parking lot. There is Mt. St. Helens and the vista that stretches to the silhouetted Olympic Mountains. The Pacific Ocean is out there somewhere beyond the towns on the valley floor and the patchwork of forest and selective clear cuts and reforesting. My father would be proud that I’m seeing the view not as travesty as I once did as a cocky youth, but as using and replenishing for another generation our renewable natural resources.

Someday the bare spots will be spring green with a new generation of trees.

The WTA’s trail instructions are unclear. There are many options here as the two trails wind up the mountain, one on the west side overlooking the valley, the other on the east overlooking the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. But the WTA gave a cautionary tale about a stretch in which a slipping foot would be disastrous on Ed’s Trail, on the east side; so when I arrive at the junction, I will stay on the wide rocky Silver Star trail to the west.

At the diversion of the trails, my heart expands right out of my chest, my eyes open wide.

WOW!

Mt. St. Helens has company: Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams; the three white queens laid out in a row. And, turning 90º, there is Mt. Hood. Snowy mountains against cerulean sky beyond verdant forests. I’m a little disoriented at first, viewing the girls not from the angle I’m accustomed to; but eventually I figure it out and name them.

I take a long drink of it all, then start up the trail not marked “Ed’s Trail.” Signage will remain sketchy (i.e. non-existent) as the trails enter and leave the one I’m on and crisscross the mountain between the two trails. I expect they all go up, though, to the pointed peak I can see above me. If I hit the scary place, I can always retrace my steps and take another route.

l to r: St. Helens, Rainier, Adams…

…and Hood.

(Mt. Baker could be seen in silhouette.)

“How many stars could you see from here?” I wonder, when I come upon a fire pit on a wide windy spit of meadow.

As I hike, the sound waves are full of the hum of nectar-seeking bees in the profusion of paintbrush, Queen Anne’s lace, tiger lily, columbine, pasque flower, penstemon, Oregon iris, gentian, bear grass, elephant’s head, valerian, and on and on. Butterflies silently flit from bloom to bloom with the same goal. Is this even real?

I turn around when the trail begins to descend into the forest on the other end, backpacking country. After lunch on a rock at the top of world, I head back down the rocky trail until I get to a cross path I saw on the way up and take it. I reach the top and look down on the Gifford Pinchot, across to Mt. Hood. The trail continues both up and down. I wonder if it’s Ed’s Trail, and decide to give it a try for the return to the parking area. I can always return to the familiar safe trail, I tell myself again.

I meet two guys coming up. They confirm it is indeed Ed’s Trail; the best side, they say. They tell me the place “with a bit of a scramble” is on up, beyond where I came from. Yay! They have been here many times, they say, and have never seen the road like it is. They came in a jeep,. They tell me there are two 4×4 pickups in the parking area and more cars down where mine is. I’m not a chicken shit, just wise.

I get back to my car, meeting another rugged pick-up truck, and find Flutterby’s had company, and another car has just arrived. The driver directs me out of my tight parking spot without scraping bottom on the drop off between car and road. He tells me this is his favorite hiking spot. “Two years ago the road was not like this,” he says. If the road gets improved (which seems unlikely), I will go back. If not, I’ll move on to other trails. I have weekly summer hikes all laid out until mid-September with two weeks free for make-up dates or additions. Only two are trails I’ve hiked before. God, I love where I live.

What a day, what a way to forget the horrors of the world for a few hours and bask in the beauty of the way it was intended to be. Thank you, thank you to all that was, is, and will be that my legs can carry me to places like this for now. I think of my parents, who surely never came here, but would have loved it. I carry them with me always.

When I get home and showered, I sit on the deck with an Alaskan amber and the western tanager makes a return. A young one this time, it’s the second I’ve seen since my mother died, and only the third time I’ve seen one in the six years (I missed my anniversary last week, BTW) since my return to the PNW. It sits on the railing post, head cocked, observing me; like it’s looking right into me. Hopping two posts closer to the feeder, it turns toward me again. “Hi, Mama,” I say. It looks a moment longer then flies off, passing the feeder that clearly wasn’t its interest.

Thank you.

(Mis-) Adventure Log: Sunrise Peak

21 Thursday Jun 2018

Posted by Gretchen Staebler in Adventure Log, writingdownthestory in Photograph

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

#adventurelog, #ilovewhereilive, Adventure Log, adventuring, death of a parent, Gifford Pinchot National Forest, hiking, hitchhiking, Mt. Adams, Pacific Northwest, Sunrise Peak, Takhlakh Lake, Trout Lake, Washington Trails Association

I had an uneasiness about Sunrise Peak in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, that the last review on the Washington Trails Association website was two years ago (virtually to the day). Gone are the days of choosing a hike from the description in a 10-year-old book (or 60 years, if you live in your parents’ home). I’ve grown accustomed to up-to-the-day information about trail conditions, snow and wildflower status. It sounded like a great hike, though, and it was to be a beautiful day. And it was the first day of my 67th year; an adventurous spirit was called for on this of all days.

Isn’t not knowing where the road will take you the very definition of adventure? What twists, turns, redirection, and road blocks might reach out to meet and challenge you? This day, as it turned out, would meet the criteria.

The day before the day, a friend dropped off a birthday gift that included a gift card for my favorite adventure latte coffee kiosk! Sweet!

On the way down the hill at 6am (30 minutes behind my hoped for start time), a dear friend from Raleigh calls. I pull into the drive of Avenue Espresso, but not up to the window, to finish chatting with her. When I get to the window, the barista has my 16-oz-extra-hot latte, ready to hand me. I feel known and special. The day is off to a great start!

The forecast is for a hot day, and I’m eager to get to the trail ahead of the heat, so I take I-5 south to Hwy 12 rather than the more scenic route. I must say, I love the interstate’s 20 miles either side of Centralia where the sun rises with Mt. Rainier driving north and St. Helen’s driving south.

Mayfield Lake bridge

US Hwy 12 is a deadly stretch of two-lane, for no real reason other than cocky drivers on the long straightaways through the verdant valleys of Lewis County. But it’s one of my favorites. The long bridge across Mayfield Lake—a major water source for the area—the strawberry and blueberry fields, the now fallow fields of the DeGoede Bulb Farm, taciturn cows munching breakfast, the misty foothills in the distance and peek-a-boo Rainier.

Addicted to my camera, I take a play from a friend’s book and see what I see through the lens without the lens, forming word pictures in my head. It’s harder not to write down the words than it is to let go of the desire to take a picture while I’m driving (see previous paragraph about cocky drivers).

The clouds look like the uneven patches of lettuce in my garden, then morph into more neat even rows like my overachieving friend’s garden. (Next year I’m going to have neat even rows.) There are three bent pickers with wide-brimmed hats in the vast strawberry field. I feel their pain. Commercial strawberry picking is hard work. I did it for three days in junior high, then quit getting up to catch the bus to the field. It’s a lesson in concentrating on what is right in front of you and not looking too far into the overwhelming future. We live this life one day—or one strawberry—at a time.

This is the first year ever my mother, who was there to hear my borning cry, hasn’t told me happy birthday I realize with a stomach-clenching, eye-watering jolt. I play it in my head: “Happy birthday, my smiling daughter!” I hope she has forgiven me for asking her to stop calling me that. I haven’t forgiven myself.

I turn off the highway at Randle and a mile down the road take the left fork into the Gifford Pinchot. The right fork goes to the east side of Mt. St. Helens and is still closed by snow on the road. I’m immediately plunged into the forest with bouncing brooks, roadside waterfalls, primitive road surfaces. Where the road narrows, the vegetation leans into the single (but paved!) wavy lane. It could use a good buzz cut.

I chose the Gifford Pinchot for the day because I want to check out the sight-unseen campground at which I have a site reserved for next month. I decide to save it for after the hike. I miss the cut off to the road to the trail and turn around in the middle of the road.

Five miles on this? My initial skepticism about this choice of hike returns.

Barely a 10 of a mile in though, my plans for the day change. No wonder there were no trip reports. Why the WTA had no alerts is more puzzling. I was not prepared to add ten RT miles to the hike, especially with no trip reports. I’m adventurous, but I’ve never been foolhardy.

There’s not really a place to turn around, and I am not a good backer. I move a large rock out of the way, then maneuver Flutterby up the berm on one side and jockey her around and head back out to the paved road. I don’t want to go back to the campground yet, so I decide to go to Trout Lake, thirty some miles on down the road; reigning monarch: Mt. Adams. I’ve been on the road it’s on before, when I camped at Takhlakh Lake in 2013, but I hadn’t been to the lake.

Flutterby is turning out to be a good adventure partner, and we soldier on as the odometer hits a milestone.

I continue on Forest Road 23 through where the Pacific Crest Trail crosses the road, and see two women in the shade next to a bridge, their large packs beside them. I vaguely wonder if they want a ride somewhere, but they don’t move so I drive on.

Ahead of me I see two more people who had been sitting near the road with their packs, scramble to their feet. Briefly the man sticks out his thumb. I drive by then see his hand drop in my rear view mirror, not sure it was really up. I put on my brakes and back up, knowing that even as I do so without really making a conscience decision to pick them up, I am committing myself. A man and a woman, they don’t look like ax murderers.

They hustle up to the car. I power down my window, not really believing I am doing this. But it’s an adventure, right?

“Is this the right direction to Trout Lake?” he asks.

“I think so,” I hesitate. Is it? Yes, of course it is, but maybe I don’t want to fully commit.

“Great. Thanks,” he says, they look both relieved and crestfallen as they back away.

“Do you want…” I say.

“Can we get…” he says turning with resolve back toward the car.

“A ride?” we say in unison.

Oh my god. I’m picking up hitchhikers.

“I’ve never in my life picked up a hitchhiker,” I say through the window. “But you don’t look like ax murders.”

“I’ve never in my life hitchhiked,” he says.”

“We’re definitely not ax murderers,” she says. “I was hoping you weren’t.”

“I’m definitely not,” I say. “It’s my birthday, and it seems made for adventure.”

They are effusively grateful as they put their packs in Flutterby’s roomy rear and climb into the seat. They were hiking the PCT from Walput Lake to Mt. Hood while their boys toured Europe. (They don’t look old enough to have boys touring Europe. A fourth grade field trip maybe?) They kept getting thwarted by snow, and like Cheryl Strayed were a bit unprepared with no snow cleats and not enough food for as long as it was taking. Two days (three?) to go 18 miles, during which they saw three people. Crossing snow-covered rivers, not knowing the first was a river until they saw the “DANGER” sign on the other side, hearing water rushing under their feet as the crossed the other.

They finally gave it up and were going to the Trout Lake café where his parents would drive them to another part of the trail. Their feet were burning and they had just taken off their shoes when they heard Flutterby coming on the not-well-traveled road and slammed their shoes back on jumped up, grabbing their packs.

“He told me to stick my thumb out,” she said. “I told him I’m not sticking my thumb out! And no one is going to pick us up!”

I save them ten boot miles to Trout Lake. I am really loving how this day is turning out. I didn’t get my hike, but I rescued desperate hikers. Best. Birthday. Ever.

“Where are you from?” I ask.

“Chehalis,” they say. Five miles from where I’m from.

I go into the cafe for directions to the lake. When I come out Trisha hands me $20.

“Happy birthday!” she says. “Get some lunch on us.”

“Thank you so, so much,” Shawn says.

I go to Trout Lake. It barely qualifies as a lake, more of a wetland. I don’t stay.

I ask about hikes in the ranger station then decide not to go on a hike. I return to the café and sit outside with lunch. I had been wishing I had packed more than granola bars—and I’m not entirely sure why I didn’t. And then lunch came to me.

Drama queen

I visit my favorite place in all the land—Takhlakh Lake—dreaming of my stay there in September. I haven’t been back because of a road washout they didn’t fix for two years (and a forest fire in the area the year before that). Not only have they repaired the breach, but the road has been improved from the bone jarring washboard and axle clunking potholes.

My home for four nights in September. I picked a good one. Presumably the new table will not be in the tent pad by then.

I promised myself a rubber boat next time I came. I better get on that.

Flutterby’s first snow.

I stop at the July campground before turning toward home; it’s the worst I’ve ever seen. When I get home, I cancel the reservation, losing $20—$20 in, $20 out. I’m looking for a new destination, and I had done so well getting an early reservation.

All in all, not a misadventure at all. It was just what it was meant to be.

Happy Solstice! Here’s to another trip around the sun. My mother has been gone for two months today, it seems longer; my father for 23 years, also today. My sister says I’m a story gatherer. Christina Baldwin uses the term Storycatcher in her book of the same name. I am gathering my family’s stories and catching my own. I love sharing them with you; mostly I love writing them.

Cheers, Mama. Thanks for borning me.

Homeward bound.

Adventure Log: Mount Zion

16 Saturday Jun 2018

Posted by Gretchen Staebler in Adventure Log, writingdownthestory in Photograph

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

#adventurelog, Adventure Log, Hood Canal, Mt. Zion, Olympic National Forest, Olympic Peninsula, Olympic Peninsula hikes, rhododendron, rhododendron hikes, solo hiking, Washington Trails Association, wildflower hikes

It was a long week. My mother’s memorial service was Saturday and there were guests in the house for a week. When everyone left, I knew I would have to turn my attention to the abandoned house and garden projects. I needed a break, so I took a friend up on her offer of the family vacation spot on Hood Canal, offered when my mother died six weeks ago.

The weather wasn’t great so I just did what my body told me it needed: three naps in one day. But before I left for home, I went to Mount Zion.

The hike in the Olympic National Forest just north of Quilcene has been on My Backpack list on the Washington Trails Association site for a long time. It’s claim to fame is rhododendrons and I’ve been waiting for them to be in bloom. There hasn’t been a WTA trip report since mid-May, when they were not blooming yet.

It was an overcast day, and I’m a fair weather hiker, but I was halfway there from home, so I decided to go for it. It was the rhodies that was the draw after all, not views.

The trail head is 10.5 upward miles of Forest Service road from Hwy 101. The potholes weren’t too bad; Flutterby took them with ease. I saw no other cars as I climbed into the clouds. I did start seeing rhododendrons along the road though, a good sign. But I was feeling increasingly isolated, and I had forgotten to tell my sister where I was going. “Maybe,” I thought, “I’ll just go to the end of the road, eat my lunch, and head back down.”

But when I arrived, there was a car in the lot! It never occurred to me that the sole party on the trail might be an ax murderer, because I don’t think that way. I just knew I wouldn’t be alone. The long-abandoned pickup truck hanging off the edge of the parking area was a little ominous, I admit.

I suited up: boots (I’d forgotten my boot socks, only had shorties and wasn’t sure how that would work), knee straps, poles, driver’s license in case my comatose body needed to be ID’d, and camel pack and headed across the road to the trail head. It was chilly. I have never taken my jacket on a hike, but I left it on. As it turned out, I never took it off.

Of course the trailhead signage included the cougar warning and what to do in a rare sighting. Tell that to the hiker who was killed by one a few weeks ago, a story I chose not to read. I took my newly acquired can of bear spray out of my pack and put it in my pocket.

There were rhodies right away! And, true to the WTA report, the trail headed “up” right away. It’s a short hike, just 2.3 miles to summit—another half mile if you go beyond to a vista overlooking Puget Sound, the Olympic mountains, Mt. Baker—with a 1300 foot elevation gain. People use it for quick workout, the WTA says. People are nuts.

Did I mention it was chilly and damp? Mist hanging about in the dripping-lichen trees. And quiet; very, very quiet. “Maybe,” I thought,” I’ll just go for a little ways, then turn around.” But the rhodies were oh so pretty next to the trail and through the trees, just short of prime with some still-closed buds. My feet kept walking. “I’ll turn around a half hour in,” I thought.

I came upon a view point over the valley, but low hanging clouds obscured the horizon. Maybe it was the damp—I’m used to sunny hikes—that gave it a creepy vibe. I started thinking about cougars, forgetting the part about how rare it is to see one. And where was that other hiking party? I started thinking about ax murderers.

I checked my watch. The half hour had passed. It really wasn’t as steep a trail as I’d anticipated; I’ve been on far more strenuous. The socks were good, my knees were good (they’ve been bothering me a bit lately). And it really was pretty. Lots of rhododendrons. “Okay, I’ll turn around at the one hour mark,” I promised myself. I’m not a quitter when it comes to hiking. And I was feeling a little less uneasy.

Then I heard them. Voices. I rounded a corner, hoping not to startle them. My bear bell was tinkling, but it’s not very loud.

Two young women. Not ax murderers! We chatted. I asked them if it was much farther to the summit, said I had never been anxious hiking alone, but was a bit today, thinking about turning back. They said I was brave, and agreed that the weather cast a bit of a creep factor. “It’s not much farther at all!” they said. “The rhodies are beautiful. There’s not much view, but the shifting clouds are pretty. Maybe it will clear for you.”

Their “not much farther” and my “not much farther” are different. But I arrived. I did not use the outhouse. I walked most of the way out the point, beyond the summit. The rhodies at the top were short of prime, another week maybe, but beautiful in the mist.

There was going to be no view though, so I finally turned back. I’ll have to come again in the sun for the view. But this time, there were rhododendrons.

The parking lot was empty when I got back to Flutterby. And I met no one on the road going down. I was very glad not to have to worry about my car breaking down. When I got to the highway I started breathing again. I think I’ll stick to sunny day hiking.

Adventure Log: Hamilton Mountain

24 Thursday May 2018

Posted by Gretchen Staebler in Adventure Log, writingdownthestory in Photograph

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

#adventurelog, #ilovewhereilive, Adventure Log, Bonneville Dam, Columbia Gorge, Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area, Columbia River, Hamilton Mountain, Hardy Creek Trail, Pool of the Winds, Rodney Falls, Washington Trails Association, Writing Down the Story

Where the heck is Hamilton Mountain, you may be asking. Even if you live in Washington, you are probably wondering. It’s high above the Columbia River Gorge, that’s where. It was my first hike in the area. Though not my usual wildflower meadow, far from the madding crowd fare, it is pretty darn spectacular.

I spent way too much time on the Washington Trails Association website (WTA.org) over the weekend trying to find an adventure that wasn’t still under snow pack or too far away. I can’t bring myself to drive north on I-5 for a day trip to the Central Cascades. Those treks need to be planned with an overnight with the Littles. And I do need to schedule another camping trip for more exploration of the North Cascades. Anyhoo, trails I haven’t been on that I think my almost 67-year-old body can manage are getting scarce down in the South Cascades, and it’s too early for those I want to return to. I’ve got one in the Olympics waiting in the wings for when the rhododendrons are in bloom there. Maybe next week.

I just haven’t been interested in the Gorge, but I was down to the wire Sunday night: I needed a destination. What the heck, I decided to go for it.

I headed out in the fog after a 5:30 latte stop. I love the early pre-sun fog that is often present for a few miles north and south of Centralia. On Tuesday the beautiful and mysterious mist drifted above the ground while the sun sneaked up through it; the diffused light taking my breath away.

I was feeling pretty virtuous about my early departure, aiming to do this hike that has a 2000 foot elevation gain in under 4 miles before the heat reached the predicted 80 something degrees. I overlooked the fact that the 5:30 departure would put me in Vancouver at 7:15 in heavy traffic. I was on the trail a bit after 8, though, so all good.

The trail begins at Beacon Rock State Park and ascends quickly through a conifer forest.

The WTA’s first suggestion is to skip Hardy Falls—have to climb back up from the spur and vegetation mostly hides it anyway—and go on to the upper and middle Rodney Falls and Pool of the Winds. The middle falls are magnificent with their own switchback path down the precipice! But I missed the upper falls and the pool on the way up, not quite understanding the trail configuration, so you will have to wait for that.

At the intersection of the loop, the WTA suggests doing it counter clockwise, going up the Hamilton Mt. trail (“more difficult”) and returning on the Hardy Creek trail (“difficult”). Great. The up is shorter and steeper, but the longer Hardy Creek stretch is easier on the knees coming down. I am a direction follower when it comes to suggestions from the WTA. Turns out there are also many views of the mighty Columbia, the frothing Bonneville Dam (and all the buildings and roads associated with a major power plant and Interstate 85 on the other side of the river), and the tip of Mt. Hood on the Hamilton side to distract you from the switchbacking climb. Smart, that WTA.

It was odd to be high in the wilderness and in view of so much civilization. That’s probably why the Gorge has never risen to the top of my list of places to hike.

One scary rock outcropping almost sent me home; but I shoved my poles up onto the trail above and held onto rocks, watching and testing every spot I put my feet, trying to keep breathing. As usual, I forgot to take a photo, so busy taming my panic. At the top of the mountain, when Rainier joined the choir and (I think) St. Helens was hiding behind a cloud, a couple about my age from Lake Tahoe commented on the beauty of the trail, “but there was that one scary part,” the woman said. It’s not just me. I suppose those millennials who passed me running, both up and down—who clearly have a death wish—just jumped up it.

I carried my mother with me, imagining her asking me what flowers were blooming. Lots, as it turns out. I don’t know all their names, but I tried to name them for her as we walked: paintbrush, chocolate lily, asters, twin flower, spring beauty, Solomon seal (real, not false), coreopsis, columbine, thimble berry, bleeding heart. And several I don’t know the names of, but I want to.

And shadow-casting water striders in Hardy Creek where I sat on a rock and ate my late lunch.

The highlight of the hike was a return to the falls on the descent when I decided at the last second, however tired and ready to be done I was, to climb up and see what the unsigned spur above the falls went to.

It was jaw-dropping, as the mist from the thundering drop of upper Rodney Falls, even slowed by a log in the funnel through the rock, sprayed my hot face as it hit the all-but-secret pool. I wondered how many hikers miss it altogether.

(My camera—and limited skills—couldn’t capture it; here’s a video, though even it doesn’t do justice.)

The heat caught up to me the last mile or so. The people just starting out at 2:00 were a little bit nuts, in my opinion.

The thing about traveling south, there is a fresh fruit smoothie reward at Burgerville in Camus. And the last treat of the day? Ibuprofen.

Adventure Log: Ruby Beach

05 Tuesday Sep 2017

Posted by Gretchen Staebler in Adventure Log, writingdownthestory in Essay, writingdownthestory in Photograph

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

anemone, cairns, Fourth Beach, inukshuk, Lake Quinault, Olympic Peninsula, Ruby Beach, sea stacks, sea stars, Washington Trails Association

As I drive west today, away from the source of the smoke that is blanketing the Pacific Northwest, if not away from smoke itself, I recall my promise to myself early in August to get to my beloved Ruby Beach before I hang up my adventure shoes for the season. I needed to redeem the disappointment of Oregon’s Cannon Beach. (I’ll get back to “not my mountains” tomorrow, the other Oregon disappointment.)

Plan A for today had been Paradise, but it is not paradise there today. I don’t have a Plan B at 5:30am. All dressed up and nowhere to go. There’s no point in going anywhere in the Cascades or the Gifford Pinchot; while Texas floods, we’re on fire in this corner. That leaves the Olympics. Such a wealth of options in these parts.

I check “My Backpack”—saved-for-later hikes—on the Washington Trails Association website (big shout out to that organization). Marmot Pass is a possible, but I decide it needs 1) flowers, and 2) no smoke. Next summer for that one.

The beach! The beach. Have I mentioned I’m not really a beach person? It occurs to me that I could stay home and make applesauce. But I’m committed to my weekly adventures; soon the rains will start—I hope. A friend is staying in a cabin at Lake Quinault, I could stop and see her on the way back. Okay. I repack my knapsack for the new plan and take off for the coffee kiosk. I’m almost to the coast when I remember my earlier promise for beach redemption.

I know it isn’t going to be a blue sky day, in spite of a forecast of 90 degrees (which is ridiculous at a far north beach). The sun glows red through the haze that completely obliterates the sky and the mountain tops, but keeps the temperature pleasant.

I whiz past Kalaloch, my parents’ favorite beach, and stop at Fourth Beach to see if I can get to the pools in the rocks and their sea life before the incoming tide covers them. I rarely get here at low tide, the problem with day trips. Though I find only one sea star (perhaps they are already submerged), there are many green, yellow, and pink anemone. I love the rocks and patterns at this beach. Each beach along the upper coast of the Peninsula holds a different gift.

I drive the last few miles to Ruby Beach, my favorite on this wild coast line. I take only ONE photo from the iconic overlook at the edge of the parking lot (and another from half way down the trail). There is no shortage in this house and on my computer of photos of this view taken by multiple photographers and featuring multiple family members and guests over the decades.

I note the bumper crop of drift logs this year. A bridge across the fresh water creek in which both I and my sisters and my children have floated on logs (looking forward to my grandchildren continuing the fun), is the most elaborate I have ever seen in my decades of visiting this beach. I don’t use it, it looks a little sketchy. There are so many logs in the creek, it’s the easiest ever crossing.

And the most amazing fort I have ever seen! An architect and pals must have been here earlier in the summer. I want to move in.

I walk the beach in both directions—sometimes on the logs, remembering our childhood game of seeing how far we could go without stepping off a log—photographing the sea stacks, watching waves break against the rocks, and making cairns (inukshuks) on a log, I wonder why, in all the searches at this beach for perfect round stones in my childhood, we never engaged in this art form! Or do I just not remember?

I love this beach. Given all there is to do here, I don’t wonder at how I never cared to go to Atlantic beaches (or the one I visited in Oregon). And still, my beach attention span is short here too. After an hour, I’m ready to head inland.

As I drive back to Lake Quinault, I marvel as I do every time I’m here at this unique place where the forest meets the sea, and 45 minutes inland is the rain forest. A few gravel miles from the end of the lake are the trail heads into the mountains. Is there any other place like this on the planet? And how is it that I get to live here? I am beyond lucky.

Adventure Log: Indian Henry’s

01 Tuesday Aug 2017

Posted by Gretchen Staebler in Adventure Log, writingdownthestory in Photograph

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

alpine flowers, Cheryl Strayed, hiking alone, hiking in the PNW, Indian Henry's, Kautz Creek, Longmire, Mirror Lakes, Mt. Rainier, Mt. Rainier National Park, Washington Trails Association

I may not pass this way again, but when I am old and living in the home, this is the day, this is the place I most hope to remember. And if my brain forgets, surely my heart and soul will hold it always.

Destination from the highway.

The hike from Longmire to Indian Henry’s Hunting Ground—so named for a Native American mountain guide who lived in the still-existing cabin (or so I thought, but now I realize it was built as a patrol cabin, the year my mother was born and on the National Register of Historic Places since 1991)—was a real butt-kick for this 65-year-old. It is the most strenuous, and at nearly 14 miles round trip the longest, hike I have tackled to date, and with the most elevation gain at 3200 feet.

I was on the trail at 8:30, an hour later than I had hoped on a day that was to reach 87 degrees at the mountain: a bit of a late start, phone communications at Morton before I lost contact for the day, 20 minutes of road construction delay at Mineral, donning knee straps and bunion guards, bathroom, stopping in at the ranger station to make sure of the route.

Very shortly into the hike, the trail begins its relentless climb, sometimes with switch-backs and lots of steps (which I find most difficult) for the first two miles. Oddly, I took no photos of the steps.

The tease before the climb.

I did the Rampart Ridge trail three years ago, coming to this point and turning right. I remember walking a bit to the left, wishing I could do more. Now I have. My new hydropack on its maiden adventure did great.

It levels out some then between the ups, before going steeply down to Kautz Creek (which is a river by most standards, at least in early summer, now a maze of fast creeks). And you know what down means: up on the return.

The river was interesting, necessitating several crossings of it and its tributaries, sometimes with a foot bridge and some rock hopping. There was also the path at the base of landslide area. (Just before I got there on the return, I heard what sounded like rolling rock or a falling tree, and arriving above the edge of the river, I saw a dust cloud very high up. Yikes.) And then a distance of boulder hopping with the route marked by a series of cairns, which I didn’t notice until I passed the last one. Oh, did I mention the trail follows a not-quite-dry creek bed part of the way? I followed the footprints of others, or I might have lost the path. Wilderness survival.

The trail is here. Somewhere.

After the river, yep, steep upshit again. What comes down must go up.

The trail is seven miles of the Wonderland Trail that circles the mountain. It was a dream of my father’s to hike the Wonderland. I thought of him often. I read that it is considered more strenuous mile-for-mile than the Pacific Crest. Take that, Cheryl Strayed. I figured I did two miles an hour going up, knocked off an hour or so coming back.

Three hours in, Devil’s Dream Camp, with a toilet! And a bear pole. I was almost there.

The ranger at Longmire had given me a map. She wrote “Devil’s Dream Camp” on it. The next point on the map is an arrow pointing to Indian Henry’s. Not specific enough for me, as it turned out. I hiked on.

Finally I arrived at a small meadow, and a hint of the mountain. I walked on.

Another meadow, bigger. This might be it. Nice, not Spray Park, but sweet. But wait, where’s the cabin? Maybe this isn’t the destination? I should have paid more attention to the trip logs and photos. I walked on.

Finally, I came to a pond-filled meadow. It snatched my breath away, such enchantment! That Indian Henry was a lucky dude. I couldn’t imagine a more beautiful place. (The photos are just not enough to convey.)

I slowly traversed the trail past the lakes, Mirror Lakes as it turns out, stopping several times to drink in the extravagant beauty with its crystal clear waters. But there was still no cabin; could there possibly be more? It seemed hardly possible.

I ate my lunch on a rock next to water tumbling over small boulders. I swear what went through my head was that it was like a Hollywood set: too perfectly perfect to be real. I hope it doesn’t sound snobbish if I admit that the fact the vast majority of the population will never see this, made it even more attractive. I know how lucky I am: lucky to live here, lucky that my body allows me to stretch it this far, lucky that my parents instilled love for the wild places. I told myself over and over, “Someday you won’t be able to do this. But right now, this is the moment. You are here. Remember.”

As I sat, I imagined the meadow in three months, covered in snow, silent. So, so silent.

I walked on. Another meadow. No cabin. Kept going. Another meadow. No cabin. I was getting confused. Really should have paid more attention to the WTA website. I climbed up out of there, through a bit of woods and bear grass, into yet another meadow. No cabin.

I walked on in search of the elusive cabin. Thank goodness I knew to look for it, at least. I could tell from the open sky beyond the next copse there might be another meadow. It was more up, more darn steps. I really wanted that one to be it, prayed it would be; I was tired. It was a bigger meadow; so beautiful! I really thought this one was it and I just couldn’t see the cabin.

But I had to be sure. I knew I would flagellate myself if I got home and found I hadn’t gone far enough.

I continued across the meadow and up a rise, imagining Julie Andrews and the helicopter-toting camera swooping up the mountain and over the top into the magnificent vista. I could feel it, something was coming.

I topped the open-meadow hill, through the lupine and paintbrush and abundance of the Sitka valerian. What a tease. More meadow. More trees. A gateway, as it turned out.

Oh. My. Goddess. I stopped. And stared. And wept. And whispered the best prayer I know: “Thank you.” Here was the meadow. Here was the blue canopy sky. Here were more flowers than I thought possible. Here was Herself in full glory.

There was the cabin.

There were also the bugs. I had applied repellent and left it in the car. Mistake, especially since I had long sleeves on then. If the cost of admission was a tablespoon of blood, though, it was well under-priced.

I sat on the cabin porch, discovered another toilet up the hill in back, with a lovely view out the door, wandered to the edge of the meadow until it started down, overlooking another meadow.

I wished I never had to leave. The ranger was away, the shutters locked, but couldn’t I just stay there? Forever? There was firewood.

I don’t know if I will do this hike again: so many hikes, so little time. And it was really hard. But, like childbirth, you kind of forget when the payout is so great, so maybe I’ll return if body allows. And, by the way, thank you body.

A woman in the meadow told me she had been there many times, and never had she seen such a floral show. Maybe I don’t want to go back; I just want to hold this one glorious day. Some things are best left alone in singular splendor.

And at the end: Base Camp Grill.

A few days ago someone wrote in the guest register on the cabin’s porch bench: “If Paradise is next door, surely this is heaven’s gate.” Amen. For the record, I was there. If this place is not in my heaven, I don’t need an afterlife.