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| Usnea longissma lichen, Lobaria pulmonaria lichen, Porrella navicularis liverwort, possible Orthotrichum moss |
This turned out to be my last hike in the Olympics before my husband died.
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My husband
is getting demented and driving me up the walls, between dealing with his
literal shit and dealing with my teenager’s shitty attitude, I need to carve
out some me time.
A good long
hike was called for. I thought about
Dosewallips, but with the permanent closure of the road at the washout before
the washout, it is too far to go now.
Plus it’s getting popular. I can
do 13 miles, but I’m not sure that Sage is up for a thirteen with her hip.
Then I hit
on the idea of Duckabush. I don’t
particularly like the Duckabush trail, and it’s been too damaged by forest
fires for me to be able to make it beyond Big Hump for quite some time.
It seems that a lot of people don’t much like
that trial though, so I figured I could get some solitude there and maybe the
way was now clear to five mile camp.
I got off to
a late start thanks to working late the night before. I did not hit the trail until about
10:30. My turn around time if I wanted
to hike out before nightfall was 1:30.
The way to
five mile camp was clear and I missed my turn around time by nearly an hour and
a half. Oh well, I’ve done this trail in
the dark before. As long as I could make
it back down Big Hump before dark I would be satisfied.
The hike to
five mile camp was exactly five miles, but it was longer than I remembered. The camp is kind of dreary and certainly
haunted.
Lunch was
hot ramen without the seasoning packet but with ground beef, tomato sauce, hot
sauces and soy sauce. Dessert was a homemade
grape leather roll. Lunch was good!
I started my
hike out at 3pm. Just as I started
coming back down from Big Hump, I saw the only other hiker that I would see all
day. She was a woman with a dog who also
was not afraid of hiking in the dark! The
woman was still hiking in as I was hiking out!
I told her that sunset was in forty minutes, just in case she did not
know, I would tell a guy the same thing, and she thanked me but kept on hiking
in . She passed me on the way out,
about one hour after sunset.
I wore Sage
out on this hike, maybe it was too much for her. It is hard to know what to do with a dog that
is so determined to go hiking, but suffers for it in the end. I’m suffering today too, but I knew full well
I would be suffering the next day.
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| Russula brevipes in the dark with a headlamp |
I packed my
mini tripod, off camera flash and flash controller, but did not have time to
use any of that stuff. I did do some after dark photography with my headlamp.
My backpack
is wearing out and I ripped a huge hole into my water bottle pocket on this hike. I have the material to make a new pack, I
better get started on it!
This next
pack will be my fourth handmade pack but for the first time I have bought
material to make the pack with it. My
first three packs were made from an old tent rain fly. The material was old to start with.
I need to go
back and look at my records to see how many miles this pack lasted. I also need
to patch it before my next hike. It does
take me more than a week to make a new pack.
10 miles
with about 2,000 feet total elevation gain on an up and down route.
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| Pooped pooch at five mile camp |
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| this is like this |
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| Moments before sunset |
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| back to the trail head |
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