Lost all sense of space and time in the enchanted swamp

Got  my camera fixed by buying a junk camera and swapping out the parts.  I decided to go back to the swamp with my camera even though the peak of fall colors has passed.   

There are no landmarks in the swamp, so I tend to get turned around there, I drew a route to follow and put it in my GPS before I started.

I got off to a very late start, I got up at ten and did not hit the brush until almost 2:30!  

My plan was  to slowly meander around the swamp taking photos while making my way towards my lunch destination. 

Before I knew it I was way off route.  My GPS made it look like I had been going in circles, but I thought the circles were from the time  I went in there in 2016 and walked in circles.

When I got home I realized those were new circles that I  made.  I made several circles and  I never made it to my lunch spot. 

Thanks to getting so far off route, I did a lot more brush crashing than I had planned, but I also discovered an old road complete with old trash.

It rained briefly while I was walking in circles so I hung my tarp over a few arched vine maples and had coffee and a dog biscuit out of the rain and in comfort.

When I got to Lake Quilcene I saw that it was darker than expected.  I looked at my GPS and saw that it was 5pm!  

Sunset was in one hour and I was three miles from my car. Whoops. 

I decided to stop and have my coffee and snack and turn around right there.  I brush crashed all the way to the lake, but I walked out on the road as I don’t care to brush crash in the dark.

I had to headlamp hike for half an hour, I made it out one full hour after sunset.  For whatever reason, I was not very spooked hiking out in the dark this time.  

Maybe I was too tired, or maybe it was the openness of the road, I really don’t know.  

For the most part I was able to think about things other than mountain lions.

I did make a point of making some noise though so there would be no chance of startling a giant cat.   I make noise by singing this song from Barney: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cm7ALC1BAE  I read that cougars are most active at dawn and dusk and there have been a couple of cougar attacks in this state recently.

Sage was wearing her reflective orange vest so I pulled out her little light that is made to attach to it.  The light is kind of cheerful too look at and makes it easier to see Sage when she runs away to chase all the things she can smell in the dark.

I did not get as many photos as I had hoped with my late start and it being too dark to take photos on the way out.

6.5 miles with 250 feet elevation gain.  3.5 of those miles were in the brush.

Green was the plan, yellow is what actually happened

Coffee under a tarp in the swamp

Twilight coffee at the lake before the long dark hike out

Swamping

Back to the swamp for some fall colors and some flash photography.  My plan did not go as hoped though.  I took the wrong brush crashing route to get into the swamp and my camera broke.   

The hot shoe fell off my camera and is no where to be found!  I sat down and figured out how the hot shoe works and I got it to fire my flash controller by cutting part of a tea candle holder to fit inside the area where the hot shoe goes.  I could not how ever find a good hands free way to get my flash controller to stay attached to the camera.  I spend quite a while working on this problem.

My camera is a Ricoh GR II and I need to find a broken one to buy for parts so I can get  a new hotshoe.  A GRI or a GRII will have the same parts.

I got one picture that I liked by holding my flash controller onto my camera by hand but I really wanted a photo with falling leaves in it.  I did not have a free hand to shake a tree to make leaves fall, so that did not happen.

Next I went to the lake and found it so low that I could walk on the lake shore.  I've never seen it too low.  Big patches of sphagnum moss were exposed and dry and brown.  I hope they were not killed by the drought.

After lunch I did some silly brush crashing and then ended up doing a bunch of walking in a clear cut.

I only went about 5 miles but most of it was off trail, so I got some exercise in.
200 feet elevation gain.  I know where I went wrong and I will return to the swamp, but I will have to take a different camera with me.

Sphagnum all dried out

Sage almost became a bog body

Mildred Lakes trail to Huckleberry Lake

Alpenglow on Mount Pershing

The night before, I decided to  torture myself by going up the Wagon Wheel Lake trail, so I  packed really light, even leaving my mushroom knife at home.

Then I remembered that the Hamma Hamma was open again and how pretty the fall colors are there and I changed my mind.  I decided to hike the Mildred Lakes “trail” to Huckleberry Creek and back. 

That would be too short of a short hike.  Then I remembered the lake off trail near the creek and made that my destination.

I don’t like to go off trail alone all the time, so I invited Phil and he quickly said yes.  He had been wanting to see the lake and the forest around it. 

Phil was running very late so I started my hike without him knowing that he would catch up eventually if I hiked slow and took lots of pictures.

Shortly after I crossed the Creek I heard Phil calling me.  A quick cup of coffee at the creek and we were off, off the trail to look for the lake.  The lake was easy to find and it was pretty but with no nice shore line.  While we were off trail I found a very nice buck knife to make up for forgetting to pack my mushroom knife.  We also found two Mylar balloons.

After we bagged the lake we decided to explore the forest up Huckleberry Creek.  The forest was Beautiful!  So beautiful that we had to turn back before we wanted to. 

The days are getting short and the Mildred Lake trail is not fun to do in the dark.  I have done the entire length of it from the creek to the car in the dark before and I did not like that.  I’ve also done the last half from the creek to the car in the dark and that is not too bad.

We ended up needing our headlamps for about half an hour.  My headlamp batteries were low, but I did not have to change them since Phil had good batteries in his.

I always have a spare set of batteries for my headlamp in my pack along with a small secondary light source that I can use to see while changing batteries.

When we got near the trailhead we encounted two men who were preparing to climb Pershing in the morning.

The woods are very dry this fall.  There are no mushrooms to be found.  I am sore today.

That poor old lady is still missing on the creepy Putvin trail.  

6 miles with 1,300 feet elevation gain on a very rough trail.  I slipped a few times and bashed my left knee cap into two logs and I tweaked my right ankle.  I’m having a clumsy week.

Gomphidius mushroom, not good to eat, but not poison

dried up tarn

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Bucket with a bag full of shit and piss and a tin can.  The overflow crowds from Seattle
are coming to destroy the Olympics.

Huckleberry Creek

Sage trying to not get shot during hunting season

Spahgnum moss

Deadly poison?

off trail in the oldgrowth.  

Angel Wings, some have died after eating it, but they had bad kidneys 

Honey mushrooms, so peopel have a bad reaction to these

Fig Newton time

Our route

Big mushroom

Amanita vaginata

Big Creek Trail

Prints Available

Big Creek trail.  Once again I needed to get in a hike but did not want to hike too hard because I did not want to be sore the next day.  I was hoping to get out and find some mushrooms too.

Once again I found no mushrooms in my spots but now I know why.  Others know my spot and beat me to it every year, I need a new spot.

In spite of finding no edible mushrooms other than a one, I had a nice relaxing hike.  Lots of inedible mushrooms were out and I had fun photographing them.

I hiked farther then I planned due to the lack of easy to find mushrooms.  With 1,000 people moving to Seattle every day the trails in Seattle are overcrowded with no place to even park at the trail head.

The result is that people are coming to the Olympics to get away from the crowds in Seattle and now the Olympics are starting to feel the pinch.  Good luck finding a parking spot at Mount Ellinor or Mount Rose on the weekend.   I miss Mount Rose so much, but can’t stand the crowds there.  I feel grief over my loss of solitude on that Mountain.

My images are available as prints.  I am a semi-professional photographer and I reserve all rights on my images.

7.5 miles with 2,400 feet elevation gain