SUMMER AGAIN!

School has ended and I have officially started my summer journey for 2010.  I left Oregon the morning of the 28th and drove 11 hours to my brother and sister-in-laws house in Somers, MT.  I travelled on interstate until I hit St. Regis.  The drive north from St. Regis through the Montana wilderness was beautiful.  I drove along a river looking at rock formations, railroad bridges, great tree filled valleys, and then to come upon snowy white peaks was just fabulous.  My brother lives just beyond a stones throw from Flathead Lake.  His house is surrounded by mountains on the horizon and is a beautiful mix of town and country.  I enjoyed my time there, although short.  I am now back on the farm where I grew up.  Today we are going to move cows and then make it to a farm sale.  I have not been to one in YEARS, and supposedly everyone that is anyone in town will be there.  I will probably meet up with a few old friends.  We'll see.  Last night as I drove, there were beautiful thunderstorms and rainbows.  I was never hit by the storms but drove along side them for much of my drive.  The sky truly is as big as they say.  

Memorial day hike

Last weekend I decided to do the American thing and go camping on Memorial day weekend. I debated going Friday night or Saturday night, but my want to buy a new bike and to play frisbee won. On Saturday morning I went downtown McMinnville and test rode bikes. I decided to buy one and asked them to include a rack. They told me it would be a bit until it was ready. I then went to the farmers market to see some friends and eat lunch. Food of choice: Chili dog.
At 2pm I went and played pick-up Ultimate. We played for about 2 hours and change before I decided I should try and pick up the bike before their 5 o'clock closing time. I drove downtown, and rode my bike home. I then ran back downtown (it was a slow run) and grabbed my car. I drove home and packed the car for my camping.
I drove up to Forest Grove and decided to eat some food, so I stopped at a local Mexican restaurant for a delicious dinner. I had a camp site in mind half way between Forest Grove and Tillamook. I showed up to the campground at about 7pm and found that the 14 walk in sites were packed. Silly me to think that I could get a site Saturday night. I then kept driving praying for another campground. I drove by two that had closed signs up, but finally saw a sign for a campground so I turned off, relieved and ready to set up camp. I drove into the area, and there was nobody else there. I felt that it was strange because the other one was packed. I set up my tent, grabbed a beer and walked around the campground. I read some signs, looked at maps and paid my fee for the night. I was still weird-ed out being the ONLY person in the campground, but I grabbed my guitar and headlamp and began to play to the darkness. I slept through the rain that night and woke up to birds chirping in camp. I packed up my tent, grabbed some granola and decided to get to my trail head early. As I left the campground, I realized the sign told me it was closed as well. If the forest service wanted to, they have my name and the date that I stayed in the campground, but I am fairly confident I will be ok.

I drove to the trail head and filled water bottles and geared up my pack for Elk Mountian and King Mountain loop. I left the parking lot behind a group of 3 hikers as well as with a man and his two dogs.


The trail was pretty much a vertical gain of 2,000 feet in a mile and a half. I was sweating within five minutes and was feeling my legs burn soon there after. I eventually caught the man with the dogs, and discussed the trail and the hikes as we rested. I then headed for the top. The guide books said that you could see the coast and the Cascades on a good day from the top. I saw fog.


Not that the hike wasn't beautiful, it was, and the fog added a surreal silence to the adventure. After the top, the trail goes down 1000 feet and slowly moves toward the other summit.

I was by myself hiking through a gentle mist for the whole day. The backside of the mountains had nice rock outcrops, meadows full of wildflowers, and nice ridgelines that were surrounded on both sides by fog.

I met a group of backpackers who stayed the night on King Mountain the night before and were making their way along the path. It would have been tough to do all of the elevation gain with a bigger pack.

As I arrived at King Mountain, I met the group of hikers from the parking lot. They had missed a fork in the trail, so they went to the other way around the loop. We discussed the trails, and i ate my lunch.


I signed both registers on the peaks and put the names of people in my family who had died. It was a nice way to memorialize them for the year. I then headed down.
The hike from Kings mountain the Wilson river trail took me 45 minutes. Then I hiked the Wilson River Trail (3.5 miles) back to the campground. My feet were tired. I think that after the day of Frisbee, my body was tired. I hiked along the river and saw a few more hikers, but finished at 3:30pm. I was expecting to be done around 4:30, so it was nice to have a little more time.

I drove down to the Tilamook forest center and then headed back toward home because I didn't want to sleep in another closed campground.