A sound recording device was what I really needed on this hike instead of a camera. To be honest, the sounds almost did me in! But I have to admit, it was a fun and memorable hike. It started out on a rainy day. All the weather reports indicated that the rain would end mid morning and the afternoon should be dry. So I stalled my start time to try to hit the trail rain free, knowing that I would be night hiking out. Once again this week, I didn't even need to think about what hike to go on. There was a new trail I had discovered by chance when driving by a road in the Gorge with a hikers sign pointing off in the distance. I had never taken note of this before and later poured through maps, books and online info to find it. The thing that fascinated me about this trail was that from what I could tell it was all below 2000-3000 feet of elevation, so was perfect for this snowy time of year. But even more exciting, it appeared to connect into another trail system I know and love well; although I could not be sure as information and maps were hard to find on this one. Since I had never explored this section, I was anxious to get out there and see what it was all about, hoping for a new favorite.
Upon our arrival, we were the only ones at the trailhead parking lot. We had driven through some rain squalls to get here, but they seemed to have stopped. Perfect, I thought, the rain will keep the riff-raff off the trails! Since it was the middle of March, and was expected to only be in the low 40's today, I had decided to drop some of my winter layers of clothing. I wore my lined snow pants, but without the additional leggings underneath. Then instead of my normal 6 winter layers on my upper body, I went down to only two! I wasn't sure how well that was going to go, so had extras in my pack just in case. But I was trying out a new special fleece hoodie that I had ordered from the UK for my birthday. It is made by and for adventurers by Thru-Dark and I fell in love with it on this hike. Not only did it thermo-regulate me incredibly well, but it was stupid comfortable. They had thought of everything with this thing too....thumb holes, the perfect hood that still gives you peripheral vision, pockets everywhere, a unique waffle fleece fabric that flexes and moves with you, and despite keeping me perfectly warm over just a tank top, it was very lightweight and breathable. It may not seem like a big deal, but when you are on the trail, having to wear a lot of layers can really slow you down and keep you from being as agile as you want and need to be. So this new black hoodie was making my entire day in the first mile! We weren't on the trail long before we came to a special little section of river in a mossy ravine that I could admire along with the hoodie that I kept fondling.
This is when the first strange sound of the day assaulted our ears. All three of us stopped in stunned silence trying to place the noise. When you are out in nature, unnatural sounds can be really eerie and hard to figure out what is happening. We looked at each other and up and down the ravine. I can't even describe the sound to you. But it made my heart drop down closer to my stomach as I tried to figure it out. All I could think of was that this is surely the sound I would expect to come from a large Ape. No other explanation would come to me. Then I started to remember a program I had watched recently all about Bigfoot and how most sightings of him come in remote wooded areas with lots of water. The Pacific Northwest is known for Sasquatch sightings. Well, we might finally be meeting the big guy I thought! Even Nova was looking around to see him.
Eventually we found some strange things in the river that seemed to be responsible for the noise. There was a whole section of large PVC piping in the water with what looked like rubber damns and fencing over parts of it. I finally found a sign that told me this was an experimental salmon spawning site. So it must be this man-made baby fish ladder up the side of these falls that was making the noise as the water slapped the rubber and moved through the piping!! Okay, well that was a relief we all thought as we continued on our hike.
We could see all the way across the Gorge to other hikes we have done as we went along. There were Dog Mountain, Augspurger Mountain and Wind Mountain waving at us in their majesty across the Columbia River. I knew my favorite Cook Hill was just behind Dog Mountain.
You can see that Josie got a new patch for her backpack for this hike. She was able to retire the "Nervous " one, but sadly needed one that calls for more space around her. She is becoming a very confident and protective Wolf on the trail....a new challenge we are working on! It is always something with her!
Normally when a trail comes to a river crossing, we prepare to look for slippery logs to walk across, wiggly rocks to hop from or prepare to just get our feet wet. But on our first river crossing of this hike, we found ourselves ridiculously spoiled by a wonderful log bridge! Today was just getting better and better! Yes, the wolf has gotten so tall that Nova just walks under her all the time.
The trail meandered up and down the hills and in and out of ravines as we traversed from east to west. It was in good shape and clearly maintained as there were not many downed trees to climb over. The tread was good and not muddy despite the morning rains. We were enjoying ourselves immensely and eager to discover what was behind each bend in the trail ahead of us. We came upon a section of trees that had clearly been affected by a forest fire. Despite the blackened bases of the trunks, the trees were still alive and the forest floor was full of signs of recovery. As we climbed over into a rockier section of trail, we started to find house sized boulders strewn amongst the trees. The trail would weave in and around some of these making the trail feel like a natural amusement park.
I love sections of trail among rocks and scree fields as this is often where our Pika friends pop their heads up out of the rocks to squeal at us. Today was sadly not a day for the Pika, but we enjoyed the scenery nonetheless. In the shadows and gulleys we would find snow patches that Josie used as her own personal snow cones.
As we moved deeper into the rocky terrain and watched the cliffs grow taller above us on our south side, we were stopped suddenly by another terrible sound. At first we thought it was two gun shots in a row. Who on earth is shooting guns out here I thought initially. But then the sound that came on the heels of the big bangs, was even more terrifying. It was an avalanche right above us. Part of the cliff system was giving way and we could hear huge boulders and rocks coming down the hill. Each of us stood completely still just staring up the hill at the noise. I figured that the moment I started to see trees cracking in half, we would turn and run like the wind back to our east. But if the boulders coming were house sized, we were going to be in trouble. Luckily, as we stood still listening to the last pebble find its new home and knew that the slide was finally over, we all took a breath. We continued onward after briefly taking a drink from the bladder bag on my back. Damn, I thought, that will get your heart pumping!
As we were coming around a corner in the trail about 10 minutes after the avalanche, Josie pulled up short on the trail and signaled danger. This was her serious danger stance and look. So trusting her instincts, we all came to an abrupt halt. I crouched down and looked intensely in the direction she was pointing to see if I could figure out what she was seeing. When she gets like this, you can't make her budge at all. So I knew we had to figure out what the danger was. She was taking the same stance as that time when we were in the gun sights of those two hunters hidden in a blind that Nova and I never saw, but Josie did and saved our lives with her signal to us. (See the November 2022 chapter for that story). But this was March I thought! Surely not hunters again. Finally I saw what she was seeing. Something very unnatural and man-made was off in the woods to our right. We quietly walked over to see it a bit closer.
I realized that this was a huge circular well with old rusted corrugated metal panels over the top weighted down with large rocks with branches thrown over the top. Okay, that is weird I thought. What would this be doing out in the middle of no where. But then I heard another sound that made my entire world stop moving. It was the sound of someone or something treading water inside the well. There was a splash and swishing sound that seemed unmistakable. Then the sound stopped. I am sure you can understand that only curse words filled my brain now. We had not made a single sound ourselves, so I knew that whatever was in the well did not know we were standing outside it. I decided that we were not about to rush into anything here and were going to take a moment to assess the situation.
Clearly this well was made to be hidden. Clearly whatever was inside the well treading water did not just fall in on their own....someone had trapped them down inside making it impossible to push up from below. Could that person still be lurking around I thought? I quickly looked down the trail to my right and up the trail to my left and then turned to look up at the cliffs behind me. I could hardly catch my breath from the fright of thinking that whoever did this was still here watching me. But I couldn't see or hear anything but the splashing in the well. I knew I should probably just call out "hello" to the well, but was honestly terrified that someone would answer me. I could not bring myself to utter a single sound. I only used hand signals to the girls who were also being very, very quiet and still listening to the rippling water below. There had to be something alive in there! There was no other explaination.
The sound was in no way a systemic rhythmic splashing. The sploshing and splashing would come and go with differing intensities and with drips as well as long periods of silence in between. I envisioned someone laying on their back in the water and moving their arms as little as possible just to stay afloat and to conserve their draining energy stores. More curse words filled my head. I had two 6 foot leashes with me that were on the dogs. I could use those to get into this well I suppose. I also had a fair amount of paracord, but was not sure how much weight it could really support. Was I willing to lower myself into this well with paracord tied to a tree with who knows what out here watching me? I had no sense of how deep the well was from the sounds I was hearing beneath the ground. Part of me wanted to just keep on hiking and pretend I never heard this. But if I did that, I knew I would never sleep again. I had to see what was in there. A line from the Book of Esther came to me just then......perhaps you were created for such a time as this. (Esther 4:14) This may be the very day you save a life I thought. But then a terrible thought came to me.....I didn't want this to be a human. If it was a human, I didn't really care and felt like I could easily keep on walking past. But the next thought was what if it was an animal?? If this was a bear, opossum or God forbid a dog that someone dumped in a well, I was ready to rip it all apart with my bare hands and dive right in head first to save it without another thought. Well, I clearly work in the right field I thought. (For those of you who don't know, I work in Vet Med.)
As the occasional sloshing and splashing continued, I made a plan to put Josie and Nova on either side of me as watch dogs. I needed someone watching my back. The last thing I wanted was for Sasquatch to come push me in from behind so he could have several pieces of live meat in his refrigerator. I prepared myself to start moving rocks and paneling. I needed both hands to move the rocks, but figured I could slide the heavy metal panels with just one hand. The next question was what do I hold in my other free hand? Should it be my flashlight or my gun? I was already as jumpy as you can ever imagine and knew that I tend to be very trigger happy when feeling this way. It wouldn't be a very good rescue if I shot whatever came flying up out of this thing as I removed the panels. So I pulled one of the flashlights off my pack strap across my chest and turned it on to make sure it was working. I did unsnap my holster just for good measure. I took a deep breath as I stood with my left hand on the rusty metal panel listening to the water slosh once more. My last thought was that I was either going to pee myself or have a heart attack in this very spot if something pops out of here.
I surely didn't breathe for two solid minutes. Nothing popped out. I got closer and looked down inside. The well was not nearly as deep as I thought. In fact it was maybe 4-6 feet deep with a culvert at the base draining most of the water out of it to the right side. But I could still hear sloshing and splashing on the left side. What the hell I thought?? I slid the panels further to the side and stuck my head down inside with my light held out in front of me to see to the left. There I discovered another culvert two feet up off the bottom of the well that was clearly a natural spring releasing water burbling up and through the ground here. That was the source of the occasional sloshing and splashing sound!! The water falling from the upper culvert was splashing into the mostly empty well being drained by the lower culvert. It was not really alive....unless you say that a natural spring has life...which could surely be argued. I wanted to curse whoever build this hidden well around an active spring in the wild! Why on earth couldn't they just have left it to be natural I wanted to scream?? Or at least uncovered!! But happy that I neither wet myself nor had a heart attack, I re-secured my holster and flashlight and put things back the way I found them. Sasquatch's Refrigerator is what I have officially named this well. Next time I hike here, I think I will bring a sign to hang off the well with this new name. Someone has to warn other hikers!
After several more miles of actual hiking, the trail spit us out at a 4 way junction that I instantly recognized! This trail does indeed lead to the myriad of trails I know and have explored most of. In fact I was now only about 5-6 miles from the Pacific Crest Trail. But then a new realization came to me. This is the very trail that in March 2022 I had knocked myself out on while doing a river crossing. Not only that, but this was the same week in March that that had happened! "No way" I almost exclaimed out-loud!! Then in an even more ironic realization, I looked at Nova and instantly remember that she wore the exact same purple coat on that hike! For a dog who has 2 dressers full of clothing (one for Spring and Summer dresses and one for Fall and Winter coats) the fact that she was wearing the same thing as exactly one year ago on the same trail was unbelievable to me! But the fact that I could remember any of this was even more unbelievable as I have forgotten a LOT of things since that trailside knock out concussion. I decided that we would just hike to a waterfall I know on one of the side trails and eat our dinner there, before heading for the truck. Don't think for one minute that I didn't consider going all the way to the knock out river to make another crossing. But in a rare moment of sanity, I decided we had surely had enough excitement for one day and going to that river would also put us at over a 20 mile hike started pretty late in the day. As it was, I knew we would be night hiking out past Sasquatch's refrigerator and the avalanche site. So we left well enough alone.
The girls enjoyed playing around at the waterfall before and after eating their dog food with hot soup added in. I could not believe that we really never ran into a single other hiker the entire day. It was a perfect day, made even better because I had splurged by bringing a tiny bag of Lays potato chips to share for our dinner! This is something I never eat in normal life....but hiking makes me crave salt and do things I don't normally do in real life. I say it doesn't count in the woods anyway! The other perfect thing about the day, besides not peeing my pants, was that I was still super warm in my new hoodie and never needed to add more layers! This is surely living the good life I thought!! I may not have saved a life today, but I was willing to.
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