Hiking with Younger Legs

Let me first assure you that "Hiking with Younger Legs" is not a reference to MY legs, but to my son's ... and his dog. My legs are old and worn ... and the reason this entry in the blog is six months after the hike is--although I would like to have a good excuse--because I'm basically a lazy writer. If I could write each day as I hike, I would keep my blog up-to-date, but I haven't figured out how to type faster on my smaller devices.

It all started when my son and daughter-in-law hiked in the Goat Rocks Wilderness in Washington months earlier and after seeing their photos, I decided that would be my next destination. At 72, I have a bucket list of places to hike, but keep adding to it. My son, Jeff, and I were able to work out our schedules for a July 2016 hike up through the Snowgrass Flats area and connect with the PCT. 

After Jeff got off work on Tuesday, we drove up to the Berry Patch Trailhead in Washington where there was a small camping area and pitched there for the night. Jeff's Blacknose Cur dog, Vyda, was making the trip with us. The camping area there is kind of rough--they were doing some work on it--but there is a picnic table and a parking lot. Knowing that I would be hiking uphill at altitude most of the next day, I turned in early.

Old man and a yellow dog

The next morning we were up and packed shortly after daylight and drove back down to the Snowgrass TH and began our hike. We were hiking in on Wednesday hoping to avoid some of the crowds that come to this area on the weekends. We hiked up the Snowgrass Trail a little over 3.5 miles and took the cutoff east over to the PCT before getting to Snowgrass Flats. I think that cutoff is there to give PCT hikers a way off the trail when Old Snowy gets a big snow dump late in the PCT season. This was my first hike using GaiaGPS and I messed up several times when I would take a break on the trail. Sometimes I would forget to stop the recording when I sat down for a while, and sometimes I would forget to restart the recording when I got up and started hiking. Through no fault of the GaiaGPS app, I didn't get very accurate readings on the times or the distances between stops on the trail. I've gotten better. It's not a terribly long hike up to where we were going, but on old legs, it was a workout.

At the intersection of the cutoff with the PCT we ran into some PCT section hikers who had run into a mountain lion over near Cispus Pass. Jeff had hiked on ahead (as he often did) and talked with several PCT hikers who had come over Cispus Pass and had seen a cat. One guy saw the cat stalking his dog and yelled at it before it could overtake the dog.

Vyda, cooling off

[I never worry about mountain lions because they usually like to chase down their fast-fleeing prey and there is no way they will mistake my slow pace for a fast-fleeing prey.] The only critters we saw/heard on the hike were marmots whistling at us. We both saw a very large marmot watching us on our hike down the trail. Almost at the same time we both said, "Did you see that marmot?" As you can see in the photos below, there are a lot of rugby football-sized boulders for them to hide in. I really hadn't seen a lot of marmots since my hiking days in Colorado.

Mt Adams

Jeff and I had decided that instead of hiking to Goat Lake, which hikers had told us was still frozen, we would hike the PCT up under Old Snowy and base camp out of there. It was a good choice. From our campsite in a small wooded area just off the PCT we could see that Goat Lake was still snowed in and the camping sites over there were very limited. We decided that we could hike over there fairly easily if we had the time and the inclination.

As I alluded to, several times Jeff and Vyda hiked on ahead because the younger legs were having trouble hiking as slowly as the old pair. Vyda got tired and hot one time and lay down in a snowmelt stream to cool off. Of course she was hiking twice as far as we were hiking because she kept wanting us to throw a stick she could fetch and bring back to us. We would throw the stick, she would run ahead or off the trail, grab the stick and bring it back to us. She was putting in a lot of additional miles.

Old man crossing snow

We hiked over several broad patches of snow, but the snow was beginning to melt and it was interesting to see how close the snow crossings were to the actual PCT. I hadn't hike on snow since leaving Denver in the early 90s, so I was careful about my footing. On the way up we had great views of Mt Adams to the south and Mt St Helens a little to the west of Adams. 

View from our campsite

 Although we found several campsites around where campers had built short stone walls to block the wind, we chose a site that would have a windbreak from trees. Jeff and Vyda pitched his Tarptent backed up to the a small stand of trees and I pitched my LightHeart Solo down in the midst of a small patch of trees. There were four guys/two tents about a hundred yards from us in a well-used campsite that Jeff had seen on a previous trip. Our grove of trees was large enough to provide us a place to nap in the sun and out of the wind.

Father and son

At night we ate Packet Gourmet meals, gumbo and Chicken-and-Dumplings, prepared with snowmelt water. I had packed in chopped chicken breast which I added to the gumbo. For breakfast we ate home-prepared oatmeal that I had vacuum sealed in Mississippi. For lunch we ate mostly junk we had crammed in our packs before leaving.


The second day we hiked up to the PCT above us and followed a trail in the rocks up to the western slope of Old Snowy. As we were looking up we saw what appeared to be a cross planted on the edge of the slope. When we got there we found that it was a sign saying that the trail we were actually on was the PCT and the trail below was actually the horse trail part of the PCT. We wondered how many PCTers hiked across the snow fields on the horse trail instead of catching the edge of Old Snowy. We sat up high in the rocks and looked at the view I knew I would never get to see again: Adams, St Helens, and Ranier to the west. What a gorgeous, gorgeous view! And of course we could look down on the Goat Lake area and see some elk grazing in a field below it.

PCT sign on Old Snow

Goat Lake in the cirque

My son and I always do well hiking together and get into some heavy political discussions, although he's pretty much a liberal like me. Mostly we have fun discussing gear. Jeff works for the Oregon Mountain Community in Portland and is on the cutting edge of knowledge about gear, so I have fun asking him "which do you think is better" questions. We discussed stoves, packs, tents, and everything in between. He's very patient hiking with me, but sometimes overestimates what I can do in my 70s. I guess one always thinks of his/her father as younger. 


After waking up in a thick cloud the second morning, we packed up without hurrying since we were hiking down hill most of the day. Jeff was going to take us back down the Snowgrass Trail so I could see the popular Flats. The cloud burned off and we began our downhill trek. When we got to the intersection of the PCT and the Snowgrass Trail I thought of all of the NOBOs Hummingbird and Bearclaw in 2013 who had to bail on their thru-hike because of the early season snow dump that caused them to make a decision to end their hike. I also thought of Rockin' hiking through this beautiful section with her daughter, Stealthy. Rockin' has hiked so many beautiful trails that this section of the PCT might only be a distant memory to her, but, to me, it was my last chance to get here.

Mt Ranier from the western slope of Old Snowy

The team

Jeff and I hiked back down uneventfully and drove back to Portland, continuing our conversations about the state of the world since he moved up from Mississippi. I am eternally grateful to him for hiking slowly and putting up with my sometimes peculiar ways. I love the guy dearly and am deeply thankful for our adventures together.

Mt Adams from near our campsite

Old Man on the PCT - July 2014

Last July I flew out to Oregon to backpack with my son, Jeff. I had told him that I could comfortably do about 10 miles a day, which is about half of what he normally does, but he was willing to slow down for his old dad ... or, so he said ...

     We prevailed on Jeff's wife, Amy, to haul us up to Lolo Pass on the slope of Mt Hood. Our goal was to hike to Cascade Locks via the original trail (not Eagle Creek). 
     We got to the pass about 9:00 PM, got a quick photo, told Amy to lock her doors, and headed down the trail in a thick fog. We hiked a couple of miles down the trail and found a spot among the Doug firs to hang his hammock and pitch my Hexamid twin tarp.
     The next morning we were up early and headed to Indian Springs campground, which was about 12 miles on down the trail. Twelve was going to be a tough distance for me, but because we were descending in altitude, I figured I could make it. Some time around noon we passed a sign that said Buck Peak - 1 miles. My trail description said that it was a super view and I was feeling pretty good, so, up we went ... and, gosh, was it worth it. Of course, every time we came to a place with a view, it would almost take my breath away. My son lives out there and he sees these views frequently, but I don't I'm from the south and most of the tops of mountains in the south are thick with trees, so you don't get many views.

The view from Buck Peak

Buck Peak side trail

     After that side trail and a couple of other stops we pulled into the Indian Springs (abandoned) campground. I guess the FS got tired of hauling the trash out, so they stopped keeping it up. There were about 4 or 5 picnic table and Jeff and I found one down by itself and started setting up our stuff. The campsite was not crowded by the other campsites, but it was in view of the privy. 

The setup at Indian Springs

     We went to the spring for water for our supper and found a problem. The spring flow was supposed to be dammed up by a piece of concrete with a pipe through the middle allowing people to fill their water containers much easier; however, the guy getting water just before us had put his hand on the concrete piece getting back to his feet and had dislodged the whole pipe flow. Water was flowing under the concrete and not coming out through the pipe. I tried to adjust the concrete piece, but it was too heavy for me. Jeff asked if he could mess with it and soon the water was again flowing through the pipe as intended. Several other people had come down for water and he was the hero of the hour for fixing the water source. 

The repaired spring

     Interestingly, while I was filling my GravityWorks bag at the spring, Jeff started talking to another hiker who, with some pride in his voice, said he was 60 and had hike 7 miles to get up to Indian Springs. Jeff said that that was really good, then he pointed to me and said that I was almost 70 and had hiked 14 miles to get to Indian Springs that day. Plus, Jeff added that eight months before I had had six bypasses on my heart. The gentleman didn't have much to say after that. His wife, however, who had been down to the spring before to unsuccessfully fill her water bottle, thanked Jeff for fixing the spring to flow through the pipe. I can't remember now what we had for supper, but it was really good. We had both brought fresh bread and Jeff had some good cheese, so we had plenty to fill our stomachs.
     With the aid of a couple of acetaminophens for me, we slept well that night and were up early to try to make it to the next water source somewhere further down the trail. It was July, and a lot of the easy-to-get-to water sources had dried up. We knew we would pass Wahtum Lake and could get water there; we knew we would get near a water source at the Eagle-Benson Trailhead; but we weren't sure about the water source at Teakettle Spring. Most of the literature said it was reliable, but we knew there was some doubt at this time of the year.

The man and his father

     Wahtum Lake was beautiful and we discovered that it had a lot of campsites around the lake, which generally indicated an easier access to the lake. We went to the top of the ridge above the lake and found a FS road that comes up within ½ mile of the campsites. We agreed that we would come back there sometime with the wives to camp. We almost got off the PCT at that place because there we're so many side trails and the PCT has an emblem of sorts and not white blazes like I'm used to on the AT. Anyway, eventually we got back on the main trail and headed on down the trail knowing that we'd need to stop at the north end of Benson Ridge to get some water at Smokey Spring.
     At the edge of the Benson Plateau, where a trail came up from the Eagle Creek area--known at the Eagle Benson Trail, I threw down my pack while Jeff went down to the Smokey Spring and filled the GW bag to filter our drinking water. At that trail intersection there was a log structure of sorts that looked like an old Eagle Scout project gone to disrepair. Jeff said that he was glad to find that spot because he knew that trail came up, but he wasn't sure where it connected to the PCT. We speculated that it might be a fun place to come in the winter and try to make a warm shelter out of the old log structure. Anyway, I was able to lie down and nap a bit while Jeff filled our water bottles/bags for the trip across the Benson Plateau and down the other side. Benson Plateau was interesting ... a long, relatively flat plateau with tall trees and deep grass. (I guess plateau, long, and flat are redundant, huh?)

Water at Eagle-Benson

     We knew that there was a possible water source called Teakettle Spring on the way down when we started losing elevation rapidly. When we got to TS, we decided not to waste time getting water when the spring would have been very labor intensive. It was one of those springs where the water trickled out of the side of some rocks and trickled on down the side of the hill. If we had gotten water there we would have had to scoop out a pool and wait for the mud to settle before being able to fill the filter bag ... and then, it would have taken a lot of time to fill the bag from such a small trickle. Okay, so we decided to hike on and try to find water somewhere below. I had about 3/4 liter and Jeff had about 1/2 liter ... we figured we'd be okay. Well, we figured wrong ... kinda ... we hiked and hiked and hiked and finally found a healthy stream crossing the trail. I kinda dumped my pack and sat down on the side of the trail. Stick a fork in me, I was done! I told Jeff that he was going to have to filter water, I was too tired to move. We both drank and drank and drank. I'm not sure what time it was ... maybe 9:00 PM or so ... still light, though. I told Jeff that I only had the energy to camp nearby if he could find a spot. He went down the trail about a quarter of a mile and didn't see any place that was level enough to pitch my tent. Of course, he was hanging, so he could stay almost anywhere. I checked my GPS and saw that we had done another 14-mile day. 
     Finally, I said, "Jeff, I'm staying right here." 
     He said, "What?!!" 
     I repeated, "I'm staying right here." 
     He said, "You mean, right here in the trail?" 
     I said, "Yup."

Sleeping on the PCT

     So, we threw our kits down in the trail. I thought Jeff would tie up, but he wanted to stay in the trail with me. The trail was really narrow right there: straight up on one side, and down 30 feet to a creek on the other. Jeff said he woke up several times during the night to make sure I hadn't rolled off into the creek. I'm not a toss/turner during the night, so I wasn't worried. Jeff ate bread and cheese for dinner and, after a couple of bites of bread, I took a couple of acetaminophens and crawled under my quilt. I didn't even particularly care that the big banana slugs were crawling across me all night. (Well, you know it's gonna be mice in a shelter on the AT, so it might as well be banana slugs on the PCT.) Jeff was concerned about the rumor of some pumas in the Gorge, but I knew that mountain lions like to chase after runners and antelopes, so I wasn't much worried about them trying to eat a smelly old man who was too tired to move.

Somewhere near that water is 
a cold adult beverage

     The next morning I think I had enough energy to get some Mountain House granola w/blueberries out of my food bag and I actually felt pretty good ... not great, but pretty good!

Banana slugs are interesting critters

     I think we had about 8 miles to get into Cascade Locks, most of the trail would be down hill, and knowing that I had an adult beverage waiting on me when I got there, I was feeling ready to hike. We covered most of the miles talking about how we could have done things differently. We probably should have stayed at the Benson-Eagle intersection, but it just seemed too early in the day to stop. We both still couldn't decide whether spending an hour getting water at Teakettle Spring would have made it better or worse. If we had started the day at Benson-Eagle we wouldn't have had such a long day, so getting water at TS wouldn't have been as critical. Oh, well ... we lived to hike another day ... so, whatever ...

The trail on the Benson Plateau

     When we got to Cascade Locks we went to a restaurant to eat an early lunch. As we were sitting there thinking about getting picked up by our wives, we realized that we were a day and a half too early getting to Cascade Locks, so we were going to have to chill for 36 hrs or so. We found a campground that didn't cost an arm and a leg, drank a few good beers, and talked a lot. It was the first time in years that Jeff and I had really had time to get in to some heavy conversation. It was good!

The Bridge of the Gods (modern version)

     On Thursday morning we walked pack-less across the Bridge of the Gods into Washington. I think she charged us $2 each for the round trip. For all the backpackers who haven't moved across that bridge, it doesn't have a walking lane. You just have to cram yourself against the rail when a big truck passes. When we walked up to where the PCT takes off up the mountain we passed some fresh Marionberries growing by the road. I've had Marionberry preserves but never fresh berries. They are so sweet we stood there and picked and ate for a while.

Getting near Cascade Locks

     We spent some time on the little island across the old locks and wanted to camp over there, but they didn't allow it except during the Trail Days celebration in CL. Thursday evening the women picked us up and after treating us to dinner, gave us a ride back into Portland.
     I love to hike with my son ... love to hike with my daughter-in-law and wife when I can ... but I really love the time on the trail I spent with my son. I seemed to have passed on to him my father's and his grandfather's love for the woods. My father is the one who introduced me to camping when I was very young, and I passed it on to my son when he was very young. What a great legacy! What a great trip!

Finally ... a view of the 
Columbia River to the north

Mark Hatfield Wilderness 
at Wahtum Lake

I seem to be obsessed with signs

A view from the PCT looking back toward Mt Hood

Jeff on a bald on which the trail was marked with
a series of cairns so when the snows pile up one
can stay relatively near the trail.

The old man at Wahtum Lake

The trail on Benson Plateau

Looking west down the Columbia River

DNF

Recently, I was reading an article by Paul Magnanti about "failures" he encounters by not reaching his goals on hikes or runs. The article began by recounting a DNF of the Trans Adirondack Trail. That got me thinking ...
     Admittedly, I didn't read all of the rest of the article--just scanned it--and I might have missed this thought. His premise seemed to be about "getting back on the horse after you fall off" if you've had a "failure."
     I think I can honestly say that I have never had a "failure" in backpacking or hiking. A-ha! you say, that's because you've never done anything challenging ... well, maybe that's true, or maybe it's because my goals in backpacking are different.
     The past three of four years I have completed a few 40-mile sections of the AT, a 39-mile section of the PCT, and, in a couple of weeks, I'll attack another 40-mile section of the AT. That's not really a comparison to the 275-mile Trans Adirondack Trail, you say; however, keep in mind that I'm an old man and, therefore, my goals are somewhat different.
     My goal, whether I'm hiking in the Sipsey Wilderness, on the AT, or on the PCT, is to get the best wilderness experience that I can possibly get. Sometimes I my trip doesn't live up to what I imagined it would be because it rains a lot, sometimes the chiggers or mosquitos are thick, sometimes I hike too far because I'm chasing water sources. Nevertheless, my trip is never a "failure." I'm always really glad to be in the woods. My feeling has always been in line with that old cliche, a bad day in the woods is better than the best day in the office.