Camping day 2.

So we moved...and for those of you who have been on the edge of their seats waiting for me to write about the second day of my camping adventure with Jason, well I'm not sorry. Its kinda like when you watch a Macgyver episode that gets the "to be continued". You know its going to happen...you're looking at your watch thinking, hmm this isn't going to be wrapped up at all. Then bam!! You have to wait another week to see what happens next! Anyways, prepare yourself for another long post because I can't seem to keep these short, and I'm sorry.

Day two...hmm. Well yeah we woke, a bit cold, but both excited to be alive. We cruised over to our food sling and found that despite everything we had heard that night that it was in fact, still intact, and without any sorts of animal tracks. I actually thought I saw one odd looking footprint but it turned out to just be Jasons shoe smeared a bit. The morning brought an awesome sunrise to us and the pics don't do it justice. We thought we were in the perfect spot for some killer pics but the sun managed to fool our instincts and come up to the right of the mountains.

Breakfast was quick and easy. Bran muffins, yum yum. I love them, and ate two to Jasons one. Next we proceeded to pack up our campsite, without speaking more than 10 words the entire time. Jason and I worked like clockwork. It was as if our ESP powers were screaming loud and clear. I don't know how long it took, because I don't wear a watch when camping (who does, really...) but I swear we were packed up and ready to go before that bear behind the bush was finished taking a dookie! JK, no bear sightings yet.

We cruised up to this place called "Lovers Trail" as I mentioned before. Most popular trail in the area. I found this to be pretty funny because when Jason and I were painting houses together our boss used to call us the "gay duo". So here we were the gay duo heading up to hike lovers trail, hoohhaww.

The weather had taken a turn. I was pleased that it was cooler because I sweat and warm up pretty easily, however, it was really starting to threaten rain. I didn't have nifty rain gear like jason and his water PROOF titanium columbia jacket, but then again what are we, little fruity wimps that even need rain proof jackets? :) JK Jason. After memorizing the map, which was horrible by the way, we headed out onto the trail which we thought would be either 7 miles round trip or 7 miles one way to this cabin up in the hills. Either way, we were going to go for a few hours and then turn back because the last thing we wanted to do was find and setup camp in the dark.

The trail was cool. At first, I was all eyes and ears making sure we didn't run into a bear and spook it into bear hugging us. As the miles wore down our bodies though, our focus became less and less for bear watching and more of just getting up that trail! Towards the end it got steep enough that stairs were made out of the rocks to help hikers. Also, the higher we got the colder and windier it got! I had three layers on and was fine but with the way things were going, I couldn't help imagine us getting stuck in a storm and ending up on an episode of, "I shouldn't be alive"!

Boy the trail was scenic though, almost taking away the pain of hiking. The forest was full of both deciduous and fir trees which created a beautiful yellow/orange/red and green array of colors. We couldn't hear a thing from the outside world, I mean this was wilderness baby! It was pretty cool.

Near the top we came to a meadow and an area with benches around a fire. It looked like a popular spot to hang out with hippies and smoke the reefer. Only when we found it, there was nobody there, not even an old marshmellow wrapped up in some dirt. This bothered us a bit...I mean, here we were, hiking just fine out into the wilderness on a nice weekend, and nobody else was here? Were we missing something? Was there supposed to be a blizzard coming through at 6000 feet that is going to put us on ice?

At this point we almost turned back. We had been hiking for roughly 2 hours and knew that pretty soon we would have to turn back to have enough time to scout out a new campsite and setup before dark. It also hard started to drizzle a bit. Not being ones to puss out when the going got tough, we decided to press on for at least 20 more minutes.

We were lucky, because after roughly another 200 yards we came to the cabin! The cabin was a bust though, all boarded up, worthless to us. However, the view was great. The marble mountain posed in front of us majestically as we took it in. We could see the trees thin towards the top of them and knew we were high. The wind started to pick up and snow began to fall. We stopped to eat cold meatloaf in tortillas and reveled in our accomplishments. But for Jason, it was not enough.

Jason has this weird thing that he explained to me as an urge to reach the highest point. For the most part, he wanted to do this in his truck, but now that we were at the cabin, he really wanted a few more hours to go explore up to the top of the marble mountains. Unfortunately, we couldn't...the rest and food had made us cold and the conditions were getting worse. I had three layers on but was beginning to shiver! We had to head down now...

The snow turned to rain as our elevation decreased and what used to be a nice little drizzle turned into quite the downpour. Rain began flowing down the path, eroding little streaks of water into the landscape and making it slippery to navigate some portions. The canopy was not thick enough in most places to stop it, and I began to get pretty dang wet. I had a wool button up shirt on the outside, cotton long sleeve as a middle layer, and a wick-away shirt under that. I was warm, just wet!

Soon enough, water was everywhere, running down my face, neck, nose. Spots on my pants got wet as they were continuously exposed to the rain while walking, and I could feel the water soaking into my outer layer pretty bad. No worries, though, I'm an oregonian right? :)

We reached the base of the trail in good time and tried to figure out where we had hiked and how far by looking at the map. Like I mentioned earlier, the map sucked and so we couldn't figure out either. Next on the agenda was finding a new campsite! Not that the old one wasn't good but Jason wanted to explore the other side of the mountain range we were on and I had to oblige. I'm not gonna hold a man back...it took a long time though, lol.

We wandered down the face of the mountain on back roads, then split off up into the hills on the other side. The problem we encountered though was that with the conditions of where the roads were, there weren't a lot of eligible campsites. We wanted cover from the elements, flat ground, and then perhaps another magnificent view. Most of the places on the sides of this road we were on, were steep, with wimpy pine trees. Plus the road went higher and higher, and that made it windier and colder!

Finally, our "view" dreams had to be compromised. The sun was setting behind the dark clouds and light from it began to dwindle. We had seen a spot down low on the mountain next to a creek that we though might provide us with at least 2 of our three reqs and so we headed down to check it out further and make our camp.

Well it turned out to be a perfect spot. Pat ourselves on the back for just being perfect campsite pick-er-outers! The tree cover was great, but the rain had permeated so thoroughly through that it was now throwing big droplets down onto us. Our first engineering task was to setup a tarp to keep our new found home dry. Under any other circumstances, I believe this would have proved difficult. However, with Jasons civil engineering background and my mechanical engineering skills, well this was just another day at the office.

As you can see from the pics, it turned out pretty good. The tarp spread over a sizable portion of ground space, in which we were able to place our tent and gear. The fire pit, which was bigger and better this time around, was on the fringe as to not choke us with smoke all night....or so we thought. Seemingly the only thing we hadn't thought of was wind direction. The wind ended up blowing away from our fringe fire, right into the rest of our covered area which meant our faces and tent! Eventually, after a few more adjustments to the rain tarp, we were able to sit comfortably apart from each other and watch the smoke go between us.

Actually jason was able to sit comfortably. My chair had gotten all wet and I was having a heck of a time getting it dry! I ended up mostly just using the cooler to rest my buns on. Jason made stroganoff for dinner, one of my old favorites from college, and I ate about twice as much as him once again.

The weird thing about the campsite was that with all the large droplets of water falling, it always seemed to sound like a bear or deer was coming up on us from behind, which would be the steep rocky grade going up to another road. I swear, it was like rocks were cascading down a hill all the time. We looked and looked and there was never anything there! Talk about screwing with your mind!

The evening wore on and we quickly became bored with the smoke, rain, and being damp. We decided to turn in for the night and retire to the warmth and comfort of a 15F sleeping bag and an air mattress. I pulled myself away from the wall of the tent so that I wouldn't get wet through the night and focused on not trying to let the sounds of the rain and night trick me into being frightened. I chose to suck it up that night, rather than freak out the night before and it worked well. Jason and I slept roughly 12 hours!

Jason really wanted to call in sick for Tuesday and stay another night out there with me. There was lots more exploring to be done, hiking, and fighting the elements. These are all the sorts of things that make you feel like a man and we liked that feeling. Plus, you couldn't beat the camaraderie and respect we had for each other. Oh...and not to mention the fluid way this "gay duo" just works.

Jason if you're readin this I love you man, and next up - the Rockies!

-Travis