A Week of Hiking and "The Good Life"

I left last Monday morning on a bus toward Leavenworth anxiously and ecstatically anticipating a hike that Caleb and I have been planning for months. I'd finished packing my bag with layers, a dice game, water filtration, and camping gear on Friday and had basically sat staring at it ever since (with minor distractions of coffee with friends, art, or cleaning projects). The happy reunion occurred around 12:30 and we rushed about to talk to the Forest Service, pick up a few final items, divvy out the wares between two bags, and tie up loose ends like making sure the boat and bus rides home would go smoothly. We finished the day with running out to an abandoned apricot field to pick a quarter bushel of slightly-green apricots in the hopes they'll ripen by the time we return and picking a few gallons of raspberries which we made into jam.
From then on, I kept a bit of a journal. I'll warn you in advance that I'd hoped to send you pictures of our epic adventures through the mountains, over glaciers and passes, through waterfalls and forests, and down valley meadows... but, sadly, my camera chose the first day of the trip to develop a severe problem and the few pictures I did take came out as a solid blurr of all the wrong colors. Instead, I'll ask you to use your imagination and, perhaps, I'll scan in the quick sketches I took the time to do on the trail. The journal entries are short and to-the-point accounts of the day (I didn't want to waste my time in the woods writing in too much detail, rather giving myself reminders for later reminiscing and art projects).
So, here we go... off into the big adventure of Caleb and Lauren in the wilderness beyond Holden village (Part II - almost exactly two years after our previous grand adventure up to Cloudy Pass when we warded off an unexpected snow after two days of rain to make it to the pass in our only dry clothing - long underwear and sweaters)... what adventures we have!
7/27/2010 Tuesday
Caleb and I stayed up late in the hay loft last night after the jam making so our talking wouldn't wake Alex and Kelly. We enjoyed a fine IPA, full moon, lowing cattle, and each others' company immensely. After a morning of loose ends (labeling the raspberry jam from the night before, refrigerating freshly plucked apricots in the hopes that they'll ripen for jam when we return, gathering spoons, forks, peanut butter and toilet paper for the trip). Grant took us up to Greg's home as the caretaker of Trinity Mine where we learned about Trinity's history and got to see their hydro power system (about another 2/3 bigger than Holden's and making so much energy they can't possibly use it all). We hung out there a bit before setting in. We expected our hike to take longer, but now find ourselves with a few hours before dark, full bellies, and a set-up camp on north end of Spider Meadow just below the Spider Gap crossings that will start our day in the morning.
Gibbs Farm = 2000 feet, Trinity Mine = 2800 feet, by Spider Gap = 5500 feet
7/28/2010 Wednesday
We climbed up steep, hot, dry switchbacks today first thing and quickly depleted our remaining water supply. Between the rapid change in altitude, the hot sun with little protection on the trail, and the dusty rocks, I think we were both starting to feel a little overwhelmed and ready for water - although we both put on our most positive faces - as usual. Suddenly - as if a biblical miracle - a fresh, clear mountain spring appeared from under a rock in the middle of the steep and winding trail. We filled all of our bottles and drank joyously and fully. We then felt refreshed to continue and rounded the corner of switchbacks to face a giant snow pack (where we were so lucky to receive our daily sunburn from below). We walked in the cool under the sun as if wandering in a giant walk-in refrigerator under a heat lamp. Then, it was up a (terrifying) rock and scrub-brush face where I learned that all my years of rock climbing taught me good things about using my legs... and I also learned that sometimes my limbs just plain aren't long enough to reach out to the next solid rock. A few clumps of grass were so kind as to lend their root systems to my cause and we made it up safely together to cross Spider Gap in all of its blinding-white glory. THen it was down, down, down off Red Mountain and it's scree and snow to the Lyman glacier. There was one steep snow pack at which Caleb and I both lost our footholds and slid down a dozen yards or so. We landed with no avalanche, a little shaken, but unscathed. We were lucky this happened in the chute it did with nothing dangerous to fall off or run into and the slope ended much more gently than it began. Caleb's ice axe and my amazing dancer abilities stopped the slide and we made it all the way down to Lyman Glacier safely. We enjoyed a snack atop a massive boulder before carefully wandering out onto some glacial scree to sit and admire the awesomeness of nature. From our perch, we could see the glacier, the lake it created, the waterfall it fed, and the lake down the valley all fed by the monster beneath us. We pondered how big the glacier once was - a mind-blowing fact when you realize that how big it is today is NOTHING compared to where its boundaries once were. Around sunset, we scampered back down the rocks and along the lake to a campsite at the head of Lyman Falls to make dinner amongst the most thick swarm of mosquitoes I've ever encountered. We cozied up in the tent before dark to escape their bloodthirst and so began an evening of dice games (I admit to losing all of them), conversations, and dreams as wild as our surroundings.
7/29/2010 Thursday
Our morning started just as last evening had ended - in a frenzy of mosquitoes. After cooking up the Apple Cinnamon oatmeal (eaten inside the tent for a moment of sanity), we broke and packed camp in what must be record timing. Then, we put on sandals and shorts to fjord the top of Lyman Falls (an impressive waterfall made of the-most-recently-melted glacier water) in the hopes of catching onto the next trail - mission successful! We stopped to admire the falls and lake from below, but were making bigger plans. We wandered lost around a giant puzzle of a campground for a while before finding our bearings and the trail up to Cloudy Pass - our heart home from a trip two years ago. The meadow was sunny this time, and we didn't let the loud group of young men throwing snowballs from atop the pass dampen our morale. We set up camp in a small meadow down the trail about 1/4 mile and packed a daypack. While pumping water, we learned the mosquitoes are terrible, here, too!
Our day trip included heading down the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail) to the switchbacks that led to Suiattle Pass. We looped back on the trail to Cloudy - skirting snow packs on the large boulders where possible and carefully maneuvering the others. Today, we saw 3 valleys - Railroad Creek (Holden), Fork Agnes, and Miner's Creek. The "pure wilderness" portion of our adventure will end sometime tomorrow and I know I'll miss it with all my heart. My companion and I have enjoyed the ups & downs, scary moments, and peaceful atmosphere. As I write, he's asleep and we're sitting atop a massive Cloudy Pass boulder as the sun sinks low. My, how far we've come!
7/30/2010 Friday
We awoke early this morning due to cool temperatures and hurriedly packed camp due to the mosquitoes. We climbed up to Cloudy Pass to watch the sun coming up over the Railroad Creek Valley, cook our oatmeal breakfast, and drink the bottle of "cowboy coffee" that has become morning ritual (the the grounds won't sink, they get strained through a t-shirt... it's so high-tech, I'm sure you wouldn't understand :). Aside from the high pitched zzzzzzzzzs and necessary swatting of our little bloodthirsty 'friends', it was a picture perfect moment.
We started down the meadow onto increasingly familiar trails past Lyman, the falls, Rebel, Hart, Twin Falls, coming into Holden territory. Excitement increased with each passing mile and chatter turned toward plans for the future - plans for going back to Minnesota, someday hiking the whole PCT, and a variety of other novel and realistic ideas. As we came into the village, we noticed improvements to the trails and set up camp out past the ball field. As we sidled into the village, we were greeted by familiar faces: Hinderlies, Andrew Rogers, Chiles family members, Daneil Roberts, Daniel Lund, Lydia Wise, Zoe Klosterbur, and others. Its amazing to see how much changes and yet stays the same. There's an espresso machine outside (something we'd talked of during my time, but I never thought would come to fruition), the bookstore remodel has happened (and it's now so swanky!), all visitors now have internet access (what?!?), the Carpenter family will soon take charge as the new directors. It's surreal, but it is still good.
We sat in on two sessions: Community Building Models and the Why Behind Radical Islam, enjoyed Holden Scoops ice cream, hot cocoa, and Will Chiles' movie, and the famous toast the wards off the dark night of the soul. Cod for dinner - Cafe Holden style.
Soon after dark, we were off to watch the stars from the picnic table at our campsite and then weep off to dreamland in a long-ago, far-away home.
7/31/2010 Saturday
Another early morning - could I be becoming a morning person? We packed camp and hiked into the village. We were offered free lattes from Holden's "new" espresso machine by Julia who proclaimed "free firsties!" We chatted and hugged and headed up to breakfast (oatmeal again - we could have made our own, but the socializing opportunity would have lacked). After breakfast, we wandered down to buy switchback sign patches for our bags, refill our mugs from the endless fountain of coffee, and checked out the image archives in the Holden Library - a great opportunity to review memories of both our times at Holden. When I walked outside, it smelled like smoke and I thought I was enjoying an overactive imagination after all the photos from the evacuation and fire during Caleb's time in the village... until a woman asked where the smoke was coming from.
We boarded the morning bus with hugs from old friends, thank-yous to the directors who so helped us in our respective journeys to this moment (I left a note for Steph Carpenter who was out of the village), and hopes to return in the not-so-distant future.
As we headed to Lucerne, we learned of a 3,000 acre forest fire in Stehekin valley - everything past the bakery was a mandatory evacuation and fire fighters were on the job. We'd planned to catch Terry and Lee at Refrigerator harbor, so we booked it off the bus and toward the harbor... but when they weren't there and we'd missed the fast boat out, we sat on a rock above the dock and watched the dry lightening strike as smoke rolled down the lake. It was quite eerie. We caught the slow boat hours later as the rains started in. Our plans were thrown off by the lack of connection with Terry, but we used our wonderful problem-solving skills and patience in the situation to catch public transit to Wenatchee and (when we learned Gibbs answering machine was full (already knowing the phone wasn't plugged in), we just barely caught a Greyhound to Leavenworth. We walked into town from the bus stop to grab a large meat-lovers pizza (our eyes may have been much larger than our stomachs) then used our bike lights to ward off scary traffic through neighborhoods and down the Chumstick highway as we trekked the last 4 miles home to the farm and fell asleep - exhausted - at 11pm when the journey finally reached its end. I never cease to be proud of our abilities to simply deal with difficult situations by remaining calm and adapting.
8/1/2010 Sunday
This morning I awoke to the familiar sounds of hungry chickens and dressed for church. I made toast for breakfast with some of the jams we'd made and helped Caleb with the morning chicken chores (someday I hope to be more helpful than just filling the water bucket :).
We scurried off to church.
What a wonderful church! It had an immediate feel of home with the pews all turned toward the center, beautiful morning light streaming through the windows, and walls of the single room covered in bright murals - smiling, warm, welcoming faces that I felt I might already know. The service is led by lay people this time of the year and what a great job they did! The sermon: applicable. The songs: joyous. The music: blissfully homey. The service: happily informal. After the service and during the sharing of the peace, I felt like these people had always known me. They all seem special and wanted to be sure to shake my hand and ask me how my morning was going... how was the hike?... how long am I staying? I can tell that Caleb has earned a special place in their hearts. I could have spent the next week with them all. The mugs were even made by a member and proclaimed "Good Lutheran Coffee". We chatted about biblical passages in a fresh way during fellowship time under big trees on benches outside and related theology to life as we ate apricot cobbler. The whole experience made me never want to leave. It seemed they felt the same. This is what church is supposed to be!
We left church late to go pick fresh apricots from an abandoned fruit orchard. We picked about a bushel and returned home (after a quick stop at the store and a lot of tourist traffic) to jam them. I have been so reminded of Greg Brown's song "Canned Goods" because the memories of picking raspberries and apricots on sunny summer days in Leavenworth will clearly be evident in the middle of this Minnesota winter when we open the jars for our morning toast.
After jam, we spent some time correlating schedules to plan the trip back to the Midwest - hopefully all will be accomplished and tied into neat packages when we roll into "home" on November 1st.
This check on the to-do list was followed by real banana shakes from a roadside stand on the way to an Apple Sox (AAA baseball) game in Wenatchee with Forest and Laura, Beer and popcorn, and the most crazy sound effects I've ever heard at a ball game.
We returned home again at 11 after a thoroughly fulfilling and perfectly exhausting day.
8/2/2010 Monday
We arose this morning in the pale blue tones of pre-dawn - the kind that turn my great accomplishment of a tan into something akin to a ghost. My train was to arrive at 6:08am, so we hurriedly made some coffee, double-checked for potentially lost items, and bundled up for the chillier-than-normal morning air.
The smoke from the fires in the surrounding area turned the sky a blue-grey color that pressed heavily on our two figures as we sat on a bench trying not to allow the weather's sad mood to further affect our already sad moods. We shared the travel mug of dark bean brew and shared how much we'd both enjoyed each others' presence on the week's adventures - how we just KNOW the future will be bright and that we will most certainly be accomplishing great things. In such moments, it is hard to hold back that pesky water that clouds your vision, but we both know these series of goodbyes are only steps in a long journey - the kind where hellos and goodbyes will be ever present, but never permanent.
Caleb had to leave to do chores when we finally called and learned that the train would be an hour late. The hour stretched as I sat alone on the windy bench with hat, gloves, and scarf reading my book about the search for the world's happiest places. When the train finally arrived, I settled in and fell instantly asleep - waking only for brief moments - all the way to Seattle.
At the depot in Seattle, I wandered the historic building and learned of their restoration project (a good thing for such a beautiful building in such disrepair). I waited in line to return old tickets and learned of a coffee shop a few blocks away... to which I scurried off as fast as my little legs could carry me. I caught myself tapping my toe in anxiety as I awaited the reward of patience - a large latte - as I feared the train would board and leave me behind! I half-ran back to the station in a near-panic just in time to hear the announcement that the train would be two hours late. A life lesson: hurrying and anxiety are often useless. I got to talk with Mom on the phone, read, relax, and chat with fellow passengers. I arrived in Lacey just in time to watch the bus drive away and waited another hour for the next bus to Olympia. I got off at the post office to check mail and ran into an acquaintance, Chris, who was pondering why I was carrying such a large pack and looking so scuzzy. I explained briefly, but was ready to hike my last "mountain" up to my periwinkle house.
It is good to be back in my space, but I find myself wondering if everything might have just turned out just fine if I'd stayed in Leavenworth - with the apricots, cozy church, mountainous back yard, and Apple Sox games. My life in Olympia has a palpable sense of "winding down". I feel myself mentally packing my few belongings constantly and my favorite friends feel like they're taking a step back in preparation for my leaving. I feel of little use at the office knowing I'll be gone so soon - unable to start projects and know that I'll have time to finish them.
It leads me to wonder about my next few months, my train adventure, and moving back to Minnesota. Will these empty spaces be filled or will I find myself with more empty spaces left behind by this beautiful place that they call the Pacific Northwest?