Help Or Hazard?

Day 16: With decent weather for a few days and nothing on my schedule, I've been able to get out to enjoy some autumn hiking, including a six-mile loop in Pack Forest which took me up the Reservoir Trail and down the more popular Hugo Peak Trail. The Reservoir Trail tends to be quite muddy lower down, and in an effort to provide better footing, Pack has seen fit to mount 2 x 4 fencing on the surface of the plank "bridges" which span the soggier areas. While this installation may be marginally better than a slick board when wet, even a light frost renders it treacherous. I have gone "skating" across the grid many a time, even when taking utmost care. Ordinarily, I would not contemplate stepping off the official path, but here, my safety takes precedence over other considerations and like most other people who hike these trails, I will walk alongside the boards, preferring muddy boots to possible injury. However good Pack's intentions were, this innovation goes into the category of "it seemed like a good idea at the time," and needs reevaluation.

It's An Opisometer

Day 30: People will think you're being vulgar if you call this device by its proper name. Yep, it's an "uh-PIS-uh-meet-er." I call it my "map-walker," a term which may raise questions but not necessarily eyebrows. By rolling it along a trail on a topographic map and using different conversions depending on the map's scale, it's actually fairly accurate for measuring distance. I've compared it against actual mileages on a 7.5' map often enough to trust it to give me an error factor of no more than a tenth of a mile over a five-mile run. Of course a lot depends on how many switchback corners there are and how carefully the operator can trace them, but it's a good sight better than "as the crow flies," a functional tool for telling this Crow how far she'll have to leg it.

The Old Forest

Day 361: The Pacific Northwest is hobbit country. I walk through the old forest on a daily basis, following its twisting paths, scrambling among its verdure for mushrooms in the autumn, my hair tangled with moss and lichen. It is a homey place, this woods of oxalis and fern; fir and hemlock and vine maple are interlaced in a canopy which only the strongest sunlight pierces. I love walking here, surrounded by the hues most pleasing to my mind and eyes. If Tolkien did not set his hobbits here, I have yet to see a more likely place.

Pinnacle Peak Trail

Day 353: The trail to Pinnacle Peak saddle isn't long (only 1.3 miles), but it gains about 1200' in elevation, approximately half of that on terrain similar to what you see here in this photo. The more ambitious hiker can continue on to Pinnacle's summit, a class 3 scramble I've done half a dozen times, but now consider foolhardy given my age. My late husband always refused to attempt it, and would stay at the saddle watching with trepidation as I spider-walked my way up what from his vantage point looked like a vertical pitch. Up was never an issue with me, but down was sometimes worrisome. On one notable occasion, he was joined by another Park visitor, a woman whose concern for my well-being inspired her to ask Bruce, "Is she NUTS?" Bruce assured her that yes, I was definitely certifiable.

Today, however, I contented myself with going up and over the saddle and out as far as I could follow a fading social trail to the west. The day was beautifully serene until on my return, I sat down behind a roll of terrain to have my lunch. I'd only been there fifteen minutes or so when a pair of loud-mouthed young women shattered the perfect silence with a conversation better suited to social media than to the backcountry. I think (and this grieves me terribly) that the possibility of solitude in the Park is now beyond the reach of my aging legs and hips. There was a time, though, when I could imagine that I shared the whole 235,000 acres with nothing but the wildlife. For a few minutes today, I recaptured that feeling as a raven spoke his secrets to me and uttered a call to adventure which, sadly, I could not answer, "Lead, and I will follow you."