Going Ultralight On Dog Mountain - June 1st, 2010

Balsamroot covering the upper meadows on Dog Mountain

I might have just been bitten by the ultralight bug. Last week I tried out a new pack on the Dog Mountain trail, and the results were better than I hoped for. This post will be all about gear, so get your geek on or stop reading now.

Before Dog Mountain, I’d hiked over 400 trail miles with my tried-and-true daypack, a McKinley Mistral 28 (made in Europe). But the Mistral weighs almost two pounds, and I’m a notoriously heavy packer – extra weight is good for training, and if it fits in the pack, why not take it along? In preparation for a summer trip, I bought an REI Flash 18 to stuff in my Osprey and use as a daypack. The Flash weighs just 10 ounces and loses 10 liters of capacity to the Mistral, so I had to rethink my gear list for Dog.

I started cutting gear immediately: yaktraks, extra socks, binoculars, camera case, tripod, leatherman, a length of hemp twine, a hand towel, allergy tablets, the stale for-emergencies-only Cliff Bar in my least favorite flavor. Sure, all of these things are useful – but most of it I’d never needed, or I’d forgotten I had it with me and I’d never used it. Some of it was for seasonal use, or something else duplicated its utility. And some of it was purely useless – I can’t make tea without bringing my stove, so why bring tea bags?

In the morning, I started packing the Flash and quickly ran into a problem – my gear, plus rain pants and jacket, three liters of water, and a 22oz Spring Reign from Ninkasi Brewing left just enough room for lunch. I’d also be carrying my wallet, keys, and CD face because I didn’t want to leave it in the truck. The Flash was getting heavy enough that I was concerned the stitching on the straps might not hold. Maybe I should take a 12oz beer instead of the 22oz… nah, some luxuries are worth it. I took a hard look at my gear and ditched the gloves and map. I removed extra batteries and packets of power gel and considered leaving the compass at home (like the map, I wouldn’t need it for this hike). I almost went through my first-aid kit and removed extra band-aids. Finally satisfied, I threw it all together and hit the road.

When I slung the pack on at the trailhead, it felt great. In fact, at first it felt like it wasn’t there. Dog Mountain is a steep, 2800ft climb in just over 3 miles – and there’s a good stretch in the middle where the trail runs fairly level, so the uphill parts are really uphill. At the top, the flowering meadows erased all the pain from the climb, and I found a cool little lunch-spot about a quarter mile west of the summit. I’d barely noticed the weight of the pack at all. My shoulders weren’t sore and I felt a lot more alert and light-footed than I’d anticipated. The true test of a pack is on the downhill return, after you’ve had your summit buzz and the scenery, while fantastic, just isn’t quite as good as at the top. Coming down is when I usually start to get tired – my feet begin to get sore, my knees begin to ache, and the thought of a thermos of coffee waiting in the truck makes the time slow way down. That happened a little bit – the Augspurger Trail can get tedious – but I felt great, at least until I took some heat and fell on my knee because of some kind of warp in time and space. Not my fault, I swear. Regardless, the Flash held up well, though minus the weight of lunch, the beer, and a lot of water.

I spent the evening drinking beers with friends. The next morning, I was really surprised to discover I wasn’t sore at all. Dog was my most arduous hike this year, and it usually tires me out. It usually takes me a few days to work out the stiffness in my legs and shoulders, especially if I drink after the hike. But I wasn’t sore and I wasn’t stiff, and while I might be in better shape this year than I was the last time I climbed Dog, reducing the weight I carry helped out a lot.

I do have a few complaints, but they’re minor and I’ll learn to live with them. The pack only loads from the top, so getting at gear near the bottom is a bit of a hassle. The chest strap kept loosening on the uphill, requiring frequent adjustment. The hip-belt is useless for my torso. And when I wore my layers and jacket, the extra room in the pack caused my hydration tube to slip out a considerable length and swing around. It’s just not a big enough pack to carry additional winter hiking gear, and since there’s no top, it won’t do too well in rain.

These are all things I can live with. The Flash is great for what I bought it for (a lightweight daypack on backpacking trips) but it’s also a great pack for summer day-hikes. Forcing me to reconsider the gear I take, though, is probably the best thing about it. I won’t miss any of that gear, and when winter comes, I still have my trusty Mistral.

Gear List:

Pack: REI Flash 18

Marmot Precip rain shell

REI snowpants (for rain)

Wool cap

Wide-brimmed hat

MSR Dromedary (4-liter, not fully filled)

Canon PowerShot A480 camera (with 2 extra AA batteries)

First Aid kit (well-stocked)

CRKT Mt. Rainier pocketknife

Columbia watch

Aqua Mira water treatment

Petzl Tikkina headlamp (with 3 extra AAA batteries)

Mirror

Shoelace

Eye-glasses (extra pair)

Eye-glasses repair kit

Compass

Bic lighter (small)

Waterproof matches (with extra strikes)

Skunk hemp rolling papers

Toilet paper

Purell (1 fl oz)

Sunblock (1 fl oz)

EmergenC (1 packet)

Gu Energy Gel (1.1 oz)

Small garbage bags and ziplock bags

Leki Makalu trekking poles

Distance: 7.4 miles roundtrip

Elevation Gain: 2,800ft

Information: portlandhikers.org; Afoot & Afield: Portland/Vancouver, 2^nd ed, by Douglas Lorain

Notes: Dogs allowed on leash. Facilities at trailhead. Northwest Forest Pass ($30) or day permit ($5 at trailhead) required. Intermittent roadwork on SR14 this summer may cause delays.

Distance From Portland: Just over 1 hour

Directions From Portland: Take I84 east to Cascade Locks and cross the Bridge of the Gods ($0.75 toll). Turn right on SR14 and drive just over 12 miles to the large turnout at milepost 53. The trail leaves the parking lot at the east end; the Augspurger trail returns in the middle of the lot.

Hikes Past: Mitchell Point, May 11th

Looking west down the Columbia from Mitchell Point

Mitchell Point is a little known promontory above I84 on the way to The Dalles. The trail climbs a bit steeply through forest, crosses a talus slope, and passes under power lines before heading up an open ridge to the windy crest. I’d never hiked this trail because it’s a short hike and a rather long drive from Portland, but I had the idea to combine it with a hike at McCall Point east of Mosier. I had the place to myself and spent a sunny hour at the top, watching storm clouds break over Dog Mountain and Mt. Defiance. On the way down I took a short spur trail to a grassy overlook covered in bi-colored cluster lily, then descended to my truck and an afternoon date with wildflowers at McCall Point.

Distance: 2.6 miles roundtrip

Elevation Gain: 1,270ft

Information: Curious Gorge, 3^rd ed, by Scott Cook; Afoot & Afield: Portland/Vancouver, 2^nd ed, by Douglas Lorain; portlandhikers.org

Notes: Facilities at the trailhead. No fees or permits required. The trail is fairly obvious, but the Wygant Trail also starts from this trailhead (just west down the road). Watch for poison oak and ticks.

Distance From Portland: 1 hour

Directions From Portland: Head east on I84 towards the gorge. Take Exit 58 (signs for Mitchell Point Overlook) and park at the end of the road. You can only go east on I84 from here.

Yanayacu River Journal, Part V - Things Are Bigger Here

The Piraha, a tiny tribe living in Brazil along a remote tributary of the Amazon, have no words in their language for past or future. Psychologically, linguistically, and conceptually, they live entirely in the present.

This isn’t so surprising after you’ve experienced the Amazon jungle. My journals are out of order, my internal editor is at a loss. My memories are a mobius strip, tautological and endlessly fertile. The difference between “it happened this way” and “it didn’t happen that way” are so slight as to be irrelevant. It’s not that I’m lying – it’s that I can’t prove I am. However vague or flexible my memory is, and however incomplete my journal – sometimes the sum of a butterfly outweighs the equation of an entire afternoon – what remains is a mirage of incomparable imagery and meaning so vast that it means nothing.

That endless split second in a car accident when you know you’re going to crash – that’s what I’m talking about. Moments that encompass the entire world.

Things are bigger here – snail shells, teeth, venom, spiders, trees, species diversity, leaves, thorns, insects, butterflies, storms, vines, hallucinations, appetites. The jungle is elemental and unforgiving, and it asks nothing of you except survival. Long term, I’m sure it’s hard to adjust. But I love it now and I wish I had more time to find out.

Spent some time watching a blackfronted nun-bird, a flock of parakeets, and a brightly colored bird, a barbet, its head brilliant red, with a yellow throat fading to a green belly. Wearing shorts, no shirt, barefoot, smoking a cigarette, in a hammock. Time like the river. In the crook of the nearest tree, a red-flowering bromeliad.

Thunderstorm moved in quickly; grew dark, a strong breeze through the lodge. The birds fall quiet. Thunder crashes nearby. I feel electric, my heart thrashing wildly like an animal in the bush. I hope it rains and moves on quickly so I can go on the next hike. Rain to clear the humidity, clean the air, bring the temperature down. The wind has really picked up, and still the storm moves closer.

Air slides through the mosquito netting and passes around and through the buildings as if the lodge wasn’t there – a wind tunnel wouldn’t show the air breaking around the walls, just a slight perturbation in the movement of the wind as it follows paths through the trees and down the myriad rivers. Follow the wind, is a good Amazonian expression. I just made that up, but it’s apt – surrender to the flow, let things go, don’t attach too much to any one thing or things. All life here is natural, including decay. The Amazon is a zen koan teaching patience, and the movements are calligraphic brush-storms representing acceptance.

A fish-eating hawk has found a seam in the air the exact dimensions of its wings, and silence follows filled with thunder. Birds clatter at every gust; leaves and fronds clatter against the thatched roofs. The air is charged, scented with the heady aroma of the jungle, a heavy loam flavored with bark and water and damp soil. Now the rain, easy cymbals riding the snare and kick of thunder. The sloths in their acacias ride it out with infinite wisdom.

As the storm moves away, rain, and a sweet fragrance.

The fragrance of blood – mosquitoes are out.

***

Kerosene lantern, cup of coffee, moldy book – Birds of Peru, Clements and Shaney, Ibis 2001 – cigarettes, headlamp. Outboard running against the noise of the toads. Thunder ceased, maybe it won’t rain and I’ll get to go hiking in an hour.

Squirrel monkeys, Hulber tells me, travel in troops that may number between one and two hundred. I travel alone.

After the storms passed we went upriver to look for owl monkeys. Birds filled the forest: bright orange troupials chasing off hawks, yellow kiskadees with black and white striped heads, tiger herons and cocoi herons stalking muddy banks, wattled jacana poking around lily-pads, kingfishers, Couvier’s toucans, flocks of festive parrots and noisy short-tailed parrots, yellow-headed caracara perched on river-bank branches.

We put in and walked down a dark leaf-strewn path under overcast skies – Hulber and myself, the French/Peruvian couple, and Moses – he who caught the caiman the night before, who parted the waters. Ten minutes later, Moses stopped us under a tall tree covered in vine and strangler fig and laden with bromeliad fronds. About 40ft up, a small monkey sat in a balcony formed by a twist in the wood. It took me a long time to spot it – the light was dim and the monkey very well camouflaged, and I kept looking for a different shape. All I could see was its head, but it was unmistakable when I finally saw it. How the guides locate these animals sometime verges on magic, but in this case, they knew the monkeys lived in the tree and never strayed far. The trick is to look for movement, especially with monkeys and birds. I’m getting better at it – I spotted several sloths and pointed out the parrots on the boat ride in. I missed all but a flying silhouette of the toucans and their long beaks, and the sheer angle of looking straight up at the owl monkey meant we didn’t stay long.

The forests are beautiful – many of the trees have wide buttressed roots and are covered in other plants. Roots extend and hang everywhere, waiting for high water, intertwining and plunging like curtains in a drama of unending decay and rebirth.

I can’t believe how interested I’m getting in birds. They’re easily the most commonly seen and most varied of all animals in the jungle. I understand the ecology of trees and flowers, but I always saw birds as secondary and uninteresting. All my photos are of plant life and insects; the birds and other large animals are too hard to photograph with a small point-and-click digital camera. I really want to return in the rainy season and see more, see what it’s like when the Yanayacu floods 15ft higher than it is now and all the animals are pushed into smaller parcels of higher ground.

Strangely and unexpectedly, the rainforest has been the most relaxing part of the trip. Cusco was bustling and active; the Inca Trail was physically challenging; the travel and logistical aspects were stressful. But I am “in” nature here and it is wonderful. I thought the mosquitoes, insects, rain, threats of sickness and disease, and heat and humidity would add up to be more discouraging than the other parts of the trip. Not so.

I have one and a half more days here. Tomorrow I visit a village, and then relax for a few hours before going out in the evening to camp overnight at a nearby cocha (oxbow lake). It sounds exhilarating and tough. Overnight in a tent in the jungle. It doesn’t get much more authentic than that.

***

Writing by kerosene lantern is quieting and somehow right, as long as the night is filled with crickets. An outboard announces the return of a boat to the little dock with the thatched roof, reached by wooden stairs lit by homemade torches smoking in the languid night.

I may be the only guest still up. Activities here do depend on sunrise and sunset, on high water and low. It’s only 9pm and I’m not at all ready to sleep. I have a 6:30am expedition so I don’t need to get up before 5:30 at the earliest. I don’t need a full night’s sleep; I can nap between the village visit and the camping. I hope the staff hasn’t crashed and that I can get a beer – I’ve been looking forward to it.

***

Tonight’s night hike was about an hour long, down a trail behind the lodge. A tarantula darted into a deep seam in a tree, and we turned off our flashlights to try to lure the spider out. The night was still, almost subterranean, a nuanced perfect dark with just a few hints of lighter sky. Hulber took a drink of water and I heard every action, though I couldn’t see a thing – the bottle cap twisting, the water splashing, fabric rustling and the gulps as he drank – and the night insects chirped, sang, whistled; water dripped from vines and fronds; and the haunting, almost human grunts of a tree-frog resonated in the forest darkness.

The rainforest is spooky at night. It feels like a room with high ceilings. The beam from a flashlight only penetrates twenty feet or so before a wall of vegetation blocks it, and if pointed straight up, the light dissolves into darkness through successive layers of canopy. The rumors of the jungle filled with snakes and spiders are only partially true – we found only one snake, a harmless sharpnose coiled on a palm frond, and the spiders – tarantula, whip, and wolf – ran from our lights. The most dangerous animal here is the mosquito – I’ve just been bit all over my hands and neck, my only exposed skin.

I wasn’t nervous about the night hike, though Hulber said most guests aren’t willing to do it. I don’t see why not – the forest is so different at night, interesting, full of unknown potentials. Depth changes. Trees and vines twist and loom in a limbo of darkness, and the understory adopts strange shadows and shapes and forms. Color depends on light, and light only comes from a narrow source whose power to penetrate is limited against the dense dark.

I got pretty lonely sometimes, in Cusco and while traveling. Not so much in the jungle, or on the Inca Trail, where there has been activity to distract me from thoughts of home. Perhaps cities foster loneliness, while wild places replace loneliness with a sense of actual place – you do or you do not fit in, and you’re challenged every moment, unlike in cities where you can easily find someone who speaks your language, or return to your hotel and shower, or find a hot meal. And once that wild sense of place is established, you want to share those experiences. I beginning to remember that I’m a guest here, and that guests return home.

East of the Rainshadow: The Deschutes River Trail

With rain in the forecast, I debated Monday night whether to go hiking on Tuesday. A long pull from a bottle of Deschutes Black Butte Porter gave me an idea…

The drive to the Deschutes River was more a surfing contest than a drive, and it seemed like every truck I passed drove the exact wrong speed: too slow to stay behind, too fast to pass safely. But towards Hood River the rain slackened, and when I arrived at Deschutes State Park campground, it was drizzling lightly from thinning clouds. I pulled over at the first pay station, and chatted briefly with the camp host. I admit a fondness for those rugged people who sell bundles of firewood to hordes of summer campers and off-season RV wanderers – they’re American in the biggest and best sense, unapologetically individualistic and yet big-hearted and welcoming, and eager to share their odd ideas with colorful language, and in this case, a whole lot of spit.

But I digress. After parking at the back lot (per the Portlandhikers.org field guide), I strapped on my pack and crossed a long lawn filled with Canada geese and slippery droppings to the start of the river-side trail. Three other hikers set off at the same time on the upper trail and I didn’t see a soul until I was almost back.

The river trail is described as infested with ticks, but that didn’t bother me much as I strolled through little stands of trees and listened to birds sing above the river’s constant rhythm. My approach startled mergansers from bank-side thickets, and the hillsides glowed green and gold as the sun broke from the clouds. A few bouldery sections were starkly beautiful, with grey and brown stone covered in brilliant green lichen, red moss, yellow desert parsley, and carpets of grass laced with tiny pink and red flowers. Walking further, I passed an increasing amount of balsamroot in flower, accompanied by lupine and phlox. Wandering, with no real intentions, I soon found myself among large numbers of wooly-bears at Colorado Camp (3.3 miles).

From there, I became concerned with ticks. The trail disintegrated into an unmaintained game trail, crisscrossed with fallen limbs and marked only by flattened grass. At every step, I sank into the waterlogged ground, once into mud over my ankle, and the vegetation was tall and dense and encroached over the narrow path, rubbing against me at every step. I gave up after a mile and hiked up to the road, where the river was quieter and the ground more solid, and my attentions shifted from the small and beautiful to the large and grandiose.

Past Gordon Creek, the gravel road runs under a long cliff blasted from the hill, and the violent history of this area is cross-sectioned to make a geology-lover’s heart swell. Where the cut is highest, basalt columns radiate immense spokes in strange wheel-like patterns, and where the hill slopes more gently, it soon rises into jagged ramparts with rock arches overlooking grassy bowls where balsamroot blooms.

Because the road follows an old railroad bed and doesn’t gain any elevation, staying about the same elevation above the river, I didn’t notice how hungry I was until I passed a campground under powerlines (Gordon Ridge Camp, 5.3 miles). I stopped to eat and was surprised to find it was almost 2pm – my turn-around time. I’d read about a lot of cool man-made artifacts on this trail – railroad cars, bridge remains, an old homestead – but I couldn’t remember how far up the canyon those artifacts were, so I headed back and continued my meditations on life and death other and “big ideas.”

Big ideas, as in, the Deschutes River canyon is freakin’ massively big when you’re trying to leave. I’d round a bend and see the next bend ahead, and give myself 10 or 15 minutes to get there. Then I’d plod along, and plod along, and plod along some more until 30 minutes went by and I wasn’t any closer. Distances lost their meaning, compared to the depth of the sky; the seemingly barren, rocky landscape lost its emptiness as the sun composed plays of light and shadow on the grass; and the afternoon lost its warmth as terrific gusts of wind roared up and down the canyon and ravines. The wind was insane – it tore my hat off my head, shook the photo opportunities off the fiddlenecks and sage, and disassembled the songs of meadowlarks like a tone-deaf grad student studying music theory.

The canyon can be a lonely place when the wind blows hard and you haven’t seen anyone for hours. I’m starting to understand why those camp hosts are so weird.

Last week I immersed myself (literally) in a rainy and snowy Salmon River hike, surrounded by old-growth and steep timbered ridges. The Deschutes is the polar opposite – so empty it begs the imagination to fill it. When at the last bend the campground and the interstate bridge came into sight two miles away, I decided to take the trail to Ferry Springs, a few hundred feet higher up the rolling hills. Ferry Springs itself was anticlimactic, but the views were great, and a well-placed bench surrounded by trembling shooting-stars kept me from the worst of the wind and let me savor the view to the rain-caressed hills across the blue Columbia, the wind-turbines and crackling power-lines, the big empty spaces that seem tailor-made for road trips and exploration, for a Dean Moriarty to converse about them, for just sitting and looking and filling up on sun and sky and powerful land in every direction.

Eventually I descended, passing the first hiker I’d seen since starting out, and encountered a trailside plaque that made my day. I’d been disappointed that I hadn’t hiked far enough to see any of the historical artifacts along the trail. I never considered that the Ferry Springs trail itself is an artifact, built in the 1860’s for wagons and stagecoaches. The grades and wall-like piles of stones leapt out of the landscape then, and too quickly I reached the road and my truck, and the long drive home – but not before snapping a photograph of a large pipe, inscribed “Calm” at the end pointing into the canyon, and “Drama” at the end pointing towards the highway and the towns and cities.

All told, I hiked 11.3 miles and gained just 800’ elevation. Spring is in force along the Deschutes, and it’s worth every minute of the drive. Virtually complete solitude for six hours, lots of sun and flowers, expansive views, ample meditation, and thankfully, no ticks. I couldn’t have asked for more for my first trip here. Well, maybe that last third of a mile to the railroad car, but I’ve heard that burned down. I’ll have to go back to find out.

Giving Back - $1 Per Mile

Early this morning I slipped out to the Gorge and hiked up Multnomah Creek. The sun shone down on the rapids and honeyed the moss draped over tree limbs and boulders. As I climbed higher, a mossy talus full of fir opened up to the sky and the snowy shoulders of Silver Star mountain graced the hills across the river. I smelled the scent of pine sap and damp earth , and welcomed the touch of wind and warm rain. My plan was to cross from the Multnomah drainage over Wahkeena Creek to Angel’s Rest, for a 9 mile loop with a few thousand feet of elevation gain. I love this hike – it’s one I’ve done many times, in all seasons. I’ve seen carpets of spring wildflowers, tapestries of autumn leaves, barren winter stands of fire-scarred trees. There are many hikes on my list yet to check off; today, I chose an old favorite.

But there was a time, just a year ago, when I couldn’t go hiking.

Last April, I was diagnosed with testicular cancer and had surgery. Since then, I’ve been undergoing regular blood checks, CT scans, and x-rays. In fact, I have another appointment in three weeks. I don’t know if this means I have cancer or not. I think not – and I don’t let it stop me.

I stay active by hiking. It’s physically challenging, mentally clarifying, and spiritually lifting. I’m fortunate that I can hike about once a week. Many are not so lucky.

Try walking into the Cancer Center. It is a messed up feeling. It isn’t right. There’s no good reason for being there. It could be you or someone you love, but whatever reason brings you through those doors, you always, always, always wish you didn’t need to be there. Every three months I walk past the receptionist to the elevator and hit the button for the sixth floor. When I get out, I walk down an empty hallway and enter a waiting room filled with huddled, silent people who don’t make eye contact and who read months-old magazines while waiting for their name to be called. Even though the secretaries remember me, they still verify my insurance. And after my doctor has seen me, while I wait for the scheduling nurse to tell me when to come back, I try to ignore the hairless men and women reclining in chairs with chemicals flowing through their veins.

Many people have to walk through those doors far more often than I, and many of them will never get to go hiking and experience the beauty of Oregon’s outdoors. That’s why at the end of 2010, I will donate $1 for every mile I hike during the year to Providence Cancer Center in Portland.

Providence treats more cancer patients than anyone else in Oregon. They have excellent doctors and treatment centers, renowned researchers and diagnostic facilities, and superb outpatient counseling and care. If worst comes to worst, you want to go to Providence.

Last year, I hiked 163 miles after having surgery. I’m up to 43 miles this year, with a goal of 250. If I don’t make it, I’ll donate $250 as a minimum. If you hike with me, I'll donate a dollar for each mile you hike, too. It may not be much – my riches are measured in friends, family, and experiences, not in dollars – but every dollar matters. Because walking through those doors is something that no one should ever have to face.