#trip reports

I took like 750 earlier and my days on days of constantly popping pills has brought some kinda shitty side effects. This is a a bit tmi but i figure it would be something that I'd wanna keep track of now. But uh I can now go a whole day without taking a piss. I really gotta work keeping hydrated. I was already chronically dehydrated when I wasn't taking dph but my already not enough water intake with pills that slurp up any and all moisture is definitely not helping. It got so bad that I physically couldn't cry. I'd be in the motion of it but no tears would come. Tho if I'm being real I'm prolly gon do another 500 once it gets a little later. I'm stressing stressing and I just want to pretend nothings wrong for a while. I'm gonna chug hella water in the meantime tho

Warning in advance this post is really long. Both the aftermath and notes are extremely extensive due to me fr fr going through it rn. I figured I'd rather have an overly detailed note that most'll skip but might help one person feel normal than a vague/quick explanation that doesn't give enough info to be of use to anyone genuinely struggling

Thread by @shockproofbeats

Right, this was when I was eighteen so don't judge me too harshly. Or if you think drugs are cool and I'm a legend, fill your boots. Anyway, at the time I was working through college in Dublin with bar shifts at [redacted] music venue.

One day I get a call on my day off. Way the gig worked, you'd either get Fri or Sat off. This week it was Fri, happy days. My manager, let's call her Dympna, pipes up on the phone: "So, when you come in this evening, just a few things to remember". I'm like, hold on Dympz, I'm off this eve, jog on. She corrects me. "Remember I said you could get all of Saturday off if you just worked 2 hours tonight?".

And of course THEN, I did suddenly remember, she'd said it to me as I was leaving the building and my conscious work brain was doing somersaults to get out of the place. She could have told me I was to have my foreskin tattooed with a harpoon and I would have given her a smile, thumbs up, and a flurry of yeps to get out of the place. I was eighteen. On minimum wage, and - bear in mind this is really saying something - my absolute minimum effort. So, I'm bang to rights and I say "yeaaah, of course, sorry just got my days mixed up, I'll be there no problem" and she says, "this evening will be fine, just the head of the [redacted] and some VIPs, few hours then you can take off".

All good. Except for the one thing. At that very moment, I was in a mate's house on Dame St, relaxing with (I thought) nothing to do for the evening.

Now you have to remember that, before dabbing and fortnite, kids used "drugs" to get high and I was, occasionally, adjacent to them. I was a fairly sheltered kid before college, and didn't even drink til I was well into my late teens, never smoked even. I was very green.

So too, coincidentally, was the homebrew ketamine that said pal was making IN HIS OVEN when I arrived. My pal had gotten it in liquid form and, for some reason, it had been dyed green - he has subsequently told me he thought it was a St Patrick's Day promotion, and I've always thought it a charming entrepreneurial flourish on the part of his enterprising ketamine wholesaler. (Ketamine wholesalers are often vets, and the stuff originally for cats. People always say horse tranquiliser, either to make it sound more sordid or more badass, but ketamine is used on many animals, and vets have more use for cat tranqs than horses. Not quite as sexy is it?)

Anyway, for want of a better idea, I took him up on his offer of a line of this thick, vaguely slightly clumpy bright green powder, knowing I had nothing else to do for the evening. Felt nothing. Had a tiny further bump 10 mins later. It was at this point that my phone rang.

FLASHBACK ENDS, WE'RE BACK IN THE ROOM. So I'm definitely sweating after the call, not like instant come-up, more worried ABOUT the come-up. Never done this in my life, I've no idea how it's going to feel. But, absent any other idea, I get my stuff together and head to work.

On way to work, starts kicking in. You know when the roof of your mouth starts politely folding your brain in half, and your chest flutters like a cathedral filled with bees? I was holding it together but knew if I stopped concentrating for one second, I would become time itself.

By the time I reach work (twenty mins later) I am sweating like microwaved bread, eyes on hinges, convinced my fingernails owe me money. I have an overwelming urge to yawn, just to get the memories out WHEN in comes Dympna with the rota for the evening.

D: Thanks again, know it's short- oh, you look a bit hot and bothered, did you run here ha?"

Me: Hmnnnnnyes, I did - the dids is"

D: OK, just you tonight and the top man, he's showing the President what's going on for the next while"

[one beat]

Me: Sorr din you sez de presddyen?" D: Yes, Mary McAleese is in to see this season's programme of events.

Me: Hmmnggg

D: All you need to do is stand in the corner and offer them drinks every fifteen minutes.

Me: Ahhh yesssshnshh

D: Maybe have a wash beforehand So the gig is this: Mary McAleese (the *original* MMA) was to go round this room upstairs which had upcoming acts for the season illustrated with photographs and programme notes. The director of [redacted] would walk her around and say "fricken great, Madge innit?" or whatever.

My role is pretty weird, I have to stand in the corner and then every 15 mins, INTERRUPT this live-wire pair to offer them drinks, which protocol dictates they must refuse. I have barely processed any of this before I'm grabbing a tray and heading upstairs.

The tray, btw, contains a white wine, a red wine, a G&T, a whiskey, a rum and coke and some mineral waters. Always found that mix weird. Imagine the President of Ireland seeing the rum and coke and going "oooooh nice one, ta - now tell me about this Latvian choir again".

Right now I can hold it together when stimulated, when the adrenaline and fear is keeping me just ticking over - I'm weird but with it.

Problem is, my job is now to stand silent and motionless in a room on my own until the President of Ireland arrives. Time passes on my own. Empires crumble and glaciers dissolve, stars die and oceans melt, out on the dusty planes of mother earth, hot bursts of young love gift the miracle of life; children are born, raised, stricken infirm and die of old age.

And then Mary McAleese walks in. By now, having been alone with my thoughts for the entire Cretaceous period, I am no longer mildly weird but deeply, extravagantly deranged. As the President of Ireland walks in, with my boss's boss's boss's boss, my first impulse is to greet them like I own the place. It would be rude, surely, to not acknowledge their presence? Out of order even. Best thing to do would obviously be to say "hello guys" like it's my home and I live there, in this big white room, where I stand in the corner, alone, holding a tray of drinks, like you do, at home.

Me: hello guys HELLO GUYS

Anyway, by the divine grace of the infant Christ, they somehow do not hear me say this, and begin their itinerary round the room. I clench my entire head and focus on not shouting across the room to let them know that they should always feel at home here in this room of ours.

I become extremely aware of my hands, and how I haven't felt them in a very long time. They're detuned to static , which would be worrying even if they weren't holding a tray of drinks filled with noise and judgement. I hold no faith or creed other than "do not drop these plz".

Just when dropping everything seems to become less urgent, I realise it's time to go over and offer these motherfuckers some fucken drinks, let's get this party started wooooooo I begin walking over to them and I move so abruptly that the glasses clink and they turn to look at me.

I did this too fast.

Now I'm thinking wooooah slow down there martina hingis, so I self-correct to a much slower speed. Watching my breath, nice and casual, you got this buddy. Guys. GUYS. Now, I'm moving far too slow. I started at this speed and I'm to embarassed to change and now it's gonna take me like 5 mins to cross the room. They are watching me, frowning and sweaty, traversing the 5 foot between us like it's a wooden plank on the Crystal Maze. I'm moving so slow my legs are cramping. I think they're wondering why it's taking me so long. It's way harder than walking at normal speed. I'm shaking so the drinks are making noise again. For what feels like minutes.

Anyway, I offer them the drinks and they say no. Do this another two times - how long was this presentation anyway, is this what the President does all day? Give her a brochure and a carryout ffs - and they say no.

By the end, I've calmed down a bit in physical side (sweating, shaking) but I still feel completely batshit. At one point I clearly remember believing that my mind had escaped my body and was watching me hold the tray of drinks from the wallspace behind my head. Only out-of-body experience I've ever had.

At the very end, they do accept a drink. It was at this point she spoke to me. Just some inane pleasantries, to which I reply with some off-the-hook pablum about work and college, at which point she says;

"Oh, is that a Northern accent I detect?"

Dawgs, you know I'm down for the Nordie solidarity vibe, but this is the last thing I need right now. "Yeeerrrsh" I say, with a goalkeeper's glove in my mouth. She starts talking about her experience coming down to study here, how it can be a real scenic change, but the making of you if you keep your eyes open to new experiences.

I can tell she definitely means green ketamine. She's a lovely woman, and very open and generous with her time, giving me ample space to answer her questions which I mostly do with sheepish, one-or-two-word answers. Finally, she asks me if Dublin is everything I thought it wou-

Me: YES I LIKE IT I THINK IT'S GOOD

I'd been paying such fierce attention, I'd mis-timed my reply AND badly modulated my volume. She actually recoiled a little. I think the head of the venue actually stepped back and said "jesus!". Mary McAleese flinched for what seemed like half a second, then flashed her best your-mum's-sound-mate smile and replaced her white wine on my tray.

The boss man nodded at me, they walked out of the room and I waited a few seconds before making my way downstairs to the kitchen. So at this point I'm thinking, wellll, I'm definitely fired but this will one day make a great story on an Nazi-riddled microblogging platform.

I make my way to the staff area, wipe my sopping face and check my phone. I had only been in the room for 35 minutes. Dympna pads in all smiles, thanking me for my help at short notice. She sees that I'm a bit freaked and says, almost with a wink, "you could have told me you'd be like this, by the way" I'm thinking, of course, Dympna gets what's up, it's the service industry, people mistime their vibes, I bet this isn't the first time she's seen some-

"I had no idea you were such a huge fan of Mary McAleese"

I'm sorry what again was that did you mean The boss man had indeed related the events upstairs to Dympna, but rather than a frightened waif hepped up on cat tranqs, he'd seen a political nerd deeply, irretrievably starstruck by contact with the 8th President of the Irish Republic, Mary McAleese. Presumably a political nerd with a gland problem, and low-grade artritis in both legs, and a tendency to welcome people into their workspaces, but a political nerd all the same.

Me: Oh, yeah well, you know, it's embarassing. She's, just amazing.

And you know what, she kinda is. She was always very nice to me each of the subsequent times we met - me doling out the drinks, her asking me how Dublin was getting on, all the while the other staff eyeing me to see how I was dealing with such close contact with my hero. I'd gurn and fret, play up to it when she'd be coming in, "oh what am I like". I'd bat away suggestions I fancied her from the more ribald members of the changing room, and laugh along with the usual jibes, safe in the knowledge my nerdy affect had saved my bacon.

So take ketamine at work, it's great.

Made me terrified to use after that and I was clean for quite a bit after because I didn’t trust anyone. It looked exactly like heroin but three seconds after injection it was clear that it was NOT, and I. was. terrified.

I took 150 last night and somehow passed out on it so I'm finna take 350 now that I'm awake so that I can get slightly high while being mostly sober by the time my bsf calls me today.

Well, here we go. This is the big one.

Going into this past summer, I had big plans. I mean, I always have big plans, every summer. But I'd plotted out ideas for lots of brand new hikes this time: in southern Idaho, in the Sierra, in the north Cascades.

And of course, as is the way of things every summer, nature (and wildfires in particular) had other plans.

Long story short, I did not anticipate that my biggest hike of the season would be on a trail that I'd already hiked (and nearly drowned on) in 2019, and had you told me that in June, I would have been disappointed to hear it. But then, with the beginning of the academic year looming, circumstances made the Timberline Trail my only good option for a long September hike, so I took it. And it was amazing.

Back when I'd first done the Timberline in 2019, it had been with Lindsey, and at that point it had been the most difficult and complicated backpack we'd ever done together. We did it in early August, and that meant lots of green on the trail, snow on the mountain, and wildflowers everywhere, but it had also made some of the creek crossings legitimately scary. I'd be doing the Trail solo this time, and while I knew doing it in September would make those crossings safer, I also wondered how the rest of the experience would change, on the cusp of fall.

On September 16th, I made the long drive up from Klamath Falls to the Timberline Lodge to find out.

While the Lodge is arguably the most efficient place to start the loop from, I get why folks start from more remote trailheads: Timberline Lodge is a weird place to start a five-day backpacking trip from. Most of the people in the parking lot when I arrived were there to spend the night in the Lodge itself and/or get pictures of themselves with Mount Hood in the background by just stepping out of their cars. Not that there's anything wrong with any of that, but I felt like I stood out like a sore thumb as the only grizzly, gear-laden weirdo crossing the parking lot to the big PCT sign.

The Timberline is another one of those trails where the clockwise-versus-counter-clockwise decision is a weighty one. That said, in this case I only very briefly considered it. We'd gone clockwise in 2019, it was the way I knew, and I wasn't interested in introducing too many new variables to my hike this time around. If I ever do the Trail again, I'll likely go the other way around for variety's sake, but this time I wanted to at least mostly stick to what I knew.

So, from the Lodge it was west below the southern face of Mount Hood for me.

For the first half-mile or so, the PCT takes you under a few ski lifts while remaining basically flat, giving you a chance to get your legs warmed up while taking in your first views of the mountain.

Shortly after, things get hilly, and stay (at best) that way for pretty much the rest of the hike.

In fact, the Timberline reminds me a lot of some of my favorite hikes in the Trinity Alps due to the amount of time you'll spend either hiking uphill or downhill. This is, of course, an effect of the fact that you're circumnavigating a mountain, but that emotionless, logical fact of geology isn't much comfort after you've spent a full day (or two, or three) climbing down into a valley, crossing a creek, and then climbing back up the other side of the same valley over and over and over again.

The very first such descent-then-ascent on the clockwise route is a pretty minor one that takes you over the Little Zigzag River. In September, there wasn't even a river anymore, just dust...a lot of which I kicked up as I passed through.

About a mile after this first "crossing," I reached the first of many huge views of the glacier- and water-carved flanks of Mount Hood. This one is from the eastern edge of Zigzag Canyon.

I'd only been hiking for a short time at this point, but I decided to take a nice long break here to properly absorb the view. The mountain was certainly less snowy than the last time I'd been on the Timberline, but it was no less awe-inspiring for that. The immensity of the landscape is one of those things that photographs just can't capture.

It's a little intimidating to look down from such a height at the tiny ribbon of water tumbling along the Canyon bottom below and know that at some point soon, in some way, you need to get all the way down there and then afterward get back up and out...but that's sort of the whole ballgame on the Timberline, so not for anywhere near the last time I sucked it up and started a knee-rattling descent.

Once you've passed the view from the rim of the Canyon, the dayhikers thin out and pretty quickly disappear completely. By the time I reached the bottom of Zigzag Canyon they were gone completely, and the only people I would see for the rest of the day were other backpackers.

The Zigzag River was still flowing, albeit weakly. It made for an easy crossing after I took a short water break.

I noted one small-but-cozy camp spot right up against the river, but I had my heart set on camping at Paradise Park, so I noted said spot for later and started climbing back up and out of the canyon.

The good news was that from here it was only two miles to Paradise Park. The bad news was that I had to climb thirteen hundred feet over those two miles.

I've done this climb twice now, and both times the first half-ish wasn't bad at all. Eventually, though, you reach an intersection and have to choose between going left and staying on the PCT or going right and continuing to climb up to Paradise Park. Both times I've gone right because both times I wanted to camp at Paradise Park. And though the trail you follow to get there is beautiful (hence the name), it really feels like a grind. Maybe it's the sun exposure, maybe it's the steepness, I don't know. But it was a miserable climb the first time, and the second time wasn't any better.

As I grumbled to myself about the heat and the elevation gain, Hood loomed up ahead, presumably sitting in silent judgment of my moodiness.

Eventually, once you've gained most of the necessary altitude, the trail resumes traversing across the slopes rather than climbing up them, and the "Paradise" part of Paradise Park really comes into view.

The Park, too, was a little drier and certainly less full of wildflowers in September than it had been in August six years before, but I was very happy to be back.

I'd arrived a little earlier than I'd planned, and so I took the luxury of dropping my pack and wandering around, trying, as usual, to find The Best Camp Spot Possible. This also gave me a chance to enjoy the non-Hood-centric views out across the western hills.

There are a lot of nice flat spots with mind-boggling views in Paradise Park, but during Lindsey and I's previous trip around Hood we'd learned the peril of these super-exposed sites when we'd casually taken one and then been woken up in the middle of the night by a windstorm smashing the wall of our tent in. This time around, I was going to eschew the views in favor of a more protected spot.

Eventually, I found one tucked nicely below (behind?) the ridge, and though I couldn't see Hood from my tent, exactly, a short walk revealed a nice area for cooking dinner with a view that I would call "pretty damn good."

The waterfall dropping off of this cliff was audible from my tent, as well, and any night I get to fall asleep to the sound of rushing water is a good night. I was pretty stoked.

Before fully settling in for the night, though, I made sure all of my gear was safely stowed away and then headed back up the trail (and uphill) to the main Paradise Park trail to watch the sunset from the ill-fated spot Lindsey and I had camped at back in 2019.

As Hood came back into sight, I was greeted with some great alpenglow.

Then, I made my way over to "our" old tent spot, sat on a log, and watched the sun set while I chewed on a CLIF bar.

I was happy to end the day knowing that I wasn't going to get woken up in the middle of the night by a windstorm folding my tent over.

Once the sun's show was over, I made my way back down the hill, cooked up some dinner in the near-dark, and was in bed just in time to be able to avoid having to use my headlamp at all.

There were times when this trip felt like an exorcism first and a hike second.

Lindsey and I's 2022 hike of this same loop through the Desolation Wilderness features prominently in the second chapter of the actual book I'm currently working on, so I've already written a lot about it elsewhere and I don't want to make this trip report excessively long by rehashing the story in detail here. For anyone who's interested in the full story, though, I'll likely share some bits and pieces from the book here in the near future anyway, and I'll be sure to include that story.

For now, suffice to say that we'd had a hard couple of COVID years coming into the summer of 2022, but had had a lot of reasons to think that things might finally be getting a little better. On the top of the list for me was a trip to Ohio and Arkansas that we'd planned for late August. Though I live far away from my family (me in Oregon and them throughout the south and midwest), I've usually been able to travel to see them at least once every year or two since 2005, but of course COVID had put a stop to that. What had made it worse was the fact that my brother and his wife had had their first daughter a few weeks before COVID lockdown had begun, so by August of 2022 she was already two-and-a-half years old and I hadn't met her yet, except over Zoom. This trip was meant to "fix" all that, and help get things back to "normal" after the craziness of the previous few years.

Of course, Lindsey and I got COVID for the first time two days before our flight.

Once we were done spending a week staggering feverishly around our house in the August heat, we spent some time trying to figure out a way to reschedule the trip before work started in September, but there wasn't a way to make it work. Hoping to end the summer on some kind of high note, at least, we ended up planning a week-long trip to Lake Tahoe instead, with a four-day hike in the Desolation Wilderness bookended by a few days spent relaxing in South Lake Tahoe and Truckee.

To make a long story short, unbeknownst to us, the soon-to-be 85,000 acre Mosquito Fire started just west of Lake Tahoe on the night we arrived, and so by the time we were two days into our hike, we were choking on noxious wildfire smoke that made it impossible to see across to the other side of the lake we were camped at. For the next two mornings, we had to wake up and brush thick piles of ash off of the tent and the rest of our gear before we could start our day. We hiked like that for most of three days, and it was one of the most miserable experiences of my life. We spent two days afterward in an AirBnB in Truckee, and it wasn't much better, though we were at least able to sleep inside of a building.

In theory, Desolation Wilderness was and is a beautiful destination for a backpacking trip, and its granite blocks and deep blue alpine lakes are basically my ideal hiking environment, so I left that summer hoping to come back as soon as possible to "redeem" our exceptionally bad experience. "As soon as possible" turned out to be the middle of this past August, when I'd had to pivot at the last second after cancelling hiking plans elsewhere due to wildfire smoke (for what felt like the hundredth time in the last ten years). So it was that I found myself parked for the second time at the Echo Lake Trailhead, just southeast of the Desolation Wilderness boundary.

The Desolation Wilderness requires you to reserve a permit that specifies a particular "zone" that you are then required to camp in for your first night in the Wilderness. For our 2022 trip, we'd spent the previous night in South Lake Tahoe, a few miles from the trailhead, so we'd gotten a permit that allowed us to camp at Clyde Lake, a granite-enclosed pond ten miles and one crossing over Mosquito Pass away from the trailhead. This time, I knew I'd be getting to the trailhead after a nearly six-hour drive from Klamath Falls, so my itinerary couldn't be nearly as aggressive. Instead, I'd gotten a permit that would allow me to camp at Lake Of The Woods on the first night, partly because it was a short hike from the trailhead, and partly for sentimental reasons: camping at that lake was one of my few fond memories of our previous trip, as we'd spent a lazy afternoon swimming among its weird granite islands and then watched the smoke-smeared sun set behind Pyramid Peak before settling into the tent for the night amidst another rain of ash.

This time, the air was clear (if a bit cool for August) as I stepped out of the car at the trailhead and walked half a mile down a paved road to the trailhead at the edge of Lower Echo Lake. Here you can take your first look into the heart of the wilderness area from a dam at the east edge of the lake.

It was hard to stand here again and not remember our excitement at the beginning of a new adventure back in 2022, as well as how quickly that excitement had curdled, how twenty-four hours later we'd been choking on wildfire smoke while climbing up to the Fontanillis Lake basin, with two more days of traversing a landscape straight out of Dante still ahead of us.

But, as I said, this was supposed to be an exorcism. I took a deep breath of clean air and started down the path, traversing above Lower Echo Lake to the north. The first two-and-a-half or so miles of this lollypop loop aren't technically in Desolation Wilderness. This becomes clear very quickly, as the north shore of both lakes are dotted with small cabins and the sounds and smells of boat motors fill the air. It's a gorgeous hike nonetheless, with the lakes spreading out blue beneath you to the south and the granite cliffs that make up so much of the wilderness already towering over you to the north, but the character of the landscape definitely changes noticeably as soon as you leave the Echo Lakes behind and climb briefly up to the wilderness boundary.

There's actually a water taxi you can pay for to take you from the trailhead to the boundary to cut out this bit of the hike, but I'd driven six hours one-way to exorcise some demons, and I wasn't going to do that by riding on a boat.

Above the Echo Lakes, beyond the boundary, the wilderness very quickly starts to look, well, desolate. Shortly after the boundary, a use trail descends to Tamarack Lake and, for the enterprising bushwhacker, Ralston and Cagwin Lakes. This area is awesome, and would be a great first-night camp spot for anyone starting very late in the day. I bypassed it on my way in, though I would drop down and explore it a little on my way back to the car three days later, as I'll write about eventually.

You climb slowly but steadily once past the boundary, and as you climb, there is less and less shade to be had; however, in spite of it being mid-August, the temperature was unseasonably low and the wind was gusting, so the sun didn't feel as oppressive as it might have otherwise. I passed through the Haypress Meadows, dotted with the remnants of wildflowers that must have been vibrant just a few weeks before, then struck a left-hand turnoff toward Lake Of The Woods. This is the sharpest climb yet, as this side trail climbs and then descends down off the northern shoulder of Ralston Peak, but it's over quickly.

Switchbacking down into the lake basin from the east, I was suddenly overcome with emotion as Lake Of The Woods came into view. After a moment, I realized why: we'd descended this exact same way in 2022, but the smoke had been so thick that the lake had been obscured and nearby Pyramid Peak had been rendered invisible. Now, looking down on the lake glittering in the sun with the silver mountain hanging over it under clear skies, it felt like a weight had been lifted off of my chest. As silly as it might sound, I felt like I was seeing Desolation Wilderness as it "should" be for the first time.

I dropped down into the lake basin to find it much busier than I'd expected for a weekday. Since the area requires you to camp in an established, numbered site, I worried for a moment about finding an available spot: I wasn't sure where else I would be able to camp near a water source that was also in my permit area if every site was already taken.

I needn't have worried, though: appropriately enough, the only spot still available on the north shore of the lake (clearly the best side) was the same site Lindsey and I had camped in last time. I gladly took it and set up camp. There had been a strong, cold wind blowing all day, and it continued blowing from across the lake as I settled in for the night, but I tried to angle my tent in such a way that would minimize my exposure throughout the night.

With a few hours until sunset, I somehow got the idea in my head that I should reprise my 2022 swim amidst the granite islands. I'm not going to say this was a mistake, but it was...let's just say it was an experience. For one thing, it was much colder this time than it had been last time. For another, once I psyched myself up to jump into the water, it felt (at least temporarily) warmer to be in the water than to be in the cold, wind-chilled air. So I went on a bit of an expedition, not only swimming out to and around what Lindsey and I had decided was "my" island two years ago, but also swimming into and out of a number of weird little inlets and bays formed by the tumble of granite that mazes the lake.

By the time I pulled myself back out of the water, my arms and legs were completely numb from cold, and the sun was just getting to the point where it was threatening to disappear for the night behind the mountains. I spent a few minutes sitting on a dry rock, trying to avoid putting on (and thus soaking) my dry, warm clothes until the wind had dried me off, but eventually I came to realize that the wind was going to freeze me to death well before it dried me off.

On the heels of that realization, though, I also remembered that even if the sun wasn't shining on the surrounding rocks anymore, it had been for the last twelve or so hours. So I spent fifteen or so minutes moving from rock to rock like a lizard, laying belly-down on each one until I'd sucked all of the warmth from it before moving on to another. Eventually, I'd warmed and dried up enough to put my shirt and long pants back on, and then I waddled up the hill back to the tent and curled up into my quilt (this was the summer of discovering the backpacking quilt for me) until I could feel my hands and feet again. By the time I crawled back out, it was almost night.

While the sunset wasn't nearly as spectacular as the fire-mottled one Lindsey and I had watched two years before from the same spot, I still enjoyed watching the alpenglow slide across the top of Pyramid Peak before heading back to camp to make and eat dinner.

Often, when I eat dinner just after sunset on a backpacking trip, one of two things happens: I either fall into a deep sleep pretty much immediately, or the warmth and calories imparted by the food wake me up to the point that I spend another hour or two messing around before grudgingly climbing into bed. This time, the latter thing happened. So, I spent awhile taking some night photos of the lake, the trees, the stars, and Pyramid Peak.

These were "marred" a little bit by the moon rising brightly behind me in the east shortly after full dark had settled in, but even if the photos aren't that great, the real-life effect was gorgeous.

I didn't sleep like an absolute monster on the second night like I had on the first night, but I still slept like a slightly smaller monster that had hiked sixteen miles and climbed almost 5,000 feet the day before.

I woke up early and took my time getting ready, loath to leave The Perfect Campsite behind, but also looking forward to stuffing my face with highly processed food that I paid someone else to cook for me. It's such a delicate balance between wilderness and civilization, y'know? I believe Edward Abbey called it "moderate extremism," and that feels right. I was moderately extremely ready to absolutely house a veggie burger and fries, at least.

As last-day trip report entries often are, this one is going to be a bit shorter than the previous entries in this series. Mostly because, as I've already mentioned a few times, my hike out to the car from Seven And A Half Mile Camp was literally the same hike I'd taken to get in to the campsite in the first place, just in reverse.

Same waterfalls, different day. TLC fucking warned me about this exact thing, but I didn't listen! I didn't listen!

Anyway, I passed by Twister Falls again. It was awesome, again. Especially in the morning light. You get this crazy view of it dumping down into the canyon first...

...followed by the weirdly twined fall, which gives it its name.

See? I promised I'd add in some waterfall photos when I got to this post!

I also tried to do a better job of documenting some of the more vertiginous parts of the trail on my way out, partially as a matter of historical record, but also to keep my mind occupied since it had already seen every inch of this trail less than forty-eight hours earlier and there was nobody to talk to.

In the late morning light, Tunnel Falls was looking especially...wet and hairy? I'm sorry, I mean that's sort of the only way to describe it.

I also took a picture of this weirdly uneven, rocky section of trail that, aside from a few of the blowdowns much higher up and past Tunnel Falls, was easily the sketchiest part of the trail. If these rocks had been wet, I might have been scooting over them on my butt instead of walking across them.

I didn't make this clear in my day-one post, but there were more cool bridges along the trail than just the High Bridge, including this one:

But of course I also had to cross the High Bridge again, which I did more confidently the second time than I'd done the first time.

Complaints aside, since I wasn't racing the clock to a campsite this time around, I was able to take things a bit slower in certain places, and appreciate things like this cool little section of valley more than I had the first time through.

I also stopped among the Friday morning throngs and took a picture of Punchbowl Falls, while they (I assume) looked at me askance and judged me for looking and smelling like I'd slept on the ground for two nights in a row.

Finally, when I reached this last section of (in this case mostly unnecessary) cables, I knew I was almost back.

From there, it was a short jaunt to the end of the trail proper and then an amble along the asphalt road, passing the incoming Friday afternoon traffic heading the other way, to get back to the car.

As a fun (and unplanned) side adventure: I had to drive a bit out of the way to get from the trailhead to the Mount Hood Brewing Company in Government Camp, where I went in search of the aforementioned veggie burger and fries, and on the way there I drove past the White River Sno-Park, which I hadn't previously known about. I pulled a quick turn-around on Highway 35, doubled back, and parked, and after a short, sore walk along some gravel flats, was treated to an up-close view of Mount Hood and the full path of the White River flowing down from its eponymous glacier all the way to my feet and beyond.

This was both unexpected and cool, especially considering that the White River has always had a bit of a haunted reputation in my mind ever since it almost murdered me in 2019 when Lindsey and I hiked the Timberline Trail.

I wrote about that whole episode for the book I'm working on, and if you haven't heard the story before I'll try to post a more compact, less jargon-filled version of it on here at some point.

Anyway, after taking in the view (and the surprisingly cold wind) for a few minutes, I continued on to the veggie burger and fries and home!

All in all, while not exactly being a "loop," the Wahtum Lake Loop was pretty amazing and, as I wrote before, if you're a beginning backpacker this would be an ideal early trip, especially if you live near Portland. If you wanted, you could easily camp at Seven And A Half Mile Camp for a night or two, not hike or climb any further from there, and feel like you still got a lot out of the hike.

Laying in a warm sleeping bag in my single-person tent tucked into the vegetation alongside the creek with the roar of the water in my ears all night was an almost indescribably peaceful feeling. I am not and have never been the heaviest sleeper when I'm backpacking, and that first night I slept for ten straight hours without waking up once.

What finally woke me was the sun mounting the eastern wall of the valley and filtering into my tent through the trees. I got up, stretched out limbs that had apparently been laying still for nearly half of a day, and took in my gigantic, extremely indulgent camping space in the morning's light.

The plan for day two was to leave most of my gear in The Perfect Spot and return to sleep there again that night. I would just fill my pack with a few necessities, cinch it down, and hike seven miles and 3,500 feet up to Wahtum Lake. There, I'd presumably take in the view, eat lunch, and then return to my camp to sleep again.

I got going early and made good time, but didn't take many pictures over the first few miles. The Eagle Creek valley and its environs continued to be beautiful, but it tended to be less striking (and certainly contained less waterfalls) on this second day. Initially, at least, the evidence of the Eagle Creek Fire was also more obvious, which meant a) the early afternoon sun felt blazingly hot without any tree cover and b) there was a lot of blowdown across the trail.

Despite all of the warnings I'd read about the early trail's vertiginous nature ahead of time, for my money the absolute scariest and sketchiest parts were actually between my tent and the Upper Eagle Creek Camp. This wasn't because of the trail construction: along here, the trail is actually way wider and less exposed than some of the sections near Tunnel Falls. Instead, it was because a few of the blown-down trees were so huge and so inconveniently fallen across the trail that I had to make a few moves that put me in serious danger of falling off the trail to get over or under them.

To be clear, this isn't a trail maintenance complaint or anything: these things happen, and I assume that Forest Service (and/or volunteer) crews will clear them out as soon as they're able. But just a heads-up: this section of the trail was really tricky, slow, and frustrating. And I had to do it twice in one day because I also had to come back down to the tent later on.

Eventually, though, I survived the platforming section of the hike and moved out of the Eagle Creek Fire burn zone for the first time right before reaching Upper Eagle Creek Camp.

I've written a bunch of times before in other trip reports about trying to find beauty in burnt areas and attempting to come to grips with fire's impact on "my" wilderness areas, but in this case this was legitimately (retroactively) sad to see. Most of the trail between the Eagle Creek Trailhead and Wahtum Lake travels through the burn zone and is (as I hope my pictures have shown) beautiful in spite of it (and, occasionally, because of it). But leaving the burn zone and entering the dense, wet forest of the Eagle Creek valley as it "should" be made clear just how much destruction the fire had wrought, and how little of that can or will be replaced, at least in my lifetime.

It was like stepping into a completely different world than the one I'd been passing through for the previous day-and-a-half. Some of the streams ran so fast and deep through such thick brush that I had trouble crossing them without taking an accidental dip.

Upper Eagle Creek Camp was another spot that seemed to have been a nice spot to camp once upon a time, but had been disheveled by erosion and fallen trees to the point that there was maybe one usable spot in the whole area, and that was only accessible via some very creative creek-crossing or valley-wall-descending that I didn't engage in myself.

Once out of the burn zone, there was only a little bit more climbing and winding around within the valley before reaching the lake. It was easier going here even though the trail steepened a bit, just because the unburnt trees blocked the sun. I felt like the temperature had dropped by twenty degrees.

Along the way, I heard but didn't see a pika, and saw one of my favorite rare (at least to me) flowers, the avalanche lily.

Then, I finally reached Wahtum Lake.

It was a nice lake in a beautiful basin, surrounded by lots of comfy-looking camp spots. Personally, I would not have wanted to carry all my gear up that extra 3,500 feet (and over that gnarly blowdown) just to camp there, but there are shorter trails that can be accessed off the interstate that would get you there in much shorter order. I imagine that this also means that the lake becomes pretty crowded pretty quickly on busy days. On this particular day, though, I was the only person there: in fact, I'd only seen one party of three hikers all day, since I'd left my campsite. It was quite the contrast from the previous day (as well as from the next day).

I dug the lake, and considering that I'd have to hike the same seven miles back downhill to get back to my tent, I felt like I'd certainly end up putting in enough miles for a "full" day if I'd turned around right then.

However, I'd seen an alluring-looking mountain peak to the northwest on my hike up to the lake, and a glance at my map told me that it was Chinidere Mountain. It was "only" another mile to the top, but also another eight hundred feet of climbing. And I would have to come back down, of course.

But there was a binocular icon on the map! Which means it's good! It's a good place to go and see with eyes!

So, I went to see with eyes.

It was an absolute grind uphill, actually. Even with a light daypack. It might have had something to do with the fact that I'd basically already climbed a Mount McLoughlin that day, or that it was really hot (heat dome!) or that suddenly there were biting flies everywhere. Hell, maybe it was all of them. But I kept going and once I got above treeline, the flies retreated into the shade, the heat was mitigated by a stiff breeze, and my sore legs were forgotten as I saw with eyes.

If I'd have used my geography brain for a few seconds, I would have realized that this was obviously true, but all of my best, old Cascades friends were here! Mount Hood, of summiting and Timberline Trail-hiking fame was closest and most obvious...

...but Saint Helens of winter climbing of old was there, too...

...and Mount Adams, the one that got me started doing all this stuff to begin with, with Rainier lurking in the background.

There was a group of older ladies already on the summit when I arrived, so I chatted with them for a few minutes about the climb and played with their dog, and then they left me to it as they began their descent. Alone, I was overwhelmed for a minute or two by the sudden, unexpected reveal of so many mountains/places that have played such a significant role in my life over the last fifteen years. I don't spend that much (enough?) time in northern Oregon or southern Washington these days, and the view fairly crushed me with nostalgia for a bit.

Then I took some photos, ate some trail mix, promised to return to Mount Adams someday (sooner rather than later) and started the long descent down the mountain and then back to camp.

There isn't much, really, to report about this return trip. I suppose that titling this whole trip report "Wahtum Lake Loop" is a little optimistic. It's actually not a loop or a lollypop: you're basically hiking fifteen miles up to Wahtum Lake and then returning the exact same fifteen miles back to the car. That's not absolutely a bad thing, but there isn't much to say about the stretch from the lake back down to Seven And A Half Mile Camp that I haven't said already in writing about the way up to the lake. The same blowdown was still there. It was still hot. I guess the fact that it was downhill instead of uphill was...better?

Regardless, by the time I got back down to where I'd started that morning, it was, again, late in the afternoon in spite of the length of a June day.

By the last mile or so, I was definitely tired of walking alone through the Eagle Creek valley, but I consoled myself by reminding me that there were certainly worse things I could have spent a day doing. And before long, I could see the tent peeking out of some bushes downriver ("downcreek"?) from me.

As I settled back in to my massive, one-person campsite, the thing I'd feared the previous night happened: a group of four backpackers approached the cluster of sites I was taking up from above, along the main trail. Selfishly, I was happy to see that there were just a few too many of them (and too many tents between them) to all fit in the spots that weren't currently occupied by my tent. They seemed to recognize this too and immediately asked if I knew if there were any other spots nearby that they could take.

With night falling, I was happy to be able to tell them that a quarter-mile further down the trail they could find a series of sites down in the brush that would more than suit their group. They took off happily, never to be seen (by me) again.