The weather this week had been intent on killing us. Hiking day was our fourth day over 100 degrees in a row. The nights were not cooling off and it was just plain hot! But hiking day is hiking day, no matter what. I was thankful that the plan was to hike in a forest of giant trees which should shade us! This particular forest is also known for having lots of creeks, rivers and springs, so water shouldn't be a problem. It seemed the perfect solution to hiking in triple digits.
The drive to this week's hike was eerie however when we couldn't help but notice that every trailhead we drove by was empty. It was like an apocalypse of hikers. "Where was everyone in August?" I wondered. Since I love being alone, I counted the weather as a blessing to give us solitude. In fact, we wouldn't see another human for two days! I filled out my wilderness permit as usual at the trailhead and dropped it in the box as we hit the trail. Even though we were in the shade, it felt like walking in an oven. I was sweating before we had even started to walk and tried to ignore the bad omen of dehydration this presented. Within less than 2 tenths of a mile, I was finding my very favorite berry which certainly cheered my spirits in the heat. The wild red Huckleberry is a wonderful berry to behold! They are tart and sweet all at the same time. I ate them by the handfuls!
When we arrived at the first creek bed and found it dry to the bone, I knew we might be in trouble. This creek has always had water in it! The next, larger creek, was also just a dry canal of dirt and rock. The girls knew water was suppose to be in that depression and crawled into the dry bed to search for any moisture. It was nothing but dust. We had 5 liters of water between the 3 of us and were planning on hiking over 20 miles with over 35oo feet of elevation gain and spending the night on this 100 degree day. That goal would be impossible if we didn't find water! We had already gone through more than a half a liter in the first mile and a half. Discouragement filled my dry and cracking heart as I felt that there was no way we could get even more than 5 miles done at this rate! I asked myself if I was being crazy, which is generally a sign that I am. Nova was panting harder than a dog being hospitalized for heat stroke. I kept making her stop and try to cool. Due to the heat, she was not even wearing a sundress today. We would wait over 15 minutes, but she couldn't seem to cool down. I knew how she felt. Even the hot air felt like breathing in fire and it was burning our lungs. I told our leader, Josie the Wolf, that she had to slow down. Today would have to be a slow hike. When we finally arrived at a river with water in it, we all rejoiced, even though the water was clearly running low!
After drinking and cooling ourselves, and then refilling any water bottles that were low, we set off down the trail again. The forest was gorgeous through here. Huge evergreens were all around us, with the forest floor carpeted in ferns and berry bushes. I was mixing blueberries in with my red huckleberries now and even had an occasional salmonberry and blackberry to throw into the mix. It was a party in my mouth! The mix of firs, hemlocks and cedar trees seemed perfect, as if our creator had planted each one Himself; all with just the right spacing and number. Some were true giants and we had to stop to admire them and ponder at their age.
When giant beasts like this fall, we are particularly thankful for trail maintenance crews. Climbing over these giants with full packs is draining. But walking through the pathways cut, taking time to count their rings, is surely much easier.
The trail dropped us down into a deep ravine, losing over 300 feet of elevation in short order, before we climbed steeply back out of it. Again and again, we passed more dry creek beds. Even descending did not stop the extreme sweating from the heat! I don't think I have ever been so wet in my life....even standing in a shower would not have made me feel any wetter than what was happening just standing on the trail. It was miserable, I must admit. I would find myself leaning with my hand against a tree trunk gasping for air. It left like I was drowning.....as if there was not enough oxygen in the air to even breathe. I had to calculate my elevation again, feeling as if I was over 7000 feet where I generally start to feel the effects of oxygen deprivation. But that was not the case. Our goal today was a peak at just over 4200 feet of elevation. This was simply that the air was so hot and I was so overheated, that I could not breathe. I tried not to panic and focused on slowing our pace and our breathing. But it seemed that we were on auto-hike and could only slow ourselves for a few minutes, before our legs would take over and just start going at our normal pace. It was truly mind over matter to try to pace ourselves. How we longed to find another river to lay in! Before long, we could hear water running. We decided to bush-whack toward the sound and Josie immediately laid down in the creek bed as soon as we found it.
Again, we refilled our bottles. If we had any hope of backpacking today and not just having to turn around after a short day hike, we were going to have to be very intentional about cooling and refilling our water supplies. I splashed my face, arms, legs and neck every time we found water. I also splashed water all over Nova since she wouldn't lay down in the shallow waters like her sister. Josie knew what to do, and I let her lay there for the longest time as she soaked herself.
The trail at times just climbed steeply up ravines and at other times turned to switchbacks to quickly gain elevation. Other times there were actual steps built into the trail out of giant rocks and boulders because it was too steep for anything else. I felt as if I had been transported into the land of the lost and would surely come upon dinosaurs or at least Bigfoot as we traversed the steep trails among giant trees. As we ascended higher, the plants changed. Ferns traded out for bear grass in the tell tale sign of higher elevations. The canyons making up this wilderness are suppose to be full of bear, cougar, bobcats, and elk to name a few. We were surely in the land where the wild things are! But everyone save for a few chipmunks seemed to be laying low. Even the birds were barely moving today.
I think we were about 8 miles in when we hit one of our largest creeks and Josie once again laid down. She even decided to use a rock as a pillow in her new and glorious bed! She clearly never wanted to leave this spot. This hike had turned into one giant and nonstop search for water! I guess you know it is truly hot when your Arctic Wolf keeps turning water into her bed and acts like that is completely normal.
At this point, I started to feel hope that I might be able to make it to our destination and not have to hike back out due to heat and dehydration. But I also thought we were only a couple miles away from the peak we wanted to bivouac on. Sadly it turned out we had another 5 miles of climbing incredibly tight and steep switchbacks surely designed by satan himself and then had to weave in and out of deep forests intent on tricking us into constantly thinking we were almost there. At one point, I was convinced we must have meandered off onto the wrong trail system. I kept checking my map and trying to remember if there was any turn where we might have missed something. My miles were just not adding up to what I was expecting. I know we had explored some side trails, but we should have been there by now! As we passed through afternoon into evening, the fading light deep under the forest canopy made it difficult to read my maps, so I just shoved them in my pockets and kept moving. We would eventually find something I told myself. We just needed to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Going back now was out of the question! When we came to a viewpoint with a waterfall, I knew we were indeed on the trail I was suppose to be on! That was a great sign and filled me with joy! Even Nova seemed to feel the relief!
Before long, the trail gave me another reminder about how important it is to plant deep roots. I often hear God telling me to push my roots deeper....to strengthen my faith.....to push down within the deep well inside myself just as this very hike was forcing me to do. I can do more than I think I can I reminded myself through my exhaustion. This is part of why I love hiking so much, because I get to push myself outside of myself. I push myself beyond my comfort zone and get to a place where I can no longer think about the day to day concerns of life. I am all-in on the trail. The trail consumes me. This trail was consuming me like a wildfire for sure on this day! I needed endurance, determination and even some courage for this hike. This poor tree, did not learn the lesson of deep roots in time! "Don't let me be like this tree," I prayed.
After about 12 miles of hiking, I could tell we were losing the race with the sun and started to really pray in earnest that we would find the trail cut off to the peak soon. I could feel that we were close even into my bones. This never-ending trail had to end soon!
Eventually, as if he had just been sitting there all day waiting for us, there was the sign welcoming us to our final mile! Oh, the joy and relief. It was almost time to stop! At this point, I wasn't sure what I was looking forward to more. The ability to stop moving and rest or the ziploc bag of Ruffles potato chips I was going to eat for dinner. Yes, I know chips are not the dinner for champions.....but I only allow myself to eat anything I crave on hiking days and this is what I had wanted when I packed up! For the record it turned out I was so tired, I could barely eat my baggie of chips!
As we reached the peak, we all just stood there utterly gobsmacked! The views from this site, where a lookout tower once stood, were phenomenal. It was like looking out the window of an airplane. We were so high above all the trees and could see volcanoes surrounding us. There was Mt. St. Helens as close as ever! Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams were in a line right next to her. When we turned our heads to the south, we could see Mt. Hood as well. It was magical. But I couldn't linger long, as the sun was about to dip behind the horizon and it would be dark. So we worked to setup camp and dinner as quickly as we could. How I love a neat and tidy camp!
Miles the Marmot, our mascot friend from the Washington Trails Association's annual fundraiser popped up right at dinner time of course!
Miles hung out with us while we watched the sun set from our sleeping bag and light up the horizon at our feet with beautiful colors. Who wants to watch TV when they go to sleep I thought? There is surely no better view to send one to slumber than this! I once heard you are blessed if you see gold in the sky when you go to sleep or wake up. I guess we were surely blessed!
The night was strangely very warm. But at times the wind would pick up and chill us. So I played a game of putting on pants and a hoodie, then stripping them off, then climbing outside my sleeping bag to lay on top, then crawling back inside. It was a night of shivering and sweating and never quite knowing how to control our temperatures. But our bed was super comfortable and at one point I awoke with a start and had no idea where I was. I initially thought I was at home in bed, but one look around, told me that this was not the case. It took me some time to figure out where in the world I had ended up, which I think meant I was more dehydrated and exhausted than I thought! Those were a fun and exciting few minutes of my life! Luckily I did not have to go so far as to pull out my maps to figure out where I was!
It will not surprise you when I tell you that sunrise was just as beautiful as sunset. It started out just lighting up the entire horizon to our East. I couldn't quite tell where the sun would show herself first. The sky seemed light all the way between Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams, highlighting the craggy peaks filling that space. But eventually the sun peaked out just to the South of Adams. It was so much fun to watch from our sleeping bag!
Once the rays of the sun were reaching toward us with her long fingers, we could instantly feel the heat again. I couldn't believe I was already in just a tank top and shorts at 5am in the morning and was completely comfortable! This of course concerned me for the hike out today. We were almost bone dry on water after the long night and we needed to find the spring I had read about. Apparently the fire lookouts who lived in the tower that use to be in this very spot, got their water from a spring about a mile and a half way. I had directions on how to find the pipe coming out of the ground off on a side trail. That was going to be our first stop on our hike out. But first Nova and Miles decided to share a very sweet sunrise moment in their matching shirts.
Josie did not want to be left out of course and patiently waited for her turn to sit with Miles after breakfast while I worked on packing up camp. It has been so nice to see what good friends they have all made this month!
As usual I found it difficult to leave such a beautiful location, but knew we needed to hike hard and fast in the early morning hours before it got too warm again. We hiked north along the ridge now and searched for the spring. I overshot it by some ways, missing the overgrown cut off, but eventually turned back and found the cold spring pouring from the rusty pipe. It was the perfect place to take a bath and refill all our bottles. We would live another day! But not if the mosquitos had anything to say about it. We ended up running many miles of trail just to save ourselves from the worst of the onslaught! As we hiked, I ate my breakfast....surely one of the best ever for a hot hike. I had a giant fresh peach and a Rice Krispie treat! What could be better than that?? Someone needs to explain to me why and how food always tastes so much better when eaten outside! YUM! Also how do bees always know when you have fresh fruit and find you??
The hike out was all on new and unexplored trail. We were connecting several different hikes together to make a super long loop. Turned out the loop was far longer than even I had expecting. Initially I estimated our hike to be about 20 miles. In the end I clocked in at 24.7 miles. The way out sent us through an old forest fire, down into a swampy ravine and through miles of pungent maple and fern forests. I felt I was on a different planet from the hike I had done just the day before. Sadly the hike out did not have surviving signage, so I was once again questioning if I was really where I thought I was. The trail that was once again seemed never-ending, messed with my mind as we hiked mile after mile hoping for the best. It would have truly sucked to have to turn around and go back if I was wrong I thought....probably taking us to over 35 miles in the heat instead. But my instincts told me we were fine, and luckily they were right. Getting back to the truck with one waiting thermos of ice water and one waiting thermos of ice lemonade was truly a gift!! The little things mean so much to me on the trail!
I will end today's story with a few trail-side photos of the changing landscapes and my favorite sunrise silhouette! I hope you can find the time to watch a sunrise or sunset in the next week from where ever you may find yourself! I promise you it will be worth your time.
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