I decided I
needed to get in another hike before the wildlife gates shut. I pondered where to go, church creek, upper
skok, dry creek? In the end I picked dry
creek and Dry Mountain. My plan was to
brush crash up to the top of Dry Mountain and spend one night up there enjoying
the views. On my last overnight trip I
was perched high on a ridge, but the forest blocked all of my views.
This was to
be a short hike, so I did not get started until 10am. The actual road to the trail has huge
horrible water bars that could cause the rear bumper on my Jeep to drag in the
dirt. I don’t own a Jeep anymore, all I
have now is a low clearance car. So now I have to start my hike 1 mile before the trail. Here is a video of my hike:
As I started
hiking up the road I noticed that my pack felt heavier than it was and I was
struggling. I was carrying extra gear for
Patches and soon I would have to get water, about 4 liters to carry to the top
of the mountain. I decided I just was
not up for such a trip. I changed my
mind and decided to hike to the end of a road on the flanks of Mount Tebo. I was told it had a nice view, especially at
night. Changing my plans cut a few miles
and about 1,500 feet in elevation gain off of my hike.
The road up
Mount Tebo is slated to be turned into shit by the forest service, but they
have not done it yet so the hike was nice. The washout on the road has been repaired and I could have driven my
Jeep all the way to the start of my hike, but I don’t have a Jeep anymore. This could have been a .5 mile hike with a
Jeep, but I wanted a longer hike than that.
With my low clearance car this hike turned out to be about 3 miles.
I veered off
of the main road up Tebo and onto a decommissioned spur road to reach the
viewpoint. The going was hell as it always
is on the decommissioned roads, brush, slanted terrain and huge ditches are the
norm. I nearly poked both of my eyes out several times. Ticks are the norm too. Ticks love to live in the brush that grows on
the old roads. Animals use the old roads, so the ticks sit in the brush waiting for an animal to drop on to.
When I
finally made it through brush to the viewpoint, I saw that the camping was not
so great. There was just a tiny somewhat
bare patch with lots of huge sharp rocks and probably a few ticks.
However, my
topo map showed a nice flat spot in the forest above the trail. So I thought I would camp there. But the flat spot never materialized, instead
the terrain got so steep that I had to leave my pack behind. Next the terrain turned into a knife edge
ridge! My topo map had lied to me! I was out of my comfort zone in this terrain.
I went back
down to the road and set up camp there.
I made a bed of Douglas-fir and Hemlock branches, due to all the large
sharp rocks on the road bed. I’ve never done
that before, I don’t like to harm the vegetation. I was sure to not take the tops off of any
little trees and just to take branch tips of big trees.
The branch
tips made a wonderful soft bed that smelled like a Christmas tree! I turned the worst possible place to sleep
into one of nicest places I have ever slept and helped to clear the road at the
same time. Soothing Christmas tree bed.
There was a
steep drop off in front of my tent and Patches decided to run down it to chase
a rock I had tossed to the side while clearing a spot for my bed.
Patches was
too long in coming back, I was afraid she had fallen off a cliff. I called
and called for her with no response. I could hear rocks falling down the hill.
Had Patches fallen to her death? I went down the hill as far as I felt safe going and I called for
Patches. Then she started barking the
way she does when she is stuck. From the sound of her barks I could tell
that she had gone way down the hill.
I could not
go down to help her, the terrain was too steep and I was too tired and clumsy. Eventually
Patches freed herself and I kept her tied up for the rest of the night and the
next morning. She loses all common sense
when her prey drive tells her to chase something.
After I was done eating dinner I read from a
book called “A Feather on the Breath of God” by Sigrid Nunez . I sobbed and sobbed when the
author’s mother died at the end of the first chapter. I knew that was how the chapter was going to end, but still the way the author worded it it really set me off.
Message on my answering machine: Mom fainted again today. Please call.
Frued says the most important event in a man's life is the death of his father.
Oh, Mother. Oh what an ending. Yes, losing your mother may be the most important event in a woman's life. I lost my mother three months ago and I still cry nearly every day even though I barely knew her. It turns out that sobbing is a bit like
shivering, it really warms you up. I picked this book to read because of all my unread books in my book shelf, this was the lightest one. I did not want to carry a big heavy book with me. I carried this same book up Prospect Ridge on my last hike.
When it got
dark I kept reading, but paused from time to time to take pictures of the stars
and the moonlight. I think I finally
fell asleep at about 10pm. I woke up a
few times in the night to answer the call of nature and to take pictures; I was
also hungry in the night. I knocked down the pole that holds up my Duomid about half a dozen times. I had put the pole off to one side and out of the way. When the pole is to the side it is too short, so I propped it up on a little rock. The rock was not very stable. I don't like having a pole in the middle of my living space.
Moonrise
The full
moon came up and it was orange. It
stayed in the sky all night and I did not need my headlamp to see. The moon crossed the sky right in front of my
tent. What a magical night!
Patches
stayed warm all night and she did not need the sleeping bag that I packed for
her.
Sunrise came
first thing in the morning like it always does.
I was not very impressed with the sunrise, but a lot of people like the
pictures I took. Am I getting jaded?
After my
sunrise photo session I went back to sleep for a bit. Then I got up and did some sunbathing on my
sleep pad. I could see a bank of clouds moving in and
smothering the cities below me and I was in no hurry to down there and be
smothered.
I sunbathed
and read my book until the book was finished.
It was a good book and with a name like “A Feather on the Breath of God” I felt like tossing it off the cliff to float back down to my car, but I packed it
out instead. I want to read other books
by this author.
When my book
was done and I felt I had procured enough vitamin D to get me through the winter, I
got dressed and packed up. My trip out
was easier, my load was lighter with most of my water and food gone and the
route was down hill.
I took my
time picking my way through the brush so I would not risk poking my eyes
out. I really need to start wearing
goggles on these road hikes.
Just before
I reached the main road I heard the voices of several men who were standing around a couple of trucks. I paused and listened to them. I want to assess how safe I would be
revealing myself to them as a lone female backpacker. Finally I realized that one of the men might be
forest service worker so I came out of the bushes while yelling “Don’t shoot, I’m
a human.” It is almost hunting season and I was wearing a bright orange shirt for that reason.
One man was
a forest worker, another worked for the tribe and the third was “Pyrites” from
Nwhikers.net. Pyrites had been looking
for the Dry Creek trail and he was way off course. The forest worker he was talking too also had no idea where the trail
was! All they do these days is destroy
roads? I showed Pyrites where the trail
was as I hiked out. It was nice to meet you Pyrites! I made it back down to my car at some unknown time in the afternoon.
I really
enjoyed this trip, the view point was very nice, the full moon was great, and
the solitude was welcome. Thanks to the
bright full moon and thanks to my reading a book until I could not keep my eyes
open, I did not get scared at all in the night. I’m getting better and better at
staying calm while sleeping alone in the woods.
Still, I would not dream of doing a trip like this without my 12 year old dog Patches.
I might
repeat this hike next year when the gates open up. I left a geocache where I camped.
This text is probably full of errors and I'm too tired to care.
There were trails on Prospect Ridge and trails that led to Prospect Ridge, but the hike up to the top of Prospect Ridge is not on a trail anymore, it is now on an old logging road that has been decommissioned.
But, you can still find traces of the old trail up there where they have not logged.
Decommissioned roads are difficult to hike on as they are at a slant and have tree thrown across them and huge ravines dug out of them. There is also broom and other invasive weeds to deal with. So it’s been a while since I’ve gone up to visit the old growth forest on the ridge.
When I do hike up there I never get much time in the forest because I have to turn around and get back to the car before dark. I decided that a backpacking trip was in order so I could spend some time enjoying the forest.
I was very worried about ticks, crashing through brush on old roads is the best way that I know of to pick up ticks in the Olympics. The day before this hike I went to a feed store and bought pyrethrum to treat my clothes with. I also treated Patches fur and her coat. Right at the start of the hike I applied pyrethrum powder to Patches and to my backpack and I put Deet on myself and Patches.
This hike is best done before the wild life gate shuts and adds about 2-4 miles to the hike. I started my hike at about 10:30. The hike up was long and hard but I broke up the work by stopping to place a geocache every few miles. I encountered horrible Scots broom and alder jungles.
The last sure water was just 2 miles into my 6.3 mile hike, so I had to carry a lot of water. I figured that I would need 3 liters of water for overnight for both of us in my dry camp on the ridge. But my water stores ran low. I left one liter of water about 4 miles into the hike for me to pick up on the way down. There was no point in my carrying all that water up and down. I had just 2 liters of water for my overnighter and I was not at all happy about that.
The closer I got to the top the more tired I got and the more worried I was about water. We were just going to have to be a bit thirsty, that’s all there was to it. Two liters would get us through the night but it was not as much as we really wanted.
Them magically just one mile before the end of the road I found a spring of some sort. The terrain above the spring was not enough to support a creek, so I think the water must have been pumped up hill somehow. I was very happy to find this water. I filled up my three liter platypus plus another one liter bottle that I had planned on using as a geocache. With four liters of water I knew we were good for the night.
I left the road to head up the ridge at about 5pm and I was very tired from carrying water and brush crashing and from being out of backpacking condition. I staggered up the top of the ridge at about 6pm. I had just enough time to try to find a level spot to pitch my tarp and to cook dinner.
I struggled to pitch my duomid. My trekking poles are not long enough even with a pole jack and I was too fatigued to mess around trying to tie my trekking poles together. I used my hand saw to cut a fallen log to the right size but I cut it too short. Finally I managed to get my poles tied together to hold my tarp up.
One corner of my tarp was dipping down too low and the ground was very lumpy, but I was so tired that I did not care. No rain was in the forecast. I just wanted my duomid up to keep off the condensation and to cut the wind.
I ate my dinner and I drank a cup of hot water. Coffee or hot chocolate would have been nice, but it was too late for caffeine and I did not pack chocolate. After my stove was out I had a tiny bottle of wine. I was so tired that I nearly tipped my cook pot over twice, so I decided not to drink my wine until my stove was out. I was also so tired that I can’t tell if the wine even affected me.
Patches was shivering in the dark even with two coats on, so I put her inside of the trash compactor bag that I use to keep my stuff dry inside of my pack. She warmed up in the bag but she kept me awake with plastic bag noises and startled me with the noise a few times. She even made me scream once when I thought the sound was coming from the woods. For that reason I did not fight her when she decided she wanted out of her bag. I let her out and she wandered off about 15 feet away and went to sleep and shiver on the forest floor. I’ll have to bring her sleeping bag on my next trip.
The ridge was peaceful and cold. I could see lights to the south but I can’t figure out what they were. Were there enough gaps in the hills to see over to Montesano? It was not staircase that was to the West. The lights that I saw were to the South. My view from the front of my tarp was looking straight down on the bridge across Lake Cushman near Staircase.
I was up at sunrise and I tried to get some pictures. From my vantage point up in the trees, I could tell that it was an amazing sunrise. I could not get good picture of the sunrise though. In the morning it was a little chilly on the ridge and I wanted to get home in time to drive my daughter to soccer practice, so I started my hike out at about 9am. I took my time enjoying the forest and I did not make it back down to the road until 10am.
The hike down soon began to feel like a death march. My feet hurt, my shoulders hurt, my back was tired my legs were sore and I was uncoordinated. I forced myself to not look at my GPS too often so I would not be too discouraged by how slowly the miles were going by. I passed a lot of interesting stuff but I was too tired to really care or to take many pictures.
I made it back to my car at about 1:30pm and I was totally exhausted. I could hear people howling near my car but I never saw them. A brush picker van was parked next to me and I could hear sticks breaking in the woods near my car just as I paused to use my funnel. Oh well, I was too tired to care.
When I got home my daughter refused to go do soccer practice. I wished I had stayed in the woods for another night. There is so much drama in my home right now with my husband's caregivers coming and going nearly everyday.
I'm not sure if I like my duomid. It is not easy to pitch unless you have super long trekking poles and I don't want to the extra weight of super long poles. Also I am not sure if I like having a pole in the middle of my living space. I also don't like that if I want one side shut it has to be the left side. I want to choose what side is shut based on where my head it and I choose where my head is based on the tilt of the land. I want my head uphill.
I like the looks of the Z packs Ataplex tarp: http://www.zpacks.com/shelter/altaplex.shtml
12.6 miles with 2,600 feet elevation gain
Road overgrown with alder on north face
bear poop art
Yes they do and on the road too
I fell on the slippery alder, jammed my ankle, cut my finger and bruised my leg
Patches keeping warm with her noisy vapor barrier
Magical glowing moss and the magic water spot
Lumpy camp crooked duomid
An old trail blaze on the ridge
An old trail blaze on the ridge
Old cut log from old trail work on the ridge
Peltergera venosa
Scots broom hell and tick heaven
surprise water source at the top
Tetraplodon mnoides moss
The Mountain
Track and elevation log for the trip out
Constipated bears due to the drought?
Where I slept
Note all of my pictures are copyright protected, if you use them on your website or print them, you are stealing.
