Backpacking Part 5: Into The Mountains

Making a Wish Come True

Two years after I emerged from a month-long hospital stay, I embarked on the backpacking trip I’d envisioned from my hospital bed.

In the hospital, frail and afraid, I had gazed longingly at the mountains and lakes on my TV screen, unsure I could ever backpack again. But after nursing myself back to health, I became determined to make it happen, even though my ulcerative colitis would make it more difficult than ever before.

A year of planning had ensued. This trip was the result—and, for me, it was the symbol of my triumph over illness.

I felt overjoyed. My husband Ron and I would spend four nights in the spectacular Wallowa Mountains, which are sometimes called Oregon’s Alps. Twenty years earlier, as an able-bodied college student without a chronic illness, I had led eight-day trips through these same mountains.

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We drove east from Portland through the Columbia River Gorge, passing the stately peak of Mount Hood, emerging from the forest into the desert. Soon we entered the high plateaus, scrubland, and frontier country of the Mountain West.

Tonight would be spent in an Airbnb in the unassuming town of Lostine. As we approached the town in the setting sunlight, the Wallowas rose before us, shadows deepening in the forested valleys between the mountains’ peaks. We could see the “V” of the Lostine River Valley where it cut a straight path between two rugged ridgelines and disappeared into the folds of the mountains. Tomorrow we would walk up that valley.

Our Airbnb was a simple, comfortable studio. We unpacked the car and put my special food into the fridge: sauerkraut and kefir. These were my two “medicine foods,” essential for keeping my delicate microbiome in balance.

I had meticulously packed the special diet my illness required for our four nights on the trail, dehydrating all our camping food myself. But I wouldn’t be able to bring sauerkraut and kefir into the mountains, so tonight and tomorrow morning I’d be eating extra helpings of both.

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We ate rice and beans on the back patio in the warm evening air. Beyond the yard’s edge, scrub-covered brown hills rose gracefully against the sky. Already, something in me had relaxed now that we were away from the city. I’m not a city person and always feel vaguely uneasy in Portland, which I only notice when I leave. The sky here was big and blue; I loved the sweeping curves of the hills.

As twilight settled over the landscape, I lingered to watch the stars come out. I felt amazed by the clear sky, I wrote later in my journal, a pink hue along its western edge after sunset. The air, the light were so perfect, the hills so quiet.

Amazing, I said to Ron, that I once lived near here for four years. It feels like several lifetimes ago. Whitman, my years there—it’s all like something someone else did. And yet, I was here, and I’m so amazed and proud of all the things I did then. I wish I could just capture it all, scoop all the experiences into a net so they wouldn’t be lost. The vast majority of moments in one’s life are lost, forgotten by everyone, and I’m left only with the sense that once, I lived in Eastern Washington, lived a full life there on a college campus, every day full of new, exciting experiences. Forty years of life is so long. I’ve lived such a full, complicated, adventuresome life.

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Starting Off Slow

The next morning we drove the long, dusty Lostine River Road to our trailhead. Dozens or even hundreds of cars were clustered under the trees—we had ignored warnings about crowds and had opted for the most popular route into the mountains.

It’s popular for a reason, we decided. I wanted to show Ron the Lakes Basin, an area of breathtaking beauty.

Tucking our cooler and suitcases into the car, stepping away with only our packs and hiking poles, I felt a little giddy. I’d been anticipating this trip for so long. We shot pictures of each other, me laughing at my mismatched knee braces: “I look like a court jester!”

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Today’s hike would be seven or eight miles. Setting off, I immediately felt grateful for all the prep I had done.

Our warm-up trip in the Enchanted Valley a couple months earlier had taught me I couldn’t quite handle the heavy pack I had carried in college. It had always caused pain to creep into my neck and shoulders, and the pain had worsened with age.

So we’d invested in an ultralight pack for me. I had also researched ultralight camping techniques, something I’d never bothered to do when I was younger and stronger. In the last couple months, I’d sloughed various items off our packing list: We could eat out of the cooking pots themselves and not bring dishes. We’d clean the pots without soap, just rinsing them with warm water, drinking the dregs, and wiping them down with paper towels.

As a result of all my research, my pack was far lighter and more comfortable than ever before. For the first time in my life, I was backpacking without a sore neck and shoulders. Elated, I often looked up and around me as I walked, enjoying the beautiful forest we were passing through. 

I had also trained diligently to protect my creaky knees. I’d begun walking around my neighborhood with a pack and had gradually increased its weight over the course of the summer. Once a week, I’d hiked with it in a forest near my home. I had learned that if I started off slowly, I could prevent my knees from taking too much impact before my muscles had warmed up. I felt confident that I could trek several miles without much damage to my body.

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So we took things slow now. Our pace was dictated by me—Ron was in fantastic shape from a summer of ultimate frisbee, which is similar to soccer. His team had gone to nationals in Denver three weeks earlier. As for myself, despite all my diligent training, I was far from the fittest person on these trails.

We passed many groups descending in the other direction, mostly young people with no poles and much larger packs. Sometimes, groups even passed us going in our same direction, uphill. I sensed Ron’s frustration at this; he’s competitive. I once had been, too. But we just had to let it go—I couldn’t walk any faster.

As the trail began to climb, I began huffing and puffing. Walking with Ron, I felt like an old woman struggling to keep up with someone much younger.

To add to my feeling of frailty, I wore a giant bandaid on my neck just beneath my jaw. It covered the wound that had become infected the previous week, which had almost prevented this trip from happening at all.

This wound would add more complexity to the trip. Along with my ulcerative colitis meds, my special food, and various other necessities related to my illness, I had packed antibiotic lotion, antiseptic wipes, and more bandages, with the instructions to change the wound’s dressing once a day. I’d also brought waterproof covers to place over it in case I swam. Of paramount importance was preventing my infection from returning on the trail.

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Awed By the Beauty

After a few miles, the forest gave way to a glorious green valley. The Lostine River curved gently through its center, sometimes opening into broad wetlands or small alpine ponds. Before us rose the pinnacle of Eagle Cap, a patch of snow forming a white “U” in its shadow. At 9570 feet, it was one of the range’s highest peaks, and if all went well, we’d climb it in a day or two.

Even through my laborious breathing, I felt awed by the beauty all around me. All the rocks, trees, and meadows here are so perfect, I would write. Better than anything Frederick Law Olmstead could have designed. Perfectly pointed spruces and firs standing upright against near-vertical rocks, lush green meadows spilling down into the cracks, strewn with white boulders and clusters of the tall, thin tree spires. 

Other hikers advised us to camp on a small, secluded lake a little off the beaten trail, just before entering the main part of the crowded Lakes Basin. Sure enough, there was only one other group camping on this little lake, which was more like a pond. We quickly found a campsite with a sweeping view down the valley we’d just climbed. Thrilled with our luck, we set up camp.

I couldn’t stop smiling all evening. My body had held up well through our first day of hiking. Now that we had doffed our packs, I felt good, energized. Everywhere I turned there was stunning beauty. I wrote in my journal but also just sat for long moments gazing at the mountains, watching the light change on the ridges above us, aglow with happiness.

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A Haze Up the Valley

After breakfast the next morning we decided to hike to Eagle Cap, but I aborted the trip partway up. Not because of physical limitations—my knees were holding up okay!—but because of haze. While the previous night had been clear, a northerly wind was blowing a haze up the valley, and already I could see that the views from the top would be obscured.

I wanted it clear, like it had been twenty years earlier. I suggested we save the climb for later in the trip.

We descended. On the way down, we stopped to talk to another couple who were ascending. I asked them if they knew the weather predictions for the next few days; they didn’t.

“I’m hoping the haze will disappear,” I said. “I don’t remember it being here in the past. Do you know what it is?”

The young man gave me a frank look. “Shit’s on fire.”

I grimaced. This was the second bad fire year in the Pacific Northwest, caused by a combination of chronic forest mismanagement and climate change. The clear skies I remembered from twenty years earlier might be a thing of the past. Hopefully we’d have better luck in a couple days.

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Just Able-Bodied Enough

We spent midday moving to a new campsite. While I’d been in love with our site and its incredible views, its lake was muddy and shallow. Ron, a Midwesterner, longed for a lake he could swim in. We packed up everything and marched the quarter-mile to Mirror Lake.

Already, the many campsites around this lake were filling up. We raced to check out the ones that didn’t already have groups setting up tents, and to our relief, we found the campsite of Ron’s dreams at the far end of the lake. Nestled into the base of a sheer granite cliff, it had its own little shoreline and just enough space for our tent.

There’s a constant rushing to the left, south, where the water cascades down the talus slope, I wrote later. White granite cliffs rise high over the opposite shore with their irregular vertical striations. To the west, higher mountains form a more distant white wall, and if I use my imagination I can see a city rising up, the white places becoming buildings and homes, interspersed with rising green trees and brown brushy alpine meadows. 

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We spent the rest of the afternoon reading and relaxing. Ron swam, but I didn’t dare with my neck wound, and anyway, I’m a wimp about cold water. I missed the grand views of the night before, but Ron’s joy over being on a lakeshore was contagious.

I feel so fortunate to be here, I wrote. We don’t have enough entertainment—neither of us loves the book we brought (The River Why for me, The Soul of the Octopus for Ron), and to save weight I didn’t bring the usual deck of cards or Mad Libs. But even mildly bored, I’m content just to be here in such a paradise, just to have made it here with all my health challenges. I am just barely able-bodied enough to do this.

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The Healing Power of the Mountains

We would remain at that site for the rest of the trip, day hiking each day. The next morning after breakfast, we hiked a loop around the Lakes Basin, grateful to have only our daypacks and enjoying the constant, ever-changing beauty of the landscape. It felt good to return to an already-set-up camp.

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That evening, the lake was crawling with campers. We felt the press of them. Their voices carried into our space, interfering with the peace of the lake. Twenty years earlier, I could remember being the only group here. Now the Wallowas had been discovered; their peace was marred.

It was a zoo here last night, I wrote the next day. We returned from our day hike around the Lakes Basin to find all the nearby campsites full, even the one directly above us atop the huge granite face at our backs. There was constant jovial chatter from the point across the little bay, only about 70 yards from us, where a group of 6 or so were camping in three tents. Just past them on the next point was another group. In the “U” of the bay, just out of sight but not earshot, another group, with two dogs that sometimes barked. We felt a bit overwhelmed with it all. This was twice the number of nearby campers from the previous night. 

But by now we knew all of these people would leave again in the morning. Of all the dozens of groups camping on Mirror Lake, we seemed to be the only one sticking around for days.

Ron and I have become slow travelers, I wrote. So different, it seems, from all these others, who stay for only a night. And different from ourselves in the past. More and more, I don’t see the point of trying to see more.

This is the most beautiful lake in the Lakes Basin, and our campsite is wonderful. I can see the appeal of longer through-hikes like I used to do, but at the same time, it seems a shame to leave less than twenty-four hours after you arrive at a new place.

By now, the third evening of the trip, we’d fallen into the routines of camping. I had discovered that in all the chaos of the week before, we’d done a poor job packing—along with not bringing enough entertainment, I had underpacked sunscreen and had forgotten salt altogether.

But those were mere hiccups. To my great satisfaction, my gut seemed to be doing just fine. I suspected that being outdoors, and the daily strenuous exercise, was helping make up for the lack of sauerkraut and kefir.

Exercise and nature both have anti-inflammatory properties. In Michael Pollan’s docuseries Cooked, he describes Australian aboriginal people’s insistence on spending time in the outback and their common practice of going off meds when they do. Many believe that nature is more healing than conventional medicine.

Here, I could believe it, too. I felt the healing power of the mountains.

This trip is so great! I wrote. I still feel the same—content. Last night I lay awake a couple-few hours in the tent, but I felt strikingly calm, just letting my thoughts drift and finding pleasant things to imagine and think about.

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Both Strong and Frail

At the same time, I was constantly struck by reminders of my own physical limitations.

Being here was a strange mix of feeling robust and noticing my own frailty. I’m amazed, I wrote, by how much freer and more able Ron is than me. He’s carrying much more weight—although that actually is fair, since he weighs much more than me and is stronger.

But he is stronger, and in amazing shape. His only potential hindrance would be a sprained ankle, so he’s brought his brace. I, meanwhile, hike with two knee braces. His skin, golden with the sun, only requires a light coat of sunscreen now and then; I slather mine on 4 times a day and am still somewhat burned.

My skin is a major concern in general. My eczema is worse but there’s nothing I can do about it here. In the evenings I wash socks and a shirt in lake water to help keep my skin irritation down, since the air is so dry and dusty. Ron is just wearing the same dirty clothes on all our hikes, as most hikers do. I wash my face once a day (he does too), then change the bandage over my neck sore, since another infection would be disastrous, then put in my eye drops for my dry eyes, then dab hydrocortisone on the corners of my mouth for my angular cheilitis, and put a little jojoba oil on my face to keep my delicate skin from drying out. Plus, of course, there’s all the special food I cooked and dehydrated.

Ron could throw a trip like this together overnight, and I once could, too. Now I can’t even imagine being able to do that and am baffled and awed by his physical ease. I doubt I could do a trip like this without him, whereas he could do much more without me.

Here was the knife edge I often encountered within myself, the fine line between despair and happiness, and the need for mental discipline. I had to just focus on the positive. I was here; the mountains were healing.

I had just one final desire: to climb to the peak of Eagle Cap.