Wow… I can’t believe it’s been this long since I’ve gone backpacking up at Elk Meadows. It’s been… what? Since at least 2021… So over a year, from my records. 13 months.
For this being my go-to hike, that’s kind of a long time.
I mean, okay. Granted, I’ve hiked Elk Meadows a ton of times since then. Let’s see… three other times? More than any other hike, by a good margin, so it still counts as a go-to. Just… less backpacking this year, I think. Yeah – four times this year, vs. six last year. But there’s still time, I have faith I’ll get another few in this year.
Anyways I went backpacking at Elk Meadows
It was a lovely weekend – I started off by having brunch at Timberline Lodge, getting a chance to sit down at the Cascade Dining room for their buffet and snacking on some excellent fancy restaurant fare. It was… good… but not great, frankly. COVID’s hit everyone hard, especially the tourism industry, and it felt like the Lodge was still severely understaffed. I was patient though, snacked as I could, and soon enough was parked and heading up the trail to Elk.
The hike was lovely – I went pretty much non-stop, working on my endurance a bit, and pushing to hike a little bit more quickly than I normally would. Not being in a rush, mind you, just… pushing my body a little bit. Exulting in my strength and endurance, and seeing how far I could push those limits.
I made camp in a new campsite for me, since there were folks in my normal ones, and set about exploring the meadow. It was interesting – the meadow was more crowded than I think I’ve ever seen it before, with a grand total of maybe half a dozen people camped around various spots. It was almost loud… not significantly so, of course, and not enough to overwhelm the sounds of nature, but… still. Loud enough that it was noticeable and memorable.
I relaxed.
I ate dinner, read my book, and stargazed.
I slept gloriously, and woke up excellently refreshed.
I explored the meadows again in the morning. Stretching out, warming up the muscles, and appreciating the cool and sunny day.
I finished my book, packed up, and walked back to the car.
It was a good day.
Ohh! One interesting thing of note – My campstove had given me trouble on Middle Sister, if you recall, so I pulled it apart before heading out to Elk Meadows… dissassembled the whole thing, cleaned and rinsed it, and made sure everything was back in its proper place. Works like a charm, now!
Just a reminder to people – You’re always capable of troubleshooting stuff!
Friday through Sunday, 12-Aug-2022 through 14-Aug-2022
Vital Statistics: Day 1 = 6 miles, ~2,000ft elevation from Obsidian Trailhead to Arrowhead Lake campsite. ~5 hours total. Day 2 = 6 miles round trip, ~3,100ft elevation to Middle Sister Summit via the Renfrew Glacier. ~11hrs total. Day 3 = 7 miles, ~2,000ft elevation loss, via Obsidian falls. ~4 hours total.
Talking with the rest of my team, I realized something interesting. This trip is pretty close to the 16th anniversary of my first backpacking trip! Not to the day, I don’t think… but the Perseid meteor shower is this weekend, and that was the starter for my first backpacking trip, so…
Hey! Happy 16th anniversary of backpacking to me!
Not only that, but Middle Sister is the tallest glaciated peak that I’ve summitted! Standing proud at just over 10,000ft above sea level, it beats my previous summit of The Matterhorn (no, not the one in Europe, the smaller one in Oregon…) which stands at 9,845ft.
An anniversary and a personal record, all in one weekend… not so bad, right?
There’s another first to add to the list too – My first official Mazama’s climb! Since BCEP, I haven’t had occasion to do a full and official climb with the group who I spent so many weekends hiking alongside. I’d signed up for the Mt. Hood climb, of course, as is tradition for graduating BCEP students… but unfortunately that trip fell through due to a series of increasingly unlikely and exceptionally ridiculous issues.
I got an email a week or two prior from the BCEP group I was a part of. There were a few extra spots on a Middle Sister ascent team, and applications were open if any of us were interested. I’d already made plans for that weekend to go backpacking in the North Cascades with a friend of mine, but since those plans were pretty tentative at best (and, let’s be candid here, I gave them a 50% chance of falling through) I pivoted toward Middle Sister pretty quickly.
Plans were crystalized, times confirmed, and gear packed. An earlier-than-normal morning was followed by a stressful drive, where I was convinced that I was going to be a full 30min late to meet the team… until I realized that the longer-than-expected ETA was because my GPS was planning on having me take 15mph forest service roads to the trailhead… instead of the 60mph highway that leads right to it. I arrived almost exactly on time, in the end, though I’m pretty sure I overdosed on stress hormones before I realized that tomfoolery.
One there, with the whole group assembled, we held a solid team meeting at the trailhead. Went over plans, routes, gear, and all the fun things that a new team of adventurers cover with each other. Then, we shouldered our packs and headed in.
The hiking was, truthfully, a bit rough for me. I’d like to think that I’m in shape, and I know that in comparison to the majority of the population I am, but compared to the team I was with… I wasn’t the strongest member. We had seasoned mountaineers, a firefighter, and exceptionally strong hikers. Our route wasn’t particularly tough (see the above vital statistics) but I was definitely lagging behind by the time we started into our final push to the lake-side campsite.
Thankfully, our campsite was singularly gorgeous, and we’d arrived with easily enough time to spare for a quick nap, some good relaxation, and even some crevasse rescue practice… not that we expected any major crevasses on the glacier, but they’re one of those things that you always plan around… the penalty for failure being as simple as it is catastrophic.
We rested, we ate, we hydrated, and we watched a perfect sunset drop below the horizon before heading to bed, with dreams of an early morning start in the forefront of our thoughts.
The following day, on the push for the summit, I was feeling the elevation. Or the gain, or… I don’t know, but it was definitely a challenging. The morning started beautifully cold, and I embraced the change of pace from the boiling heat of Wilsonville with gusto. My jacket stayed in the pack, and my tee-shirt let me appreciate the full brunt of the alpine morning.
As we steadily ascended, the sun lit up and we took some time to stop for photos of the sunrise illuminating the line of Cascade Volcanoes stretching off into the Northern distance. We continued on, though we did take fairly regular breaks… to my extreme appreciation. Route-finding wasn’t particularly easy, since the glacier has receded quite a bit in recent years, but soon enough we found the foot of the Renfrew Glacier and headed up.
I dragged.
It was tough going for Ben, I freely admit. I was tired, my pack felt heavy, and the terrain was steep.
I persisted though, and with some help from the rest of the team we all made it up, and I was able to summit my newest glaciated peak!
The rest of the day was better than the ascent. The descent went smoothly, with my knees thankfully playing well with the braces and glacier and not even hurting that much. The glacial descent itself was lovely – a bit challenging in spots where the snowfield got steep, but we had rope teams and crampons and axes, so even in the two instances where I lost footing I was able to very quickly self-arrest and stop my slide within a foot or three.
The return to Arrowhead Lake was glorious – we quickly dropped our packs, and our outside clothes, and jumped into the bracing lake. It was freezing at first, but actually quite warm once we became acclimatized to it… the lake was maybe 4ft deep at its deepest, and fairly small, so the sun warmed it up nicely throughout the day. It wasn’t like a hot-tub, by any means, but… more like a mild cryotherapy? Regardless of the exact temperature, the lake was hugely appreciated and undoubtedly contributed to a speedy recovery for my poor tired legs.
Dinner and sunset were lovely, as expected, and sleep claimed me quickly and deeply; a very well earned rest.
The following morning saw us packing up a bit later than we had on Saturday. We didn’t have a summit to try for, and almost our entire trail was downhill… which would speed our pace, and was absolutely critical to my sanity for the morning. I could (and did) survive some uphill… but the lake and some ibuprofen could only do so much, and my poor legs had performed right up to their peak over the two days prior.
We took a detour to visit a small spring at the base of our campsite, maybe 300ft below the lake, and to see the waterfall that it turned into later on. We hiked, chatted, and took semi-frequent breaks to snap pictures of the stunning scenery surrounding us.
That didn’t slow our pace though, and we made excellent time – finding ourselves back at the trailhead far earlier than I would have guessed.
A final group meeting was had, and the climb was officially over.
We did an outbrief, discussed lunch, and made our way to burritos in a small tourist town called Detroit. On the way, I picked up a few hitchhikers from Bangkok who were hiking the PCT, and the whole team had lunch (together with the backpackers) at an excellent pod of food trucks off the side of the highway. We traded stories, learned a bit about their slice of the world (Both were ex-pats, one from the States, the other from London), and finally said our goodbyes for the day.
I drove home, left my gear in the spare room, and drew myself a much-needed Epson salt bath.
P.S. – I just got an email from another team who was on the mountain! They got pictures of us on the summit!
Friday through Sunday, 08-July-2022 through 10-July-2022
Ohh man… the last time I was at Husband lake was… well, not even a year ago, in fact.
Time these days seems to flow… differently. I don’t know how else to say it, but I can’t quite tell the difference between something that happened a year ago, six months ago, or two years ago. Maybe a relic of the new world we live in? Maybe an effect of the chaos and challenges in the office? Whatever it is… It was sure a surprise when I realized that it’s only been ~9months since I was last camped out underneath the stars at Husband Lake.
This time, however, was a bit different. – I was flying solo, for one. No one to help carry the gear, though also no one to coordinate with. – It was snowy at the lakes area, which was a major shift. I was expecting a warm day hiking in, but the most recent trip reports mentioned quite a bit of snow still at the far end of the trail… so I packed in some snowshoes. – I was staying for three days, not two. I had a long weekend to spend out and about, and was looking forward to spending it away from cell signal and the light from monitors. – Mosquitoes.
With those changes in mind, I packed a slightly different pack than previously. More food, of course, but I also left my inflatable kayak behind. I just couldn’t afford the extra weight, especially with the snowshoes strapped onto my pack. I’d bought them the weekend before, and… I’ll be candid here, I really should have noted the weight when I bought them. They weren’t light, by any stretch of the imagination, and I’d 100% come to regret those extra pounds by the end of the trip.
But we’re talking about the beginning, not the end! In the beginning, I was feeling good. Scratch that – I was feeling great.
The drive to the trailhead was gorgeous. Sunny, warm, and absolute perfect convertible weather. I got going fairly early in the morning, and listened to amazing music the whole way out. Not emo, by any stretch, but… wistful? Wistful electronic music, if that makes any sense. (Ed Note: See the link below to the flagship song from Ben’s playlist!)
I drove, I parked, I hiked.
I felt good! I had my knee braces on, of course, but I felt strong. Or… I felt exhausted, and tired by the heavier-than-normal pack, but I felt up for the hike. I was able to push through, and I kept my legs moving and my arms swinging. My poles planted firmly, my boots were stable, and my progress was consistent.
I was… I was good!
I’ve learned something, in the last few years.
I need to meditate. I need the quiet times, when I can let my brain wander.
But I can’t sit and meditate like a monk in a mountaintop retreat. My body craves action and movement. I come alive when I’m kinetic, when I’m burning energy and traveling through the world. Life is movement for me, and movement is life.
So how do I rectify these opposing requirements? I drive. I hike, I climb, and I move. But I move in ways that allow distraction. They provide distance from my phone, and from the never-ending stream of information and distraction that our global society provides. I escape, distract my body, and force my mind to look inward and outward and all around.
It’s glorious, and I absolutely have my best thoughts and epiphanies while driving or hiking. Unsurprisingly, this excursion was no different.
I thought, my mind wandered.
I made it to camp, I set up the tent, and I allowed my mind to continue wandering.
I read some of my book, I ate food, and I hid from the mosquitoes. From the seemingly infinite crush of buzzing bloodsucking bastards. I learned that my citronella wristbands didn’t work, and I hid inside my protected tent and enjoyed the peace that only comes from being disconnected from the internet and the infinite connectivity it provides.
The next day dawned bright and cold.
I got up, cooked my breakfast, and read a bit more of my book. I pondered some of my epiphanies from the previous days hike, and braced myself to brave the stinging, biting, buzzing world outside my insect-proof mesh.
When I did leave my shielded room, I moved quickly. I’d learned that I had approximately 15s before the mosquitoes found me, so I packed my gear in my tent and then zipped off into the valley between The Husband and The Three Sisters.
I wandered, and took breaks whenever I found a nice spot that was sufficiently windy to shield me from the bloodthirsty masses. I gazed at the mountains, let my mind wander, and loved being active and outside. It was amazing!
That evening, I rested some more and kept the theme of reading and pondering. I’d had some unexpected news about my job the previous week, so I had a lot to think about… next steps, options, future paths that I could find myself on. It was good to have the disconnected downtime.
My last morning was cold and beautiful – just like the previous morning, but even clearer than I’d hoped it would be. The mountains were gorgeous in the distance, and I wished that I had infinite time and energy to just walk right up to the peaks that seemed only a few miles distant.
I know, I know. I skipped a lot of time, here… but you know what? It’s hiking and meditating and reading. What do you expect, hmm? Most of my blog posts about hikes are just “Hey, I hiked. It was fun. Then I finished”. This is pretty exceptional detail, here!
Okay. I ate breakfast, and hiked out. I went quickly, keeping to the “only stop for 12s, or when it’s windy” rule to avoid the mosquitoes. I made amazing time, in fact, finishing back at my car in approximately half the time it took me to hike in.
I drove home, listening to the same music as I had on the drive in… but pausing it more often to consider some of the ideas and plans I’d come up with on the hike.
Pretty sure that’s a good sign, if I’ve ever seen one.
Appendix B: Mosquitoes. I didn’t really make it clear just how many of these absolute bastards I ran into. Single slaps would smoosh 3+ mosquitoes most times… I think my max was five. Coming home, I counted ~160 bites on my body… though interestingly none of them really itched. Not sure if it’s a new type of ‘skeeter, or if my body was just so absolutely inundated by histamines that it couldn’t process.
