I had a good weekend camping. I drove out on Friday night after work, stopping by Gateway Pizza in town to pick up a pizza. I saw some neighbors there I hadn’t seen in a while, but didn’t take much time for a chat. Then I drove out to the Hitt Mountain area via West Pine Creek Road.
My map directed me towards the Hitt Mountain Dispersed Camping area. As I drove up the dirt road, I saw occasional RVs parked in camping spots, but there weren’t too many people out and about. Snow started to appear on the road just after I drove by a pair of potential campsites. I made my way through three slushy sections before a deep one turned me back and I picked my campsite.
It wasn’t over 6000 feet, but at 5840, it was close enough. I like to be up high for the Memorial Day weekend to start acclimating. Sleeping at higher elevation helps prevent altitude sickness. I’m not sure I’ll be going high enough to experience altitude sickness this summer, but I this is how Ambrose and I have done it for years.
It was more work setting up camp all by myself, but it’s all work that I’ve done. And I didn’t have to cook dinner, at least, because I had the pizza. And I’m usually the one setting up the tent while Ambrose cooked dinner, so I didn’t feel his absence too keenly. Not until I was in the tent, ready to sleep. Then I felt it. The lack of my husband-space-heater. I was cold that first night, and had a hard time falling asleep. I felt energized out there, like I’d had a bunch of caffeine, even though I hadn’t had any caffeine since Thursday.
I woke feeling refreshed the next morning, and totally unconcerned about the time. I’ve been living by my alarm clocks at home, but I turned them all off for this trip. No bedtime reminder, no wakeup alarm. I stayed in my pajamas and used my frying pan to heat up some pizza for breakfast. Then I drank some ginger tea and read.
Around 10, I decided it was time to hike, so I got ready to do that and set off. The GPS tried to direct me to a trail, but I ended up taking the road instead, which was good, because I got to see the condition all the way to the saddle. The snow that hard thwarted me the prior evening was already quite melted. I wrote the hike up when I got back, and it’s posted here.
My plan to pack my beer in snow didn’t pan out very well. The snow had mostly melted, but it was still a good drink (non-alcoholic beer by Athletic Brewing Company). I sat down and spent the rest of the afternoon reading and hydrating and snacking and trying to stay mostly in the sun because it was too cool in the shade with the breeze.
I had pizza for dinner, no surprise there, with enough leftover for the next day’s breakfast. I had brought several meals to cook for dinners and lunches, but the pizza was stretching farther than I had expected. I guess I’ve forgotten how long it can take to eat a whole pizza by myself.
I thought I would be sleepier after hiking for more than 5 miles, but I found myself awake again that evening as the sky lost its brightness. I cried again. Journaled. Read. Listened to an audiobook for a bit. I had downloaded several episodes of Survivor in case I decided I wanted to watch something on my phone, but when I tried to play one on that first night, it proved to be full of skips and completely unwatchable. I tried again, just to be sure, and the skips were still there. I think Ambrose futzed with the download to keep me from watching TV out in the woods.
I decided not to decide whether I’d hike again the next day until the next day. Once I fell asleep, I slept well, though I had to get up and pee several times in the night. I was glad of that, because it gave me a chance to look up at the stars, brilliant in a clear sky.
After a breakfast of pizza, I did decide to go on another hike. I decided I’d try to find that other route the GPS had tried to direct me to, and go out two miles before turning back, for a nice, easy, four mile hike.
I found the trail, and it was much nicer to hike than the road had been. In addition to having more shade, it allowed me to avoid any vehicles driving by. There was a stream crossing, but it was very doable. The main reason I hadn’t done the other stream crossings was that the trail disappeared beneath snow on the far side. This one continued very clearly past the water.
Typically, I like to just hike up on the way out for a training hike, and then I can go downhill all the way home. But I decided to go ahead and just do the two miles out, even though that meant I’d have to hike back uphill when I turned around. I was rewarded with beautiful views of the Wallowa mountains in Oregon across the Snake River.
This hike had some overlap with the one from the day before, but was different enough to be interesting. When I stopped to turn around, I took a break, eating and drinking and digging a hole before heading back. It was good to exert myself back up that road. I dripped sweat, but my legs felt just fine. They were working, but not straining. I retraced my steps back to camp and settled in for an afternoon of reading and snacking and hydrating. I had one piece of pizza left, so I cooked that up for an after hike snack.
I took pictures of a slope opposite my campsite where I’d seen rabbits hopping about the day before at breakfast. Sure enough, the slope was spotted with holes. I was glad that I’d gotten to see some of them, though I didn’t manage any pictures of the animals themselves.
For dinner, I made Minute Rice and added a can of Mediterranean style mackerel. I don’t really like olives, but in that setting, I find them okay. It was one of the easier dinners that I brought with me. While I waited for the rice to rehydrate, I played with my staff (broomstick), and relearned how to spin it around the front and back of my body, as well as going backwards for the side spin. I only whacked my head a couple times. After dinner, I found myself sleepy. I actually managed to fall asleep before the light faded from the sky that night.
Of course, then I woke up at around 1 in the morning and had a devil of a time falling back asleep…
Clouds rolled in overnight. When I woke up for good, the wind was starting to blow in a way I didn’t trust. I listened to my instincts and, rather than just getting up to do breakfast, I packed up the tent and got dressed for the day. My reward for getting all that done was cheesy pepper grits, and I managed to spill over half of them on my stove trying to pick them up and take them to my chair to eat. That was not the most fun part of my day, but I got it cleaned up without too much drama.
I sat on my chair to eat an apple and drink my ginger tea before heading out on the road. I cried, then. Thinking of Ambrose, and how he would have liked this trip. Thinking that he was here, with me, and that he wasn’t, too. This terrible dichotomy of grief.
I decided, based on the signs I’d seen on that first hike, that I could go out the other way and still make my way to 71. It would add a bit of time to my trip, but not too much. I was so close to home, I could afford to take the scenic route.
Once I passed Tool Cache Saddle, the road got very bumpy. It was not washboard, but just very rocky for several miles as I came down. But the road eventually smoothed out, and I didn’t encounter any other vehicles until the road was much wider and easier to navigate, close to 71.
I made it home safely and got to work emptying the car out. I didn’t quite finish, but I got what needed to go inside, inside. Then I showered off three days worth of grime and had some lunch.
In the afternoon, I went for a walk to check Saturday’s mail and met a neighbor I hadn’t met before. Possibly a choir recruit, we’ll see.
I had a good family zoom, told my family all about the camping trip. I’ve had a quiet evening. I think I’ll start mowing tomorrow. Round two. And I want to run in the morning. It’s going to get warmer and warmer now. The cold snaps are over. Maybe I’ll have time to run and mow in the morning if I get up a bit earlier…