Moisturized

Last week end I left the dry air of Montana to meet a friend in Oregon. I had not seen her for maybe 4 years - I guess that's since I moved here. Since she and her husband pretty much introduced me to backpacking, our plan was to meet friday night in Portland, have a nice gourmet dinner, and then head towards the Columbia River. Saturday was going to be a hike to Wahtum lake (starting from Eagle Creek Fish Hatchery Recreation Area, after the Bonneville dam) and hike out on Sunday. According to my friend it should be 14 mile roundtrip.

Well of course things don't always go according to plans.

The first problem was just making it on time friday. I had to run out of work to drive up to Missoula. It's about an hour from here, but I forgot about 1) the construction work on the highway, 2) the fact that half of the population in Montana tends to need to drive always exactly at the same time as me, and I noticed that they are never in a hurry when I am. 

Anyway I was at the airport 5 minutes before the check in time limit, just to see that the plane was going to be 1:30 hour late. No big deal... besides the fact that my friend does not have a cell phone so there was no way I could let her know about the delay. Then another delay in Seattle, where the airport was blocked because of a security breach. I'll never know what happened. But I have to say it was a weird thing to see all these people not moving, just waiting until someone tells them to start moving again.

The bottom line was I never made it for a gourmet dinner (arghhhh), we could just grab appetizers and a beer before leaving Portland.

The second problem was that the hike was not 14 miles roundtrip. It was 14 miles to the lake. Little difference. Of course we saw that at the trailhead, so we could have decided to go somewhere else, but neither of us knew the area so we figured we might as well hike up as far as possible, camp and then hike out the next day whether or not we saw the lake.

For someone who has essentially been hiking in Montana over the last years, Eagle Creek's popularity was quite overwhelming. I was ready to turn around when we entered the parking lot already packed at 9 am. We were not really by ourselves on a trail that could definitely fit strollers. It was nice and wide, more like a promenade than like a pack trail. The day was beautiful though, and the scenery fantastic. As the trail took us slowly uphill (3600 ft over 14 miles...), it became narrower and sometimes was just a ledge on the side of the mountain. 

Here the trails goes under the falls. Refreshing and a little scary:

We kept hiking up the trail, sometimes crossing creeks, sometimes stopping to enjoy the scenery. 

It took us 7 hours (I'm including the lunch break), but we finally made it!

Wahtum lake, elevation somewhere around 3700 ft. I took a quick dip before dinner - miso soup and pasta. A little piece of chocolate before snoring deedles. Sunday was going to be a long day.

And good thing we took pictures of the lake when we arrived, because when I got out of the tent the next day it was another story:

Definitely a rare weather for Montana, but I bet not that rare in Oregon. We could barely see the lake and we were camping on its shore!

Everything was wet. The tent in and out, the backpacks, the ground, the trees, and anything we encountered on our way down. I really don't know much about North American flora so I will not even try to name the plants. 

These ones had huge leaves and little thorns very irritating on the way down.

We didn't waste much time on the way down. We were on a tight schedule. And since the trail was almost flat, we knew we might not be much faster going downhill. We left the camp and walked for 4 hours non stop before our lunch break. It was kind of raining and most of the trail was in the forest with no open space for stopping, ferns and huge plants everywhere. The saturated atmosphere had some sort of mold smell, and that's when I realized that moss was everywhere, on the trees, on the cliffs, everywhere...

A last stop to look at falls

and then back to the trailhead - 6 hours after starting. I just had time to change my clothes, jump in the car and my friend dropped me at the airport. 

The trip back was eventless, my legs very sore, but thanks to Horizon I could sip a Sling Shot along the way, looking at Mt Hood, St Helens and Rainier sticking out of a thick layer of clouds.

I'll have to go there someday.