From Wildfire to Burnt Toast: WA state backpacking

“What a psalm the storm was singing, and how fresh the smell of the washed earth and leaves, and how sweet the still small voices of the storm!” - John Muir

(Though I usually love John Muir quotes, upon the remembrance of this day his above quote made me want to throw him over a cliff)

Reading my journal entry for day seven brought back every emotion and frustration I felt on that day. Our guide book talked about fantastic views of the mountain reflecting in Aurora Lake and even of sunsets reflecting off the far away Puget Sound waters, we however, had to reach into the deepest reserves of our imaginations to picture those images through the thick whiteness that was all around.

The night before was quite a challenge. The bugs fought us for a dry place to stay and we fought them to keep the tent to ourselves. I wore my maroon woolen hat to bed and remember specifically being in that sweet zone of almost asleep when a drip of water fell directly into my ear. In a fit that was mixed with surprise and irritation I ended up slapping myself on the head pretty hard and after that sleep was quite evasive. I spent most of the night dodging drips that fell, once they condensed largely enough, from the tent ceiling. The rest of the night I spent mentally writing a customer review to the company that manufactured my tent (that night, I was only going to give it half a star of satisfaction, and that half star was only because I would have felt ungrateful for the previous nights when it worked just fine).

The morning couldn't come fast enough. When it did however, it was just as cold as the night had been. The one thing I did not splurge on to prepare for this trip was rain gear. Good rain gear is ridiculously expensive and I thought myself pretty thrifty to purchase a $6 poncho that, when folded, was no bigger than a deck of cards. That was my single biggest regret of this journey. I may as well been wearing a plastic birthday party table cloth covered with My Little Ponies....that is how ridiculous I felt.

'What Not to Wear' Mountain version.

Luckily, Emily had some decent, if not ideal rain gear, but there I sat in my extra-large poncho and shivered as I ate my warm oatmeal (I think residents of Western Washington should get a discount on rain gear). We were anxious to get on the trail just so we weren't sitting in the wet camp anymore. Our only reservation was having to pack up the wet tent. Yuck!! We grinned and bore with the circumstances, however, and soon we were ready to leave.

Right outside of camp we encountered a very narrow trail with high brush on both sides. This brush had been bathed in the previous nights rain and the air that morning was misty so hiking for the most part of the day was like walking through a car wash. The highlight of the day were the blueberry bushes we hiked through. The taste of those berries beat any I've ever eaten before! I'm not sure if it was because they were nurtured by the purity of the high alpine climate or if it was just that fresh foods had been lacking in our diet, but boy, were they delicious! We ended the nearly 8-mile day at Golden Lakes. But instead of finding a campground with breathtaking views (with the fog, we couldn't see a lake if it were five feet in front of us) we found the one closest to the toilet. The bugs began attacking us and we were in the tent by 2 pm.

Our waterproof boots were soaked (another customer review was formulating in my mind at this point) and my feet looked like they did when I was kid and would take a bath that lasted until I got tired of playing only to get out and find that my toes looked like little white raisins. We changed into the driest clothes we could find and climbed into our sleeping bags to get warm. I snuggled up and fell asleep listening to the sound of light rain tapping on the outside of the tent. I don't know how long I had been sleeping before the single-most mind changing event took place; I was rudely awoken by some very cold water from my Platypus reservoir leaking out underneath me in between my sleeping bag and my sleeping pad, and therefore soaking both the bag, the pad, and myself! That did it, I would be heading off the mountain the next day with Emily. At this point, I had no more dry clothes or shoes, not even a dry sleeping bag.

Freezing cold, my teeth chattered and I shivered in a desperate attempt to keep warm. A very true fear of hypothermia set in and I could do nothing but lie on my pad with the only dry part of my bag on top of me. Tears rolled down my face as I struggled with emotions of fear and frustration. Darkness fell upon us and as it grew colder we both worried all the more. Emily and I lie as closely as possible but my body still shivered..not a good sign. I credit my safety that night to Emily's quick thinking and her selfless acts of caring.

Boiling her own water on her portable stove she filled her Nalgene bottle with the hot water and gave it to me to hold closely, she filled another bottle for me to put down by my feet. This did the job of keeping me warm despite the fact that I was sleeping on a wet pad and had only portions of a dry sleeping bag. At some point we just had to surrender the night to God and let Him take care of us, and He did.

Brrr! Nothing like oatmeal on a cold, wet morning.

So thankful to have this girl with me up there!

There is beauty in every situation, sometimes in the most unlikely of all places.

Mt. Rainier from Reflection Lakes

I recently read back over my posts about this trip and loved recalling the beautiful scenery, the solitude, the absolute freshness of being in such a pristine place where the only 'taste' in the water is cold. When I read my journal entry for day four, however, I noticed a "slight" change of tone. This was the first paragraph in the Rite in the Rain spiral notebook that I brought with me,

"I want to be home!!! It's the end of day four and I can hardly walk....literally. I just got done popping seven blisters on my feet. I hobbled into camp barely able to hold myself together. Okay, I couldn't actually. I threw an all out tantrum when I couldn't hang my food from the bear pole."

I laugh at the memory now, but Emily can fully attest to the account of my negativity following day four's fourteen-mile hike.

I will tell of the day from the beginning so as to not start off on a sour note. We woke at 6 am with the intention of leaving by 7 o'clock. We knew we had the longest hike of our whole trip ahead of us, but we were excited because today was the day we would stop in Longmire and pick up our resupply items. We also planned on stopping at the restaurant there and getting a giant juicy burger with fries. I couldn't begin to tell you how good that sounded after days of eating mostly dehydrated foods.

Once more the weather was ideal. We packed up, ate a quick breakfast of whatever we could stomach. For me it was a landjaeger (German-style pepperoni stick) and a protein bar. Then we stopped by the creek on our way out of camp to purify water and fill our bottles and Platypus bags. We were on the trail by 7:20.

Leaving Maple Creek

Not five minutes into our hike we heard a loud growl nearby in the woods just off the trail. I stopped quickly and turned to Emily thinking maybe I was hearing things. "I heard that too," she said before I even spoke a word. We hurried along the brushy path. The scenery changed frequently from the picturesque Sylvia Falls which was framed by a mossy forest to berry patches (unripe berries, it seemed we were just a few weeks too early for prime berry picking) to river banks where parts of the trail were pretty sketchy from the complete destruction and rebuilding following the devastating floods of 2006.

Here the trail consisted of loose rocks and wobbly pebbles (come to think of it, those two things are the same, oh well), but soon it spit us out onto a section of freshly laid pavement, with the smell of tar assaulting our senses. We crossed the road and dipped back onto a more natural feeling gravelly section of the trail. After continuing for almost a mile we came to the first and largest of the Reflection Lakes, Louise Lake. We saw a lot of people here taking pictures of the mirror-like lake with Mt. Rainier directly behind. We stopped and took a few pictures ourselves and forced smiles as a rather obnoxious group of adults asked us to take their pictures.

You can see here the growing irritation in my face.

In another half-mile or so we reached an area where we had to walk along the road for at least .5 miles. The funny thing is .5 miles to me now sounds like nothing. But the same amount of distance in the mountains with blistered feet can seem like forever. I remember thinking to myself, "Look at all these people with so much energy. They walk with such ease! I wonder what that feels like." I even felt myself becoming irritated at their smiles as the blisters on my feet were more prominent than ever while walking on the pavement.

I was amazed at my stamina throughout the trip, though. I was never overly exhausted. My body never became sore. My legs felt stronger each day. It was my feet that seemed to fail me. Just as when my feet are cold, my whole body is cold; when my feet hurt, so did my mental attitude, and my feet were hurting!

We passed several other lakes with many people "ooh-ing" and "aah-ing" over them, but we just wanted to get to Longmire. Once we were back in the woods and out of sight of the crowd we came to a series of gentle switchbacks. We opted to skip the opportunity to see Narada Falls which would have added another .4 miles to our already long journey. We had both seen it before and our feet were screaming, "You see one falls, you've seen 'em all!"

We passed Paradise River Camp and knew then that we had "only" 3.8 miles to go before reaching Longmire...and "only" 3.7 beyond that to Pyramid Creek where we would camp for the night. The farther we hiked the more hopeful we became as the trail widened and day hikers became more prevalent. Still, though, those 3.7 miles dragged on and on. Finally, we could see the Wilderness Information Center where our food was cached and the other buildings, including National Park Inn where we would enjoy our fresh, hot meal.

Business first. We got our cache from the rangers and switched the food that we could no longer bear the thought of eating (specifically any dehydrated breakfast meal). I also cached an extra roll of toilet paper which I stuffed in my pack. From there we walked into the National Park Inn and stood there; dirty and stinky and wearing our backpacks. After standing there awhile, a kindly looking woman came over and asked if she could help us. "I need food!" I literally blurted out. At this point in the game my tact was no longer intact.

The restaurant wasn't the hiker/climber hang-out as I expected. It was more retreat-like with many older people looking to "get away" from the noise of the city. It was a place where people looked out their windows and gazed at the flower-filled meadows and large trees and perhaps an occasional deer passing through. We felt out of place but with our tired and hurting feet, together with our appetite for fresh food, we would have been fine had we walked in on a black tie event.

Dinner was excellent. We ate slowly, and savored every bite. All too soon we were finished and it was time to get back out on the trail. Not before stopping at the "little girl's room", however. I have to add a little TMI (too much information) here because the story of the day just wouldn't be complete without it. So I invite any gentlemen who might read this to please skip ahead a paragraph.

I must say I have been very poop shy out in the woods. The trees and outhouses just weren't cutting it for me. At Longmire, however, things changed. Emily and I thought we were the only ones in the small restroom and there was no background music. So when my shyness ended I breathed a sigh of relief. "Lucky!" said Emily from the other stall. "Hey, I've been waiting four days for that!" I replied. We laughed and silence fell on us once again. "I wish there was some background music in here," I said as we continued our business. "Maybe I will just step out and give you two some privacy," came an elderly voice from outside the stalls. What!? We weren't alone?? As we heard the door close we laughed so hard we cried and then wondered how we could leave without making eye contact with the poor old lady. It was the comic relief we needed on this long and difficult day, the last stretch would be torture.

My feet ached from all the blisters and the steep uphill after leaving Longmire was almost more than I could take. As we hiked, silence filled the air as we each struggled inwardly with different weaknesses. The trail took a downward dive and spit us out at Kautz Creek.

At Kautz Creek you can see the damage from the floods of 2006.

This area was heavily hit with mudflows in the flooding of 2006. The damage was impressive and could still be seen seven years later. At the time the trail was wiped out and the existing trail felt freshly made. It was sandy and hard to distinguish in some places. I knew at this point that we were close to camp but I felt I had reached a point where I could go no longer unless I stopped to take my boots off. So far in all of our hiking our boots didn't come off until we got to camp, but my feet were screaming. I soaked them in the freezing cold water of Kautz Creek for 5-10 minutes then laced them back up and, out of sheer willpower, forced myself to go on.

In twenty minutes we reached Pyramid Creek Campground. It was small, but we wasted no time setting up our tent, blowing up our air mattresses, and pulling out our sleeping bags. I was at the end of my rope at this point and the aforementioned tantrum was imminent. It began when I tried to hang my food on the bear pole. I must have been pretty weak because it seemed like an impossible task to me. Some of the poles you use to get the food up there with were bent and quite difficult to the average person, but to the person on the verge of losing it, it was beyond imaginable. I hobbled back to camp threw my food in the tent and said in a voice that I'm sure I learned from my seven-year old, "I can't do it! I don't care if the bears try to eat my food, Let them!"

Then, because the bugs were out in full force, I dug through my backpack to find the bug spray. I sprayed one arm before I used it all up. A moment of panic set in as I realized I was helpless against an army of blood sucking flies and mosquitoes. I gave up and retreated to my 'bed', buried my face in my sleeping bag and allowed the tears of frustration to flow like the water of all the falls we had witnessed that day. The last lines in my journal sum up how I was feeling at that moment,

"I stink, I'm hairy, dirty and in severe pain. It's only day 4! How am I supposed to walk 50 more miles with these dang feet?!"

I remember being mad at my feet as though they weren't apart of me, but yet were failing me. Emily was the calm that got me through that day. She didn't say much. She let me have my childish fit but didn't indulge my negativity with added complaints....and she hung our food for us.

Before I went to bed, I popped all my blisters with a pocketknife that I sanitized by heating with the flame from my cooking stove. I don't know if all that was necessary but it worked. I doctored them up with some First Aid ointment and left them without bandages to heal overnight. I was in bed by 7:44 pm.

More Pictures from Day 4