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Wonderland Trail Adventures- part 2

P7180023 Day 1- continued…

When we finally got to the trail itself, we all got excited, gathered around the sign for pictures and then headed straight up the trail.
The forest here is so different from Georgia! It is really thick and has a million plants that I have never seen before. When you feel the call of nature, ducking off the trail is quite an adventure! Fallen trees, vines, undergrowth
and moss as far as the eye can see! The cool thing is, though, there are really no snakes to worry about.  I guess it is too cold up here for them to be happy. It
makes stepping over all of those half-rotten logs a little easier when you don’t
have to worry about a slithery friend lounging under it.     We crossed about a zillion creeks today on log bridges, some of which the amazing trail volunteers have nailed hand rails of sorts to. I really appreciate it cause walking across a log makes me very nervous!

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Later in the day we have our first ford. The river we are crossing has four different sections, the first of which has no bridge. As we prepare to cross, HBB give us a lecture on fording safely and the other three take off their boots. I prefer the stability of keeping mine on, however. I don’t mind wet
boots as long as I can feel secure crossing a river.
The water here is fascinating! This is glacial run-off, so the water is full of rock flour. It makes the streams and rivers look like weak chocolate milk, which is cool to look at, but a bit nerve racking in that you have no idea if the water is 2 inches deep, or twenty feet.   Since the rocks surrounding the water are the exact same color, sometime you have to concentrate to actually see where the water starts and stops.
The crossing goes off without a hitch and only comes up mid-thigh deep.  It is still a bit disconcerting since you can’t see anything below the surface at all!  It is very cold, and quite fast, but the bottom is smooth and sandy, and I only squealed once when I almost lost my balance.
We scramble across piles of rocks and cross three more sections, all of which have bridges. The last one was wild because the water was so fast and turbulent that when you looked down it made you very dizzy Not a good feeling when you are on a log balanced over a torrent of chocolate milk!!
Where is Willy Wonka when you need him?

The rest of the hike was beautiful and peaceful with the only excitement coming at the very end. There is a famous suspension bridge here that is 207 feet long. It is narrow and very, very swingy and bouncy. They advise only one person on it at a time and I totally understand why. Unlike other suspension bridges I have been on, this one is not fun. By the time you get to the middle,
it not only bounces and sways, but pivots side to side, making it feel like you
are going to be pitched into the roiling, mad water below. Before I go on the bridge, there was a man there waiting for me to cross before him.  As I reached the center, the movement got really intense and I thought to myself, “How RUDE!! That man did NOT wait til I was across!!  The sign says ONE PERSON at a time and he decided to come anyway…..REALLY!!!!”  As I stepped off, I turned around to give him a piece of my mind and realized that he was still patiently waiting at the other end.  That is just exactly how wobbly that bridge was.  Well, I was a bit ashamed of my thoughtless assumption, but in all honesty, I was  so happy to be across that I didn’t give it a whole lot more thought.  🙂

Our campsite for the night was nice, and had a privy of sorts and a bear pole near by.  ( which
incidentally would not have kept the bears out or food, cause it was too short!!)  The privy was a simple seat with two walls forming a sort of ‘V’ around it.  It faced out into the rich, green woods and while it didn’t offer much for privacy, it was by far the best view you could get while answering the call of mother nature.
After a dinner of instant mashed potatos and mini snicker bars, we all went to sleep listening to the water of the tributary and the wind in the trees. It was one of the best nights
sleep I have had in a long, long time.
Anna aka Mud Butt

The Wonderland Trail Adventures-part 1

HBB 158

Recently I was lucky to get the chance to hike part of the Wonderland Trail in Washington State.  The trail encircles Mt. Ranier and is 93 miles long.  My initial plan was to do the entire thing in a 12 day trip, but isn’t there a saying about ‘best laid plans’ and all that?  🙂  The following journal entries are a record of my adventures in this gorgeous place…..   I hope you enjoy them.

 

After months of planning, scheduling, dreaming and scheming, I am finally on the
Wonderland Trail!!  I am laying in my tent listening to a glacial stream crash down the mountain, smelling fresh resin from fallen trees and feeling like the luckiest girl in the world.  Oh, my feet are aching, my left ankle is throbing,
my calves are laughing at me, knowing that they will keep me awake much of the
night with cramps, and frankly, I smell bad!  But I still feel very, very lucky!
This all started in Peru last year when my friends Deb (Silver Lining)
Julia (Hiker Biker Babe), and I promised to stop letting so much time go by
without seeing each other. There is a very special magic between the three of
us, and we do have grand times!   So we agreed to do yearly summits where we
would meet for an adventure of sorts. After throwing several ideas around, we
came up with the Wonderland Trail in Washington State for our 2009 Summit.
The Wonderland is 93 miles long and encircles Mount Ranier.  It has 23,000
feet of elevation gain and loss, and we are taking 12 days to hike it.  As the
Spring drew to a close, Silver Lining learned that her neice would be spending
the summer with her, so three became 4. Liz is a sharp, cool 16 year old and is
lots of fun to be with. She is a great addition to the group and I really love
being around her. 🙂  We are all excited that she is joining us and as she has never hiked or backpacked before,  they decided to take it easy.  (Well, as easy as hiking on the WT can be!) Liz and Silver Lining will hike some and jump on and off the trail, meeting us different places
with our food caches while The Babe and I will keep trekking on.
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It is with these plans that we loaded up the car this morning and headed
towards  Mt. Ranier.  This mountain is beautiful beyond description.  You see
her from lots of different places around Seattle and she towers above all the
surrounding mountains. I get chills and butterflies everytime I catch a glimpse of her and I cannot imagine living here and getting to see her every single day.
We arrived at the Carbon River Ranger Station this morning and picked up our
permit from a fantastic ranger whose name tag read ‘Flash’. He answered all of
our questions and said that the snow and ice weren’t going to be a problem for the next few days, so it was with a sigh of relief that I left the Ice Axe in the car for now. My friend, Alpine, has loaned me this axe and I have been talking about it for months.  Just looking at it makes me feel all cool!!  But the truth is, with all of it’s jagged, sharp edges, it scares me to death!  And I have no idea what to actually do with it!  So it is probably a good thing that I won’t seem to be needing it……at least on this leg of the trip.

The actual WT starts 5 miles away, at the end of a forest service road that
is closed due to storm damage.  As we walked up this beautiful meandering lane
we wondered if there was really any damage.  However, before long, we came to a
section of rocks, downed trees and ankle deep gray rock flour.  Yep, this road
is closed. The rest of the 5 miles was alternating of smooth forest service
road and areas that look like all hell broke loose. It is kind of mind boggling
what this river can and did do!!HBB 169
So as it turns out, glaciers pulverize rocks.  As a result, you get rocks as huge
as cars interspersed with medium sized rocks, small rocks and completely ground
up rocks, which look like greyish-brown flour. Hence the name ‘rock flour’, or
glacial flour. It is very cool to look at, but tough to walk through. Imagine
ankle deep, sugar-fine sand!
However, it is all part of the experience! I am still fresh and excited enough about this hike that I could probably find quick sand to be acceptable!!   The non-flood part of our hike so
far looks exactly like the movie “Twilight”.  The trees are GIANT! And the woods
are thick and everything is covered with thick green moss.  It looks like a
fairy tale, and I am pretty sure that Aragon is going to come sweeping out of it at any moment and wisk me away…….  to be continued….
Anna aka Mud Butt

Last But Not Least (Ten Essentials)

Last but not least…… (Ten Essentials #10)
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The last thing on my personal list of Ten Essentials is a small ditty bag that I think of as my “McGuyver Bag”.  In addition to other Essentials like fire starter, a lighter, and a head lamp, I carry a small assortment of things that I might need to repair my gear and keep myself safe.

Number one in the bag is duct tape.  I wrap a long strip of it around a small pencil so that it is always accessible.  The pencil has come in handy many times when I have needed to leave messages for other hikers in my party, and unlike a pen, will always work.  If the tip breaks off? Well, that is just another use for my knife, right?  J  As for the duct tape, I use it to repair gear, cover hot spots on my feet and close up tears in my rain gear.  It really is true….you can do a million things with duct tape!!

The other thing that always lives in my backpack is dental floss.  I take it out of the plastic box that it comes in and throw it in the ditty bag, where it takes up no room and weighs next to nothing.  Why dental floss?  Because it is really, really strong and can be used to repair just about anything.  Add some duct tape and you might just be able to save the world!!  J

No emergency kit is complete without a space blanket.  We have talked about these before, but you truly cannot beat them for warmth and, in a pinch, extra shelter.  My tent site once flooded in on a cold November night, drenching everything I owned, (including my down sleeping bag).  I spent the night shivering wrapped in my black trash bags and space blanket.  Would I have actually died without them?  I have no idea, but they truly made a difference in my experience that night!

Finally, I always carry iodine tablets for an extra source of water purification.  I usually don’t believe in carrying more than one item for a particular purpose, but when it comes to starting a fire and making water safe to drink, I always carry backup.  Iodine tablets and fire starter are just too small and light to not carry.

You might want to extra medication that you are taking to your emergency bag, as well as small things that you personally find necessary.  The most important thing is that you carry these along with the other 10 Essentials each and every time you go out on a hiking trail.  Like they say, “an ounce of prevention” and all that.  Carrying these items and taking the extra precautions listed here go a long ways towards showing yourself and the rest of the hiking community that you belong out there and that you are doing everything in your power to be a responsible outdoors woman.

What did I leave out?  What else do you carry in your emergency bag?

Send me a message and let me know!

Anna aka mud butt

I.C.E. (Ten Essentials)


I.C.E. (Ten Essentials #9)

emergency

Most of you have probably received the email floating around out there asking you to add an ICE entry in your cell phone address book.  I.C.E. stands for “In Case Of Emergency” and gives emergency workers an idea of who to call if you are in trouble.

Well, in the back country it is always essential to have something in your pack that has your pertinent information on it.  What exactly is pertinent?  It should have your name and address to start, and a couple of people that you would want contacted in case you need help.  Also, put any known allergies you have, including medications that you are allergic to.  Finally, put any medical conditions that you have, including whether you wear contact lenses or not.

This card, like so many other things in your backpack, falls under the category of ‘karmic insurance’.  I mentioned this in the post regarding headlamps and flashlights and it is fairly self-explanatory.  If you carry it, you might not ever need it!  J  But it is definitely something that every responsible hiker should carry.  Assume that you cannot speak for yourself….this card needs to speak for you.

This card works in conjunction with the hike plan that you filed with someone back home. Between those two items, if you should become lost or injured on the trail, you will have the quickest chance of being located.  And finally, consider throwing your driver’s license, a little money and your insurance card in with your ICE card.

Here is to never needing a card like this, but to being a responsible hiker that does the right thing!!

Anna aka Mud Butt

 

We Can Start A Fire! (Ten Essentials)

We Can Start A Fire!!  (Ten Essentials #8)

Cloud Canyon Day 1 10-18-08 (20)

If you ever find yourself stranded in the woods at night, the one thing that will make the biggest difference in your comfort, and possibly survival, is warmth.  You must find a way to stay warm.  In other posts we have talked about using a black trash bag and extra clothes to stay warm.  These are very important, but your best bet will be to start a fire.  Not only will it keep you warm, it will raise your spirits greatly!

Unless you find yourself on some sort of reality TV show, gone are the days of rubbing two sticks together to make a fire.  You should always carry items in your pack to make starting a fire fairly easy.  The items that I always have with me are a lighter, waterproof matches, and fire-starter.  These are all items that you can find in your local outdoor store.  I started with an empty film canister and put fire-starter pellets and water-proof matches in it so that they were all in one place together and would stay dry.  There are also several different fire-starters that you can make yourself.  Dryer lint, itself, makes a great fire starter, as does cotton balls dunked in Vaseline.

Making the fire itself is a topic for another day,  but in the meantime, make sure you are carrying all of the right ingredients to make one!

What do you carry for emergency fire starting?  Comment below and let us know!

Anna aka Mud Butt