Coming full circle on the high divide -day 3 Ghosts on Appleton pass

 

Day Three Appleton Crossing to Olympic Hot springs

8 miles with 2,100 feet elevation gain

No fridge required bacon, our first time eating it and it was good

We slept in a bit and had bacon for breakfast at Appleton crossing camp on the Sol Duc trail.  We were tired from the day before and I knew that we had a big day ahead of us, so it seemed like the best day to have our one bacon breakfast of the trip.  We started hiking at 10am, but first I had my daughter fill all our water bottles.  Then up the trail we went only to find that the trail crossed the creek, so the special trip for water was pointless. The creek crossing was a little tricky but we both managed to keep our feet dry.



Leaving Appleton pass junction camp in the morning

Reshi conk at rocky creek crossing

As we headed up, up and up to Appleton pass my daughter got tired.  She said I was hiking too fast, but I really only have one hiking speed, my I can maintain this pace all day long speed and if you break my stride I might poke you with my trekking pole speed.  So we kind of leap frogged each other up the trail, me the turtle, her the rabbit.  At one point when she was really lagging I left a bag of M&M’s in the middle of the trail and yelled down to tell her about it.  There were so many switchbacks that we were never really out of each other’s sight. The M&M’s got her up to my level pretty darn quick.

My daughter found a King Bolete on the lower section of the trail.  We have never  before found a King so early in the year.

Near the top we passed by two tarns that were filled with frogs and tadpoles.  The trail up was in excellent shape.  I think we made it to the top at about 2pm.  Appleton pass is where I started my solo hike of the high divide in July of 2003.  My husband was at base camp at Olympic hot springs but he saw me off to Appleton pass. 

We lost each other on the way to Appleton Pass playing the rabbit and turtle game, me being the rabbit this time.  I went ahead of him and took a nap in a campsite next to the river, I never heard or saw him pass me by. 

I waited and waited for him and I was preparing to spend the night in that campsite waiting for him, I even lit a fire hoping he might see the smoke if he had somehow gone ahead of me without me knowing it. 

But the campsite was too creepy and nothing made sense, so just before sunset I decided to hoof it up to Appleton pass to look for him.    I had our only shelter; he would be without a shelter if I did not find him.   I heard him calling for me as I rounded the second to last switchback before the top of the pass and I answered him. 

The switch back my husband ran down in his socks

He ran down the trail in his socks to great me.  I’ll never forget that moment.  We spent two nights on Appleton pass instead of one, since the trip took so much out of us.  We swam in Oyster Lake, we got bit my mosquitos.  Two mornings later I headed for the high divide loop and he headed back to base camp at Olympic Hot Springs.  I got airlifted that evening but it was another two days before I was able to get word to him at Olympic Hot springs that I was in Port Angeles.  He saw the helicopter fly over him having no idea that I was in it. 

Coming back to Appleton pass was emotional for me.  I had been down this trail before but never up it and next I was to go down the side I had gone up but never came back down. 

Appleton pass was so beautiful, there were flowers everywhere.  I wished that I had planned for us to spend the night there instead.  There was not enough food for me to change plans and add a day to our hike so we had to keep moving.  I let my daughter play in Oyster Lake for about half an hour.  All of the tadpoles in the lake had legs and they were all dead.  What had killed all the tadpoles?   

Oyster "lake"

 

Frogs mating in Oyster Lake

Frog eggs in Oyster Lake

All dead tadpoles in Oyster lake

As I left Appleton pass this time with my daughter, I was overcome with emotion, I felt like I was leaving my husband up there on Appleton pass.  I knew he would never get to go up there again and that I had left him there before.  It was with a sense of doom and foreboding disaster that I left Appleton Pass.  I kept looking back up to the pass unable to shake the feeling that I was leaving my husband up there.

Fresh Bear poop in the meadow on the East side of
Appleton Pass

 As we headed into the meadow I heard a noise and I thought it was either human or bear.  There was one set of fresh boot prints on the trail, so I kept expecting to maybe see someone.  As we headed down, the valley grew narrower and the brush got taller and soon we could not see the trail at all.  I knew the trail was below our feet though.  This went on for awhile and then we completely lost the trail.

This is the trail

I was not sure where the trail crossed the river, my GPS said the crossing was close, then we saw a clear trail up the opposite river bank.  But was that really the trail?  It was just a little bit too soon.  I could see no other signs of trail in the meadow, so we crossed the river and headed up the trail we saw on the opposite bank.  The trail climbed up and sort of ended.

  Crap, was this the real trail or was it an animal trail or was it a trail that had been followed by many lost hikers before us ?  Even the real trail was not exactly clear so there was no way to know.  My GPS said the trail was below us but it often is off by a few 100 feet as trails get rerouted and my main map is from 1958 or so. 

I needed to change to my other map and just then I realized that I had lost my reading glasses.   A wave of fear came over me, I had lost the trail, I had no reading glasses and if we did not find the trail fast we would not make it to the hot springs before dark.  I have a hard time seeing my GPS without reading glasses, but I did have an emergency spare set of glasses in my pack.

My daughter did not sense my fear, instead she started screaming about mosquitoes biting her and how I was awful because I did not care that mosquitoes were biting her.  I confirmed that I indeed did not care that mosquitoes were biting her, at that moment all I cared about was finding the trail.



I think we crossed
the creek and went into
the woods too soon.

My other GPS map put the trail in the same place and that place was two contour lines below us, so I started to search for a way down, but it was  too steep.  So I backtracked to the last time I saw the trail (or the not a trail) several times, still never finding the actual trail.  So I pushed ahead until we were able to find a slope that was not too steep.  I also turned on my track log at this time so I would be able to have some idea of where we had gone wrong when we got home.  My daughter did not want to hike down a hill in the brush, she was so slow and I just wanted to find the trail so bad.  Thanks to my GPS I knew where it was, but I was not going to relax until my feet were on it.
 

The woods were the dark, creepy spindly kind and my poor sleeping bag was on the top of my pack thanks to my stupid, ugly, heavy, bear can taking up too much space inside my pack.  Would we find the trail?  Would my sleeping bag survive bushwhacking?  Had I totally screwed up by taking my daughter here and getting us lost, were we going to die here?  Why had I come back to this awful place?

Finally with much prodding I got my daughter to follow me down the hill and we found the trail again.  Soon after we found the trail we arrived at the campsite where I had lost my husband last time.  What is with this place?  Appleton pass is haunted and I’m never ever going back, was all that I could think.  We stopped and took pictures of the place where I had lost my husband and then we plodded on.

Creepy campsite where I lost my husband

 

I was a bit unnerved by losing the trial and by the fading light and by my fatigue and by the emotion of it all.  But still, we plodded on and on and on down the creepy trail.  Finally I decided that this was the time to open up the pepperoni, we needed energy to get to the hot springs before dark.  I had no desire to be on the haunted Appleton Pass trail in the dark!

When we got to the North Fork of Boulder Creek we very  briefly lost the trail yet again since the bridge had washed away and the trail had turned into a creek bed.

washed out bridge North Fork Boulder Creek

All day I had the feeling were not alone, maybe it was the boot tracks or maybe it was the bear noises in the meadow.   As we arrived at the hot springs campground I told my daughter to be quiet as there was sure to be at least one person camped there, the person whose tracks we had seen all day long.  I wanted to see this person before they saw us so I could evaluate them. 

But we never saw that person all we found was an empty deserted car campground and the abandoned road.   How strange, those boot track were fresh, someone had come this way today, but somehow we never saw them.  Later we learned that a man had hiked from Olympic Hotsprings to Appleton pass that same day.  Why didn't we see him?
We did not see him because this trail is in the burmuda triangle of the trail world.

Slime mold crawling up a dead branch

Finally at the sign 0.5 mile from Boulder Creek camp
the light is already fading

 

 It was a little bit disorienting for me to come into the hot springs from Appleton pass as I had always come in from the other direction before.  But the other direction had been closed for years thanks to dam removal on the road below.  This is the only way to come into the hot springs now.  The high bridge over Boulder Creek looked a little bit iffy, it is getting too old and too rotten.

The hot springs were eerie, everything was so over grown and fallen trees blocked the way to the upper pool, it all seemed so strange, it was familiar but just different enough to be disorienting.  I reminded myself that it had been over nine years since I was last there and that the fading light was probably getting to me as well.

I really did not want to camp all alone up there, but that was the way it was going to be.  I cheered myself up by not camping in the campground.  The horrible creepy campground up the hill with no water and too far away to leave all my stuff while dipping in the springs.

My daughter was fascinated by the hot springs and did not share any of my anxieties.

I pitched the tarp tent at 9:15 and we went to bed without dinner as we were so tired and it was getting dark and we had gorged ourselves on pepperoni.  Figures since we were now out of the Bear can required area we were first  able to fit all of our food into our bear can on this night.   

The next day was to be our only non-hiking day of the trip and I was looking forward to it.

 

Coming Full Circle on the High Divide -Day 2 Airlift

Day Two: Deer Lake to Appleton Pass JCT campsite
9 miles 1,800 feet elevation gain

We got up at about 7:30 and started hiking out of mosquito hell at 8am.  I yelled “Goodbye Mosquito Lake” as we left.  I hope I did not wake anyone up.  After leaving Mosquito (Deer) Lake the trail climbs to more open country, the trail climbed past a couple of beautiful tarns and then up towards the spine of the high divide.  My daughter hiked strong on this day.  Maybe the motivation of knowing that today was the day I would show here where we were airlifted is what got her going.  She hiked without a complaint.

Tarn above Deer Lake

Twisted trees above Deer Lake

Just before we reached the top of the ridge near Bogachiel peak a man came up behind us and asked where we were going.  I have him vague answers until I realized that he was a ranger.  He was a very friendly ranger whose name I did not catch.  He asked to see my wilderness camping permit and he volunteered water information for our hike up Appleton pass.  He said there was only one sketchy section of snow on the entire hike and he was on his way up to cut steps into it because people were going the wrong way.   We could not ask for better timing on this for us.

He passed us up and by the time we reached the snow he was there beginning to work.  He showed us the correct way so we were able to stay on the trail and avoid following the foot prints on the really sketchy off trail ridge that everyone had been taking.   It felt good to have a ranger in sight as we crossed the 10-20 feet of slightly sketchy snow.  I taught my daughter how to kick steps into the snow and showed her how far she would fall if she slipped so she would be sure to kick in good steps.  She just walked in my footsteps.

7 lakes basin

 

After leaving the highpoint of the hike I began to look for the campsite that we had been airlifted from when I was 8 weeks pregnant.   It took a while to reach it; it was further down that I had remembered.

The campsite was called Silver Snag,  but there used two be to camp sites there.  One campsite has been closed and one has been left open.  It was the closed site that I almost stayed in the night I got airlifted.  On this day I showed my daughter the log I sat on while I was waiting for our helicopter and took pictures of both of us sitting on the log.
 

Above Deer Lake 7 lakes basin junction

Climbing

Sound of music stuff

Why lakes

A little bit of snow on the trail

Next we followed the ridge up and down until the drop off for heart Lake.  It was hot on the ridge and we were starting to drag.  When my daughter saw Heart Lake she made a beeline for it right down the slope on the top of the snow.  I followed the actual trail down to the lake, so it took me quite a bit longer to reach the lake than it took her.  The wind was blowing at Heart Lake so there were no mosquitoes but the air was a bit cold.  I swam across the lake a couple of times and treaded water in the middle.  I spent more time in the lake that I should of and I got pretty cold, but it was so worth it.  My daughter just took one quick swim and spent the rest of the time looking at frogs.

 

Heart Lake

Heart Lake

After we left Heart Lake it was time to drop down to Sol Duc Park.  A bridge across a creek had washed out there, so I went upstream to find a place to boulder hop across, then I could not find the official trail because the trail where the bridge had been confused me. 

 I was not at all lost, I was actually in the campground but I did not want to be caught trampling on vegetation.   Suddenly a volunteer ranger appeared and I asked him where the proper trail tread was and he pointed it out to me.  He was very friendly, he did not ask to see my permit but I think he might have asked if we were camping there at Sol Duc Park.   I told him we were staying at Appleton Crossing and he repeated the same words the first ranger said “that’s a lot of miles”.   Hmmmm that got me thinking and made me worry a little bit.

Our home for the night

We left Sol Duc park and crossed the Sol Duc river at Upper Sol Duc Falls (I think) and then turned left towards Sol Duc hot springs.   When we reached rocky brook campsite we saw a person was camped there and we thought he was in our camp site, but then we saw that the sign said it was not our campsite, it was acutally rocky book camp.   Whew.. We had hiked too many miles to find someone in our reserved spot at Appleton Pass JCT.
 

Appleton pass JTC camp was nice, we arrived just before sunset, dinner was Ramen with the MSG flavoring packets tossed in the garbage, but with my home dehydrated hamburger and dried veggies added to it.  There were very few mosquitoes so I opted to not pitch the tarp and we slept well under the giant trees.

We went to bed at about 9pm, we did not have a campfire that night even though we could have.  I like campfires, but the smoke stuffs me up, so I tend not to light very many fires. 

sleeping under the trees

Coming Full Circle on the High Divide -Day 1 Bus trips and Mosquito hell

 

I’ve decided to split this blog post up into days to make it more manageable. On this 5 day trip we started at Sol Duc and finished at Barnes Creek.

Day one Sol Duc camp host site to Deer Lake

4.5 miles 1,850 feet elevation gain

My alarm went off at 7am so I got up and made coffee for myself and my spouse.  My and my daughter's  ULA packs were all ready packed for the trip with food and gear for 5 days plus we had a grocery sack full of food for the trip up. 

Mason Transit 8:05 am

My daughter does not like her boots because she cannot tie them tight enough and sometimes the laces catch on the metal hooks and trip her.  There was some drama related to her boots and leaving the house was chaotic but we got out just in time to catch our first bus.  Mason Transit Route #8 to Brinnon leaving Shelton at 8:05. 
My spouse is in very poor health and we were sad to leave him behind at home.

 

At 9:15 we made the seamless transfer to Jefferson Transit #1 to the Port Townsend Park and ride.  We had a one hour layover in Port Townsend so we checked our packs with the visitor center and headed over to nearby Kai Tai Nature Park where we ate lunch and I found three geocaches. 

Kai Tai Nature Park Port Townsend

 

Next we caught the Jefferson Transit #8 bus to Sequim, we did not have to pay for this ride because we had day passes but on the way back we were charged an extra dollar for this out of county route.  Next we had a 15 minute layover in Sequim and there were teenagers playing loud music through headphones at the tiny transit center.   Most of the adults moved to the corner to get away from the teens who were smoking “pot oil”.

 

Sequim Transit Center 15 minute layover

Sequim is getting a new civic center and there was construction everywhere.  We were able to find an unlocked door so we could use the bathroom at the transit center. 

Port Angeles Famer's Market

Next we caught the Clallam transit bus #30 to Port Angeles.   On the ride from Sequim the same teen sat in the back with headphones so loud that the bus driver stopped and got up and made him turn his music down.  There was a couple from California on the bus who were taking a carless vacation and they seemed to be enjoying it. 

In Port Angeles we had about a 45 minute layover so we checked out the farmers market and Dairy Queen where I was charged $2.05 for a medium drink.  That left me with 95 cents in change that I did not want to have to carry, so I went back to the farmers market and bought a small heirloom tomato.    

Next we took Clallam Transit #14 headed towards forks.  We were going to get off at Sol Duc hot springs road and get back on at Barnes Creek.  The driver showed us where the return bus stop was but we still had some trouble locating it on the last day of our hike.

The bus dropped us off on highway 101 and the Sol Duc hot springs road at about 3:30 PM.  We crossed the highway and walked about 40 feet up the Sol Duc road and stuck our thumbs out.  It only took ten minutes for us to get a ride.

Our ride turned out to be the camp ground host.  He was a very gruff fellow named Larry.  It kind of felt like he picked us up as part of his duty to take care of the place.  Oh well, it was nice to get a ride and he said to us “you girls have a safe camping trip” as he dropped us off.  He asked how far up the road we wanted to go and I said I wanted to go as far up the road as he was willing to take us. 

So he drove straight to his campground host campsite and said here you go.  Starting at the camp host site added an extra mile to our hike but it was okay, not too hot, not too steep and I had planned on probably having to start a mile from the trail head anyway.  We thanked him profusely.

We hit the campground trail at 4pm and my daughter was a bit sluggish.  She cheered up a some when we reached the bridge over Sol Duc Falls and we saw a rainbow. 

Rainbow at Sol Duc Falls

Hoards of dayhikers, the last we will see for five days

After Sol Duc falls we were not sure if the trail went left or right or maybe it went both ways, but we knew we needed to go to the right to reach Deer Lake.  My daughter was sluggish again.  The hike was steep, gaining about 2,000 feet in about three miles and we were loaded down with what we thought was six days worth of food. 

 After such a nice time getting to the trail head the hiking part of this trip was not going well.   But, I had the National Park Service on my side.  We were allowed to camp at Deer Lake and only at Deer Lake, so I told my daughter that I had no choice but to take her to Deer Lake.  I began to have doubts about our trip and my daughter’s ability to hike so many miles.  Should we just give up and turn back and go to the car campground and ride the buses back home in the morning?

 It was looking like we might not make it to the lake before dark and then my daughter had to poop.  Great, just great, such wonderful timing.   After much stress and strain we arrived at Deer Lake at about 8pm and just a bit before Sunset.    We were both in a foul mood.

Hiding from Mosquitos at Deer Lake

 

  I found a small, rocky horrible tent site where I pitched the tent and then we hid from the mosquitoes while we ate dinner.  The place was mosquito hell and when morning came we could not get out of there quickly enough .  Dinner was chips dipped in beans and  a cup of hot chocolate each. 

We went to bed at about 9pm

Deer Lake in the morning

Solduck, High Divide, Appleton Pass, Olympic Hot Springs, Boulder Lake, Aurora Divide and Barnes Creek

We did it!

Day one starting from campground host site to Deer Lake

Day two Deer Lake to Appleton Crossing

Day three Appleton crossing camp to Olympic Hot Springs

Day 4 Olympic Hotsprings to Barnes Creek Camp

Day 5 From Barnes Creek Camp to Barnes Creek Bus stop

It's time to come full circle on the high divide loop

I attempted to do the twenty mile high divide loop in July of 2003.  I started at Olympic Hot springs and then hiked up Appleton pass and then down Appleton pass and began my loop.   My spouse set up base camp at Olympic Hot Springs, after seeing me off at Appleton pass.

The day I left my husband at Appleton pass something terrible happened.  It was at the end of my hiking day and I was about to set up my camp at Silver Snag near Bogachiel peak when suddenly, I began to hemorrhage.

 I was eight weeks pregnant and I knew I was having a miscarriage.  I was airlifted from the high divide that night and it would be two days before I could get word to my husband who was camped at Olympic Hot springs to tell him what had happened.  My husband heard the helicopter flying over head but he had no idea that I was in it. 

As the sun was setting I was flown to Edez Hook in a coast guard helicopter and from there was transported to the Jefferson county ER via an ambulance.  The ER could not tell me if I had lost my baby or not and they refused to do an ultrasound.  They said that it made no medical difference and I would find out soon enough if I was still pregnant based on a blood test.

Since I had no car the ER sent me in a car with a Australian woman who was camping at Elwah with her family and had taken her son to the ER that night.  The Australian woman was kind enough to take me to my car at the Olympic Hot springs trail head rather than dump me at Elwah campground as the ER had intended. 

I spent the night in my little car trying to sleep while hoping that the bleeding had stopped, hoping I was still pregnant and wondering what to do.  I could not risk hiking to the hot springs just 2 miles away to let my husband know that I  had been flown out.  For all he knew I was on my loop and would rejoin him in two days.

The next morning I left a note at the trail head for my husband and then I carefully drove into Port Angeles.  I had my drivers licence, but I did not have a credit card and I did not have much cash on me since I was hiking. 

Luckily I was able to get a phone call through to my ex-boyfriend and he very kindly offered to  pay for my motel room for the night.  I booked myself into the first motel room with a kitchen that I saw and then began trying to figure out how to tell my husband who was still camping at Olympic Hot springs, what had happened.   

The rangers on the ground the night I was airlifted refused to hike in and tell my husband.  I kept driving back and forth from the motel room to the Olympic Hot Springs trail head trying to find my husband.  I told the person at the park entrance booth my entire story, but she was unable to offer me any type of help.  Finally two days after I had been airlifed, I drove back to the trail head for about the fourth time and I got another hiker who was a total stranger to agree to find my husband at the hot springs campground and tell him where I was.

Then drove back to the motel room  and waited for my husband to join me.  The motel had a kitchenette but the owner, in spite of knowing my story locked me out of the kitchenette claiming it was not included in the price we paid.   I was to ill to argue with her so I got by with carefully cooking my backpacking food over my stove in the parking lot the first night and then the next night I ordered a pizza.

After my husband finally got word he night hiked out of the hot springs and slept at the trail head.  In the morning he got a ride and joined me in the motel.  A park  caretaker had very kindly gaven him a ride all the way in to Port Angeles.   My husband and I then moved to the Riviera Inn Motel a different motel in Port Angeles so I could rest for a week before driving home.  My British husband did not yet have an American drivers licence, so he could not drive us home.

The next day the hospital in Port Angeles called and said that the blood tests showed I had lost the baby.  But I thought they were wrong, my gut told me I was still pregnant.  I called my gynaecologist in my home town and told her my blood test results.  She said the baby was probably fine and the hospital had read my test results wrong based on how far along I was in my pregnancy.   What a relief!

I called the hospital back and told them that they had interpreted the results of the blood test wrong.  Then and only then did the hospital agree to do an ultrasound.  The ultrasound showed a heartbeat.  My baby was alive!

My baby is ten years old now.  She was born healthy and at full term.  This week I am going to take her backpacking with me on the high divide loop.  I will take her to the spot where I was airlifted and when we get there I will probably hug her and kiss her a lot.  My spouse is now too ill to make the journey but he will be rooting for us from home.

By taking my healthy daughter up there under her own power on the loop where I nearly lost her, I feel the circle will be completed. 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Here is the text from two newspaper articles about my airlift.  I have removed personal information:


Peninsula Daily News July 25 2003
Woman Airlifted

  Olympic National Park - A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter airlifted a pregnant woman Tuesday night from Olympic National Park when the 40 year-old woman began hemorrhaging, the Coast Guard Reported.
XXXXX XXXXX, whose hometown was not reported was evacuated from a field near Bogachiel Peak, just south of Seven Lakes Basin, after the Coast Guard received a call from park rangers at about 8:30 p.m.

A medical doctor hiking in the woman's group recommended an immediate evacuation, the Coast Guard  reported.

The HH-65 Dolphin helicopter landed in the field, at an elevation of 5,000 feet, retrieved XXXX  and transported her to Group/Air station Port Angeles, where medics from the Port Angeles Fire Department met the craft and took XXXX to Olympic Memorial Hospital, according to the Coast
Guard. The hospital has no record of XXXX, and her condition was not available.

------------------------

Peninsula Daily News July 27 2003
Airlifted Pregnant  Woman OK
Port Orchard--  A pregnant woman who was airlifted from Olympic National Park last week is fine, and so is her unborn child.
XXXXX XXXXX 36, of Port Orchard, was evacuated in a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter from High Divide at an elevation of about 5,000 feet, Tuesday evening when she began bleeding.

XXXXX's  last name and age were incorrectly reported in a story in Friday's Peninsula Daily News. XXXXX who is eight weeks pregnant, was checked by staff at Olympic Memorial Hospital and said Friday she and the unborn child are fine.

XXXXX,  a seasoned hiker, was four days into a back-country trek and was hiking alone when she reached her campsite Tuesday night and began bleeding.

"I thought I was having a miscarriage," she said.

Other hikers staying at the campground went down the trail and contacted the Park Service for help, while a doctor on the trail assisted her and recommended she be evacuated, she said. She does not know who the doctor was, she said.

"I'd like to thank that doctor and everyone who helped me," XXXXX said.