[Ski]

After two weeks of delays, interruptions, and waiting for the weather, I finally got out of here Friday morning about 7 am. Dropped off permit at Kalaloch RS to a much-surprised NPS staffer, and back-tracked down 101 to the alternate route in. Started about 12:30 after a conversation with two guys who'd just packed out, obviously a bit disgusted about the road washout and the additional distance required. "I should write a letter to somebody about this. Do you think they'd listen?" From truck to trailhead about 2 hours on gravel road. My feet were warm, but still intact. River ford about knee-deep 100 yards above Sams. Trail condition: This year is the worst I've seen it in a long time. Innumerable blow-downs, debris all over trail, and waist-deep Salmonberry most of the way to Tshletshy. A 5-foot spruce laying across the trail just below Andrews Field waylaid a party of 10 coming out. I heard them hollering at each other in the bushes and hollered back, and they got back onto the trail and on their way out. The patch of Himalaya Blackberry just past that blowdown ( that I cut back about 15 feet 3 years ago ) has come back over the trail tread, so it will be an interesting challenge for those heading up there next season if somebody doesn't get up there with a saw and a D-ring. Got up to my spot about 6:30 or 7:00, set up tent, and figured that with the little daylight I had left I'd better get dinner started. So I break out the little stove, make a cup of tea, lay out my little things to fix dinner, make another cup of tea, and then put the pot on to boil water for pasta. Get the water boiling, pour in the pasta, give it a stir and watch it a few minutes, and the stove quits. I mean it just stops dead. I pump it back up, re-light it, and I get a flame about equivalent to a Bic lighter. Enough to keep the water hot enough to cook the pasta, so at least I'm not stuck with a Hershey bar for dinner. So I'm sitting there in the twilight, munching on my smoked salmon tortellini, and considering my options: 1. Pack up and head back in the morning. 2. Pack up the stove and effect remedy to stove and come back. At 7:25 Saturday morning, I opt for the latter option. Pack up just the stove and a bottle of water, and stuff everything else inside my sleeping bag inside the tent. After 4 hours walking out, and 3 hours driving back home, I call my buddy. He says "What are you doin' back already?". I tell him my tale. He feels sorry for me and brings over a huge slab of ribs and veggies for dinner. We have a fabulous dinner of ribs with Hawaiian salt & pepper, corn, potatoes, zucchini, and mushrooms. While the ribs are cooking he asks "So what are you going to do about the stove?" I told him I was going to go buy a new one. He asks "Can't you fix that one?" So I go out in the garage, rummage around, and find my old stove (same model) from which I cannibalize enough parts to get the thing working. ( This of course requires total disassembly and re-assembly twice. ) While I'm fixing the stove we're debating what's going to get my tent and gear first: thieves, vandals, bears, raccoons, or mice. I'm not so much worried about thieves as I am bears, because the bears would just make a helluva mess rippin' that down bag all to shreds to get to the candy bars inside it, and I'd be stuck haulin' out 60 pounds of garbage. I pray. Sunday I'm still suffering from a food overdose from the ribs, and my hips are sore as hell ( early stages of osteo-arthritis? ) so I lay around the house all day. Monday morning I head out again about 7. Start walking in about 10, get back to my spot about 2. Amazingly, tent is still there, undisturbed. No thieves, vandals, bears, raccoons, or mice. Sometimes the Lord works in mysterious ways. Stove works, stuff is all intact, weather is perfect. I'm happy. Strip and go dive into the Queets for a nice swim. Pink cirrus clouds waft in off the coast at twilight. Tuesday morning I wake up about 11. Two guys dressed head-to-foot in khaki nylon are fishing out in front of me. We yik-yak a while. They're apparently camped downstream, and one of them keeps asking me "why are you camping here?" I try to explain the thing about the "Carlos Casteneda spot" but their eyes kind of glaze over. The taller of them indicates he "gets it", but still maintains I'm just there to hog that fishing spot. They wander off. I go back to sleep after checking out the new log-jam building up at the bottom end of the pool there. A coastal front blows in from the west, almost black above the ridge. Wednesday I wake up about 7, and it's cool and cloudy. The sun is trying to break through, but I can smell the stuff coming in off the coast and decide to bail out and avoid drizzle, and try to make a meeting I'd forgotten all about. I run into the two fishermen again just below Spruce Bottom. "Were you really drinking water right out of the river?" and "So how was the fishing?" I tell them yes, I've been drinking it my whole life, and as for the fish, I managed to tie up a lure and get it wet, but there wasn't enough water in the river so it seemed rather pointless. I alluded to an experience I'd had up there years ago with the fish, but they weren't satisfied with my explanation. Finally one of them came out with "So, the fish were talking to you up there?" When I vaguely answered in the affirmative, they said they'd go check it out and headed up the trail. Walked the rest of the way out, grumbling the whole way about having to walk that dang gravel road. Got back to the truck and headed home. In desperation, ate my first burger in years at Hum-Dinger in Hoquiam. A fortuitous delay: seemed like I was about 5 minutes behind all the WSP unmarked radar cars who had people pulled over all the way from the Wynoochee to McCleary. * ammendment: a 20" hemlock came down right at the "Big Fir" trail junction at 2.5 miles, obliterating the first part of that trail. The sign was knocked out last year, so unless you know the route it will be extremely difficult to find. * photos here

[l]

Maybe I'm missing something more obvious than my question, but why - especially in these dry conditions - didn't you just make a fire to cook your food? And didn't you bring rope to hang your stuff?

[Ski]

Backcountry fire ban has been in effect for some time. I hate cookin' over a fire, anyway... did it for too many years. I carry about 6 feet of 1/8" nylon rope, which generally serves as a clothes line if I can't find a handy alder branch. Hardly long enough to hang anything from. I've yet to find a necessity for "hanging" my stuff up. Perhaps that tent not having been washed in almost 40 years might have had something to do with deterring invading pests. By the way, tomatoes inside a plastic cottage cheese container, stuffed inside a down bag inside a tent for two days of 80° weather tend to go bad in a big hurry.

[Jill]

This has to be the most unique trip report I have ever read. Who are you?

[Ski]

i am what i am

[l]

There's your answer, Jill. He's Popeye.

[Jill]

Popeye is cool but I was thinking more like Superman or Spiderman. So elusive sounding...