I left my house just after 2 pm (AHEM, in my ”One People One Planet One Future” Honda Accord not my Republican Mobile ‘76 Ford F250 (by the way, I’m not a Republican)), stopped at Arby’s for Pick 5, and drove north towards Metaline Falls eating my ham melt, Arby’s melt, mozzarella sticks, an amazingly tasty cherry turnover, a small jamocha shake, and a Rockstar Energy Juice. Holy smokes I just added all that up, 2385 calories. Haha. I ate all that in like a half hour while driving! Anyway, I passed the looming rock at Metaline Falls that’s begging me to climb it and drove up the impressively smooth dirt road to the trailhead.
I stormed the trail around 5:30 pm, thinking I would have until 9:30 to hike the first 10 miles in the light.
On average, I assume I can go 3 miles per hour on trails but I think with photo stops it drops a little, and I don’t care so much about going super fast anymore, I’d rather make the scenic stops along way and check things out. That way I notice cool nature randomness adorned with old, surly boots.
Derek likes to show off the creek near his house that has a permanent bicycle stuck near the shore so I figured I should show off a wilderness creek that has a permanent black hole in the middle of it.
Good times outside straddling wilderness creeks! It took a balancing act, a near plunge, and about 15 tries to get this photo so you better respect it.
I think someone needs to throw a chainsaw in their pocket and cut through some of the fallen trees. Some you crawl over, some you go around, and some you go under.
One of the cool spots I stopped and wandered around at was an old cabin that was used [fill in from the book]. It’s sole purpose now is to look old and slowly rot away, kinda like Marshall’s cheap laminate flooring will look in a few months. Or grandpa’s teef.
I think it’s probably a good idea to Keep Out of this decroding cabin because it might decide the world is a better place without you and collapse on your face. Don’t ask me what I was doing, I don’t know, I was sticking my arm inside, opening my mouth, and wrinkling my forehead. At first I thought the cabin was cool and then I started thinking it was kinda creepy. I mentioned that to the folks I ran into and the lady was like, “Yeah, we thought about camping there but it was way too creepy.” Ha.
My camera battery died the first night so I don’t have any more photos, I think it’s time for a new battery…but to finish the story, I didn’t make it to the camp I was going to before dark, so I hiked the last couple miles with my headlamp, talking and singing loudly to warn the scary animals before I scared them and they latched their giant fangs and paws into my neck and squirted my blood all over the pretty flowers.
In the middle of the night, I awoke to a few sprinkles on my face so I jumped up and transformed my groundsheet to a tarp. It was my first time doing it but it was pretty easy, my only mistake was not putting it up quite high enough because when I woke up later it was drooping down on my sleeping bag a little. Not too big of a deal, my bag was still completely dry, but there was very little room to move around. Even so, my finely tuned ninja skills helped me flawlessly adorn my rain jacket. Picture Chris Farley putting on a suit in an airplane bathroom.
It was strangely quiet up there, no bugs. Kinda weird because there was plenty of water and lots of foliage and trees, but no mosquitos, no ants, no flies, no bees, no nay never no little crawly flyie things, none. In the morning, however, I awoke to hooves clomping up the trail, silence, and then a loud exhale. Spooky. It sounded like a horse. I peeked out under my tarp but I couldn’t see anything and I immediately started making noise and talking because I wasn’t in the mood to be trampled by a large wild horse-like creature. I figured it was a deer or elk or maybe even a moose but after rereading the part of the book I quoted in Part 1, I think it may have been a mountain caribou. I don’t even know what that is but using some Sherlock Holmes sleuthing skills I could probably deduce it’s a caribou that lives in the mountains. Whatever it was it sounded cool and I say we assume it was very large and could kill me with three hooves tied behind its back.
It rained the entire trek out, which was sweet despite no view of the mountains and valleys and my pants were completely saturated because I didn’t bring rain pants. For the last few miles my feet were sopping wet too, I guess waterproofing doesn’t equal Gore-Tex? I was worried my feet were going to explode with blisters like the 2-day 50-mile Orange Country trek I took with Marskies and Shane. But thankfully only walking 5 or so miles in waterlogged boots is ok. The rain and the misty mountains, I was basically walking inside a cloud, reminded me of Sa Pa in north Viet Nam. Did I just recently say that same thing in another blog? I can’t help it, I’m constantly reminded of that place because it was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. I better stop before I get all sentimental…
All the Salmo-Priest Loop photos are here.
Anyone who can spend the night in the woods by themselves deserves the title of chiseled rugged man.
derek | August 26th, 2007 at 6:24 pm |I like how I can read old archives and see old rips on friends….i mean…Marshall’s cheap laminate flooring isn’t really a rip….it IS cheap….and its IS not real wood. So I guess that doesn’t count…
Frand004 | September 13th, 2007 at 11:46 am |Please don’t make logical and intelligent dissenting comments Brian, it requires me to have humility and acceptance and that’s retarded. I may have to kill you and chant “Death to the infidel!” if you threaten my correct opinion again. If you can learn to keep an open mind and respect my beliefs you’ll see that I’m right.
Underclown | September 13th, 2007 at 3:53 pm |