Kristian and I, the epic and amazing trail crew are next sent up to Domke. I catch the ferry and am overwhelmed by a bunch of high school kids that are on their way to Holden for the weekend. There's about 200 of them. - we hear later from some Holden friends that they play jokes on the high schoolers, awesome ideas... they pull over one bus on the way to the village at a 'security checkpoint' and drag off the bus driver explaining to the kids that they don't have a Russian bus driver. They plant a few bags of clothes in the truck that is hauling all the gear and stop at a bridge and start chucking stuff out of the truck. Opening the planted bags and tossing clothes everywhere. It's Adidas bags, something a lot of kids have and they exclaim 'hey! that's my stuff'.
I escaped the ferry, finally found by pack in the gear and rescued it from being hauled up to Holden and chucked off the bridge. Up the trail to Domke we go. My pack is heavy. We compared packs, mine was heavier, I also had the saw strapped to it. We complained a lot as we put on our packs and started hiking up. I remembered from last season that I almost died going up this trail. It was my first trip, my pack was extremely heavy (I hadn't learned to pack yet), I remember it took me a ridiculous amount of time to get up to the lake, and I had to stop and take a lot of breaks... this time we rocked up the trail in and hour and a half. As much as we complained at first, we were there in no time. To the lake w/ Sid's cabins and some friendly neighbours in the campground.
Our neighbours had been up at the lake for the whole weekend, fishing, picking mushrooms and drinking. They have been coming up to the lake on this same weekend for about 9 years. This time they had taken a float plane in because they go deluxe and got tired of hauling up 90 lb packs. They still had leftover beer and food and were hiking out the next morning, so we helped them lighten their packs. An evening around the fire finishing off the beer, they sauted up some morels, had baked a cake. good night.
We were logging out the Emerald Park trail, supposedly until we hit snow. We never hit snow, we just ran out of time to actually make it to the park. We got about four miles up. Fighting with logs, picking morels along the way- we could pick them or step on them, so we saved them from a sad destruction.
Some nice thunderstorms while we were out there. Kristian walks up the trail to where I'm working at one point and just laughs for a few minutes after seeing me. Finally she asks 'I wonder what my face looks like?'. The rain on top of working in a burn area and my face somehow became covered in soot. And another day spent working in the rain. The raingear only worked for about half an hour, and then we were soaked thru the whole day. Stopping for lunch we got too cold, so w/out breaks we just kept doggedly working on, hiking up hill some more, figuring if we kept working we'd eventually feel our fingers again... we did... eventually. The only time I really enjoy rain while camping is at night when I'm cozy in my tent. There's some comforting feeling to hear the rain patter and the thunder. (However while I'm in the rain, there's a different feeling towards it).
Wildlife: Sid's free range horses. They wandered up to us from somewhere in the wilderness and talked w/ us. We saw them a couple times. Very pretty horses, they appeared to be dwarf horses- but not quite ponies. We were told later they were Norwegian Fjord horses, built for packing.
I heard the loon again. Such a haunting call. Haunting and soothing at the same time.
Soon enough we were packing our tents up again to head down to the ferry, but first we scrambled to a place called Stewart Camp, further along the lake, where remains from a camp are left. The camp has been closed since the Domke fire in 07. Along the way we watched a float plane land on the lake, and then we saw a guy leaning out of the cockpit and paddling the plane along the lake. Yes, paddling a plane. The plane looked interesting for a float plane, it's body was the ski, and it was sitting low in the water. The pilot tied off the plane to a log in the middle of the lake, and then he and his buddy fished from the plane. One guy was sitting in his camp chair on the front of the plane, the other was leaning against a propeller. And there they fished.
We worked our way down the trail. Digging drainages. I do not like working w/ my pack. Each time I take it off to work for 2 minutes, and then have to heft it back on hurts more and more. My pack technically should have been lighter than 5 days ago, but I had filled it w/ mushrooms and of all things had left over food. Great, pack is just as heavy as. Yet finally, we made it down the trail, not too much worse for the wear. The weather gods had decided to bring the clouds and wind back, so we were unable to swim before getting on the boat. Too bad for the other passengers.
Very happy when our boss picked us up from Field's Point- the ferry stop. We had been waiting for a while and were developing a plan on how to hitch hike w/ our saw and pulaskis and packs. But we smiled sweetly at him and he stopped at Pat and Mike's for us where our favorite person who works there, was still there, and we got waffle cones filled w/ lots of yummy ice cream. Always ice cream.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
The summer in Chelan begins
1. I sleep in the yard.
After one wild week of being stateside again, I return to Chelan to work. A friend picks me up from the train station, dinner and then I arrive at Aunt Kathryn's. They had told me they would be at their farm, so I find the spare key... and the door won't open. It's the only door to the house that you can unlock from outside, but apparently I can't.
I search for an idea of what to do. It's 11:30, everything is closed, too late to call, I'm tired... so I pull my tent out of my pack set it up in their front yard and call it a night... to wake up at 6 in the morning to the sound of Bob opening the front door, surprised to see a tent in the yard 'well Adelaide, the house is open now, come on in'. And that was that. They had decided to come back from the farm early, and forgot to expect me, and apparently the key to the house doesn't open the deadbolt, no one had ever tried before, so no one knew. Kathryn was just glad the sprinklers didn't come on during the night.
Yeah, this is going to be a good summer.
2. On to the trails.
My coworker Kristian and I swapped New Zealand stories while I spent the day filling out bureaucratic paperwork and getting gear. The pain was short lived though. The boss was out of the office, and while out injured his thumb and had to get stitches. Ken is a great boss, just longwinded, makes the paperwork drag on.
I'm immediately sent into the field to work with a WTA crew for the week. I love volunteers. There were 12 on the crew, most of them retired, a few librarians, and one younger girl. I got to look official in my uniform and go over saw safety and how to use a radio.
We were camping at Prince Creek and working on the Prince and Lakeshore trails. And they were CAMPING. A boat had shuttled all our gear up, so it was like car camping. They had a huge cook tent, tons of food, camp chairs, big tents, packs full of who knows what. I enjoyed eating their food. They had plenty to spare, and it was nice to eat real cooked meals every morning and night. Campfires, guitar picking, and yoga. Someone asked if I could lead yoga, and a bunch of them joined me fora sun salutation.
I met the legend Gary Zinc. Last season we had been working on Agnes and were supposed to meet up with him. But he started working on the trail from the other side. We never saw him, but we saw the trail he cleared, and heard stories of him carrying his 60 pound pack and 3 saws. He really does carry 3 saws all by himself, and he is the sweetest guy, retired from working at Boeing, and out working trails for fun. 7 days w/ WTA, they were sad when I left, while I was happy to go home and take a shower and have one day off.
After one wild week of being stateside again, I return to Chelan to work. A friend picks me up from the train station, dinner and then I arrive at Aunt Kathryn's. They had told me they would be at their farm, so I find the spare key... and the door won't open. It's the only door to the house that you can unlock from outside, but apparently I can't.
I search for an idea of what to do. It's 11:30, everything is closed, too late to call, I'm tired... so I pull my tent out of my pack set it up in their front yard and call it a night... to wake up at 6 in the morning to the sound of Bob opening the front door, surprised to see a tent in the yard 'well Adelaide, the house is open now, come on in'. And that was that. They had decided to come back from the farm early, and forgot to expect me, and apparently the key to the house doesn't open the deadbolt, no one had ever tried before, so no one knew. Kathryn was just glad the sprinklers didn't come on during the night.
Yeah, this is going to be a good summer.
2. On to the trails.
My coworker Kristian and I swapped New Zealand stories while I spent the day filling out bureaucratic paperwork and getting gear. The pain was short lived though. The boss was out of the office, and while out injured his thumb and had to get stitches. Ken is a great boss, just longwinded, makes the paperwork drag on.
I'm immediately sent into the field to work with a WTA crew for the week. I love volunteers. There were 12 on the crew, most of them retired, a few librarians, and one younger girl. I got to look official in my uniform and go over saw safety and how to use a radio.
We were camping at Prince Creek and working on the Prince and Lakeshore trails. And they were CAMPING. A boat had shuttled all our gear up, so it was like car camping. They had a huge cook tent, tons of food, camp chairs, big tents, packs full of who knows what. I enjoyed eating their food. They had plenty to spare, and it was nice to eat real cooked meals every morning and night. Campfires, guitar picking, and yoga. Someone asked if I could lead yoga, and a bunch of them joined me fora sun salutation.
I met the legend Gary Zinc. Last season we had been working on Agnes and were supposed to meet up with him. But he started working on the trail from the other side. We never saw him, but we saw the trail he cleared, and heard stories of him carrying his 60 pound pack and 3 saws. He really does carry 3 saws all by himself, and he is the sweetest guy, retired from working at Boeing, and out working trails for fun. 7 days w/ WTA, they were sad when I left, while I was happy to go home and take a shower and have one day off.
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