My Christmas morning stockings...
...were made of wool and on my feet! It was cold up in the mountains.
I got off work at 2:30 on Monday, went home to throw my gear together, and left the house just at dusk, about quarter to five. I made a quick stop for food and gas, and it was dark when I got on the freeway, just in time for the 5:20 funny on 103.7.
I picked up a wool hat with earflaps while I was at Safeway. I'd seen them earlier in the week, and decided it would be a wise purchase. I don't own a hat with earflaps, because I think I look dorky, but practical won over fashion.
A glorious yellow full moon was rising as I headed South, making me wish I was driving East. I got off the freeway South of Kelso in a foggy little town tucked into the mouth of a river valley. This was where I encountered the first of numerous roads on this trip that were called one thing on the map and another on the ground. Fortunatley, even without a working odometer, I have an excellent sense of distnace and direction. I managed to find my way to the campground despite what, after five mis-labelled roads, I began to think was a conspiracy.
The roads in the Gifford-Pinchot forest were better than I expected: mostly paved, though cracked from slumping in places. The drive was longer than it looked on the map because it curved and wiggled all over the mountains. This map shows where I was. If you look in the lower left corner, just above the Forest Service shield, you'll see Canyon Creek campground. What that map does not convey is that it really is way out there. I missed one turn due to it being completely un-labelled, and drove up into the snow. As the snow got deeper and the road worse, I decided that this was a bad idea. I was prepared for a bit of snow, but my car isn't. I decided to turn around and camp below snow-line, even if I had to pitch my tent in the road. I found Canyon Creek Campground on the way back down.
Both of the flashlights I had brought (and checked before I left) were being wonky, but I could set up this tent blindfolded. After I set up camp I explored the campground in the dark. The sky had clounded over, and there was just enough light to keep me from blundering into things. Mostly I navigated by sound. The roaring and rushing of the creek dominated the little valley, and the echoes it sent off of things allowed me to tell where objects were. Even a tree between me and the river blocked enough sound to let me know where I was, and the three tiny rivulets running through the campground each added their little bit to the soundscape so that I could triangulate on them as I moved.
My new sleeping bag is rated to 10 degrees, and I know it was not that cold because there was no ice in the morning, but I was freezing during the night. I went to bed warm from activity and woke up some time later with my muscles cramped from cold. I was wearing a turtleneck, stretch pants, cotton socks, and my new hat, but I peeped out of my cocoon long enough to pull on my plaid wool "lumberjack" shirt and a pair of wool socks, I shivered myself to sleep, waking up sold several times. In the morning I pulled out my old sleeping bag, which I keep in the trunk for emergencies, and stuck one inside the other.
I made a hot breakfast of corn meal mush and hot cocoa fortified with a can of Slim-Fast for protein. The warm dishwater felt nice on my hands, but rinsing them in the icy stream did not. Here's a photo of my picnic table over looking the gorge. I wasn't really this dark, but it certainly wasn't bright. Sunrise comes late in the mountains, and sunset early, because the horizon is pretty much straight up.
After breakfast I took a walk. it felt good to shake the stiffness out and get my blod flowing. I got very warm hiking up the old road that leads on past the camp. It climbed a bit and I found patches of snow. I saw deer tracks, elk scat, and heard a Steller's Jay. A tiny wren screeched annoyance at me, and a large flock of little birds flew off at my approach. I found a dizzying overlook to Canyon Creek straight down the ravine below me. When I got thirsty I sipped water from the tips of branches like a deer.
Canyon Creek itself is lovely. The water is the clear blue of mountain streams without sediment or algae. It rushes and surges over the rocks. I found one piece of polished driftwood stranded on top of a mid-stream boulder, left behind by a higher water level. It was balanced precariously, as gently as if it had been set down on purpose. There was a little sandy beach at one place, with the prettiest little pool of water and water-grass.
Just beyond this was a vein of bright red rock, grainy and brittle, crumbling off into large flat flakes. The bank was being undercut as this vein eroded, and a large tree will fall in soon. There was an Ouzel at the river, one of my favorite birds. These funny creatures run over the rocks and then right into the water and run along the bottom of the stream picking up critters that live in the gravel. it's burbling call caught my attention, and I sat and watched it until it went too far away to see.
Further up-stream I found smooth polished basalt projecting out into the stream, with one of those pot-holes in it that water will sometimes gouge out, eight inches or so across and a foot deep or more. These bowls always fascinate me. Once, in Canada, I found a frog in the bottom of one that was three feet deep. I'd love to set up a photo with several of those holes, and place a few stems of flowers in one, like a vase.
I remembered that my camera has a timer, so you can see not only the pretty stream but also a pretty good picture of me. I don't often think that I look good in pictures, but I kinda like this one. Maybe it is because I feel very much at home here, relaxed and in my element.
I crouched on the edge of this rock and stared into the water, watching the bubbles swirl and dance. There is a scene in one of Carlos Castenada's books where the teacher sits him down at the edge of a creek to meditate, and comes back a while later to find him totally entranced by the water. The teacher says that he let the water spirits seize him and take him away. I wonder if that is where the tale of the sirens comes from. I have lain in the bow of a boat and watched the water curl away, white and rolling, and gotten so dizzy that if I were not laying down I would have fallen in. I know that I am susceptible to that mezmerization, and I love it, so I tuck myself in securely and let myself be pulled in. But only my mind. If an unsuspecting sailor got caught in that stream of bubbles and let himself litterally be pulled in, he would tip forward headfirst and it would indeed look like he dove overboard to join the mermaids.
After my walk and a light lunch I curled up in my sleeping bag to write, and dozed off. I was woken by a very soft scritching sound. Worried that some animal had been attracted by the smell of the trail mix I was nibbling, I moved slowly and peeked quietly out of my bag. The tent was dark, and the sound was snow sliding off of the material as it built into a layer to heavy to stay on top of the tent. Here is what I saw when I un-zipped my door:
Of course I grabbed my camera, put on my shoes, and went out to explore the snowy world. Things look different in the snow; you notice things you had overlooked before. Like this Dogwood Osier, the red of its bark emphasized by the white.
In the afternoon I began to notice somthing surprising: I was bored. I had needed the quiet and solitude so badly, but I was beginning to miss conversation. I hung out a while longer, moved my tent under a tree so the weight of the snow did not collapse it and moved my car so that it was facing out in case the snow got deeper, then napped and wrote and walked around some more. I dithered a while, and finally decided to leave. I checked the time for the first time since I'd woken up: it was just before four o'clock. It took me less than five minutes to break camp by the simple expedient of folding everything into a heap and stuffing it in the car wet and messy.
A combination of a bunch of little things led to the decision not to stay another night: I had gotten what I came for and was ready to go back; I was worried about how my car would handle in the snow; I had started my period, and while I did come prepared, I dislike the lack of sanitation while I'm camping; I was a bit worried that with the temperature dropping steadily even the two sleeping bags would not be enough that night; and I realized that part of the reason I had been uneasy at home was that my room was a mess, and if I went home that night I would have time to clean my room. I had spent only about 24 hours alone. I guess that was enough to reset my social-tolerance meter.
It turns out it was a good thing I left when I did. If I had waited until Wednesday morning I would probably not have made it home that day at all, and a panicked poly_good_girl would have sent search-and-rescue after me. I did not realize that the valley the camp was in was sheltered so much from the snow. There was an inch on the ground and more falling, but on the main road out there were two inches, and further down the mountain there were four. I was surprised to find a single set of tire tracks going up then back down. It looked like someone in a truck had made a tour, checking the side roads then coming back down each one. They did not come as far as the campground, however. My light little car swished and slid around on the snow, but I stayed out of the ditches. I mostly kept it in low gear and didn't stop moving. I did stop once at an overlook to snap this picture of a completely white world.
Even on this gentle down-hill slope I had a hard time getting going again.
What stood out to me on the drive down the mountain was how much the snow heightened the contrasts. Nothing looked colored anymore: anything that was not white appeared black. Until the snowfall got heavier and I was driving in a white-out, anyways. I've been a passenger in white-out conditions before, but this was the first time since I got my driver's liscence that I had been in that strange motionless space. It was un-nerving and, to my immense surprise, nauseating. You can't see that you are moving at all, except that the snow is swirling toward you instead of falling down in front of you. The headlights turn the oncoming snow into a vortex where the edges of the light define your total existence. I crept along, barely sure where the road was, nervous and queasy. I kept checking my spedometer and tachometer to ascertain that I was in fact moving.
Fortunately the white-out didn't start until I had passed Chelatchie Prairie, the tiny hamlet that is the first sign of civilization I came to. Chelatchie Prarie in the snow was lovely. Every snow-rimmed barn looked like a Christmas card, and the black cows standing with their backs to the wind were stark and lovely and bleak and comforting all at once. Chelatchie Prarie is an odd little place: only forty miles or so from a major city, yet so isolated by the quirks of the road that it feels more rural, like it should be hundreds of miles from anywhere. Once I came within sight of occasional houses I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that if I went off the road now I could walk to a nearby house and it would be okay. In fact, the idea of the adventure it would be, knocking on a stranger's door on Christmas day with my car stuck in the snow in the dark, was almost enough temptation for me to put my car in a ditch on purpose. I resisted the idea, however, and once I slid toward a ditch for real a few times it wasn't as attractive.
I did make it down the mountain eventually, obviously, though it was a long and tense drive. I was barely in the door ten minutes when my housemates were shoving a stocking into my hands, eager for me to open my gifts, so I didn't entirely escape the insanity after all. I guess even when I run away from Christmas it will be waiting for me when I get back. Along with all the other stressors and responsibilities in my life. At least now I feel better prepared to deal with them. As evidenced by the fact that I scratched everything off my to-do list today, and made it through three of the phone calls that I had been dreading and postponing.
I got off work at 2:30 on Monday, went home to throw my gear together, and left the house just at dusk, about quarter to five. I made a quick stop for food and gas, and it was dark when I got on the freeway, just in time for the 5:20 funny on 103.7.
I picked up a wool hat with earflaps while I was at Safeway. I'd seen them earlier in the week, and decided it would be a wise purchase. I don't own a hat with earflaps, because I think I look dorky, but practical won over fashion.
A glorious yellow full moon was rising as I headed South, making me wish I was driving East. I got off the freeway South of Kelso in a foggy little town tucked into the mouth of a river valley. This was where I encountered the first of numerous roads on this trip that were called one thing on the map and another on the ground. Fortunatley, even without a working odometer, I have an excellent sense of distnace and direction. I managed to find my way to the campground despite what, after five mis-labelled roads, I began to think was a conspiracy.
The roads in the Gifford-Pinchot forest were better than I expected: mostly paved, though cracked from slumping in places. The drive was longer than it looked on the map because it curved and wiggled all over the mountains. This map shows where I was. If you look in the lower left corner, just above the Forest Service shield, you'll see Canyon Creek campground. What that map does not convey is that it really is way out there. I missed one turn due to it being completely un-labelled, and drove up into the snow. As the snow got deeper and the road worse, I decided that this was a bad idea. I was prepared for a bit of snow, but my car isn't. I decided to turn around and camp below snow-line, even if I had to pitch my tent in the road. I found Canyon Creek Campground on the way back down.
Both of the flashlights I had brought (and checked before I left) were being wonky, but I could set up this tent blindfolded. After I set up camp I explored the campground in the dark. The sky had clounded over, and there was just enough light to keep me from blundering into things. Mostly I navigated by sound. The roaring and rushing of the creek dominated the little valley, and the echoes it sent off of things allowed me to tell where objects were. Even a tree between me and the river blocked enough sound to let me know where I was, and the three tiny rivulets running through the campground each added their little bit to the soundscape so that I could triangulate on them as I moved.
My new sleeping bag is rated to 10 degrees, and I know it was not that cold because there was no ice in the morning, but I was freezing during the night. I went to bed warm from activity and woke up some time later with my muscles cramped from cold. I was wearing a turtleneck, stretch pants, cotton socks, and my new hat, but I peeped out of my cocoon long enough to pull on my plaid wool "lumberjack" shirt and a pair of wool socks, I shivered myself to sleep, waking up sold several times. In the morning I pulled out my old sleeping bag, which I keep in the trunk for emergencies, and stuck one inside the other.
I made a hot breakfast of corn meal mush and hot cocoa fortified with a can of Slim-Fast for protein. The warm dishwater felt nice on my hands, but rinsing them in the icy stream did not. Here's a photo of my picnic table over looking the gorge. I wasn't really this dark, but it certainly wasn't bright. Sunrise comes late in the mountains, and sunset early, because the horizon is pretty much straight up.
After breakfast I took a walk. it felt good to shake the stiffness out and get my blod flowing. I got very warm hiking up the old road that leads on past the camp. It climbed a bit and I found patches of snow. I saw deer tracks, elk scat, and heard a Steller's Jay. A tiny wren screeched annoyance at me, and a large flock of little birds flew off at my approach. I found a dizzying overlook to Canyon Creek straight down the ravine below me. When I got thirsty I sipped water from the tips of branches like a deer.
Canyon Creek itself is lovely. The water is the clear blue of mountain streams without sediment or algae. It rushes and surges over the rocks. I found one piece of polished driftwood stranded on top of a mid-stream boulder, left behind by a higher water level. It was balanced precariously, as gently as if it had been set down on purpose. There was a little sandy beach at one place, with the prettiest little pool of water and water-grass.
Just beyond this was a vein of bright red rock, grainy and brittle, crumbling off into large flat flakes. The bank was being undercut as this vein eroded, and a large tree will fall in soon. There was an Ouzel at the river, one of my favorite birds. These funny creatures run over the rocks and then right into the water and run along the bottom of the stream picking up critters that live in the gravel. it's burbling call caught my attention, and I sat and watched it until it went too far away to see.
Further up-stream I found smooth polished basalt projecting out into the stream, with one of those pot-holes in it that water will sometimes gouge out, eight inches or so across and a foot deep or more. These bowls always fascinate me. Once, in Canada, I found a frog in the bottom of one that was three feet deep. I'd love to set up a photo with several of those holes, and place a few stems of flowers in one, like a vase.
I remembered that my camera has a timer, so you can see not only the pretty stream but also a pretty good picture of me. I don't often think that I look good in pictures, but I kinda like this one. Maybe it is because I feel very much at home here, relaxed and in my element.
I crouched on the edge of this rock and stared into the water, watching the bubbles swirl and dance. There is a scene in one of Carlos Castenada's books where the teacher sits him down at the edge of a creek to meditate, and comes back a while later to find him totally entranced by the water. The teacher says that he let the water spirits seize him and take him away. I wonder if that is where the tale of the sirens comes from. I have lain in the bow of a boat and watched the water curl away, white and rolling, and gotten so dizzy that if I were not laying down I would have fallen in. I know that I am susceptible to that mezmerization, and I love it, so I tuck myself in securely and let myself be pulled in. But only my mind. If an unsuspecting sailor got caught in that stream of bubbles and let himself litterally be pulled in, he would tip forward headfirst and it would indeed look like he dove overboard to join the mermaids.
After my walk and a light lunch I curled up in my sleeping bag to write, and dozed off. I was woken by a very soft scritching sound. Worried that some animal had been attracted by the smell of the trail mix I was nibbling, I moved slowly and peeked quietly out of my bag. The tent was dark, and the sound was snow sliding off of the material as it built into a layer to heavy to stay on top of the tent. Here is what I saw when I un-zipped my door:
Of course I grabbed my camera, put on my shoes, and went out to explore the snowy world. Things look different in the snow; you notice things you had overlooked before. Like this Dogwood Osier, the red of its bark emphasized by the white.
In the afternoon I began to notice somthing surprising: I was bored. I had needed the quiet and solitude so badly, but I was beginning to miss conversation. I hung out a while longer, moved my tent under a tree so the weight of the snow did not collapse it and moved my car so that it was facing out in case the snow got deeper, then napped and wrote and walked around some more. I dithered a while, and finally decided to leave. I checked the time for the first time since I'd woken up: it was just before four o'clock. It took me less than five minutes to break camp by the simple expedient of folding everything into a heap and stuffing it in the car wet and messy.
A combination of a bunch of little things led to the decision not to stay another night: I had gotten what I came for and was ready to go back; I was worried about how my car would handle in the snow; I had started my period, and while I did come prepared, I dislike the lack of sanitation while I'm camping; I was a bit worried that with the temperature dropping steadily even the two sleeping bags would not be enough that night; and I realized that part of the reason I had been uneasy at home was that my room was a mess, and if I went home that night I would have time to clean my room. I had spent only about 24 hours alone. I guess that was enough to reset my social-tolerance meter.
It turns out it was a good thing I left when I did. If I had waited until Wednesday morning I would probably not have made it home that day at all, and a panicked poly_good_girl would have sent search-and-rescue after me. I did not realize that the valley the camp was in was sheltered so much from the snow. There was an inch on the ground and more falling, but on the main road out there were two inches, and further down the mountain there were four. I was surprised to find a single set of tire tracks going up then back down. It looked like someone in a truck had made a tour, checking the side roads then coming back down each one. They did not come as far as the campground, however. My light little car swished and slid around on the snow, but I stayed out of the ditches. I mostly kept it in low gear and didn't stop moving. I did stop once at an overlook to snap this picture of a completely white world.
Even on this gentle down-hill slope I had a hard time getting going again.
What stood out to me on the drive down the mountain was how much the snow heightened the contrasts. Nothing looked colored anymore: anything that was not white appeared black. Until the snowfall got heavier and I was driving in a white-out, anyways. I've been a passenger in white-out conditions before, but this was the first time since I got my driver's liscence that I had been in that strange motionless space. It was un-nerving and, to my immense surprise, nauseating. You can't see that you are moving at all, except that the snow is swirling toward you instead of falling down in front of you. The headlights turn the oncoming snow into a vortex where the edges of the light define your total existence. I crept along, barely sure where the road was, nervous and queasy. I kept checking my spedometer and tachometer to ascertain that I was in fact moving.
Fortunately the white-out didn't start until I had passed Chelatchie Prairie, the tiny hamlet that is the first sign of civilization I came to. Chelatchie Prarie in the snow was lovely. Every snow-rimmed barn looked like a Christmas card, and the black cows standing with their backs to the wind were stark and lovely and bleak and comforting all at once. Chelatchie Prarie is an odd little place: only forty miles or so from a major city, yet so isolated by the quirks of the road that it feels more rural, like it should be hundreds of miles from anywhere. Once I came within sight of occasional houses I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that if I went off the road now I could walk to a nearby house and it would be okay. In fact, the idea of the adventure it would be, knocking on a stranger's door on Christmas day with my car stuck in the snow in the dark, was almost enough temptation for me to put my car in a ditch on purpose. I resisted the idea, however, and once I slid toward a ditch for real a few times it wasn't as attractive.
I did make it down the mountain eventually, obviously, though it was a long and tense drive. I was barely in the door ten minutes when my housemates were shoving a stocking into my hands, eager for me to open my gifts, so I didn't entirely escape the insanity after all. I guess even when I run away from Christmas it will be waiting for me when I get back. Along with all the other stressors and responsibilities in my life. At least now I feel better prepared to deal with them. As evidenced by the fact that I scratched everything off my to-do list today, and made it through three of the phone calls that I had been dreading and postponing.