Buckhorn Wilderness, Olympic National Forest

After a few previous trips in tunnel vision due to the weather, this weekend adventure was the light at the end of the tunnel. With long views, plenty of sunshine, pleasant walking weather, this trip was a huge bang for the buck.

Emma and I planned the route a week or so before our departure from Seattle on July 20. Despite some significant delayed traffic before the Hood Canal Bridge, we made it to the trail head by noon. We ate lunch, donned the gear, and noted that we were both carrying light weight backpacks (certainly compared to my 4 day solo). We began the hike through the shaded forest, along side the babbling creek. The trail gave us a few opportunities to get to the water, the crunch of gravel under our boots.

It was mostly easy going to the lake where we dropped packs and planned to camp. I dried out my sweaty shirt and we refilled water, while watching a man in an LL Bean t shirt cast a neon green fishing line from the shore. He waded in further, the muck of the lake bottom making him grimace. The fishing line arched in the air like calligraphy. I thought of Henry Wu who in college, tied flies for me that matched my hair, in a gesture I missed then as flirting. We had thought to trade fly fishing lessons for photography when we both made our way out west. I don't know what happened to Henry.

Emma suggested we head higher for camp. The lake was both shady and a bit buggy, and better views could likely be had above. We filled all water vessels, including her dinner bowl, which she carried like a monk would carry for alms.

The ridge did indeed offer more sunshine and more views, of Mount Constance, especially.

We dropped packs at the ridge and scouted for an ideal campsite, skirting around the heather, pushing aside the firs to find surprises. The biggest surprise was the view of the sound from other side of the ridge. I could see my city from here, and it was glorious. It's not just that the clumps of buildings were visible, it's that I could see the stadium, the Columbia Tower, and the ferry boats that crossed the Sound. This was such a delightful view. It stretched for miles. From Tacoma to Mt. Baker and Mt. Shuksan. 

We found a spot and settled in for the night, dinning by sunset, back lit by the beauty. 

The stars were visible at night, and moon rise glowed orange as the city lights. It was marvelous. I woke up here to the sunshine I was craving, the views I had been missing. 

We ate breakfast on nearly the last of the water we had hauled up from the lake and saved a few sips for the summit. 

Then, down again through the forest, and to the trail head, and to the ferry to get home. Mountains + Sound + Ferry + fun = a wonderful adventure. 

Braids like Ropes: Hair and Hygiene

I wear my hair in braids, especially when I'm adventuring. Last summer, I look liked twins with the most iconic braid boss ever--Anne of Green Gables. 

Jess and Anne of Green Gables, PEI, Canada photo from SpokeandStories

On the Wonderland, a solo female hiker stopped in her boots to tell me, "Wow, you have braids like rope. That's some hair." Truth. It's typically a mess of curls and tangles. So I tie my hair in knots on purpose. I took those braids out only once during the entire trip, only to re-braid them on the banks of Mystic Lake, loosing strands of curls in the wind enough to make a nest! 

Showing off those braids and the mountain. Skyscraper Mountain. Photo by Jaal Mann.

Hygiene in general is a concern for folks looking to do a longer journey. Folks are fine for a few days, but without a shower for two weeks? What do you bring? How do you do it? I thought I might weave more tips than braiding my hair in this vignette. 


Tea for two:
One of the desires for this trip was to sit around in camp with a warm drink, to sip tea in the morning, and a whiskey hot chocolate before bed. While the weather made it too hot for after dinner warm drinks, I never gave up on tea. It's tea for two purposes. First and foremost, it's the warm drink, the caffeine, and the goodness of tea outdoors. The second purpose, is a wilderness secret I've been using for more than 20 years, maybe longer. I think I can thank Sandy for this trick. She was my Outdoor Adventure Camp counselor in the great summer of 1989. I still use other outdoor education tricks from her and Bear. The second purpose of a tea bag is the teabag face wash. The tannin in black tea are a wonderful astringent. The bag is warm, and feels great in the mountain mornings. The face wash removes last night's sleep in the eyes, and the cake of dirt, sunblock and bug spray before you layer more on for today. After I squeeze out some of the water, I gently apply the tea bag to my eyes, then wipe my face, behind my ears, and the back of my neck. If I'm feeling really dirty, I may even tuck a tea bag under my armpit while cleaning up breakfast. 

Deodorant?
On shorter trips I leave that at home. On this trip, I brought a travel size tea tree deodorant. I'm only bothering to write about deodorant at all for Jaal's trick. Being ultralight, and crafty, he melted down some deodorant and put it in an empty chap-stick container. Careful not to confuse the two!

Dip and Rinse:
Despite the record heat, and ungodly sweat fest, I managed to stay fairly clean for these two weeks. How? Water! The Wonderland Trail offers water regularly. While rivers tend to flow full of glacial till, there is no love loess there. Plenty of clear streams offer clean drinking water (still need to filter or treat!) and a refreshing cleanse. I frequently dipped my hat, and rang out my buff, did a quick scrub, and soaked it to keep cool as I kept hiking. Streams and creeks made for great foot soaks, too. I was also able to rinse clothes. Remember no soap at the source. 

Rinsing and drying my undies at Indian Bar

The real treat was swimming in nearly every alpine lake we encountered. I swam at Louise Lake, Mowich Lake, Golden Lake, St. Andrews Lake, and Mirror Lakes. 

A swim in Louise Lake

Gaiter Girl: 
There are many things I adopted from my NOLS outdoor educator course in the Olympics. One of them is gaiters. Even my most consistent mountain buddy Erik said, "NOLS was religious about gaiters. It's the best way to keep your socks clean. Clean socks means less foot issues. Less foot issues means more easy hiking." I wear them on almost every hike, and was especially glad to have them on this long hike. I only had one change of socks--and a new pair in each cache. Yet, with my gaiters, rinsing socks, and taking my socks off in the sun at bug-less long breaks, I was able to keep my feet in great shape. I trusted this method of foot care so much, and loved my "newish" Solomon 4D GTX boots so much, that I didn't even bring camp shoes. I could also stand on my gaiters when I needed a boot-off rest in camp.

Pee rag:
I'm not only a Leave No Trace practitioner, I was once a LNT educator for scouts. I've been leaving no trace with a pee rag since the OAC days, decades. I just use a bandanna. The UV sunlight disinfects, and I can leave no trace, other than the temporary puddle. When I returned home from The Wonderland I joined a Women of Wonderland FB group and found a few new purpose-built products for this.

• WeeRag: a soft spongy natural viscose shammy towel to use by itself or in combination with colorful fabrics and artistic designs. The WeeRag pee rag was developed through the partnership of a physician and life-long adventure athlete, and an engineer with a passion for creating eco-friendly solutions. 
• https://kulacloth.com/

I since purchased a Kula cloth and absolutely love it. The snaps are so convenient and it's truly waterproof so that my hand is never damp. I'm a huge fan of this essential piece of gear and never leave home without it. 

6 D's of Doing the Do:

• Go the Distance--200 yards from water
• Dig for Depth--6 inches down. Make sure your trowel is strong enough, and the blade is marked for depth.
• Dig for Diameter--Wide enough to do your business--4-6'' diameter.
• Drop it--do the do--You might hand on a nearby tree, or lean back on a log, if your legs need a little support.
• Decompose and Disguise --using a nearby stick or rock, break up the feces, and stir them in with the soil to help decomposition. Dispose of the decomposition aid tool (the rock/stick) in the hole and cover the entire thing up with the soil you dug out. Adding a bigger rock or stick pile may also help disguise your dump.
• Disinfect--You've stored your TP in a Ziploc bag, so seal it up, tuck it into the toilet paper tube, and grab your hand sanitizer. Then zip up, button up, and head back on your way.

TP and Hand sanitizer:
Bring enough, put some in the cache, and 2 oz of Hand Sani was perfect for the entire two weeks. Don't just use the hand sani after pooing. Also use it before meals, and yes, after the bear pole. It's the back country germ equivalent of a door knob in the front country.

Stay clean, stay healthy. Keep conserving our natural wonderlands. Keep hiking!

Two Parks: Two Decades

Richard Haag, University of Washington Professor of Landscape Architecture, once told me that humans are rootless weeds. He said it in a class I took from him nearly 25 years ago, and I remember it often, especially as I wander. Yet, I frequently wander close to home, to better know the place I'm in. After all, I consider myself a place-based educator and since his class, I've made the Pacific Northwest my home. His quote, serving almost as a challenge, came to mind again as my boots walked the trail past, not weeds, but wildflowers on my recent adventure on The Wonderland Trail.

I've been wandering further away from the PNW for the last few summers, and thus, committed this summer, to stick around, and explore more here. After last summer along the tarmac of Canada, cycling from Seattle to Halifax, I longed specifically for more dirt and wildflowers. I planned to take the expedition style of my cross county adventure to the mountains, to a long trail near home. The Wonderland Trail was a nature choice.

While hiking, a fellow hikers asked if I'd done any other long trips. It didn't take me long to remember an amazing experience, exactly 20 years ago where I traversed Olympic National Park as part of my NOLS Outdoor Educator Course in August 1998 for 18 days from Deer Park, into the Bailey Range, up and over Mt. Olympus from the Humes Glacier and out the Hoh.

Back then, I walked out of the Washington NOLS branch the only person at 50% of body weight. That was a 60 pound pack! Day one, we hiked 7.5 miles to from Deer Park to Grand Lake nearly 2000 feet down to Grand Creek and back up 700 feet to the lake again. I have all these details recorded in a journal/field notebook that also includes sketches of tadpoles and copepods, illustrations of an anatomy of a glacier, notes about hazard management and Leave No Trace, and my own lesson plans for instructing about belaying and climbing.

Two weeks on The Wonderland Trail, twenty years later, my pack was a twenty pounds lighter, my notes confined to a small pen and paper notebook plus a phone app. It's the lessons about being home, and being rooted in place, that seem wiser than ever.