Saturday: Elliot Creek and Goat Lake
Sep. 2nd, 2018 12:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsI woke around 3:30 Saturday to discover that the campground is now completely full, and cars are still driving in to look for open spots. That's madness. I went back to bed and woke again around 8:30, this time to a more quiet and sedate campsite. Every site is still ridiculously overstuffed, and our two-person site seems spare and empty compared to these people with friends and family.
We had Omaha's breakfast muffins. Coffee is still a gift of the gods.
Our goal today was Elliot Creek and Goat Lake. We drove out a little ways to the trailhead, and discovered that it was incredibly popular, with almost thirty cars in the lot and along the road leading there. By the time we got back, we would wonder why.
20% Cooler!
Our longest hiking day so far encompassed only about 4.7 miles. Today's designated trail was over 10.4 miles, and it was rated as a "3" difficulty, meaning it was technically as hard as the rough hike we did getting to Barlow Point. The trail was broken into segments: From the carpark to the first fork, which would let you choose the Upper Elliot or Lower Elliot trails, then the second fork, where the two trails met up again, then into the Henry M. Jackson Wilderness and up McIntosh Falls to Goat Lake proper.
Each segment fell appreciably longer than it looked on the map. We walked and we walked. At one point, on the trail we were taking, we were supposed to encounter another trail heading into the Chookwich Wilderness, but we never saw it. The trail was never harder than a "2" at this point, so Omaha and I wondered when it was going to get tough.
We passed a lot of people. So many people. Families, a guy with five dogs and a t-shirt that read "I like it ruff!" More people with tiny little dogs, older folks who shamed Omaha and I by being more fit than I've ever been. A big group of excessively beautiful bros and their ladies, including one girl with a t-shirt that read "Pretty Squad" and exceptionally skillful eyeliner (for a day-long hike?), followed by a shirtless man who was so crazy blond and buff he looked like someone out of a Charles Atlas ad from the 1950s.
Omaha and I had started late. We didn't actually reach the trailhead until almost noon, and it took us until almost 3:30 to reach the sign reading "Henry M. Jackson Wilderness: Goat Lake." And next to the sign, we found someone's cell phone. Still charged, so it must have been dropped that day. We asked everyone we met, going each way, if they'd lost a phone, and nobody said they had.
The book we had encouraged us to go on, and we reached the McIntosh Falls. They were gorgeous, and we stopped there for a break and to take in the cool breeze before we tried to head up.
That... was a mistake. Climbing up from McIntosh Falls was literally a climb, and the grade was more vertical than horizontal, real handgrip stuff. The ground was soft and spongy, and there were plenty of logs and roots on which to get footing, but neither Omaha or I were in the right shape. About halfway up, though, a woman appeared at the top of the slope shouted something at us. "WHAT!?" I shouted back.
"DID YOU FIND A PHONE?" she shouted back, miming holding a phone to her head.
"YES!" I shouted back, nodding with both my head and my right hand.
She whooped and cheered and jumped up and down and started leaping down the trail like a mountain goat, and when we caught up to her she described the wallpaper, said her name was "Kylie." Omaha fished it out of her backpack. Kylie was so happy to have it back. It was a pretty nice LG model, too.
Goat Lake
Omaha and I continued up the path. We passed more dogs on the trail, so many dogs. We finally reached Goat Lake and settled for a break. The lake was pretty and very still, which gave me a chance to get a gorgeous reflective image. We sat by the lake and listened to three couples talking, one of whom gave a very strange story about how her now-husband asked her father for permission to marry her. The story concluded with "My father decided he wasn't perfect. This is why you don't encourage your parents to take couples counselling." I'm like, hey, I've been married 30 years and your partner is never perfect; it's the willingness to build a life together that matters.
Blood Sun
We headed back around 5:00pm, which was pretty late. It had taken us almost four-and-a-half hours to get there, and we had only three hours to get back to the lot. The woodsmoke haze of California's forest fires had started to move in again, and the sun was a bloody red circle in the sky as it waned. The march back was easier. We found that we'd taken the hard way up; there was a dry riverbed that switchbacked down the northwest side of the slope and was much easier than the McIntosh Falls slope. When we reached the place where it reunited with the trail we saw the very (very) faint scratches on the rocks telling us to "go that way." If only we'd seen them the first time. As we were heading down, we passed a very pretty dude coming up with a tiny dog, and we warned him that dark was coming. "Oh, I know. It only took me an hour to get here."
Pfft. Young people.
The Hall of the Alder King
We walked, and it was a long walk. There were long stretches of fifty-year-old alder that leaned over the path and made it look like a long hallway leading to a faery land. Down, down we walked until we finally reached the car park. There were only ten cars left, six of them Subarus.
We drove back. There are "unimproved campsites" all along the river; they're basically just flat spaces with tiny outhouses and no fire rings. In dry season you're allowed only propane stoves. At one, children have put up a large sign reading "Platform 9¾," and they drew the typeface nicely. At our camp, Omaha made a tiny fire. We boiled water and had freeze-dried Beef Stroganoff, and it was surprisingly tasty. I'm amazed at how far that particular technology has come. We roasted mashmallows over the dying embers and went to bed early.
We had Omaha's breakfast muffins. Coffee is still a gift of the gods.
Our goal today was Elliot Creek and Goat Lake. We drove out a little ways to the trailhead, and discovered that it was incredibly popular, with almost thirty cars in the lot and along the road leading there. By the time we got back, we would wonder why.
20% Cooler!
Our longest hiking day so far encompassed only about 4.7 miles. Today's designated trail was over 10.4 miles, and it was rated as a "3" difficulty, meaning it was technically as hard as the rough hike we did getting to Barlow Point. The trail was broken into segments: From the carpark to the first fork, which would let you choose the Upper Elliot or Lower Elliot trails, then the second fork, where the two trails met up again, then into the Henry M. Jackson Wilderness and up McIntosh Falls to Goat Lake proper.
Each segment fell appreciably longer than it looked on the map. We walked and we walked. At one point, on the trail we were taking, we were supposed to encounter another trail heading into the Chookwich Wilderness, but we never saw it. The trail was never harder than a "2" at this point, so Omaha and I wondered when it was going to get tough.
We passed a lot of people. So many people. Families, a guy with five dogs and a t-shirt that read "I like it ruff!" More people with tiny little dogs, older folks who shamed Omaha and I by being more fit than I've ever been. A big group of excessively beautiful bros and their ladies, including one girl with a t-shirt that read "Pretty Squad" and exceptionally skillful eyeliner (for a day-long hike?), followed by a shirtless man who was so crazy blond and buff he looked like someone out of a Charles Atlas ad from the 1950s.
Omaha and I had started late. We didn't actually reach the trailhead until almost noon, and it took us until almost 3:30 to reach the sign reading "Henry M. Jackson Wilderness: Goat Lake." And next to the sign, we found someone's cell phone. Still charged, so it must have been dropped that day. We asked everyone we met, going each way, if they'd lost a phone, and nobody said they had.
The book we had encouraged us to go on, and we reached the McIntosh Falls. They were gorgeous, and we stopped there for a break and to take in the cool breeze before we tried to head up.
That... was a mistake. Climbing up from McIntosh Falls was literally a climb, and the grade was more vertical than horizontal, real handgrip stuff. The ground was soft and spongy, and there were plenty of logs and roots on which to get footing, but neither Omaha or I were in the right shape. About halfway up, though, a woman appeared at the top of the slope shouted something at us. "WHAT!?" I shouted back.
"DID YOU FIND A PHONE?" she shouted back, miming holding a phone to her head.
"YES!" I shouted back, nodding with both my head and my right hand.
She whooped and cheered and jumped up and down and started leaping down the trail like a mountain goat, and when we caught up to her she described the wallpaper, said her name was "Kylie." Omaha fished it out of her backpack. Kylie was so happy to have it back. It was a pretty nice LG model, too.
Goat Lake
Omaha and I continued up the path. We passed more dogs on the trail, so many dogs. We finally reached Goat Lake and settled for a break. The lake was pretty and very still, which gave me a chance to get a gorgeous reflective image. We sat by the lake and listened to three couples talking, one of whom gave a very strange story about how her now-husband asked her father for permission to marry her. The story concluded with "My father decided he wasn't perfect. This is why you don't encourage your parents to take couples counselling." I'm like, hey, I've been married 30 years and your partner is never perfect; it's the willingness to build a life together that matters.
Blood Sun
We headed back around 5:00pm, which was pretty late. It had taken us almost four-and-a-half hours to get there, and we had only three hours to get back to the lot. The woodsmoke haze of California's forest fires had started to move in again, and the sun was a bloody red circle in the sky as it waned. The march back was easier. We found that we'd taken the hard way up; there was a dry riverbed that switchbacked down the northwest side of the slope and was much easier than the McIntosh Falls slope. When we reached the place where it reunited with the trail we saw the very (very) faint scratches on the rocks telling us to "go that way." If only we'd seen them the first time. As we were heading down, we passed a very pretty dude coming up with a tiny dog, and we warned him that dark was coming. "Oh, I know. It only took me an hour to get here."
Pfft. Young people.
The Hall of the Alder King
We walked, and it was a long walk. There were long stretches of fifty-year-old alder that leaned over the path and made it look like a long hallway leading to a faery land. Down, down we walked until we finally reached the car park. There were only ten cars left, six of them Subarus.
We drove back. There are "unimproved campsites" all along the river; they're basically just flat spaces with tiny outhouses and no fire rings. In dry season you're allowed only propane stoves. At one, children have put up a large sign reading "Platform 9¾," and they drew the typeface nicely. At our camp, Omaha made a tiny fire. We boiled water and had freeze-dried Beef Stroganoff, and it was surprisingly tasty. I'm amazed at how far that particular technology has come. We roasted mashmallows over the dying embers and went to bed early.
