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| Backpack | 18.27 Miles |
5,582 AEG |
| | Backpack | 18.27 Miles | 2 Days | | |
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| 5,582 ft AEG | | | |
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| no partners | | | J and I hiked up to Spud Rock Camp in the late afternoon Saturday. We had a relaxing dinner and went to bed early. In the morning, we headed out on our objective - to travel the old East Slope trail. Things started off great. We could find trail bed, blazes, and even cairns. This continued for a short while through beautiful ponderosa pine forest. Then all hell broke loose. We were obviously in an old burn area. When I returned home, I asked around and learned that it might have been a fire in 1996. Anyway things got extremely hard to follow. We’d look up from our GPS to find that we were surrounded. Surrounded by impenetrable brush of locust, oak, manzanita, buckthorn, you name it. We crawled, pushed, and fought our way forward. The pokey shrubbery trying to rip off our clothes and skin. At one point I found someone else’s map in a ziplock that had been chewed on. Later in a drainage, a dead bear. He must have found it impossible to travel through the terrain so he just curled up and died. I’m sure we, too, consider that an option. At some point we pondered whether it would be easier to go forward or retreat. Neither of us answered so we continued to go forward. J needed a pants repair so we stopped for a break. I gave him all my duct tape. We had a snack huddled in the bushes, out of the sun, while we taped up his pants. Then we continued our struggle. Then things got worse. We had to struggle up hill. We kept ourselves as close to the ‘trail’ as possible by following the line on the GPS. That line was just an idea. A suggestion. It didn’t help us one bit. However, we had a moment of confirmation - we found one of the metal blazes in the middle of no where! It flooded me with hope and perhaps a bit of confirmation that I wasn’t all that crazy. So we continued through what was probably some of the worse bushwhacking I’ve done. After what seemed like many hours, we finally hit a clearing. It was heaven! Then I saw Mica Secondary! I rejoiced! We had made it. We persevered through hell to emerge at a trail as wide as a highway! Oh boring, lovely trail! Oh how I love you! I checked my GPS, we had just gone 2.75 miles in 4.5 hrs. And to think the first part was more or less a fun walk in the Park! We decided not to stop and we cruised back to camp to collect our belongings and head to the truck. Another adventure logged in our history. One grueling enough that returning to Covid times didn’t seem nearly too bad. |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
. Stopped for a few breaks. Had lunch at the Beaut Burger at the Annex. Was grateful to be able to support a local business during the virus challenge.
