Our hope was to do two backpacking trips in summer 2018: a short, easy one to “warm up” and make sure backpacking was feasible for me, and a longer, harder one later on. If the short one proved difficult and I couldn’t do more later, then at least I would have accomplished my goal of backpacking at all.
The short trip was in June. We spent a week in Washington’s Olympic National Park, first car camping for a few days and then backpacking. I wrote about the trip during and afterwards in my journal. The following are excerpts from what I wrote, with some editing for clarity.
The trip began on a Sunday.
I worked all weekend to get ready, cleaning the house and packing, while Ron was in Tacoma at a frisbee tournament. The drive was long and by the time I got to our campsite at 5:20, hours after I’d wanted to, I just wanted to pull in and sit in the car and rest. But I couldn’t—there was no pull in, and where we were supposed to park on the street above the site, the neighbors’ cars were in our spot. I had to get out and cheerfully ask them to move.
An attractive, edgy but nice-looking young man took charge, kindly directing his sullen, heavyset cousin to move his car. I wearily parked and set up the tent, my heart sinking as I quickly realized how loud they were, especially one woman whose voice and swearing kept carrying into our site.
Ron arrived a few minutes later and we again asked them to scootch a car back. It turned out to be the loud woman’s car—the mom of this nice young man.
Again cheerfully, he explained that the authorities had hooked a breathalizer up to her car. The car couldn’t move without a sober breath test. None of the adults in their site could pass the test right now, “so come on over.” He beckoned me to her car.
“For real?” I said, laughing incredulously.
“Yep.” He grinned. “Come on, girl.”
I took the test, sucking and blowing into the contraption at the instruction of Jenny, his mom, and moved her car back five feet. I thanked them, and we parked Ron’s car and began setting up.
Except Jenny was so terribly loud that right away, we wondered if we could switch sites. On a walk around the campground we encountered the nice man and confessed that we were thinking of moving. He apologized and said he felt awkward and we admonished him not to, that it wasn’t his fault. I felt sorry for him, and even for his mom, although she was wild and angry. She and others kept referring to herself as “a drunk.”
When we returned, having found no other sites and resigned ourselves to being here, it became apparent that Jenny knew we were bothered by her loudness. Her son had told us he’d “make sure she kept it down.” He must have already made an attempt. She tossed loud phrases our way, things like, “…won’t f***ing be quiet!” Soon she walked by with a young woman, and as they passed on the road above our site we heard, “…for just having a good time!”
Aghast, we stared up at them as they passed. The young woman glanced down, then she turned back to Jenny and we heard something like, “I don’t f***ing care if they are!” followed by her adding, “Quiet hours at ten o’clock. Ten o’clock!”
“Let’s go,” we said to each other. We drove down the road to a nearby campground and discovered an even better site, on a lakeshore with its own beach. We rushed back to our reserved site, where our tent still stood, and ten minutes later we pulled out.
Monday, June 18, 2018 – Morning at Lake Quinault
Once we were set up in our new-and-improved campsite, a great peace descended on me. It just feels so natural to be here. There should be a word for this feeling. It’s the feeling of rightness in place, the absence of the discord I subtly feel in modern society. Not elation, but rest. Peace.
This morning I arose and sat cross-legged on a broad stump that was angled perfectly by the water. I gazed out at the lake and the tall, forested hills rising on the other side. Sometimes a loon lingered in the distance, or a merganser would pass by. Mosquitoes gently harassed me. The morning air was soft and cool and fresh.
I thought about about what I’m after. All my life, I feel like I’ve been honing in on some question and hopefully an answer, and an answer that could make sense for many people, not just for me. It has to do with resolving how we relate to the earth. Just now, making breakfast as I wait for Ron, a piece illuminates, a clear question: Can we have both?
Can we have a world like my Peace Corps village, where people live off of more physical labor and (because of their poverty) live in closeness to nature, and have the most important elements of modern society, such as education, egalitarianism, knowledge of medicine, and the stability and organization and even military might necessary to maintain general peace?
Monday morning I walked alone to Gatton Creek Falls. As soon as I entered the forest, reverence came over me and I slowed my pace. This was an old forest. It was different from what’s around Portland—everywhere there were nurse logs and snags and giant trees. It seemed to have a soul.
As I made my way along the narrow trail, I felt awed and overcome by an emotion I couldn’t name, a quietness, a deep, sweet aching. I felt as though the land was singing to me. It was a song filled with ancient love and tragedy, the story of what has been lost, what is important. I felt love for the forest, love from the forest.
Normally I’m afraid when I walk alone in the woods, unreasonably afraid of wild animals, but even though I knew there might be cougars here, my feeling of peace and reverence was so great that fear didn’t make sense.
Sometimes the trail would enter mysterious thickets of tiny saplings or shoots, each only an inch or two across, paralleling each other as they reached for the sky, creating dark areas on the trail.
I like to lay a hand on trees as I pass them, to try, through my touch, to communicate with them—to communicate love and to hear their voices.
I felt mesmerized.
I reached Gatton Creek Falls, where a slightly embarrassed-looking dad was down in the creek below the bridge with his teenage daughters. I always get annoyed at people who go off trails, but again the peace of the forest was so great in me that my annoyance felt distant. I leaned on the railing and gazed upstream at the perfect step pools of the waterfall, and watched one of the many butterflies we’d seen as it fluttered along the creek’s path, till it finally crossed the bridge and disappeared again into the forest.
I returned to Ron as if in a happy dream. After lunch we explored the little town of Quinault and bought ice for the cooler (where I had all my probiotic food and our lunches and dinners), then headed back to the site. It was cloudier that night. I am glad that I left the tent to pee in the middle of the very first night—it would be the only night I’d see the bright stars.
Monday had been windy and cold by the lake, but Tuesday was calmer and warmer. We left earlier that morning and walked the Rain Forest Trail, which was even more magical, except not quite as powerful because I wasn’t alone. I think this must be the trail I remember visiting with my sister and Dad as a teenager. It was spectacular rainforest, with moss-draped trees overlooking a beautiful little river gorge. Again I felt that reverence, that same deep peace. We walked slowly.
Once, a loud family full of teenagers passed us, and I struggled with anger. I realized that I always get angry when I feel people aren’t treating Nature with reverence. I don’t know what to do with this anger. It feels righteous, like Jesus and the moneylenders—Nature is my temple. I reflected on the Mattieu Ricard interview with Krista Tippett, which I’d listened to on the drive up. He said “happiness” isn’t about only feeling happy, but about learning the tools, such as mindfulness. It’s about learning the resources to deal with each emotion as it comes.
Thursday, June 21, 2018 – On the trail
Wednesday we set off early for our backpacking trip. We were on the trail by 10:15 after a very dusty drive down the gravel road to Graves Creek Campground. The forest was again beautiful, but I soon could hardly enjoy it because my pack made the walking arduous. My shoulders began to hurt and the pain crept up my neck, almost giving me a headache, making me feel rattled and strained.
After lunch at Pony Bridge we continued on, and to my surprise my knees and legs still held up okay. I was even up for continuing past O’Neil, and we went a couple extra miles.
The highlight of the day came around O’Neil or just past it. I was hiking first and Ron second, and I heard a branch snap ahead and said I thought I heard a large animal. I clacked my poles together in case it was a bear. Then I saw two elk, a bull and cow, moving down toward the river on the hill that swept down from the trail. They were maybe 200 feet away. They saw us and froze. Two calves hurried ahead of them, and soon we realized there was a whole herd below us—we could see at least 12 or 15 animals, but there were probably more hidden by the hillslope behind us. They all stood or lay in the meadow below us, chewing and staring the way ungulates do, ears all pointed straight out from their heads like giraffes’, heads uniformly swiveled to face us.
“They don’t charge people, do they?” I murmured, eyeing the bull, who was obviously in command. Ron said he didn’t think so.
It was thrilling. Our heavy packs were forgotten. Eventually, we continued on.
As always, the forest was beautiful. It had changed—we were no longer in rainforest, just beautiful forest and often meadows blanketing the ground beneath sprawling maples. I couldn’t remember a landscape quite like this, couldn’t recall natural meadows that hadn’t been created as parks or lawns. Short grasses and forbes grew on the ground and sunlight was interspersed with the maples’ shade.
At last, around 8 miles in and with me fast running out of steam, we found a “dispersed camping site” beyond No Name Creek and before Pyrites. It’s on the bank of the Quinault, and the rushing river makes us have to say everything loudly, but otherwise it’s perfect, with a little side channel for getting water and bathing. We’re excited at the site and I was pleased to have made it here, and to be able to day hike without my pack the next day. After dinner we retired early to the cozy, somewhat quieter tent, and read till we fell asleep—I finished Autobiography of a Face.
It does feel so healing, so healthy, to be here. I feel so grateful to be able to do this again, and hope there is never again a time in my life when illness keeps me from wild places for very long.
Sunday, June 24, 2018 – Written after returning home
The next day we hiked around 5.5 miles to the Chalet at the Enchanted Valley, then up valley another mile or two, where Ron continued on after lunch while I read and rested my aching legs. It was great to hike without the pack. I could enjoy the forest again, could look up, up, up at the many giant trees without straining my neck.
Again there was a lot of meadow along with the forest. Grouse—sooty grouse, we’d later learn—had appeared at times the day before and we could often hear the males drumming. In the Enchanted Valley, the waterfalls were of course spectacular, but as always, because I expected them to be spectacular, they didn’t move me nearly as much as the two hikes earlier in the week. We eventually met up again and headed back to the site, proud of hiking around 13 and around 16 miles, respectively. That night, both my IT bands ached so much I lost some sleep.
Friday we packed up and hiked out. I was looking forward to being clean and not carrying my pack anymore, although this time I did enjoy the first part of the hike, before the pain again crept into my shoulders and neck. And we saw another bull elk and two little bear cubs, which was thrilling once we were safely away from the danger—we didn’t know where their mother was.
On the trail, I began scheming. We can invest in ultralight gear. I bet we could cut our load in half, or nearly so. A few of the other backpackers had much smaller packs, though most had packs that looked like ours. But most also had sturdier-looking bodies than mine, and with my tiny legs and delicate frame, it makes sense to carry a lighter load. Then I’d have more hope of traversing mountains like the Wallowas, where we’re hoping to go in August.
The hike that day was largely down a gentle incline and the weather had cooled, so despite the labor I didn’t sweat very much. Still, I was more relieved than sad to arrive in the dusty parking lot and finally take the pack off.
All in all, it was a great trip and made me want to do more like it soon. It was sometimes physically arduous, but it was so healthy and revitalizing emotionally/spiritually. My body feels good. My knees and IT bands don’t hurt—I survived. I feel thrilled to have done this much. This trip—figuring out how to backpack—was my main goal for 2018. My leash, which tethers me to the refrigerator, has lengthened. My gut did fine for those three days. I think it could do more!! I can go into the wilderness again, like we used to! It requires more planning now, but that’s okay, and the more we do it, the less planning we’ll need.
It’s funny—I had these powerful experiences just car camping, and backpacking is so much more trouble. You’d think it wouldn’t be worth it. But backpacking is 1) a test of physical ability, and thus a motivator to get in shape and a really satisfying feat to accomplish, 2) a chance to get into real wilderness areas that can’t be seen from roads, and—almost most importantly of all, in some ways—3) a reprieve from the worst elements of humanity, who generally don’t go backpacking but do show up in campgrounds.
Most of the people on the trail were cheerful and there was a spirit of camaraderie. There were some snobs, I thought, and one single, illegal dog, but for the most part people seemed earnest and healthy and to care about the places we were all working so hard to get to. (When we mentioned the dog to a ranger on the trail, he said he’d heard about it from others.)
Last night, Ron coyly asked me which was harder, life here or life backpacking. I laughed. Life here is so much harder mentally than backpacking that it’s hard to decide! We are pulled in so many directions. Saturday had been filled with unpacking, texting and emailing, and preparing for a potluck that night.
I still feel the lingering effects of the forest. In meditation this morning I pictured its trees, the Quinault River, the lake. I can still feel that deep peace under everything I’m doing. The forest regulated me, rebalanced me.
