Local Overnight Trip

In preparation for a trip out to New Mexico next week, and in spite of predicted bad weather here, I did a shakedown overnight trip to nearby Hardesty Mountain. I was on the road by 9:15 for the forty minute trip up to the trailhead. An old familiar trip for me through 50 to 100 year old forest, my route follows Forest Service roads for 3/4ths of the hike then detours to a steep trail. The trail switchbacks up a ridge passing through a couple of groves of old growth trees on its way to the top of the mountain. My goal was about halfway up the ridge to the first grove. There were no signs of the predicted thunderstorms, but things change.

As I parked the car, a guy in a Toyota passed by headed out to the highway. That was the last car I saw for the rest of the trip. The sun was out with blue cloudless skies and 60 degrees. I worked my way up slowly gaining about 1,700 ft in the first 7.5 miles along the road. Then I plunged into the forest on the Lost Creek Trail up a gentle grade. I few hundred yards further and I came to a road. A road that had not been there last year. I checked my map. Yes I was in the right place and the map showed an old two track had once gone through here. As with many tracks and trails in the NW woods it must have been abandon and overgrown in the past when I walked this trail. Unfortunately, someone had decided to open it up again and now it transected my deep woods trail. An ugly muddy scar ripped through the heart of the forest. I crossed and continued along the trail.

Pretty soon I got to the switchbacks and the real climbing began. It goes up about 600 feet in a mile, but when you finish that mile you arrive at a bench with a nice grove of old big trees. I pushed on and when I finally got to the bench the sun suddenly disappeared. I heard the first clap of thunder and the wind came up. The storm had snuck up from the other side of the mountain.

Well, no rest for me. I got out my tarp and set it up immediately, which was a good thing, because the drops of rain started to come down about 5 minutes later. I was able to get my hammock up before it really started coming down, so was sitting there in the hammock as the lightning made its way toward me. All the time the rain was getting heavier. The wind had gone from dead calm to a gale, howling through the treetops. Luckily, it mostly affected the canopy. Down where I was, it was just gusty. What I did not notice was that the temp had dropped from 65 down to about 40 over just a few minutes. Even though I was dry and out of the brunt of the weather, my fingertips went numb from the cold, before I figured out that it was only 8 degrees above freezing, I really got pretty chilled. I got my warm layers on and fumbled with my stove to get some hot water going. Fortunately the main part of the strorm passed just NE of my location and I was spared local fireworks, but the rain and wind lingered for an hour. Eventually the whole thing moved away and the sun came out again, so I was able to warm up.

The temperature was mild overnight and I got a good nights sleep. But I did wake up in a fog. Not the mental kind, but a real foggy fog. It lent an vail of mystery to the woods which persisted as I made my way down the mountain to the car. When I got back to the newly reconstituted scar of a road, I decided to take it to see where it went. It was a muddy journey, but it eventually lead to a spot that my map said was another old two track. But it turned out to be a pretty nice gravel road heading back where I want to go. So on I went though beautiful forest, eventually rejoining the road I had ascended on the day before. When I reached the car, all was well and I headed back to Eugene. So it was a 20 mile round trip with 2,200 feet of elevation gain and loss.