Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday – 28, 29, 30, and 31-Sept-2023


Well dang.

My plan for this fall was to do a whole series of backpacking trips – starting with McNeil Point, and culminating in a four-day adventure out in the Wallowas.

I was going to drive out to Joseph, Oregon, on Wednesday after work and stay at a motel near the trailhead. Then, I’d grab as many pancakes as I could eat, then backpack in to Ice Lake! I’d use Ice Lake as a basecamp, summitting The Matterhorn (not the one in Switzerland, that would be too far) and Sacajawea Peak… then trek out and stay overnight again at the same motel before driving back home on Sunday.

It was going to be amazing and I was super psyched…

But then the rain happened.

See, if it was just rain then I’d have been okay. Heck, I’d have been fine if it was snow! But it wasn’t either – it was freezing rain, with the temperatures hovering right in the low to mid 30s. That’s what I call “hypothermia weather”. Or, more simply put, “dying in the backcountry weather”.

Not part of my plans, to say the least, and I ended up cancelling the trip once the weather was clearly not going to change.



Disappointing, to be sure, but that’s part of the adventure of the outdoors, right? “The mountain doesn’t care about you” is the refrain I keep in mind… it’s not that I’m challenging the mountains, or that I’m conquering them. I’m just experiencing them, and making decisions that will let me keep experiencing them for as long as possible.

So I stayed home.

I made delicious meals, went for long walks, and flew the drone around the Willamette river.