Day 1.
Kenny and I declared it was tie-dyed Tuesday and we wore our awesome new Holden shirts to the office. We had one more Mandatory training to get through- it was rather ridiculous and boring- we also had to get fingerprints- none of what we were doing today would be applicable until we were finished w/ the season.
The officer taking our prints let us check out the jail- which hasn't been in use for 5 years- and offered to lock Kenny up, but he would have just taken a nap and enjoyed himself too much.
To distract from the boredom of training, we went and made trail t-shirts that say 'Take a Hike'. Kristian made the design complete w/ a shield w/ an axe and shovel.
Day 2.
Waited to pack until 11 last night. I guess I had other things to do (like eat icecream and go swimming)
We get to Stehekin, check out the visitor's center, eat lunch at the bakery, and then sit at the Company Creek trailhead for a while wishing we were somewhere else. It was 100 degrees.
None of us had been on this trail before, so we didn't know what to expect, but we had heard stories of legendary trees and swimming through nettles that were 7 ft tall.
I didn't make it very far up the trail before I felt like I was dying. Sweat was pouring off me, I wanted to throw up the bakery food and my head was pounding. It was torture to take 10 steps. I finally catch up to Halden who is taking a break and we decided to literally take a safety nap and wait out the heat of the day (we have often joked about safety naps, but now it was necessary).
We started moving maybe an hour or so later and after 10 steps I felt like I was dying again- I was considering just collapsing on the trail and camping there for the night. The crew could find me later. But after 2 more breaks, and a few pills, I felt like I wanted to live again. I caught up to Halden and he said Kenny and Kristian weren't too far ahead of us. We were all really low on water and desperately searching for a stream. Our original intent for the day was to clear the trail up to 5 mile camp, that quickly changed to just getting to camp, and then that changed to just finding water and camping at the first available flat spot.
Found water about 2.5 miles up, and then we entered the jungle. The stories about the nettles were true. My longsleeves were buried in my pack, so I was trying to hike w/ my arms above my head, which didn't help my balance, & I fell into the nettles even more.
Made it through the jungle after a slight detour of losing the trail and hacking through more nettles. Started searching for a reported camp, but found none, so we trudged on another mile and a half and finally made it to 5 mile camp and Hilegard creek.
We started the hike at 1430 and didn't make it to camp until 2000. It was ridiculous. It was a very long 13 hour day and none of us were happy campers. The hike was only 5 miles, but it seemed like 10 and felt like 15. I do not love this trail. I think we should leave it to the wilderness which has already taken over most of it. Next time it's 100 degrees, I am going to refuse to hike.
Day 3.
We started work late in the morning, Kristain and I were the saw team, Kenny had a silky, and we left Halden to do what he wanted with a silky and a machete. We didn't get too far down the trail, but we did find a nice shady spot by a creek for lunch. Kenny was reading Watership Down and Kristain asked him to read aloud, so we took turns reading a chapter and passing the book around. It was a nice 2 hour lunch and we escaped the nasty heat. We didn't finish all the work on the first section of the trail, but no one seems too concerned yet (although we have 30 miles of tread to cover).
When we finished work around 1800 they sent me down the trail to find Kenny, just because he had the book.
We heard a rumble this evening and were all angry when we recognized it as thunder, but although we saw lightning, the storm itself was far from us (we guessed it was in Agnes Creek). We read late into the night, passing the book around the campfire. We really wanted to know what would happen to the rabbits, but we'll have to wait I guess. At the end of the night when we decided it was time to call it in, even Halden grabbed the book (he had not been participating up to this point) and he read one more chapter, but we still did not reach a conclusion.
Day 4.
We moved back down the trail in our same order again. I had a little too much fun rock climbing on my days off, so I got to saw w/ only my right arm both yesterday and today. Not as much fun when you can't switch arms.
Our breaks were highlighted by our story all day. A chapter at breakfast, and a few during lunch, and more after dinner and into the night. We took lunch in a really ancient cedar grove we found when we were searching for the mythical camp at 3.5 miles the first day. The trees are huge. Almost as big as redwoods. It's somehow soothing leaning against such ancient wisdom as we eat our lunches and let our minds travel over meadows with rabbits.
Day 5. A Most Adventurous Day
The morning started with a very cold creek crossing. We packed up camp and sat on the bank dreading the inevitable. Finally, with pants and boots draped over my neck, and a stick in my hand for balance, I braved the icy waters- wading thigh deep across. Kristian and I spent a while on the other side hollering and trying to get our legs and feet unnumb- yelling does seem to help.
The four of us steadily work our way up the trail, splintering further away from each other as we run into work. Kristian and I ended up in the lead after leaving Kenny to wrestle a tree. We round a bend and Kristain, in front, stops and says 'bear'. I stop behind her, almost running into her, have just enough time to register a cub in a tree and another bear below, when mama charges.
The swearing and the shouting commence. Kristian is backing up and I'm tripping over myself trying to get out of her way and back up myself. I half fall into the bank and I'm like a turtle turned on its shell. Completely defenseless and weighed down by my pack. And the bear is charging. I right myself and join Kristian in yelling 'NO!' which strikes me as an odd thing to yell at a bear, but I yell anyway. Kristain has dropped her pack and pulled out the pulaski (to shake more than to defend with). I keep my pack on to look bigger and am yelling 'radio, radio'. This was all I could think of, let the guys know there's a bear after us- so someone knows what happened. The bear started maybe 100 ft away, charges up real close, then swerves right below us on the trail, makes a half circle and runs up over the ridge. (It is important to note that all this happened in a few seconds, and the event takes longer to describe than to occur).
Kristian pulls out the radio and calls Halden- he sounds way too calm compared to our shaky selves. A moment later Kenny comes up the trail- He says he heard a bizarre yelling and thought someone had broken a leg. We gather our wits and in response to the adrenaline, along w/ shaking limbs, we start cracking up. Both of us agreed we had never been that scared in the woods before.
The creek we were heading towards for lunch was only another few minutes hike, but I was wishing it was much further away. Especially because mama was still up on the ridge, and the cub was below the trail, and we had to walk thru there.
But we read our book during a leisurely lunch, annoyed only by biting flies, which we killed mercilessly.
Midafternoon, we came upon an avalanche shoot with a mess of logs to clear out. As we're working (with the horrible 71/2 ft saw- the guys were using my 51\2 ft saw) Kristian gets gouged by a tooth and I get to play doctor with butterfly closures and duct tape. She loses her drive to work, so we head up the trail to search for a camp. It was rather amusing to attempt to strap the giant saw on my pack and then hike with it. The U kept falling over my head. I was hiking w/ a 2 ft halo swaying above me.
Our luck with this trail gets worse. I managed to trip a few times, landing on my hand once and now my pinky finger won't move, although Kristain had already fallen twice today, so we thought our quota was in.
We then lost the trail. One moment it was there, and the next we were wandering up and down the creek bank, jumping across it, and back again, searching the ground for a sign. Eventually the guys joined us in the search and Kenny found the trail. Camp came quickly, but we saw bear prints by the water source- a big paw and some small prints. We're hoping mama bear won't pay us another visit. Our tents are rather close, on the one spot of flat ground the camp has to offer, and we're thinking a bear is most likely to get Kenny- because he keeps his food in his tent.
Our campfire and our book keep us warm and happy tonight. (Halden even got mad when we were going to stop reading before he got to read his chapter). While the cold nights of late August remind us of the coming fall.
Day 6.
We worked both ends of the avalanche mess we found yesterday. Our game for the day was 'Who can get covered with the most pitch'. Kristian won hands down. The sap and branches were a mess, but it smelled like Christmas while we worked.
In the afternoon we hiked above our camp to clear the way ahead. The guys left Kristain and I to wrestle with a tree, only to return shortly with good and bad news: we weren't going up the pass today- it's ridiculously steep, and they found a perfect flat meadow spot for a 'Safety Meeting' Kenny says as he whips out Watership Down.
There is a fire over the next ridge (every time we check in they ask us to leave our radios on for updates) and the smoke is filling up our valley. The view we might have had as we hiked up into a basin was smothered by a haze of smoke. We found alpine blueberries today- very small plants with amazing berries. The smoke and chill in the air that comes as soon as the sun leaves keep reminding us of fall. As soon as we leave the campfire ring, the cold surrounds us, each breath seen in the night air.
Day 7.
There was frost this morning. Packed up, paused at the bottom of the pass, then steeled ourselves and climbed. The general remark when we were all at the top was 'that wasn't so bad'. We enjoyed a few alpine blueberries as we triumphed over our victory of the pass. Kept hitting work as we moved thru 10 mile basin. It's annoying to find a lot of logs when we're moving with our packs and we have a goal in mind. The general idea was to hit the junction to Devoure and bushwack over to 10 mile creek trail and bump down to Holden for dinner.
We finally hacked our way to the junction, then had a quick pack rearrangement as we assessed what we really needed to take with us in our brains for an overnighter- tevas were necessary, but sleeping bags were not.
The bushwack wasn't too bad, part of it was an old trail, and only one tree bit me. Then we sprinted down to Holden and made it just in time to eat the scraps from dinner. We lived it up for our one night stay: toast, raided potty patrol for clean clothes, hot shower, icecream, chatted w/ some people in the pool hall, popcorn, we found an empty media room and finished watership down, then at 2300 put in the movie Swiss Family Robinson, and fell asleep inside w/ some sleeping bags we found at the Hike Haus.
Day 8.
Didn't sleep too well, the movie had an annoying kid in it that you couldn't tune out, but I took a body pillow from a couch in the hall and it made the night better- although I was wishing for my big agnes.
Got a wake up call from Halden early in the morning, pancake breakfast, then hung around waiting for the guys to be ready to go back up the trail. Eventually, Kristian and I just left. We weren't looking forward to the steep hike and bushwack ahead of us, but once again, it wasn't so bad. Made it up the 3.5 miles in only 1.5 hours.
Once again we found more work than we wanted. We were hoping to get to camp early at least once this trip. Our campsite was in a small clearing, and for once we were camped where we could see the stars. Saw a porcupine in camp-it was pretty cool, rather large, first porcupine I've seen over here. Kristian started reading Of Mice and Men and it was great to listen to her and stare up at the sky- knowing we'll be out of the woods tomorrow.
Day 9.
Woke up this morning and Kristian asks 'Ready for a 9 mile birthday hike?' Downhill the whole way- feet, calves, and shins are now in mutiny. The first bit of the hike was rather pleasant, we were clearing as we hiked, and then the trail got really brushy w/ lots of switchbacks.
We made it to Weaver Point (which is at the lake) by lunch and I made upside down trail cheesecake. I've been waiting all tour to pull that out of my pack. It was rather delicious.
A park service boat picked us up and took us across to the Stehekin landing. We get to enjoy the rest of the afternoon. A couple hikers shared their six pack with us- they said we looked like we needed it when we rolled in w/ our big packs and covered in dirt. Made dinner reservations at the landing restaurant, ran into Barbara who we saw at Holden yesterday. She was sent on a fire assignment as the public info officer. Funny thing is they closed Company Creek trail for potential danger from the sable fire. We were just there and had no idea how big the fire was, but no one called us.
On our boatride across, we got a little tour, and the driver showed us some pictographs on a cliff wall above the water. That was pretty neat.
Dinner was amazing, complete with rhubarb pie, then we went to a party with the parkies. A couple was celebrating their birthdays, and they celebrated mine as well. It was a fun triple threat birthday party I got to tag on to. By the wee hours of the morning, only the trail crews and one lone ranger were left standing. Bizarro with the trail crews. We each have a counterpart. Mine is Gretchen- who is the girl on their crew, with curly red hair. The only difference in our crews is that they get to use chain saws.
Best Birthday ever, more than I expected from being out on the trails.
Day 10.
Woke up at 630 and went on a morning 1.5 mile jaunt with Kenny to the bakery. Fresh cinnamon rolls and coffee!
It's weird that this is the end of the summer and I'm returning to civilization. Stehekin is very peaceful. Now that the trek is over, I would very much like to just stay out her in the wild. It's amazing how quickly we forget the painful parts and only remember the good.
Napped on the boatride (after finishing knitting a sleeve to my knitting project), filled out my exit paperwork at the office, returned all my gear (I had two piles going 'mine' and 'not mine', my pile was tossed haphazard everywhere in the car) then The Boss took us out for milkshakes as a farewell birthday send off to me.
And then it was over. just like that. I dropped Kristain off and said 'see you later' and it felt like we were just on another four day weekend and we'd all be back at the station on Tuesday with stories of our adventurous weekends and ready to play in the wild again on our next trail mission.
Instead, I went back to Aunt Kathryn's, enjoyed an amazing send off dinner there, and got ready to leave Chelan for good in the morning. But I hope to be back next summer. The Boss asked me 'did you like it?' I said yes, 'well if you want a job again it's here'.
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