You win some and you lose some. That is always what I think about this particular August hike. I had read about another lookout tower. Yeah, I know! This one is open to the public, which is pretty much all I needed to hear to drop everything and make this my very next hike. The tower, which you can see in this photo, was originally built in the 1920s, but rebuilt in 1958. It sits on the edge of a cliff at almost 6000ft in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest. What I did not realize was how terrible the hike in would be. You cannot call that a trail by any sense of the imagination. There were some rutted dirt sections that would go so steeply uphill that you couldn’t walk with one foot in front of the other without breaking your ankles and actually had to walk with your feet sideways to make any progress. It was ridiculous. Have these people never heard of making switchbacks??? Switchbacks would have been such a luxury. I pretty much hated every second of that hike in. The battalion of mosquitos eating us alive from a pond on the trail did not help matters…. especially when the “trail” was so terrible that we couldn’t even run from the blood suckers. Most of the time we felt lost and that we were just meandering along hopelessly. Other than the murky pond where we left the truck, I knew this would be a dry hike, so I carried a LOT of water for the 3 of us to make it overnight. However I underestimated how much a wolf pup would drink on a hot day of desert hiking.
After many miserable hours, we made it to the lookout and my heart soared when I found it desolate with no one around. It is always my fear when hiking to a tower that someone else will be there first and I won’t get to spend the night in them! The tower was nice and clean on the inside, but most of the windows had been broken out and covered with either plywood or plexiglass. It would have been so much better with views from all sides, but at least I had her to myself I thought! We enjoyed watching an incredible sunset off that ridge with views west to Mt. Rainier. I remember my big fear that night was when I realized that since Josie was still not housebroken yet, and I had forgotten to pack her diapers with me, that she might have an accident. But luckily, she was an angel, and this was not an issue! What ended up startling us more was a huge marmot that jumped up on the catwalk and was staring at us through the window. He screamed and screamed at us and was intensely loud!! I tried to converse with him through the window, but it seemed that all he wanted to do was scream. Apparently, this was his land and his house.
What I did end up obsessing about all night long though was not my marmot friend, but how I could avoid going back out the way we came in. I just knew that with how impossible that route was to climb up, it would be even worse going down. Josie was still terrible at pulling at this time (and often still is), so I knew going down with her would kill me. There were a bunch of forest service roads in the area and I felt that surely I could find another route. I was kicking myself that I had not brought more in the way of maps of this area. The Okanogan and Wenatchee area is not one I generally hike in, so I didn’t have much in the way of maps, plus this trip was rather spur of the moment. I wished I had prepared better before coming here I thought. I, of course, had no cell phone, no GPS, no internet of any sort. I had nothing but a brief print out of this lookout tower and what I saw of roads on my climb up there. But as I lay there all night, I became convinced that I could hike those roads instead and, while it would probably be longer, I could make it out another, more pleasant, way. By this time in my hiking career, I had used pure instinct a hundred times on the trails for route finding and it had never steered me wrong. I was confident…. probably a little too confident. I needed to be knocked down a peg or two and God knew it.
The next morning, I found that Nova’s paw pads were trashed from the hike we had done the week (and day) before and so I ended up putting her in all 4 of her blue hiking boots for the adventure out. She was not thrilled. Josie’s pads never have any trouble luckily. We started walking those winding forest service roads for miles and miles. They would split and each time I would stand there and debate for what seemed like forever to decide which path to take. Generally, while we think it best to take the road less traveled, when it comes to trails, sticking to the more traveled ones works out best in the end. So that is mostly what I went with on these choices. It was August and when the sun was fully up out on that exposed dry desert landscape, the heat started to bake us fully. It was quickly almost 100 degrees and we were blowing through water at an alarming capacity. After about 10-12 miles of this, with no sign of getting anywhere, I pulled out the grapefruit I had packed for breakfast. The dogs declined sharing this with me, and it was all I ate for almost 24 hours. It was also almost the only liquid I had for a good 12 hours. I gave most of the water to the girls, but had to immensely ration even them. We got to the point when if they spotted shade….any shade, no matter how small……they insisted on laying in it not moving for as long as possible. We hiked and hiked for hours and hours. I got to the point of wishing I had just hiked out the way we had come in. At least I knew what to expect….misery yes, but I knew what it was. I also knew there was water in my truck. The unknown was undoing me after miles and miles of aimless wondering on dirt paths. If I am being honest, I also knew deep inside of myself that all this hiking was taking me in the opposite direction of my truck. I just kept hoping the road would turn when I dropped in enough elevation….but it never did.
Around the 13-mile mark, I remember thinking that if we turned around now and went back to the lookout, it would be a do-able 26 mile roundtrip day hike. This was my point of no return. This was my final decision….whatever I decided in this moment I would be fully committed to. All other options would cease. I knew that upon returning to the lookout we would not have a drop of water or hope of water and would need to spend another night. We would also have no further food as Josie is a big eater. I, at least, had a hope that we could find water ahead of us. I had hope that we could find a way to the truck before nightfall. But I am also very stubborn on the trail and hate to admit defeat. I know what that does inside of me. I feel like a piece of me dies each time I experience defeat. I would rather continue through all signs of danger and misery than turn around. This has gotten me into trouble many times on the trail, and I have yet to learn this lesson well. I did have a brief conversation with God and strong debating inside myself. Ultimately, I decided it best to continue into the unknown rather than turn around. Yes, I am sure pride was in that decision.
As we continued along one particular section of forest road, I suddenly saw a structure ahead. It was a fenced off tower with tiny building of some sort. I don’t know if it was a cell tower or some sort of electrical thing…..but I actually thought about breaking in to dismantle it thinking someone would then come to check it out and I would be rescued. Once again, a line from a movie popped in my head. That movie with Harrison Ford called Six days, Seven nights where he is stranded on an island after a plane crash. In the movie, they devise a plan to dismantle a beacon on the island’s peak in hope of being rescued. The female actress in that movie reminds Harrison that it took the city 2 years to fix the streetlamp outside her apartment. So alas, I moved on from the plan of sabotaging the structure I had found and just kept putting one foot in front of the other dusty foot. The sun was moving higher overhead and was literally baking our brain cells. I was very hot, but had long ago stopped sweating as I was dehydrating by the minute. None of us could even think of peeing we were so dry. In fact, I don’t think I peed for days after this hike because it took so long to get rehydrated. The dehydration headaches were intense on and after this one.
At one point, I distinctly remember praying with great fervency and I felt the Lord say to me……”I lift mine eyes up to the mountains, where does my help come from….my help comes from the Lord.” It was then that I relaxed…despite the intense heat, despite the rationing of food and water, despite the great, great thirst and fear welling up inside that we were really in trouble…..He had this under control and a plan was at work. My job was to keep moving. Okay I said, we will keep moving!! I only had the faith of a tiny mustard seed in that moment but counted on God moving mountains for me. I felt a new kinship to the Israelites from the Book of Exodus who wondered in the desert for 40 years waiting for the promised land. I hoped it would not be so long for my promised land! Then at around 19-20 miles, we finally heard something unusual after going around a bend and dropping in elevation. We all stopped to listen. That was fast moving traffic on a road!!! Hooray, I thought, we are saved. But we had to make it down to that road….which turned out to be a very busy and winding mountain pass.
Once there I knew I had no way of knowing where I was and how far I was from my truck. But my instinct told me I needed to head west and then south. My instincts were back on at least! The problem was this paved and curvy mountain pass had no shoulders at all and instead just guardrails over steep drops on both sides. There were blind corners everywhere and all the vehicles seemed to be Semitrucks and motorhomes driving at like 70 miles an hour. Hitchhiking was going to be very difficult, but I knew it was my only good option. You should have seen the faces of those drivers through those windshields when they would fly around a corner and see a woman with a dog in a tutu and boots and a wolf on the road in front of them. It was not fun for any of us I can tell you that. It was also not helping Josie with her anxiety issues. The worst part was when we got to a river crossing that was way too high to drop down to get any water (thirsty does not describe how we were feeling) with a very high skinny and long bridge crossing it. Of course, it was also uphill with no shoulder at all. I think that bridge spanned a half mile. I did not want to be on that bridge with the dogs when two semis would be coming from opposite directions. We waited until we couldn’t hear any traffic coming and then ran as fast as we could to get across that thing praying for no big rigs. I never recall my heart pounding more on any adventure than that bridge crossing! I will also remind you that asphalt on a 100-degree day in the full sun is not fun to walk on. Thank God for Nova’s boots I thought!! But then I thought the passing cars must really think I am nuts seeing her in her bright blue boots.
Once we crossed that bridge, I noticed there was a bit of a grassy shoulder on the opposite side of the road with a place to pull out up ahead. We darted across that road to get to the grass and the plan was to stand in the pull out and do our best shot at hitchhiking to get west. We were over 20 miles in of hiking that day and needed an alternate plan. I figured God would send me an angel if we just got up and stood in the shade with thumb out. The problem was that while it has never been an issue getting rides before with just Nova, I was not sure how a large nervous wolf standing on my left side with a gun clearly holstered on my right would affect our chances. Well, turns out I didn’t even need to wait. A large maroon SUV pulled over into that spot while we were still walking towards it. We were so far away still that I couldn’t imagine they had pulled over for us. But it turns out they had. As we approached, I watched the driver get out and rummage in the back of their vehicle and pull out some bottled water. Oh, how God had sent me an angel!! I smiled and thanked Him as we approached our angel.
Turns out my angel was a woman named Jennifer who reminded me a lot of my Aunt Grace. She had a little cute dog with her named Molly. After a brief conversation, Angel Jennifer didn’t balk at letting a very sweaty and dirty woman with gun, dog and wolf into her vehicle with Molly. She offered me not just water, but fresh cherries she had just purchased from Yakima’s fruit stands. It was surreal. She blasted the air conditioner for us, I think saving us all from hyperthermia. She drove us for probably 45 minutes to an hour to my truck……man I did not think I was that far away!! But we talked the whole time about several of my adventures and she was shocked I would do all these things alone. She repeatedly told me that I needed to start a blog to encourage others to do things like this, especially women. When we parted that day, she told me I had changed her life. She shared that she was a recently divorced single Mom who had moved across the country and was trying to find herself again. As she stated, she had found herself overweight and lost in life after the death of her Mom and the end of her marriage. Life never goes as planned, does it? I shared with her as much as I could and after we exchanged emails she later wrote to me about how her encounter with me inspired her to pull over and go for a dunk in the lake farther up that road….fully clothed and in front of anyone driving by!! I loved that! I had never felt like an inspiration to anyone and when she wrote to me about how much meeting me had meant to her and that I had given her more than she had given me (no way!!) I felt it would be wrong to not start to share more of myself with others if it could make a difference. So this is the very reason this blog you are reading is in existence. My hope is that it could inspire others like my angel Jennifer and most of all help others know about God in a more intimate way.
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