Friday and Saturday, 14-April-2023 and 15-April-2023
It’s been a hot minute since I went backpacking… and an even hotter minute since I’ve been backpacking with someone!
This weekend, I’d be taking Jess on her first snow backpacking experience – so I went with the basics, and we headed up to the White River Glacier to hopefully take advantage of the campsite that I’d tamped down back in… January? Okay, yeah there’s no way that campsite is still prepared.
Ahh well – it’d just make it more of a learning experience, right? Right. Right!
Friday:
We got a nice Pine State biscuits breakfast, and headed into the woods. Snow. Onto the Glacier.
As always, it was beautiful.
As always, there’s not much to say about walking. We snowshoed, it was fun, had a blast.
Got to camp, carved out a campsite, and settled in for a relaxing and cold evening… good books, good gin, and delicious cocoa!
Nothing really huge of note, though I was really happy with how the tent site came out!
Saturday:
Saturday dawned nice and clear, with a beautifully crisp and cold world around the campsite.
We had some coffee and tea, a good breakfast, and headed upward, toward the little overlook at the top of the glacier. It was lovely, with solid snow and great views of the Cascades down to the south – and some stellar clouds filtering the light around us!
We hiked upward, and descended back down. Packed up camp, and made the shortish walk back to the car… just in time to make the early dinner bell at the Timberline Lodge, and get to see the sunset from the restaurant!
Man… it’s been ages since I’ve gotten my tent up onto Mt. Hood! 2023 is nearly a month old, and so far… You know what? Let’s not be harsh on ourselves here, huh? I’ve been getting by. I’ve been decompressing, getting into the flow of the year, and spending quite a bit of good time in the gym.
I’m socializing, making plans, and getting projects done… but that “getting out into the cold” itch still needs to be scratched, doesn’t it? Yeah it does! And so Thursday evening saw me packing a bag, and Friday morning found me driving the well-travelled road up toward Mount Hood. I had a good breakfast in my belly (Pine State with a friend!), and a nice and easy plan for the weekend. The weather looked good, and road conditions seemed positive. So was I, with a lovely relaxing trip on the horizon.
The universe obliged.
Hiking in, the slopes were beautifully devoid of the howling mobs. The sky was blue, clear, and crisp. The temperature was cold… but soon enough I had my sleeves rolled up and my jacket wrapped around my waist. I wasn’t quite sweating, thankfully, but the combination of the sun and exercise were definitely doing their job at keeping me warm.
I made camp, did some quick setup to make sure I had space to carve a good shelf for my tent out of the snow covered hillside, and took a walk up the ridgeline of the glacier. I enjoyed the sunset, appreciated the cold, and let myself slowly expand out of the compressed form it’d taken over the last few weeks.
As Yoda tells Luke, “Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.” I can take that to heart… I’m realizing that I need time alone in the wild woods to let myself expand back outward. Time at work, time in the city, time in the gym… I enjoy all of them, but they shrink me down a bit in a way that only the open sky can rectify.
This trip did an amazing job of that rectification – As the sun set, and I finished carving my little campsite out of the slope, with snowshoe and ice axe, I felt good. I felt excellent!
I ate my dinner, read my book, and drifted off to sleep way earlier than I expected. Not a bad thing.
The next morning was beautiful and clear – though there were a few lenticular clouds hovering over the summit block of Mt. Hood, indicating the oncoming snow expected in the late morning.
I breakfasted, hiked around a bit, and enjoyed the last bits of cold as the day warmed up.
Packing and hiking out went quickly, and I was back at the car far earlier than I’d really expected… though the snow was definitely starting to fall in earnest. I’d put chains of the car before leaving, in case the snow was thicker than expected, and they definitely helped power over the packed snow and ice of the parking lot. But… I didn’t need them after that.
I felt a little silly, taking the chains off at the end of the parking lot… but hey. Better to have them on and not need them, versus having to battle through the snow to get them on if I had needed them, right?
Without chains, the drive home was quick. I didn’t have to stop, and I simply relaxed. I think I put some music on… but maybe not? I felt great, exceptionally thankful for an excellent evening in the snow.
It’s Halloween already, isn’t it? How did I miss that it’s already Halloween?
It had been a year. A busy, adventure-filled, amazing, challenging, ridiculous year. Full of evolution, change, growth, and movement forward toward the future.
But October found me back somewhere I’ve been quite a few times before… reflecting on how much has changed since the last time I was there. To an extent… but, frankly, also appreciating the calm moment to just not think about everything. To relax, to unwind, and to appreciate the cold wind and clear skies.
I’ve been to Green lakes… Ohh, probably at least seven times. Once a year, give or take, and probably a few more times that I’m not quite remembering. It’s calm, beautiful, and I’ve gotten to know the area pretty well at this point. It’s comforting, and I’m always thankful for the weekends that I can make it up.
This year, I went out a bit later than normal – Or so I thought. In retrospect, looking back at previous photos and such, it seems that mid to late October is pretty normal of a time for me to go out… interesting. I don’t quite recall there being this much so any other time, so… Hmm. interesting, in any respect.
I got out fairly early in the day, with the goal of getting to camp before sunset – Shorter days, less hiking time, the usual. I was aiming to arrive and make camp with maybe half an hour of daylight left… and instead, I got there with nearly two hours of daylight to enjoy! I was happily surprised – I’ve been hiking and working out a lot more these last few years, but haven’t been seeing too much progress, and I freely admit that it’s been a bit draining on my psyche. After absolutely crushing this, and my last, hike… I’m starting to see why I haven’t seen much progress.
I’ve been continually moving forward, and doing harder and harder hikes. Middle Sister was exceptionally challenging… but that’s because it’s a challenging hike. It’s not even really a hike – it’s a technical ascent! Of course it should be hard!
Anyways, I made it with tons of time to explore, relax, and enjoy myself… and then, to sleep. Like, so early. I legitimately was tucked into my sleeping bag drifting off by 8:00, I think.
The next morning I woke up late.
That’s right. Asleep by 8:00, and still asleep at 10:30. Awwww yeah, be amazed at that sleep debt I carry. Or… just at how much I enjoy being curled up in a sleeping bag in the freezing woods? It was exceptionally windy that night… Windy enough that I had woken up and actually got out of the tent to better secure my cooking gear and hiking poles!
Regardless of how long I slept, I got up. I broke fast, I supped upon coffee, and I enjoyed the cold. I took some time to boil off water for myself to bring home. I thought… a bit. But mostly, I simply let myself enjoy the cold world around me, either through my own eyes or through the lens of a camera.
It.
Was.
Excellent.
The drive home found me a bit hungry… and the random pizza place that I’d spotted along the drive in was closed by the time I made it by. A quick stop for gas gave me time to do a quick websearch, and soon enough I had found a small neighborhood bar and grill to slack my need for a huge bacon burger… and a chance to read some interesting roadside signs!
