Backpacking in Oregon

Remember when I bought a sweet sleeping bag to complete our set of backpacking gear?  Remember how I said that I would be using it in Oregon.  Well, the time has come to tell you about backpacking the Eagle Creek trail.

I totally got a picture of the sign so you know i'm not lying about the name of the trail.

Eagle Creek is a trail in the Columbia River Gorge outside of Portland.  It's a beautiful area hiking through a rain forest.  The whole trail is about 13 miles long and ends at a lake.  We decided we weren't quite hardcore enough for that entire length.  I decided the destination I wanted to hike to was Tunnel Falls, which is a little over 6 miles one way.

But truthfully, it's all about the journey as much as the destination.  We really enjoyed the experience of travelling along that trail and seeing all that there was to see.

Look at that cute backpacker.

That is a less cute backpacker.

Just posing in front of the wilderness.

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I am not a huge fan of heights.  Most of the trail was just fine.  Even though the trail was often pretty high above the river, I'm fine as long as it's not a sheer dropoff and I don't have to be close to the edge.  However, every once in a while the trail would get relatively thin and it would have chains you could hold on to.  This usually meant there was a fairly steep dropoff.  Even if I didn't notice the dropoff the chains were there to notify me that I should be terrified.

The trail itself doesn't seem that scary.  But you're supposed to be terrified.  The chains tell you so.

Look how not scared of that dropoff Robyn is.

More cutenes

The trail follows the river, and though we were hiking to a specific waterfall, there were a number of really pretty ones along the way.

I don't even know the name of this waterfall.  But it's pretty.

We saw several of these birds along the way.  I'm not sure exactly what it is, some kind of grouse I'm guessing.

This was a common sight.  Robyn is much faster than me.

I think the destination of Tunnel Falls was perfect.  By the time we got there, I was tired and ready to quit, but it wasn't so far that I was dying.  The first view of the waterfall is through the trees.

Robyn makes the waterfall look precious.

The waterfall makes me look precious.

The trail is super cool, it wraps around until you actually go through a tunnel underneath the waterfall.  (Hence the name Tunnel Falls.)

I'm pretty sure this is Shelob's lair.  But the good news is that I was eaten by zero giant spiders.

This is what it looks like coming out of the tunnel.

This is what I look like coming out of the tunnel.

Looking back on it from further up the trail.  From here it looks less like Shelob's lair, and more like a hobbit hole.

It's important to get both of us in a picture.

After finding tunnel falls we decided to head back to one of the campsites we had seen on the way up.  It was about 3/4 miles back.  We setup our tent, and more importantly our hammock.  My back was super tired, and I was way excited to lay in the hammock.

The view looking up at the sky from the hammock.

That's what I look like in pure happiness.

Robyn took a turn too.

There was one negative to the hammock.  I had changed into flip flops when we got into camp, and I had kicked off the flip flops while I was in the hammock.  Robyn looked over at me and said, "There is something moving on your flip flop."  I looked at it and there was a 6 inch slug crawling over it.  I picked up the flip flop and shook it to get the slug to come off, but to no avail.  I finally had to get a stick to pry it off.  (Because clearly I wasn't going to touch it with my hands.  Gross!)

Neither of the slugs below are the one that crawled on my flip flop.  I didn't have my phone on me in the hammock because I left it in the tent.  But I took these pictures the next morning of a couple others I saw.

Ginormous + slimy = gross

My encounters with wildlife in the hammock weren't over.   I settled down to read some more and then this spider was crawling on my hammock.  I don't mind spiders at all when I know what kind they are.  I'm always uncomfortable when I can't identify them and don't know if they're dangerous.  I just flicked this guy off my hammock and all was well.

 After resting for a bit, I had to go gather us some water.  We have a little filtration system that filters out the dirt and then we have a little lightsabre that you stick in the water to kill all the germs.

She is a Jedi, like her father before her.

That evening before going to bed we put our food up in a tree.  We didn't want any bears visiting us in our tent to get at our food.  We also didn't want any squirrels chewing through our tent.  In the middle of the night, Robyn woke me up because she heard something she thought was eating our food.  She told me I needed to take a look so that if it was dangerous it would eat me and not her.  I poked my head out of the tent, shined the light on the food and saw nothing.  I showed her that we couldn't see any animals.

The next morning we looked at the garbage bag that was also outside our tent.  It had a hole chewed in it.  Robyn used that as evidence that she really had heard something.  I conceded that point, but I did point out that she strongly implied that she heard something larger than a chipmunk, which was the likely culprit of the tiny hole.  But who knows.  Maybe it was a mountain lion that chewed the quarter inch hole in the bag.

The next morning, we made breakfast, relaxed a little more and then headed back down the trail.

Robyn took this selfie to show how gross she was.  I thought she looked precious.

More evidence of preciousness

The bridges frightened me, but look how brave I was.

After backpacking, we headed back into town and checked in to our hotel.  We showered, which was glorious, and then went out to eat at Giant Burger.  It was the perfect meal to end our backpacking adventure.

After a backpacking trip there is pretty much nothing better than a good hamburger, and The Giant served us well.  My sister, who is a Portland expert, had suggested that we eat there, and I'm glad she shared her wisdom on this issue.  She had sent me a picture of her in front of the sign, so naturally I had to emulate her picture.

I know I did such a good job of copying her picture, that you can't tell the difference, so I'll just let you in on the secret.  The first one is me.  The second one is my sister from Christmas time.

We Can Backpack By Ourselves

Ever since a year ago when we went backpacking into Havasupai, Robyn and I have been working to become better backpackers.  We've been acquiring the equipment, and we've been on a few different trips.

We even have a trip planned this summer to go backpacking in Oregon.  But while we've been planning our upcoming Oregon trip, we realized that there is a small problem with it:  We won't have Jared.

Jared is a backpacking guru, and my BFF.  He's taken us on various adventures, and he knows how to make sure we are safe and comfortable.  Those are good things, unless you want to be able to do a trip without him.

Thus, we decided that we needed to take a Jared free backpacking trip, to prove that we could survive.  Spoiler Alert.  We totally survived the Jared free trip.

This past weekend was that very trip, and we had a great time.  (Although, we realized it clearly would have been better with Jared guiding us as we pulled out the topographical map a billion times to make sure we were going where we wanted to go.)

All in all, it was a great trip.  Here are a few of the highlights.

We got off a little later than planned, so we had our picnic dinner at the trailhead.

It's important to pose with an apple.

I can never remember where I put the keys when we get back to the car, so I took a picture of which pocket they were in.

I made Robyn get a picture of her looking happy next to snow.

There were lots of really pretty ponds and lakes along the way.

We had to climb over a mountain over into the adjacent valley.  Here I am at the summit.

It's important to take selfies with pretty lakes.

This was my view the whole way, the back of a pretty girl surrounded by trees and nature.

Our destination was island lake.  This sign lied.  One mile from this sign is another sign that says "Island Lake .5"

Because of the confusion about how far island lake was, and because we got off a little late, we didn't make it there until after dark.  But it was fine, we set up camp in the dark and went right to sleep.

In the morning when I woke up before Robyn, it was important to take a selfie with her sleeping.

This is what island lake looked like when I got out of the tent.

Robyn made us a gourmet breakfast of oatmeal and sausage.

This deer wandered into our camp and just stood about 15 feet away from me and stared at me for several minutes before prancing off into the wilderness.

Robyn enjoyed the breeze on the hike back.

It wasn't the most hardcore backpacking trip.  It was about 9 miles round trip.  Real backpackers probably aren't impressed, but we feel we have proven we can survive on our own in the wilderness.

Hopefully we'll also survive backpacking in Oregon.  I'll keep you posted.

The Final Ingredient

I'm so totally ready to be a real backpacker.

As you know, Robyn and I have been getting more into backpacking in the past year or so.  As you may not know, we have been slowly acquiring supplies to become legit.

We had already acquired things like backpacks, a tent, a sleeping pad, a backpacking stove, etc.  There was one item on the list that I had yet to acquire.  I had not yet purchased a sleeping bag.

I should be clear, I own a sleeping bag that I acquired as a teenager.  It is plenty warm, but it is large and bulky.  It would basically take up the entire space available in my backpack.  What I needed to acquire was a sleeping bag designed for backpacking.

This past weekend, my BFF Jared W let me know that Liberty Mountain was having their big sale.  This was the time to make the big purchase.

We went in and selected one that seemed like it would be warm enough and big enough.  Naturally, I had to try out how well I could sleep in it.

Good thing the store has a cot for just this purpose.

Aren't I precious?  In a real camping situation, I won't have a price tag attached to my face.

If you can't tell by how precious it made me look, I'll just let you know that that sleeping bag and I were meant for each other.  Naturally, I made the purchase.  So now I have everything I need to be a real backpacker, and I don't need to borrow anything from Jared W.  (That doesn't mean I won't need to continue to acquire cooler stuff, let's not get crazy.)

Now that I have everything I need, it's time to plan a trip!

Robyn and I are thinking about doing a 3 day backpacking trip in Oregon this summer.  I'm a little intimidated, but it's supposed to be super beautiful.  Do you think I can handle it?

Does this look like a guy who can hike 25 miles through a rainforest with a backpack on his back?

Red Pine Lake

I recently wrote about our newly acquired backpacking gear.  Eager to use it in the real world, we asked around for good places to go backpacking.  We got lots of good ideas from friends and family that we will be using in the future.  My BFF Jared volunteered to go with us to one of his favorite places, which meant that the first place we officially went backpacking was Red Pine Lake.

It's a beautiful lake, and the trail head is up Little Cottonwood Canyon, so it's less than 45 minutes from our house which works perfectly for a Friday night hike after work.

The hike is about 3.5 miles and climbs a little over 2000 feet.  I have a few little stories and adventures to share so I've broken them into headings.  (Don't you just feel more comfortable knowing that all of the information falls into an organized structure?)

Cute Little Hikers
The hike starts out fairly easy.  It's not very steep at first.  This is the part where we looked vibrant, cute and precious, because we hadn't got all sweaty yet.

Look at those three precious hikers

Sometimes we pose with a mountain.

So much preciousness!

Sunset
As we hiked further the sun began to set.  (It turns out it does that every evening, who knew?)  We stopped to snap some pics of the sunset looking down on the valley.

Regretting Squats
As we got further along on the hike, it started to get steeper.  This hike gets progressively steeper until you arrive at the lake where it flattens out.  As the hike got steeper, I began to regret that earlier that day had been leg day at the gym.  I was particularly regretting that I had done squats, so my legs were already sore and tired.  I'm not gonna lie.  I was a sad boy on the last half mile.

"Why is it always my bum?"
By the time we reached the lake, it was pretty late.  The sun had been down for a couple hours, so it was dark and cold.  We cooked our dinner and ate it looking out over the lake with its beautiful reflection of the moon.  (Alas, the iphone camera is pretty good, but it can't capture things like that.)  After dinner we got in our tent and went to bed pretty quickly.  We hadn't been laying in bed very long when suddenly Robyn yelled, "WHY IS IT ALWAYS MY BUM?!?!?".

I actually wasn't aware that it was always about her bum.  Despite that, I actually knew what she was talking about.  Her bum is always the first thing to get cold.  She was warm and snug in her sleeping bag, but her bum was still somehow managing to feel cold.  Naturally, that question became the theme for the rest of the trip.

Walking around the lake
The next morning I woke up early and both Robyn and Jared were still sleeping and looking precious.  I decided to do a little exploring and see what I could see.  I ended up walking all the way around the lake.  I loved how beautiful it was, and how it was such a perfect reflecting pool.

Hanging with the Pika
While I was walking around the lake, I came upon a pika.  I didn't actually know what a pika was before this trip, but I googled the animal I had seen when I got home and was able to figure it out.  They make a really loud chirping noise and they build huge nests with leaves.  I sat and watched this little guy scurry into the bushes and then come back with a branch or a leaf in his mouth, only to deposit it on his mound and repeat the process.  I watched him do this 3 or 4 times before continuing on my way.

Here he is on his mighty mound of leaves.

Fearless Chipmunk
When I got back to camp, we made breakfast and hung out for a while.  There was a chipmunk who must have smelled our food because he kept sneaking up and trying to check out everything.  He tried to crawl into my backpack, then he tried to crawl into my tent.  He also tried to crawl on Jared's face while he was laying in his sleeping bag.  (We don't actually know if he was going for the face.  But he got about 3 inches away before Jared yelled at it, "Hey chipmunk!  I'm right here!")  I didn't get a picture of the chipmunk because I was too busy trying to convince it that I'm so scary that it shouldn't chew through all of my new gear in search of food.

Chilling at a beautiful lake
After breakfast we spent a few hours just enjoying the beautiful nature all around us.

Just a couple of BFFs in nature.

And this is what we look like from the front.

Going home and walking like an old man
Finally it came time to go home.  We took a few precious pics on the way back.

I told her to pose with the changing leaves.

Just hanging out with the trees and the valley.

Once I got home and sat down for a bit, my body realized that I just carried a big backpack up and down a mountain.  My thighs, my calves and my hips all suddenly decided to be sore.  I'm pretty sure I'll be walking like an old man for a few days, but I guess that just means we need to do this more often so that I can handle it better.