Though we will be renovating from next weekend till what seems to be the end of time, we are not willing to spend the entire summer without at least one long distance hike. The Wonderland trail was picked for a couple of reasons:

1) It is reasonably close: The Wonderland encircles Mount Rainer which is less than a day's drive North of us. With rising gas prices, the proximity allows us to drive up and back without annihilating any kind of budget.

The red trail is the 93 mile Wonderland Trail. It stays well below what would be considered a need to rope up, but is often still covered in snow through much of July when we will be going.

2) It is a short one: Though considered one of the most beautiful long distance trails in America, the Wonderland is only going to take us 9 days to complete. If we want a zero day we can take it, but we probably won't unless the side trails are just too alluring. We can drive up, pick up permits, hike, and head home all in less than 2 weeks. The short time line means both the trip and the renovations this summer can be successful.

Since the entire trail is located with Mt. Rainer National Park, it is highly monitored wilderness area and kept as pristine as possible. Though not forest primordial, it is relatively unchanged since the trail was put in almost 100 years ago.

3)Oh and Ah Factor: The Wonderland Trail crosses up and down over the glacier carved ridgelines and alpine meadows creating incredible views both from high and from the valley. There are 2 suspension bridges, many raging river crossings where you only get a log to walk along, and you are within 500 feet of the lowest glacier in the Continental US (Carbon Creek). From canyons to waterfalls to being in the high Cascades, it is high interest every day while still maintaining an entirely wilderness status. In many places, that is hard to do.

The wildflowers supposedly come out in July and are well known to light up the alpine and sub alpine meadows. If the cold, wet weather keeps up, we are set to miss them and get much more snow.

4) It's a Hike: Though are days are only about 9-10 miles each, the elevation gain and loss is an average 3500 feet. You are literally climbing or falling almost the entire time with a total elevation gain of 22,000 feet. This is the sort of hike which keeps our family interested.

Part of this is also to feel small and at the mercy of the natural world. So much of the time it seems that we tend to forget that it isn't about us, we don't really have much control, and that isn't a bad thing.

5) Homeschooling: If we are going to say that we homeschool our child, we need to do it! Walking around Rainer will hopefully be a great intro to circumnavigating many more mountains (Timberline, Loowit, Three Sisters Loop, etc). The views of rainshadow, the ecosystem changes, the 25 glaciers, all of it shows the very direct effects of today's environment. If we have the freedom to not have to actually be "in school" we better live it up!

With three separate summits, the mountain looks different from every angle. Such is the life of a stratovolcano and part of the fun of circumnavigation.

6)Why Not?!: This is the biggest reason of all. If we can't take 2 weeks of our life to show our son this National Park, that is just pathetic. None of us have seen it, it is critically acclaimed, and we don't need any gear since we have all of it. We can all do it without much training and it won't cost us anything but 20 dollars for the reservation and gas. It seemed like an extreme no-brainer.
Note: Since crampons or micro-spikes should only be used when it is deadly to proceed otherwise, we won't be taking them. The chances of hurting yourself to the point of needing immediate hospital attention are just too high. Even when highly trained, people often panic and stupidly put their feet down instead of properly self arresting or glassading. We will carry ice axes as The Barracuda has been trained how to use one and will rope up if necessary. He will most likely not be using crampons until he is at least 14, ice climbing, and been through years of professional training. I'm just not willing to permanently kill my son's feet.

Confirmation of our reservation came today. Mid July we are heading up North. As of now Jules, myself, The Barracuda, and (oddly) my brother have decided to take it on. I don't know exactly how well my brother will fare (hopefully well), but we have been alpine training for quite a stint and don't plan on stopping anytime soon. The Barracuda wants to begin running with me every other day and has decided to trail run with Jules as well. Once his form really takes hold, we will apply some weight. He's pretty darn good to go!

We received confirmation yesterday. After 6 months of negotiations, one fall through, and a bit of some rocky territory with a lease, we have been approved to purchase a cabin. Neither Jules nor I really know how to feel about this. We have been keeping ourselves optimistically reserved due to all the negotiations and high/low moments of this whole ordeal. The possibilities make us excited though.

I use the term "cabin" lightly. We are basically moving into an old fishing shack. It doesn't have any rooms. It doesn't have any heat. It doesn't have any insulation. It doesn't have any septic system. It doesn't have an address which exists on any map.

That's basically all of it...other than the plywood bathroom through the door on the far right. The kitchen is a sink off to the near right where you see the bar-like box which are supposed to be cabinets only they don't close correctly.

At this point we seem a bit crazy. Why would we leave our current house 2 blocks from the park, one block from the fire station, in a great neighborhood, with still decent property values? Our current house has such luxuries as a bathtub, lighting, and a stove.

Because what it does have is an incredible deck, a private dock, and is bordered on all 4 sides by federally protected land. One mile to our South is a National Scenic area. Flanked on both sides are National Forests. Directly out front is now a lake, but soon to be a wild and scenic river. They are taking down the last dam (which makes our lake) in the Fall of 2011. Salmon will spawn out our backyard.

Think Walden Pond.
(Thoreau was 480 square feet; we are whopping 496.)

It has been increasingly important for Jules and I to live deliberately. Each of our decisions is not only influencing our son, but each decision that we don't make also sends a strong message. With the purchase of this house and our move we hope to show our son that sort-of doing things doesn't work. You need to be all in. It isn't about doing alpine training once a week; it is spending a week backpacking around a mountain. It isn't about eating locally or being part of a farm share; it is about catching dinner from the backyard and walking down the street to the farm to pick it and process it yourself. It isn't about lowering your credit card; it is about being completely debt free (we are 5 years out including our mortgage). It is important not to half-ass your life. Figure out your priorities and then go at them full throttle.


Our Priorities
Knowing Your Space
We wish to live somewhere we know intimately. In the last three years we have gotten to the point I know exactly how much water it takes to run our house and how long it has to rain to get there. I know how the floor is supported, the pipes run, and the electricity flows from spending hours under the house digging out a cellar with a 5 gallon bucket. I know the line where the sun turns to shade at each time of day and throughout the seasons. But I don't know the walls. I don't know roof. I don't know the relationship of power input and output. Most importantly, I don't know the stories of my space. It is all well and good to make memories in your spaces, but we wish to know their memories as well.

This summer we are going to be rebuilding the house from the floorboards up (because you can actually see through the floor to the dirt below in a couple of places). Wall by wall we will be learning from our space. From crawling in the dirt under it, to establishing a gray water filtration system outside, we can honestly say it is our house and not just a dwelling we purchased.

Nurturing the Land
It is all well and good for us to be going as carbon neutral as possible here in our current house, but most any city has limitations on what is legal. We have yet to find any place in a U.S. city which does not outlaw off the grid living. As much as I realize the reasons, I also know we cannot turn off our water in favor of gray water systems without the fear the city will take our son away, or have more than three solar panels, or any solar panels which aren't grid tied for that matter. We actually know people who have been evicted from their personal property due to off the grid living and our city is championed for its sustainable efforts. By the sheer nature of where we will be living, there is very little choice but to be off the grid. Secondly, there isn't anyone to either report us or to report to if someone had an issue.

Getting permits for a place that is surrounded by Endangered Species land and large numbers of federal protections is something which I don't even want to attempt. After about 3 hours of phone calls, I was informed it would take a minimum of 6 months for our composting toilet application to be fully approved. That isn't any infrastructure, just a large fancy plastic box. I can't imagine what it takes to get a building permit! We basically get to work with what we have and we have to do it personally. That means the ability to expand out the established deck to create bedrooms and maximize our house at just over 800 square feet.

It also means we need to be able to run most all of our house by ourselves with full knowledge of repairs. Solar panels to need to run 95% our electric since power can go out for over a month in the winter. A cistern has to be put in for our water because the city water pipes tend freeze solid by October and don't thaw till May. Propane appliances are necessary and as a backup heating source since there are no Natural Gas lines. Lastly, any pollution we create is going to go directly into an endangered species waterway or protected wilderness areas so we need to be darn sure we are as closed a system as possible. My job as homemaker just got kicked up a notch.

Simplicity
Simplicity seems to be all the rage these days. It is quite the buzzword around our city and creates quite the bumper sticker lifestyle. Somewhere along the line, people have forgotten the actual meaning of the word. Though we aren't going as far as the Amish, we truly want our son to realize what a luxury is. Light is a luxury. Heat is a luxury. Plowed roads and paved roads are luxuries. These are not things that people really need, but just make life a whole lot nicer. If you have to think about turning on the light because you might exhaust your battery bank, you think about it differently. If you have to build the fire by 5:30 am in order for the house to warm up enough during the day, you experience warmth differently. If your dad has to cross country ski to meet up with the carpool so he can go to work, you consider transportation differently.

We wish to actually live simply. House only big enough to eat and sleep in. Fun coming from exploring the nature around us. Food you have to personally handle from alive to your plate or you don't eat.

Recreation
I had a friend from Hawaii who was baffled about how peopled talked about life here on the mainland. She explained that in Hawaii when someone asked, "What do you do?" the answer would be something like surfing, snorkeling, hiking, or the like. What do you do meant how to you choose to spend your time. People only worked to possess enough capital to continue their passions. On the mainland "What do you do?" directly refers to whatever job you hold regardless of whether you like it. Your personal identity was somehow wound up in your employer and life was spent working rather than really living anything. She couldn't understand why anyone would want to focus more on their occupation than on their passion. What is more, very few people in Hawaii turned their passion into work. The point wasn't to turn something you loved into something you had to work on. You were to love it for the sake of the love and to work on whatever you could easily put away after you had made the money. The concept that people would turn something they loved into something which became an obligation further confused her.

We wish to have our passions be the center of our lives, rather than our bills. When Jules and I look at the people we have begun gravitating to in the last few years we find a common thread: these people are all in about what they care about. They eat it, sleep it, and breathe it. Most all of them have had to take some fairly drastic measures to make their passions the center of their lives. When we honestly looked at it, the place we lived was our limiting factor. Rather than continue to be posers who merely talk about changing, we needed to do it. We also want our son to see people who live this way whether they be crag rats, river rats, artist bums, commune hippies, or what have you.

Looking Forward
A little over a year ago we revamped the look of our humble little blog to include the pages across the top and a bit more focus to my ramblings. With this move, the hope is to become even more refined as we discuss living in our natural world, pulling the "house" off the grid, and training for some extreme recreation.

So what do we do without television? We teach our child to Prusik himself way up in a tree...




And then we encourage him to swing around like a monkey....


Because a tree, a harness, and knowledge of knots is a terrible thing to waste....


And we don't have a tire swing.

So how did you spend your REI refund this year?

HCRHST stands for the Historic Columbia River Highway State Trail. My son and I are attempting his first end-to-end which turned out to be about 90 miles. For pictures and back story check out these links: Getting Ready, Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Pictures, and Progress.

This is the portion of our trip where things began to get a bit crazy. Now, you may say that not having a hotel was crazy, or that sleeping through extreme weather warnings was crazy, or even hitchhiking with your small child was crazy, but all that was sort of par for the course on a long distance trip especially through our Gorge in January.

When we hit our third extreme weather advisory in Eagle Creek it was due to flooding. The rain began to come and it just didn't stop. It transformed from rain into pouring and continued for 2 days solid. This combined with the fact it had warmed up only enough to not be snowing and the ground was melting off. We got updates from the Rangers that went something like this: "You cannot continue, all trails are closed," or "We have rerouted some of the major trails as things appear to be letting up, but it is still not safe to continue," or "Nope, you can't go on. Multnomah Falls is even closed due to snow melt combined with the flooding. " When that one was announced I knew we might actually have to end. The only other time this major tourist attraction has been closed was in the now fabled Floods of '96. During that time the Willamette River rose over 10 and a half feet. A foot of that was in under 3 days. We get serious rain here. Since we didn't have a television or the Internet to watch, I couldn't really tell just how bad it was elsewhere. So the map was pulled out and we tried to figure out a new game plan as the information streamed in.

Multiple giant Douglas Fir trees flank the original pavilion complete with stone fireplace and giant cooking pad.

Luckily, Eagle Creek is an incredible spot to be holed up. In the 1840's this is the place where intrepid Oregon Trail folks would place their wagons on rafts and float them down the Columbia hoping for the best. By the late 1800's steamers were popular here and ferried all sorts of cargo up and down the Gorge allowing commerce to the settlements. Due to such popular traffic, in 1915 The Columbia River Gorge Park was established as a unit of the Oregon National Forest system. This was the first time in our nation's history that any part of land was set aside for exclusively recreational use. The very small space (23 miles by about 5 miles wide) was set aside from timber use, resort population, and even mining.

The rock reads: "In honor of Jacob Kanzler 1879-1940 whose dedication to humanity and love of the great outdoors this 23 mile strip along the Columbia River was formally dedicated in 1915 to all people for recreational use and enjoyment.

So as the rain poured down around us, The Barracuda and I slept in the first campground to ever be established in a National Forest. In the first two years the campground was established (1915-1917) more than 150,000 people would sleep here and use the Eagle Creek Trail. This action set the precedent to be followed by the rest of the nation in the National Parks system. We read Call of the Wild, listened to the eagles scream overhead catching fish, and tried to stay as dry as possible. It seems like such a simple act, but connecting with that kind of history has been important to our family. We want our son to see that if it weren't for the early days of preservation, much of what he knows just wouldn't exist.


To be clear, the Columbia River Gorge Park was not considered a National Park. Yellowstone was the first designated National Park in 1890, but was set aside as animal and land protection. Yosemite, was deeded to the state of California in 1864 for preservation as well. The Columbia River Gorge Park was the first recreational facility on federal lands and Eagle Creek the first campground. It was not for preservation of animals or resources, but for the sheer joy of recreational pursuits and a trial for the forest service to see if people would actively use a space for camping/hiking/natural pursuits.

I'm a control freak. While I realize the entire effort is completely pointless, because we are ultimately in control of almost nothing, I still grip the world far too tightly when it comes to matters of big change. I'm highly easy going with the little stuff, but big stuff and I just don't work out too well if you spring it on me.

Let's pick an example from quite a long list of recent events: In order to cash a savings bond I had to be placed on Jules' checking account for approximately 4 days. I had a complete panic attack in the middle of the bank. I think I scared the teller a bit. The security guard was definitely on edge as well. Later, Jules likened it to a cartoon cat who is supposed to take a bath. Yeah...that's probably accurate.

Well, another freak out moment happened yesterday. After quite a long drive and personal lecture (I moved out pretty young and had to embrace the art of the personal lecturing), I have decided to put my big girl pants on and get back into this blogging and being an adult thing. Regardless of how much of life is up in the air at the moment, I should probably hold it together a tad bit better than I have been. You know, that whole Role-Model-To-A-Child deal.

Let me state for the record (and mainly all the Family who read this), the up in the air stuff isn't really bad stuff. Here's the short list:

1 ) Finding out about the ulcer stuff isn't bad, though I am annoyed with how much of it is unknown.

2 ) The first house we were looking at fell through after 2.5 months of negotiations; it was a bummer. That isn't bad, because the one down the street we are currently negotiating on (and have been for the last month) is much, much better even if it is nail bitingly suspenseful working for approval of 3 different agencies (owner, county, and leasing agent) More will come after April 8th when we are given some kind of confirmation. Currently we are through 2 agencies and just need the third.

3 ) My work as a writer has been on hold for 6 weeks (making money tight), but that isn't bad because they are reworking the entire website and I've been given a promotion to columnist (WAHOO!).

4 ) After almost a month of planning, we are sending off our Wonderland Trail application and won't know until May. That's not really bad, since I want the mountain to be intact more than I want to traipse around it, but it sure would be nice to know earlier if the whole thing was going to happen and how many miles we have to hike a day.

So yeah, that kinda normal adult life stuff that I should probably not get all bent out of shape about. Long story short, blogging will once again be back to normal.

Here in our household, there is only one person who follows what would normally be called "Traditional Medicine" and that is Jules. I am slowly corrupting him over to "VooDoo Medicine" as he calls anything homeopathic. I don't even take asprin. However, in the last little bit that has had to change due to this whole ulcer thing. In the middle of the night, stabbing stomach pains which inhibit walking and breathing require an emergency room visit regardless of where you stand with Traditional Medicine. In my experience, emergency room visits generally result in X rays and medications with long fancy names, and this one was no different. I've now been on meds for about a month and it is really throwing me for a loop!

Pre ulcer diagnosis, I didn't really realize there was much going wrong in my stomach. I'd have occasional heart burn (but who doesn't when they eat triple pepperoni pizza with pineapple?) and I could easily identify the food which I ate that was probably a bad choice. It didn't really happen very often. I didn't feel all that tired. I didn't really have many foods which upset my stomach or my intestines. In short, I considered myself pretty healthy.

Now, I am on anti-inflammatory meds which turn down my stomach acid level quite considerably. I am supposed to accompany these meds with an over-the-counter antacid 30 minutes before I eat something acidic or which could produce excess stomach acid due to being hard to digest. Do you know now many foods are considered "acidic?" They include, but are not limited too: oranges, any citrus fruits or juices, tomatoes, coffee, chocolate, meats other than fish or chicken, fatty sauces or gravies, items which contain calcium (because they increase stomach acid), nuts and seeds (hard to digest), many raw vegetables, items which contain honey or sugar, and fruit juices. Well, that basically includes 90 percent of what I eat.

My non-medication centered life has been quite different for the last 25 days and I'm not liking the results. I'm exhausted. All this lowering of my stomach acids has caused significantly decreased digestion and I'm really feeling it. My anti-medication stance is being further fortified as I really dislike the borderline nausea feeling of having a constantly full stomach, but my body demanding more nutrients. Man oh man, I don't know how people can take handfuls of medication, or medications to counteract symptoms of other medications. It's kicking my butt!

I honestly recognize the need for me to be on these meds for the month that I have been. I dare say the pain in my stomach was even slightly more intense than labor with The Barracuda, and believe me, it wasn't a fun birth. With 11 pills left, I'm sticking it out because I just plain don't want to feel that bad again. However, after this first dosage is over we are switching back to the natural route for illness protection and prevention. If my current feeling is how 62% of traditional medicine followers feel, it explains a lot about depression in the United States.

It is odd to say that since taking medication to make me "better," I feel far worse. Considering most people acquire the H. pylori bacteria in their system when they are children and then carry it the rest of their lives, the issue is most likely never going to go away for me. Personally I'm taking this stint of ickiness to further fortify my desire to go back to juicing, teas/tonics, yoga, and long distance trails.

HCRHST stands for the Historic Columbia River Highway State Trail. My son and I are attempting his first end-to-end which turned out to be about 90 miles. For pictures and back story check out these links: Getting Ready, Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Pictures, and Progress.

Each morning I awoke about an hour before The Barracuda and would begin packing up. This way he could sleep as long as possible and I didn't have to think about his needs while getting everything packed. The night before we would set aside our morning Clif Bar (or Luna, or Odwalla, or Mojo bar) selection and oatmeal flavor for the next day. It was placed in my Wet Rib and meant no food had to be even thought about until backpacks were reopened to set up camp. The stove was always placed into The Barracuda's backpack along with the pot and all cooking supplies. I traded him for his clothes after the first day when it was frustrating to unpack so much just to eat. Our clothing for the next day was either slept in (when it was so cold) or placed in the bottom of the sleeping bag to heat up for morning.

When I awoke on Day 5, my mind was feeling better than the previous evening, but still reeling a bit. I'd hit the "What am I doing!?" point of being a parent. You know that feeling in the hospital when they hand you the baby to take home and all the nurses who have been taking care of things seem to feel that you are competent enough to take over? Jules likens it to when he taught his first day of classes as an actual teacher. It is that feeling of "Are you crazy!? I can't be responsible for this! Don't know know me?!" After our day coming from Wyeth my fearlessness was fading. There was a 6 year old I was in charge of who had no clue how dangerous some of yesterday was.

The greatness of sleep is that with dawn a whole new day begins again. We had no choice but to keep on walking. Today we were going to meet up with Jules and Guadie at Cascade Locks for our resupply and charging my cell phone. Due to the cold my phone would only stay charged for about a day and a half. As a result, it was off all day and only turned on at night so the alarm would wake me in the morning or for snow checks.

We got to sleep in a bit and awoke to quite a different feel in the air. You can smell the rain coming around here and it was definitely moving in. The once vibrant expanse of the Gorge, had become quite grey with all the clouds moving in.

The dingy day didn't damper our spirits too much. We had a date with Jules and Guadie in about 3.5 miles. That meant a resupply and restaurant food! Plus, even when grey, looking out at snow capped Cascades and the Columbia River is pretty incredible.


As we hiked on, the fog followed us. We were dropping in elevation down to the town of Cascade Locks and the bulk of the Cascades had been crossed. Being a major stop on the PCT, this town knows quite a lot about stinky hiker trash and welcomes them much more fondly than Hood River did for us. Though it had only been two days since I had had a shower, my clothing had been worn hard and was still unwashed. My son was not shy in letting me know that I stank. Later, Jules was just a generous with his comment, "You smell like a dirty thru hiker!" Why thank you, Honey!

We were walking briskly and covering the trail fast when a lanky gentleman in screaming blue capiliene and knickers appeared in the distance along with a very wiggly, backpack wearing dog. The dog burst into a sprint at the call of her name from The Barracuda. Guadie is already a wiggly dog, but when excited she goes completely overboard. Her hind quarters were gyrating back and forth, she was throwing herself at The Barracuda, she was licking me, her tail was whapping erratically; she was ecstatic. Not only were her people all back together, but she got to hike. Doggy life just doesn't get much better than that!

I don't think she left his side the entire time.

The rain began before we could even cover the 1.5 miles down to Cascade Locks. The drizzle slowly turned into a constant moisture, rain gear was donned and we slogged on. Once in town, we hit the nearest decent looking restaurant, plugged in my cell phone, and tried to take off any stuff which had wet-out. When the waitress came to our table and threw out the general question, "What would you like?" the Barracuda promptly blurted out his order of a dinner sized steak sandwich, french fries, cocoa, a salad with ranch, and a giant blueberry muffin. The waitress stared down at him with wide eyes, then saw our backpacks out the window and smiled. The food was brought, and the gusto with which my 45 pound child inhaled his lunch was quite impressive. He even helped finish off Jules' left over french fries.

As we ate the rain continued to fall. It wasn't going to reach more than 35 degrees, but wasn't projected to freeze either. We warmed up in the restaurant while we could, but knew a very damp day lay ahead. When leaving town, a horn honked and the nice gentlemen who had helped us the day before waved out the window of his truck. He said he was glad to see we made it, told Jules he had a pretty incredible son, and wished us luck. Throughout the trip, we would encounter wonderful people with kind hearts willing to help strangers. It is a very pleasant reminder of the world's goodness which is so often forgotten.

On the way from Cascade Locks to Eagle Creek, The Barracuda played trail games with his father, skipped along with a very full belly, and generally was happy as all get out. Jules coming meant that we could all sleep together, he got to be with his dog, he could relay all the previous hiking adventures to his dad, and (most importantly) there would be an iPod to listen to and sing along with. I was happy for a fresh supply of energy bars and some adult conversation, but let him have all of Jules' attention.

I preferred to marvel at the sheer amount of green which had begun to appear. Even as the clouds covered the entire sky and rain was coming down forcefully now, the entire expanse in front of us was carpeted in green. It covered the trees. It swelled over the ground in a dozen different shades, taking over even the rocks. With the falling rain, the color seemed even more vibrant against the downed red cedar trees and fallen leaves. It was a whole new other-worldly quality now that we were crossing out of the mountains and back into the rainy side of the Gorge.

The summers are nothing like this. Evergreens still stand and ferns poke out from anywhere possible, but the technicolor appearance fades without any rain.

As the rains continued, the cold began to seep in. It became very apparent that Eagle Creek was going to be a place to hole up and attempt to stay dry. Unlike other places in the nation where rain tends to come down in furious torrents and then move on quickly, here it lingers. The entire experience is much less aggressive. The rain creeps in, steadily falls for days, and then will ease away. Unfortunately, the temperature often hovers and the wind whips through causing disgusting hiking conditions. You can literally feel it as the city begins to hunker down and wait out the water.

Cascade Locks is the place where the Pacific Crest Trail crosses from Oregon to Washington. If you are a north-bounder, you are basically home free if you can beat out the snow. They close down the 2 lane bridge (The Bridge of the Gods) to all traffic and allow PCT hikers to cross in groups during the busy season. It is a nod to the work and effort of those who are fronting only the essentials and have traveled over 2,000 miles on foot. Looking back at The Bridge of the Gods, I realized we had now made it past the bulk of the Cascade Mountains from highly unknown terrain to places I have hiked since I was a child.


There is a level of satisfaction when you realize you've surprised yourself. My son and I had covered over 53 miles by ourselves, walked into unknown and now stood on familiar soil. It wasn't until now that I realized we'd really accomplished something.

I apologize for being out most of February. Sick has blown through our house infesting everyone from the pet, to the laptop, to the people. After a rather eventful late night emergency room visit, I have also been informed: 1) I am not pregnant WAHOO! 2) I do not have appendicitis, gall stones, liver failure, kidney disease, or a bladder infection 3) my medical insurance is RAD and 4) I have a medium to large sized ulcer. Yay! At the point they were giving me this information I couldn't have cared less, because I was so drugged up I couldn't keep the world from spinning. (Apparently when anyone asked me a question, I would respond "I'm really high right now.") On the plus side, I was no longer doubled over in crippling pain. All in all, a good trade off. Jules took a very flattering picture on his phone, but I will spare you from all the gorgeous details of the 2:30 am extravaganza.

At least I now know why my stomach is so touchy. Jules and I both believe I have had the ulcer for quite some time and just didn't realize. With how healthy our diet is, we figure it never really had a chance to "flare up." The end of January and February have been rather stressful, however, and I have never dealt with stress well.

So I'm now on meds and have been instructed to actively manage my stress. Hopefully March will be a bit more normal. The rest of our hike will be posted in the next day or so.

My son has just informed me there are soul sucking, crazed, teleporting scarecrows coming in from Idaho. I clarified that perhaps they would be coming from Iowa instead because that is where all the corn is. Nope, The Barracuda was very sure. Idaho. Mr. H, he wanted you to be aware of this and asked that if you did perhaps see any frightening scarecrows coming to life and beginning the process of teleportation, could you please send them to the East Coast. Apparently, you have some control over these things. Just in case, he is sleeping with his pocket knife and the dog.

Where does he get this stuff?

HCRHST stands for the Historic Columbia River Highway State Trail. My son and I are attempting his first end-to-end which turned out to be about 90 miles. For pictures and back story check out these links: Getting Ready, Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Pictures, and Progress.

The day away from Wyeth began quite well. We were up before the sun, had camp taken down before dawn and the snow had all but melted. Things were looking great other than a few rather water logged pools inside the tent which we hadn't seen before. I attributed this to the entire night of rain and large amounts of snow melt, but kept an eye on it. After another couple nights I began to watch where the water was coming in and it appears the undercoating on our tent has finally decided to bite the dust. After this trip, it is now relegated to backyard usage.

The majority of the morning from Wyeth was on flat-ish terrain and with no rainy weather, so we were pounding miles fast. We were paralleling the Columbia with relatively no elevation change in weather that was down right balmy feeling in the high forties. The pine trees had left us and we could actually see evergreens.

Wind mountain across the Columbia River. The foothills of the Cascades are outcroppings of small rounded mountains. Rather than a gradual ascent, they are more like small training runs before actually getting to the big stuff.

The ascent started to hit, and with it the scree slopes began to become the norm. Most of the snow had melted off by this point, but that only meant large quantities of water blowing out footbridges. The Barracuda hadn't had much experience with river crossings before this and quickly began to learn how to be confident, but swift of foot with the current.

The Barracuda's first river crossing. The bridge was completely blown and all we could see of it were a few 2x4's sticking up out of the water. He did well, and only fell into the water once the entire trip.
Due to the anabatic and katabatic winds of the Gorge, around early to mid morning you begin to walk through significant cloudline a bit lower than one would expect. The eerie cold air and decreased visibility bother some as they are not used to the fog sweeping in so quickly. The Barracuda and I personally find them quite enchanting and he commented that they reminded him of something out of The Chronicals of Narnia. I personally find them of the feel more like Tolkien's books, but either way, they give quite a mystical edge to any hike.

The Barracuda really liked watching the ecosystems change, first from the dry arid climate of the rainshadow to the damp evergreens, and then as we climbed to the barren scree slopes and towering basalt monoliths.

As we climbed, the spotty patches of snow became much more frequent and I took over the lead. The rocks seems to be mainly clear, but the trail was a great bench to collect any snow which had fallen from the above slopes. Crampons weren't needed (yet), but several times we were cautious and I was kicking steps. About three slopes in, the trail became completely obscured with icy snow and any steps which were kicked were significantly shallower than before. I ventured across, instructing The Barracuda to smash his heels down as hard as possible before planting his toes. Almost the entire way across I hear a scream from behind me and realize he has slipped. Up until this point, I hadn't properly known parental panic.

I quickly leaped out of the snow, ditched my pack and turned only to find him breathing heavily with a stick plunged into the ground. He had self arrested with the stick he was carrying and saved himself from a very disastrous and nasty slope. Sometimes all I can do is stare in awe of my child. He continues to be cooler than I have ever been. He had correctly flipped, rolled and plunged the stick he was carrying into the snow and then clung to it successfully all in a matter of seconds. We had discussed self arresting at home, as well as had him handle his father's ice axe, but we have never actually practiced figuring he was too young.

His face accurately illustrates the level of panic both of us were feeling. This was quickly shifted to excitement at his ability to keep his head and self arrest successfully. The picture was taken as he was calming down so I could come back out and drag him by his pack to safety.
After this eventful happening, it was all pretty smooth sailing. We covered ground quickly, but carefully and after a series of rise, fall and plateaus we found ourselves above cloudline and walking ridges before heading back down to sea level.

This hike showed me just how much I love The Gorge and the Cascades in the winter. My hiking experience was very limited this time of year as much of the hiking is rather unpredictable. However, it is far more beautiful.

Once the trail went back down, miles began flying even faster. We were getting hungry and had put in a good 7 miles on only our Luna bar breakfast. We couldn't stop yet, though. Not only was the trail not level enough to cook, but we had preset a trail intersection to be our break point and we weren't there yet. Occasionally when hiking we will take 2 or 3 minute breaks to have a drink and rest packs for a bit, but the only actual stopping place we have during our day is lunch. We eat for somewhere between 15 and 20 minutes and then hit the trail again until camp and dinner. Until we hit our stopping point we don't break, period.

The Barracuda is very keen on the fact that he doesn't get to whine and he doesn't get to stop. He has flat out been told he can, but that we are not going to. If he wants to stop, okay, but then he has to hike double fast to move the miles he has lost. This is not as preferable as keeping up. He has also found incredibly great ways to navigate distance through this. As we were descending, he realized he could see the exit signs on the Interstate if he used his monocule and this would give him an exact location that we were in. From that, he could see how much farther we had to go. Food is my son's best motivator.

Sometimes this investigating took him a bit off trail and up a rise or two, but he considered it worth it.

The map we had was chosen for a couple of reasons: 1) it was waterproof and a weird form of synthetic rip resistant plastic, 2) it seemed to contain a lot of good information quite well, and 3)it most importantly had both sides of the Cascades and covered the entire distance. I, for some reason, did not think about the fact that if it covered a long distance it wouldn't be as accurate in the specifics. At our trail intersection, there were supposed to be 5 trails which came together, and then a short jaunt till we hit our alternate connecting trail to the PCT. That didn't exactly happen. We ate and tried to orient ourselves. That should read, I tried to orient myself and failed a bit miserably. My visual spacial skills leave quite a bit to be desired. A trail was picked, and we headed off.

The connecting trail was supposed to be less than a mile by the look of things, but the map had been off by as much as a mile and a half in the past. We kept walking, kept talking, kept seeing great things.
This unnamed waterfall just plunged off the trail. It wasn't on the map, it just was there and HUGE. Water was filtered and The Barracuda threw in a few rocks.

The trail seemed to be taking forever and it was getting to be around 3 o'clock. We had maybe an hour or so of decent daylight left. Where was this stinking connector trail, or any trail. Then came the sign. Mark O Hatfield Wilderness, it read. Then came the cussing. Lots and lots of cussing. We had hiked a good 2 miles the wrong way. With darkness approaching we began to run back. I took The Barracuda's pack because he was having trouble and we raced to get back to the intersection. Once arrived, he took over the navigating. Unfortunately, the map was just plain unclear. We knew the trail we had come from, the wrong turn we had taken, but no other trail seemed to make sense. Time was clicking down.

We chose another likely candidate and headed off. No dice, the road split twice with no signs telling you what was going on. We turned back and tried another. Still not right. This one headed up hill and the topo specifically told us we needed to be loosing elevation. Back again. At this point I began to get a bit freaked out. We were lost.

There was more cussing. I cussed the map, and the trail. I cussed the time of year, and the sun, and the darkness, and my complete lack of ability to fix the situation. Then I became worried that dark was approaching and we couldn't locate where to go.

Trail magic is a funny thing. It speaks to the occurrence of extreme happenstance exactly when you need it. As trail magic would have it, two older gentlemen came up a bizarre side trail walking their dogs. Who walks their dogs in the middle of a National Forest off some weird side trail in the late afternoon as things are getting dark?!? They were locals and had never heard of the trail we were trying to find, but knew of the footbridge and how to get to the PCT. When they started to give me directions and I looked at them in complete bewilderment (I was so turned around at that point) they decided to take us their themselves. We went back down one of the places we came to previously, across a small unmarked jaunt, up three switchbacks and connected us to the sign pointing 1 mile to the PCT. The trail on my map was 405 E, the actual trail is 406 E. I honestly would never have found this connection in a million years, with all the daylight in the world. At this point I thanked Buddha, and Christ, and God, and Allah, and the Universe, any other deity which might exist somewhere that I had forgotten.

With darkness falling fast, we began walking double time. One mile seemed endless. The Barracuda was getting worried, I was getting a bit frantic. There was no where to put a tent if we wanted to. There was no way we could stop. Finally, it ended and we both squealed with delight. Headlamps were dawned and the tent was staked in the middle of the trail. At that point, anyone who was walking the PCT in January was just going to have to deal with it. We ate tortillas and cheese for dinner, read Call of the Wild and were so unbelievably thankful we didn't care that we were sleeping on rocks.

I have never been so thankful to see a sign in my entire life! The Barracuda put it best when he said, "I'm so thankful we have a place to sleep."

HCRHST stands for the Historic Columbia River Highway State Trail. My son and I are attempting his first end-to-end which turned out to be about 90 miles. For pictures and back story check out these links: Getting Ready, Day 1, Day 2, Pictures, Progress.

Day 3 in Hood River was our zero day. We didn't cover any miles, lazed around the hotel until 10:30 am and then headed to the library to spend some time out of the frigid air. Things were supposedly melting off, but someone forgot to tell that to Hood River. We were still on the west side of the Cascades and it just plain doesn't get warm there in January. However, the library was closed, permanently. Due to complete loss of funding, the building was no longer occupied and didn't look to reopen for at least another year while private funds were being located. I was shocked. It was quite the wake up call of what a bad economy can mean for a small community. There was quite a nice list of places in town one could make copies, use the Internet, and generally enjoy some time indoors. We picked a close coffee shop and went down there instead.

I'd like to throw a giant shout out to Dog River Coffee Company of Hood River. These guys have become a pillar of the community. They provide Internet access along with a computer to use, serve up tasty food, and now have a book swap since the library closed. What is more, after entering we saw the nice young teacher who gave us a ride. Dog River now allows her to tutor expelled students (who used to use the library) to get their GED's or get into the local community college. She was working with three or four kids when we came in. We said hi, warmed up, and used the Internet to check in. After a quick glance at the map and a discussion of where we were headed over the next couple days, it was off to some hot destinations. The toy store was first on The Barracuda's list. Next came the Taco del Mar. Finally it was off to the kid's playground.
Leave it to my kid to be completely undaunted by almost not having somewhere to stay the night before, a playground completely covered in snow, and freezing temperatures for the last 3 days.

As I watched my son play with complete carefree abandon, it became apparent I'd never fully actualized a zero day before. My previously, zero days had been spent sleeping in, resupplying, gorging myself on food, letting gear dry out and muscles relax. They were never spent playing, or wandering the town, or looking in bookstores. They were spent in sheer physical gluttony. The Barracuda spent his zero day enjoying everything he found wonderful - toys, coffee shop smoothies, snow, tacos, and the playground. He was completely unaffected by what had passed in the days before, the weight of his pack, the miles we had walked and the many ahead of us. When I got over marveling at his Zen level, I momentarily became disgusted by it, and then joined in and helped him build a snow castle/fort which we destroyed like Godzilla after it had been erected.

We headed back down to the coffee shop since we were completely frozen and I needed to more thoroughly plan our next couple days. We were almost out of the snow and entering warmer weather. Crossing the Cascades was two days ahead of us and we were going to begin our climb slowly over the next little bit. I knew that Rowena Crest, Mt. Defiance, and Starvation Creek lay before us and those were going to be some considerable obstacles for someone under 4 feet tall. However, when we got back to Dog River Coffee Company, we were informed there was no way we were going to be able to continue. Rowena Crest had been completely taken out by a large boulder and the road didn't exist unless we had technical climbing gear, Mt. Defiance had a major mudslide and had been closed, and Starvation Creek was flooded and washed out. Well....okay then.

A quick call to Jules, our Trail Angel. He would come up after work to bring us waterproof clothing and jump us to Wyeth (only 4 miles away). So we sat down, read Call of the Wild and The Barracuda enjoyed some toys they had. I was a bit discouraged at how choppy and crazed this trip was becoming. Nothing seemed to be going right. The Barracuda was quick to remind me that it was probably just as weird for Lewis and Clark since they didn't know where they were going to be either. They couldn't predict the weather. They had tons of stuff go wrong. They were at the mercy of circumstance as well. "But they made it," he assured me.

Dang Zen...It Gets Me Every Time

HCRHST stands for the Historic Columbia River Highway State Trail. My son and I are attempting his first end-to-end which turned out to be about 90 miles. For pictures and back story check out these other pages: Getting Ready, Day 1, Pictures, Progress.

When we awoke it was still dark and there were 8-10 inches of snow on the ground covered with an inch of ice from the freezing rain, but we made it! Camp was broken down as it was beginning to become light and we checked in with the larger Ranger. He didn't think we should continue. Jules didn't think we should continue. My father knew better than to tell me not to continue. Undaunted we headed up to Memaloose for a look at the view we missed yesterday.

Memaloose means "of the dead" in Chinook (a local tribe). Islands such as the one in this picture were the burial place for their people and were frequent in the Columbia before all the dams flooded them. The dead were wrapped and floated out on canoes to the islands as a final send off back to the water the Chinook relied on so heavily.
Memaloose is a famous place on the Oregon Trail as well as heavily mentioned by Lewis and Clark. The Barracuda greatly enjoyed using his monocular to look around at the eagles nesting, the tombs on the islands, and anything else he could possibly spy. He was quite excited to be standing in a place we had read about in Lewis and Clark's Journals and actually able to see one of the islands they found so disturbing. (I'd be disturbed too if I kept passing by islands with multiple dead corpses rotting on them for seemingly no reason).

This Brunton monocular was gifted to The Barracuda by our friends. It is RAD! I would whole-heartedly recommend it for anyone with adventurous kids. The Barracuda carried it the entire time and it came in quite handy. Thanks Laura and Jasper!

Our trip to Mosier was going to mean 3.5 miles backtracking and then another 10 for the day till we could get somewhere possible to camp. I honestly didn't know if The Barracuda could do it. The extreme weather advisory was still in effect and wasn't supposed to lift until the following day. Our packs were still heavy as very little food had been eaten and our journey would be uphill.

Thankfully, the crazy weather meant that Jules (and every other school district in The Gorge) had the day off. He threw chains in the truck, drove up to see us, and jumped us the 6 highway miles to Mosier. This was an incredible relief. We got coffee and ate at the only cafe left in Mosier and then headed out to Hood River. Whew! Crisis averted!

As Jules dropped us off at the trailhead from Mosier to Hood River, we ran into Matt Dewey again. He said hello, asked if we were going to continue, and gave us the weather report (freezing rain all day). I told him we were going to try and he shook his head. He'd opened the tunnels for us and given us a nice track to walk in so we weren't trudging through fresh snow.


Icicles the size of the Barracuda hang down menacingly from the ceiling of the tunnels as water drips through the mountain and freezes. These were a very exciting stop!

The Mosier tunnels are a five mile section of the old highway which was considered a major feat of construction back in 1915. Personally, I still think it is a major feat of construction. The tunnels were blasted straight through the mountain and the bridges were constructed contouring out over the basalt cliffs to give incredible views of the Gorge.

Looking back over our progress was a helpful venture for The Barracuda. He could physically see the Memaloose Islands we had been standing at earlier in the day. He also got a wonderful birds eye view of the Gorge which was quite impressive.

Along with the majestic tunnels were sets upon sets of tracks perfectly preserved in the snow by the freezing rain. Since the roadway is not able to support semi trucks or nearly the traffic of today's interstate, it is now only a walking, biking, and cross country skiing trail. With no cars allowed on the road, many animals use the pathway regularly without fear. Rabbit tracks, coyote tracks, elk tracks, small rodent tracks, bobcat tracks, deer tracks and more we couldn't identify were spotted all spotted. Pictures were taken for The Barracuda's nature journal and many were followed off into the side brush of the trail only to disappear.

Spirits were high as we trudged closer to Hood River. We weren't making amazing time due to the snow and the continuous freezing rain, but mostly due to all the great sights.

By the time we were 3/4s of the way to Hood River, the trials of the night before had been forgotten. The day had been a fun one and the weather was warming enough to not need balaclavas covering our faces as we hiked.

As we neared the end of the trail, it became apparent that my fabulous National Geographic, plastic, rip proof, water proof, swanky, GPS gridded map might not be the greatest judge of distance. It kept seeming like we should be at the end. Thankfully we ran into an at-risk high school science teacher and her dog, Mole the chocolate lab. She was cross country skiing the opposite direction and informed us there was only a mile left. As timing would have it, by the time we had covered that mile, she was returning and offered us a ride into Hood River. We gladly excepted.

She gave us the low down on Hood River, places to stay, the best coffee shops, what her students were doing. We told her about our trip, gave Mole treats, and thanked her readily for her kindness. She dropped us off at the Best Western and went along her way.

The weather had everyone holing up on the highway. Hotels were booked and not too happy to see people on foot with large backpacks and unclean clothes. They refused to take my cash without a credit card, wouldn't except Jules' because it wasn't in my name, and generally were kinda snotty. When another woman heard our trouble, asked if we were on foot and offered us a ride to another hotel in town in exchange for a road report. She was worried about the road, we were worried about a hotel, it worked out well.

The Hood River Inn was our next stop. It was the only place in town with a vacancy. I asked about their cheapest room and if they would take cash. The response was similar to the Best Western - they wouldn't take the card, they wouldn't take the cash, they only had a $150 suite left. It looked a bit hopeless. From the lobby we pulled out the map and scoured it for any campsites possible. Not a one. The closest was a state park down Interstate 84 about 5 miles with no way to walk other than on the shoulder. At this point it was 3:30pm and things were looking to get dark soon. I asked The Barracuda if he wanted to just call it quits. He was adamant he wanted to finish. So we loaded up our packs once again to head for the coffee shop to pay someone 20 dollars to take up down the highway to Viento State Park.

As luck would have it, the general manager (a very nice older woman) came through just then. She looked down at The Barracuda over her glasses with a smile and said, "My, that looks like a very heavy pack for someone your age. It's almost as big as you!"

Now is a good time to admit that my son has the charisma of a cult leader. People adore him and he can talk them into quite a bit when he wants to. He flashes his eyes, throws around a chuckle and a smile, it is obnoxious and borderline sociopathic. We are trying to teach him to use this power for good, rather than evil.

The Barracuda saw his moment of opportunity. He recognized her weakness. She didn't have much of a chance. I stood back to watch the show.

He dropped his little face, quivered his lip slightly, and gave her big puppy-dog eyes. "It is heavy," he said, "I don't understand why we can't stay here. We have money, but they said you wouldn't take it. Why can't we sleep just one night? We won't hurt anything." It was a masterful performance. The lady looked distraught. She gladly accepted Jules' credit card to cover the deposit stating "We probably won't even need it." The room's cost was dropped to "government rate" of only 75 dollars. We were given a large room with two beds and plenty of space to let gear dry out. I thanked them at least a dozen times, quickly signed the paperwork before anyone could change their minds and handed over most of our trip money.

Gear was strewn about the room to dry, the heater cranked up full throttle and The Barracuda promptly stripped down to watch cartoons for hours. Before bed we hit up the hot tub to rest sore muscles. It was awesome!

With another day down and a total 34.5 miles behind us, we slept well.

HCRHST stands for the Historic Columbia River Highway State Trail. The entire trail is not completed for bicyclists, nor does it run singularly as itself right now. You connect with multiple Forest Service trails in existence. By 2016 it is going to be opened as a contiguous paved bicycle path which runs from Portland to the Dallas.

Our hike began in the Dallas with looming bad weather on the horizon. The winter had thus far been so mild it didn't really bother me. The Columbia River Gorge is notorious for bizarre weather patterns and academic people flock to local universities from around the world to study it. Apparently a bunch of geological stuff all comes together in one place to effect the weather and that doesn't happen very often. Growing up here, it all seems normal. It's just The Gorge.

So we left from the Dallas, in the rainshadow of the Cascades. It was cold, but it is always cold there in January. The air was still dry then, as the day wore on it you began to smell the snow coming.
This was really hard for Jules. He has never left us out into the wilds before. His worry level was quite high, even with me armed with my cell phone. He was able to go home and commiserate with my father.
About 20 minutes in, The Barracuda announced "You're right, Mom, this is a lot of fun!" The Barracuda's experience road walking is quite slim since we normally keep to trails. Road walking has a significantly different feel, but he was quite thrilled with the Ponderosa pines, the cascades of frozen icicles along the road sides, the views of the Columbia we looked out upon.

The kid did the entire time we were out in a pair of Sorel puddle stompers we picked up from Goodwill. He's a beast!

The snow was not expected till somewhere around 5:30 that night and by 7 pm an extreme weather advisory was to come in effect. We had no way of knowing that as we walked, the weather was coming closer and the advisory being bumped up hour by hour.

A very nice woman stopped us along the road, concerned. She asked if we wanted a ride to which we responded no. So she handed over an old Stanley thermos of cocoa to The Barracuda. I explained that we would need to give it back to her since we were on foot and couldn't carry the poundage. She again looked concerned (we got this a lot by the end). We arranged to meet up with her before we crossed over the freeway to our campground to give her back the thermos. Apparently she was a photographer who was taking pictures of the ducks and would be down there anyway.

Hot chocolate raised the cold spirits of The Barracuda. Road walking isn't much fun and often begins to hurt the ankles at about 5 miles.

When we handed the thermos back over and began to walk toward the underpass, the woman became increasingly concerned and actually got out of her car to stop us. Apparently she thought I was going to try and cross the existing highway (an Interstate, with semi's) with my 6 year old while carrying heavy packs. Someone had tried to cross the highway on foot about a month before and it hadn't ended well. She insisted we let her drive us across. The Barracuda was tired, so we agreed. It wasn't until then that I heard the weather advisories on the radio. Snow was projected to hit any minute. It was only around 1:15. The day was hardly over for us.

The nice lady then proceeded to drive us over two miles further down the road to a campsite that she felt was better. It was well intentioned, but our quick jaunt of less than 1 mile across a highway had now become about 3.5 miles tacked onto tomorrow just to get us back on track.

There was no time to think about it, however, because as we were unloading our packs from her car the snow began to fall. It was about 1:30pm and we had to get a tent up fast. We followed the signs to the designated camping area, only to then see that it was closed for the season. If we wanted to legally camp we would have to hike the 3.5 miles back along the railroad tracks. There was just no way. The tent was pitched, The Barracuda went off to play, and I hiked back up to the rest area to fill the water bladder with scalding hot water from the rest rooms.

On the way back down to the campsite I was stopped by the Park Rangers. Matt Dewey was a nice young man, who we would see regularly over the next few days. Jules later became convinced he was in love with me, but Jules regularly becomes convinced of that with many people. Matt informed me the park was closed and we couldn't camp. He also wanted to know what I was doing camping with my son, in the Gorge, in the middle of January.

I explained we were homeschoolers, studying Lewis and Clark, this was close to the time of year they went through (they did it in November), we were heading to Troutdale on foot, a nice woman dropped us off here by mistake, we needed to get out of the weather. His look of "should I call the authorities on this person" quickly shifted to "WHAT?!" About that time another, larger Ranger began walking up the road with a concerned Barracuda.

Now is a good time to admit that I don't trust people, any people. For a long time after living with even Jules I had secret money set aside in case we needed to leave. There is no logical reason why I shouldn't trust any people, I just don't. Thankfully, Jules doesn't trust people either so he understands and it works.

At the sight of the Ranger with my son, my hand quickly went to my Spyderco and my face went dead. I took two steps back from the truck Matt was in, called The Barracuda over behind me and just stared at the two of them. Matt noticed my change and began back-pedalling fast. He called his supervisor to see if we would be allowed to camp that night and the other Ranger talked to us. He asked The Barracuda how old he was, commented on our gear, and asked how the trip was going. Our information was taken down and then made sure we had someone who could come get us if everything went wrong. They were both leery to leave, but we were granted until 9 am the next morning, and told they were going to come check on us to be sure we were out.

We ate at about 3:30, crawled into our sleeping bags and read Call of the Wild till around 5, and hugged the still warm dromedary. We were asleep by 6, but it didn't last long. Every 2 hours I awoke to knock the snow off the tent and keep it from collapsing. At the 9:30 I woke up to a whimpering Barracuda. His face was freezing, he couldn't sleep, and was having trouble staying warm. He crawled into my sleeping bag for us to share the rest of the night and the snow checks were bumped up to every hour and fifteen minutes. The freezing rain began around 3 am so I could sleep longer.
We only emerged from the tent to use the bathroom and all we could see was cold.
And so went our first night. I later found out the temperatures dropped somewhere between 8 and 11 degrees. With the crazy windchill it was definitely much, much lower. The campsite we were supposed to camp in (the one that was open) is an exposed site on right on the Columbia River. I don't know if our tent would have withstood the winds or if we would have been able to handle the cold had we not been taken to the wrong place.

I am a creature of habit. I like to do the same things in the same order over and over. I even like to eat the same things, in the same way, over and over. The Barracuda has a bit of this. When he likes something, he likes it and that just doesn't change. When something works for him, it works and that doesn't change either. As far as we are concerned, there is no reason for experimentation once you have found what works. Not so much Jules. Jules gets bored. Jules likes variety. So in order to make everyone happy, we go with the tried and true and then try to jazz it up a bit.

Enter the oatmeal.
Oatmeal is a great one for backpacking. It is light, rehydrates and heats in almost no time with very little water, and it is highly filling.

You can buy flavored oatmeal in a dozen or more flavors now, all prepackaged and such. The only problem is that it rarely only contains oatmeal, the packages are very messy when opened, and they are really darn expensive. You then stuck with a bajillion little wrappers to carry around with oatmeal powder gunk on them which inevitably gets wet and then you have oatmeal goo on everything. It's gross. I don't like it. So, much like everything else, we just make our own.

As a general rule of thumb, I packaged 1 cup of oatmeal and 1/4 cup of flavoring per person. This many seem like a lot, and initially it is. However, there is a turning point in any hike when you realize you are not able to consume enough calories. You become constantly hungry in the back of your mind. Even when your stomach is distended and you can't eat any more, you're still kinda hungry. At that point, 1 cup is about right. It fills you up, but doesn't slog you down.

The entire package gets opened and dumped into boiling water. I never measure how much water, I just add until the consistency is about correct. Everything rehydrates in less than 5 minutes. This is usually our lunch so that we can pound between 4 and 6 miles before eating at a nice stopping place. It is filling enough we can then pound another 6 before stopping to do dinner and bed.

The flavorings are simple enough: cranberry, blueberry, blackberry, and apple cinnamon. The cranberry and blueberry are just dried berries from the summer with a sprinkling of brown sugar added. By using jam and cinnamon applesauce we can also stretch oatmeal flavors with products on hand which have been presweetened, but don't contain high fructose corn syrup.

Dehydrating jam and applesauce are a bit of a pain. Luckily you don't need very much. Pour the contents out onto the fruit leather tray of your dehydrator. I tried waxed paper here and it was a complete fail. The plastic fruit leather thing is the way to go.










The Barracuda wants to try strawberry, but I personally think that sounds nasty. I'll probably cave and we can give that one a go, too.
Dehydrate at 145 degrees for a good 14 hours or more. You want them to look like fruit leather and then dehydrate another 8 hours so they are incredibly brittle.

At this point I peeled the blackberries off, ground them up and then dehydrated them again for another 8 hours. They just wouldn't stop being incredibly tacky feeling.

Once they dry out to the point they are stiff or crumbling (or you are just so sick of them you never want to deal with them again), you can package them safely without worry of mold. You want to pulverize the fruit into either small chunks or fine powder in a food processor. If the fruit is in larger pieces it will not rehydrate as fast as the oatmeal and you will either be left with extremely stretchy oatmeal or crunchy fruit. I often will throw in bits of dried apple rings with the apple cinnamon oatmeal as well to give it some added texture.

For the adventurous, you can mix and match your flavors however you would like. Any more than 1/4 cup of any flavoring to 1 cup of oatmeal is a bit overpowering, however.

These are all packaged in mylar and labeled. The mylar can be reused indefinitely and is water tight so you can rehydrate while moving if necessary. This works well when you are freezing. You cut the package open, boil the water and then let it cool till scalding. Add the water to the package and reseal with duct tape. Place the package inside your shirt and walking will gently stir and rehydrate while keeping you warm. Any left overs can also be safely stored in the mylar, duct taped shut, and eaten later in the day. We bring the mylar home, wash and reuse. Since it statics shut, the food residue powder doesn't really come out.

We do not oxygen absorb our backpacking food. For one, it is more weight and two it is really expensive. If we were planning on packaging for months in advance we probably would just to ensure freshness.