Backpacking

I arrived back in Oregon mid-morning Monday. I promptly slept most of the day and relaxed at home. I was happy to be back in Oregon and not having to move at the end of the summer. It is my first time in 6 years that I have not moved twice or more during the summer.

Tuesday I spent all day sorting mail, doing laundry, and general organizing of life. That night Marie and our friend Bobbi sat down to discuss backpacking plans to the Mount Jefferson Wilderness. I was back and forth on whether or not I would go, and when they invited me, I decided I would kick myself if I didn't.

We left Wednesday at around 2:30. Bobbi drove Marie and I out of town and toward the little town of Detroit.
We did not get on the trail until 5:26 pm. It was a late start, and we had about 5 miles in mind for the night. We started to hike an unrelenting uphill climb, when we heard some thunder. The mountain was hidden by some clouds, and as the clouds came overhead, it began to sprinkle. We decided to keep going until it was a soaking rain. The rain came not too much later. We ducked under a large tree for cover. Marie was the only one with a pack guard, although she has never used it before. I do not own one, and Bobbi laughed at her husband when he tried to lay one out for her. The storm began to pour a little harder, and then we noticed pea sized hail coming down. We starting laughing, thinking of hiking in the rain and hail when the sky broke loose with marble sized hail. It pelted us through the limbs of the trees. I was leaned over to protect my head with the top of my pack. The hail lasted no more then 10 minutes and the rain stopped soon after. The trail we were hiking on was a dirt trail that turned into a raging current flowing against us.
We had to straddle the trail as we hiked up the hill. Hail on the sides of the trail was 6 inches deep and the stream kept going until we decided to quit. We were wet, cold, tired of the uphill, and the sun was going down. We stopped by a large rock and decided to make camp. The sky cleared beautifully that night and we were able to steal about an hour of sunlight to try and dry out some gear. We made some pasta and hit the hay.




The stream going by here is the trail and I picked up all hail with a little dirt. The hail was deep!