Fall colors on Mt Hood are always spectacular. Hiking in the Fall is one of my favorite times of year for sure. There were hardly any people out on the trails on this particular day, probably due to the recent snow fall. The mountain was beautiful and we traversed ridges and ravines, crossed rivers, went through open meadows and down through forests for over 16 miles. One of my favorite things about hiking in snow is the story that the ground will tell you. Suddenly, you can see tracks of all the creatures that live out there. The ground becomes alive with the story of what happens when you are not around. I find it fascinating and have really worked at learning the tracks and figuring out more about what the story tells me. I can now figure out who was tracking who and what they were doing. I love it. But sometimes I miss the scenery because I become so obsessed with watching the ground beneath me all day. On this particular hike, I discovered that I had a bear friend who had been there before us....and very recently.
As you can see, his feet were about the same size as mine. I was busy counting toes and not looking for him. "Look", I pointed out to Nova...."you can see the divots from his claw tips! How cool is this??" But then I realized that she was not really looking at the tracks and was instead interested in something up ahead in a sandy area without snow. I couldn't tell what it was, but figured we should go investigate. I was sure hoping we could find our bear friend! "We can take pictures with him Nova", was all I said in a whisper!! But what we found was not the bear. What we found was a very large pile of bear scat. In fact it was so large and fresh that I changed my mind and decided that I did not want to meet the friend who could poop that large. Even Nova was impressed.
We continued our hike, luckily then not running into Mr. Bear. We switched backed down to the PCT and continued on it, exploring the creeks and valleys and unusual sections of forest just below treeline on the mountain. When we dropped down into one ravine, Nova gave me the look. This is the look that she is not impressed with the trail ahead of us. "Seriously?", I could feel her say to me. "Yes, my dear....up and away across that scree field we will go! Let's just hope no one comes down as we are going up. Doesn't look like there is any passing room on that one!"
As we headed back to our truck and the day was growing long, we found that we could make great shadows with the sun behind us. We couldn't help but have a little fun taking photos of them. It was like we were in the best fun house ever! But as we were laughing about our long legs (I've always wondered what it would be like to have long legs!) I realized that my large backpack made me look fat. Most of the time I can be more like a man than most men I know....but in that moment of worrying that I looked fat due to a backpack shadow, I realized that there is surely some woman in me yet.
Nova and I were starting to feel tired as you can see in her eyes here. We knew we were only a few more miles away from our truck and the big fancy Timberline Lodge on this side of the mountain. So we decided we should trail run our way back to the Lodge. I got so heated up that I stripped down to wearing just my tank top with my hiking pants. The sun was starting to set and we were navigating snowy trails, but we kept running.
I was sweating pretty good as we neared the Lodge and not really paying attention to anything but the snowy path pounding out beneath my boots. My holstered gun was bouncing on my hip as we ran at a full-out sprint. I had surely found my second wind and was looking forward to the frozen M&M's that I knew were waiting in my truck with a thermos of hot chocolate. My pack was banging against my back as Nova leaped and jumped, running by my side. We approached the back side of the lodge on the PCT knowing the peak of Mt. Hood was behind us. Suddenly I looked up and saw the entire upper story of the lodge full of fancy diners at their candle-lit tables frozen in the windows with their forks full of food midway to their open mouths. They were all staring at the crazy lady dressed for summer weather sprinting down the PCT with her dog and gun in the snow. Even the waiters were staring at us with their mouths open. It was a moment.
What they must have talked about after that I will never know. But I did have a moment within myself where I paused trying to decide what a person should do in such a time as this…....probably 50 people are staring expectantly at you..….do you wave and smile at them, do you pull up your shirt and flash them just to spite their fancy ways? Was this even really happening to me I thought? Maybe I fell and hit my head and this is all a bad dream. I do not like to be the center of attention. But that is all I was as they just kept staring at me motionless. Somebody do something I thought!! Ultimately, I just put my head down and pretended this was not happening and kept running for my truck on the other side of the Lodge. Nova and I laughed all the way home while I popped my M&M's and drank my cocoa to stay awake on the long drive.
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