Travels – Page 14 – State of Wilderness

Fremont National Forest Fun

Tumalo State Park has a few caches in it, but we left without finding any, mostly because we wasted some time on a bad hint on one and another looked like it was going to be a longer walk than we had time for. We did have time for breakfast at Shari’s Restaurant before leaving town; warm comfort food washed down with hot coffee.
It was slightly misty outside, which suited my mood and memory. The Shari’s is right across the street from the Shiloh Inn that my ex husband and I stayed at a few times. He had always wanted to move to Bend, and we had gone as far as to meet with a realtor and consider houses and jobs in town, but ultimately we stayed in Texas. If we had gone then, we might have stayed together, it is possible. Part of what drove our misery together was his misery over living in Texas, or not living in Oregon, or sacrificing his dream of Bend, although to be fair, he never made any efforts to make it happen. I felt like he wanted me to make it happen for him, although it wasn’t my dream, per se. I did always like Bend, though, and we spent quite a few weekends here both when we lived in Oregon, and when we visited later.
These are the things I remembered as we left town: the store where we bought presents for an impromptu third birthday for our oldest son during a break from deployments, a restaurant, a bar, a hotel we visited during our weekends there, a turn off even for caches we found later on. I was surprised at both how much I remembered, and the details I couldn’t conjure up.

And soon, we were on the road, this time heading down a road familiar to me – to his parent’s house, a few hours drive from here. My kids were there, they had been spending a week with their grandparents in Oregon that they hardly ever get to see. Part of the reason I chose the West for our vacation was to give them a chance to have this visit this summer, since their dad wasn’t able to take them. They had been there a week, since I had handed the kids over to my ex’s aunt in Ashland, Oregon the following Friday. This was the first time I had seen my ex’s parents since the divorce, and indeed it was the summer before that happened that I had last seen them, so three years had gone by now since I had pulled up at their drive. They had also never met Jason, who took the place of their son in my life, so all this has me a little nervous.
I knew the way to their home, still, and remembered some of the landscape, although this day, due to our explorative nature, Jason and I saw parts of the wilderness along the drive that I had never seen before.
We spent quite a bit of time at this rock formation in the above picture. Although we never did find the cache that was our incentive for getting out of the car there (coordinates were like 50-70 ft off and the hint was bad), we had a really good time walking around out there, feeling the cool Oregon air and listening to the wind blow the trees around.

We pulled off several times along the way to drive down forest roads in the Fremont National Forest. These roads appear on the map something like, “200” or “260”, but in reality are just dirt roads with no signs used by loggers or wilderness enthusiasts, hunters maybe. A few times we weren’t sure we were on the right road – in fact we probably wasted half an hour or more than morning on wrong roads – but we did find some cool places.

This is one of those cool places – aptly named “Hole-in-the-Ground”. This is an area known to geologists as a “maar”, formed by a series of eruptions that caused magma to come into contact with ground water, forming a crater in the ground. The road around the rim is 3 miles long, and we made it all the way around, but not without crashing into a rock and causing the bumper of our rental car to get pushed out of place in an area, which Jason fixed when we got to my former in-laws, having to borrow some tools to my ex-stepfather-in–law. It was interesting….but we had a fun adventure tale to tell, which took some awkwardness of the moment away.

When we got to their house, we were literally at the border of Oregon and California. We had stopped at the Burger Queen for lunch before their house (my favorite place to eat in the Lakeview, Oregon area, reminiscent of former visits), and when we left their house, it was mid-afternoon, and time to get a move on to get to the next leg of our journey – Mono Lake, CA, which deserves its own entry.

Bend Bound

It was with sadness that we finally made our way out of this area. After a last morning driving around the southeastern side of Mt Rainier, we took the turn for White Pass, and began heading into Oregon, via Yakima.
Of course, our drive took twice as long as it should have, since we had to stop to geocache and explore every little area. This picture above is of Rimrock Lake, a storage reservoir for the Yakima Project, an irrigation program. Its capacity is controlled by the Tieton Dam on one side and the Clear Creek Dam on the other. This area provides outdoor enthusiasts with opportunities for fishing, camping, boating, and water sports. Trout are in abundance here, and wildlife that share the area include deer, elk, osprey, bald eagles, otter and bear. We didn’t see any of those while we were out there playing, but we did find a few caches.

This spot here holds little action right now, but in the winter is a feeding ground for elk. In 1913, Rocky Mountain elk were brought to this area from Yellowstone National Park. However, these elk tend to range up to 70 miles between the winter and spring feeding grounds, and there eventually became conflict between land owners and ranchers and the elk. The Department of Fish and Wildlife got involved to work out a compromise. In 1939, this agency began to provide hay to the elk at this location to keep them from wandering and damaging property. In the 1940s, they built a hundred miles of eight foot high fences to keep the elk here during the winter. The hay is grown on government property. Elk can eat between 3-10 lbs of hay a day, and at peak feeding times, there is up to 8,000 elk here at a time. That is a lot of hay! I wish we had seen the elk, but they are there November-February, and this was the end of June.

This is a shot of a miniature Stonehenge, which sits near the edge of Washington, hanging just above the Columbia River Gorge, which you can see in the next picture. This replica of the original stands as a monument to heroism and peace. It was Sam Hill who had the idea to erect this monument, after being inspired by seeing the real StoneHenge in England and wanted to build this one as a reminder of the sacrifices made during World War I, and the “incredible folly” of the war. In 1918, it was dedicated to the servicemen of Klickitat County, Washington who died in the service of their country during the Great War. The monument was actually finished in 1929 and re-dedicated. Sam Hill was a very interesting person who was influential in getting roads built in Washington and Oregon. See more about his life here.

Another one of Sam Hill’s contributions was this road pictured above, and in the next two shots: the Maryville Loops. Sam paid for these roads to be constructed out of his own pocket, after being frustrated with the Washington government’s failure to agree to build a highway along the Columbia River Gorge.

Our stop here at this road was purely serendipitous. I thought we could drive down this road and that would be a fun adventure (plus there is a cache along it), but we never saw a turn for it. Instead, we saw a turnoff for an overlook, and stopped to look. As chance would have it, we got there just as buses were pulling up to unload skaters for a practice run for a competition happening that weekend. There were different types of skate competitions, and we watched a few rounds of this, taking pictures and video. It was so completely awesome and unexpected.

After this, we made it over the Gorge, stopping for dinner and one more cache, and realizing we better make some miles if we hoped to make it to Bend tonight.
As you can see, though, it was tough to resist temptations to get out and take photos and explore the surroundings, as they were particularly beautiful.

Finally, we made it to Tumalo State Park, and to our camping reservation. Still with daylight left, too! We had time to pitch our tent and have a dinner of that same salad from Pike Market that we had been carting around before going to sleep, the sound of the creek singing a lullaby to us as we got some well-needed rest.

Mount Rainier Requiem

After our adventures in Hyak, we headed back to our cabin in Greenwater, planning to take it easy. We could not resist the double lure, though, of the Natchez Tavern, where we had awesome cheeseburgers, and further exploring towards the direction of Mt Rainier National Park.
The section of the park that was closest to us, Sunrise, was temporarily closed in the couple of days we spent there. It was being used as a staging area for an attempted recovery of the body of Nick Hall, a young park ranger who had died the week before while rescuing hikers. A group of experienced hikers were making a descent of the mountain when two of them slid into a crevasse near a glacier at 13,700 feet. Hall was among the rescue rangers who responded to the distress call by arriving in a Chinook helicopter to help pull the hikers out. The winds were upwards of 40 mph and dark was approaching as the third of four hikers was being loaded into the rescue basket. Somehow during the commotion of the rescue, Nick Hall lost his balance or his hold, and fell three thousand feet. He was unresponsive afterwards, and confirmed dead when rangers finally reached him, several hours later. It was too dangerous to continue the mission after his fall, and the fourth hiker had to make her way down the mountain on foot with hiking rangers who had stayed behind with her.
We thought a lot about Hall as we headed to the Nisqually Vista area of Rainier, taking pictures of this mountain from every angle. We thought that it was such a clear day that surely the efforts to retrieve his body would be successful, but ultimately it was another week before he was able to be brought down. His memorial service was held the next day, as we were leaving the park. Flags were at half mast at the ranger stations. The park was sad and surreal in its grief to be losing one of their own.
On the nearby Chinook Pass, recently opened for the season, eight foot packs of ice lined the sides of the road, a crystal clear reminder that out here, the wild is a double edged sword, both blindingly beautiful and chillingly dangerous at the same time.

Something Wicked This Way Comes: Snoqualmie Version

After our disheartening defeat at GCD, we drove across the highway and found the parking area for our next quest: to travel through the Snoqualmie Tunnel to the other side to get another grandfather cache, one called “IronHorse”.
Jason had already found this cache, but I had not. Both of us had been to this area before. Many, many geocachers have. This area was a mecca for geocaching, due to it being a common route to the last remaining APE cache in the US, which sadly was archived in the previous year due to it being muggled repeatedly by that geo-pirate I mentioned in the last post. Jason claimed a find on the APE cache in 2005 when he was sent to the Seattle area for business. I found the APE cache myself in 2008 when I was up in the area for a work interview, and was considering moving up this way (still would love to do that). Both of us had taken the other approach to that famed cache – going up the Lake Annette trail, which was beautiful.
There was a typical traditional hide now in the spot the APE cache formerly laid, but neither of us had our sights on that today. He wanted to share the experience of the tunnel with me, help me find IronHorse, and also we wanted to find a cache hidden inside the middle of the tunnel called “Bloody Fingers, Dirty Diapers”.
As we approached the entrance to the tunnel, we were joined along the path by an unlikely trio: a man leading a horse, and a dog following alongside. It soon became clear that the trip intended to walk through the tunnel with us. I found that kind of amazing, because I don’t know many horses that would willingly walk through this tunnel. I don’t even know that every person I know would be willing to go through the tunnel. It is kind of creepy! Basically, it is an old abandoned railroad tunnel that was converted to a hike and bike trail, with no embellishments. There is no light in the tunnel. It goes on for two miles. After you get about a half mile in, the light from the entrance behind you starts to dim, and it grows progressively darker, until it is pitch black. Eventually, you can make out a tiny speck of light ahead. If you walk towards that light, it grows a little bigger, eventually looking a bit like a church window in the distance. Eventually, that church window widens in your view until you realize it is the exit.

So here we are, walking with the man, the horse, and the dog, and kind of making casual conversation with the man, but also sort of paying attention to the little pockets in the wall that used to hold lighting or electronics or some abandoned train machinery or whatnot. According to possible clues on the “Bloody Fingers, Dirty Diapers” cache page, the cache is located within one of these, and I was kind of counting and looking along the way, which slowed us down deliberately to pull us a little away from our odd walking companions. I wanted us to have the tunnel experience on our own, a little bit.
Eventually, they drifted away from us, and the click clack of the horse’s hooves advanced ahead of us and disappeared. We were half-blindly looking about for this cache, in the middle of the tunnel where the light is all gone. We had our headlamps on, but it only allowed us to see a few feet ahead of us.
Suddenly, we heard a noise in the distance behind us. “What was that?”, I asked Jason nervously. “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it”. To me, though, it sounded like a frightened animal. It sounded like a large, frightened animal wailing. And the sound happened again, and it was getting closer….
I was getting spooked. My mind was racing trying to figure out what it could be. I oriented myself towards the noise, looking for a light coming towards us, something to indicate that the noise was human.
Then, Jason decided we were done looking for the cache, and needed to move. He encouraged me to start walking and look later. Then he picked up the pace. He said he was not worried about the sound, but his pace indicated that he also felt the prick of danger. He actually began hiking so fast I was having trouble keeping up with him, and thought about asking him to slow down, but then I would hear the noise behind us again, growing closer maybe, and I could NOT get out of the tunnel fast enough.
The last mile seemed to last forever. As we got closer to the exit and that window of light grew larger, I could see shapes moving around in it. I was confused at first, but then realized it appeared to be the silhouette of the cowboy and his dog. Where was his horse, though? And why was he dancing around the exit like that?

As we got to the exit, finally, I realized my recognition was correct. The cowboy was standing there to greet us, anxiously smoking a cigarette and asking us, “Did you see him?

“
Whaaaat? See who? The Poltergiest of Snoqualmie? I was really confused. He explained that he was waiting for his friend, another man leading another horse. I told him about the sounds I heard, and he explained it was probably the horse. Jason told the man that I had been scared it was some kind of bear or cougar who had wandered in the tunnel. “Oh, that happens all the time,” the man said. Really? Man, I would totally pee myself if I was walking in that tunnel and came across a predator like that in there with me.
Apparently, the man leading the horse did not listen to this cowboy when he counseled this guy to bring a spare flashlight. The man had his flashlight die on him, and was leading this horse, who had never encountered this kind of adventure, through the tunnel in absolute darkness behind us. Those noises were the sound of a horse in terror, which I am both surprised and glad I had not heard before enough to recognize.
This other man finally showed us, the horse blowing and snorting, shaking and rolling its eyes. After a few minutes, the men mounted up and rode off to have a mountain trail ride, the dog trailing behind.
Jason and I found IronHorse, then had a picnic of dinner rolls and cheese, bought at the Pike Market yesterday, at a table surrounded by mountains, crisp air, and singing birds. It was totally awesome, and totally worth the terror.
The way back through the tunnel was so much less frightening. Children on bikes following their parents breezed through. We must have seen about 20 bikers, a few hikers, all kinds of people. And we found that cache we were looking for after all, about halfway through. I am really glad we went, although it did take up a bug chunk of our day and energy. What else would have been a better way to spend our day, besides having this crazy adventure surrounded by so much beauty?