Tag Archives: Snow camping

Feb10

Backpacking up the White River Glacier again, 2023 edition!

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Friday and Saturday, 20-Jan-2023 and 21-Jan-2023

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.

Jul23

Backpacking Foley Ridge, and exploring Linton Meadows

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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 A: Music Video. “I miss the future” by Lost Kings
https://youtu.be/POryLyYbAkw


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.

Dec9

A Thanksgiving adventure – Backpacking Elk Meadows

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A Thanksgiving adventure – Backpacking Elk Meadows

Thanksgiving is going to be different this year. This is my first year being single in half a decade, and thanks to the COVID Pandemic it’s also the first year that I can’t travel, and don’t have any friends still in town. I’m flying solo, have a ton of vacation to burn, and am feeling energetic...


Monday and Tuesday, 23 & 24-Nov-2020


This… looks really similar to the previous post. Which is because it was, in fact, very similar!

Instead of hiking Elk Meadows as a day-hike though, I went as an overnighter – Nothing too intense, but an excellent chance to get out of the house, out of the city, and out of the insanity of what the entire year has become. Instead, I could get into the woods, the quiet, and the calm crisp air of winter.



Ohh man, did I succeed.

It was beautiful, cold, and amazing. I started out late in the day, similar to when I’d hiked… with the advantage that I didn’t have to make my way back to the car after I got to the meadows. In trade, I had the downside of schlepping my pack along with me… and since it was winter camping, it was a solid 45lbs, food and water included. But, thanks to good boots, poles, and fairly consistent time on the stairmaster, I was able to cruise up to the meadows pretty much as quickly as I’d done the previous time… It took a little longer, but not as much as I’d expected.

Once I was there… ohh man. Not much more snow had fallen, it seemed, but getting to watch the sun set over Mt. Hood while I was cooking up dinner was truly sublime.

The rest of the night was just spent… being quiet. I can’t really describe exactly what I got up to… It wasn’t really anything, truthfully. I read a little, but mostly I just took the chance to be. To be quiet, to be under the stars, and to feel the cold slowly seeping into me. I know that sounds like a negative thing… but believe me, it wasn’t. It’s something I hadn’t realized quite how much I’ve missed, living in Oregon, but I love the feeling of camping in the snow, and feeling the cold slowly engulf you.

It’s calm, and quiet. It’s beautifully relaxing, and it makes worming my way into the sleeping bag that much better afterward.



The next morning, I awoke to the comforting sound of cannon fire, ringing out across the mountain.

…

Wait.

…

Yeah, that… that was definitely cannon fire.

…

Well, I was camped sort of near the ski area? So… that’s probably what it was?

I was worried for a few moments. I couldn’t imagine anyone triggering an avalanche anywhere near where I was, and I know that I’d camped in a quite safe spot (off to the side of the meadow in the trees, far away from any high-angle snow) but it was still definitely a disconcerting way to wake up.

Unfortunately, I don’t have many pictures from the day… I’d turned my phone off overnight to save battery, but I’d left it in the pocket of the tent. Which, as it turned out, got extremely cold… cold enough to nearly kill the battery completely. I had a portable charger back at the car, of course, but that wasn’t going to help me out on the trail. Since my camera is also my phone, which is one of my pieces of safety equipment, I wasn’t going to risk it just to get a few extra pictures.

So accept my apologies, and enjoy the few pictures that did snap, before I realized just how low the battery had gotten.

As has become tradition at Elk Meadows, I breakfasted with a family of small birds – Gray Jays I believe – who flittered around and kept me company. Or, more accurately, constantly tried to literally jump inside my cup of coffee. It’s warm, I guess, and seemed to make a good change of pace from trying to jump inside my breakfast.

Freaking birds are lucky that they’re cute.

The rest of the day went beautifully. I kept the theme going, pretending to be an intrepid explorer by breaking new trails, exploring the meadow, and appreciating the crisp air of the mountain.

Elk Meadows is at roughly 5,200ft elevation… so not quite as high as Denver, but definitely a noticeable increase from Wilsonville’s 150ft elevation. It’s enough that I noticed it, but not enough that I was really winded while breaking trail… Combined with the cool air and snow, and it made for an amazing experience.

When I got back to camp, ready to pack up, I was happily tired out, and ready for the quick snack I had before heading down the trail back to the car. Packing the tent was a bit interesting, since the day’s sun had melted a lot of snow on the trees… leading to my tent getting completely soaked from the constant drip of meltwater. But that’s why I carry a spare (clean) trashbag with me, and soon enough I was heading back to the car – with the plan to hang my tent up as soon as I got home.