Because I had recently secured a teaching job for the 2019-2020 school year, ending four months of searching, applying, and interviewing, and because we were about to move from our small apartment to a 3-bedroom house, and because my summer school job was about to start, I decided to take a few days and run for the hills to find some peace and alpine wildflowers before things really ramped up. With Brooks' blessing and tent, I drove six hours to the northernmost trailhead of the Kettle Crest Ridge North trail outside Republic, Washington.
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| I crossed over the Columbia River |
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| I drove past the Grand Coulee Dam |
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| Before! |
I was armed with my GaiaGPS map of the area, though it lacked a trail. I took photos of
Craig Romano's trail map and description.
The beginning of the trail was in a very recent fire zone. Blackened trees were shrouded with young willow branches and fireweed sprouts. It. Was. Hot. But as I gained elevation, flowers emerged everywhere. Hillsides were covered in bright colors, birds flitted, and pollinators dodged my steps from atop opportunistic flowers growing in the middle of the trail.
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| 2017 burn |
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| The wind on this ridge was refreshing after the heat from the burn and beautiful to listen to; it sounded like whistling. |
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| Granite rock flaking or hatching dinosaur egg? |
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| These mountain bluebirds were everywhere! |
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| Prime season for lupine |
About 7 pm and ten miles in, I opted to make camp right along the trail in a fantastic flat area on the ridge. I know Melissa would be shaking her head that I camped among burned trees...
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| Camp for night 1 |
During dinner, I heard a bird chirping, and then the next thing I heard, it sound like either a really ripping fart or a plane crashing towards earth, but it lasted for maybe one second. Then the bird chirping began again, and a few moments later, the diving plane noise happened again. I had to find out where this noise was coming from. It wasn't a plane, it wasn't Superman, but it was a bird! It would chirp as it circled and gained elevation and then it would suddenly dive toward earth with incredible speed and that noise was caused from the diving. I suspected it was eating bugs... like diving with its beak open; Brooks suggested it was a mating display. So I had to Google it, and Brooks was right! Google said it was a Nighthawk mating display. Listen to it
here.
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| Beautiful sunset |
Once in the tent and changing out of my hiking clothes, I found a
TICK! It had bitten me, twice, but was not latched on to me. I flicked it off and had the heebeejeebees all night. It was worse than a bear scare!
The next morning was gorgeous and I dallied in the flowers (if I misidentified any, let me know! I spent significant time with our
plant book trying to identify some of these):
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| Rose |
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| Paintbrush |
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Balsamroot of some sort... I think
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| Lance leaf stonecrop |
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| Wild strawberries were prolific |
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| Alpine Aster? Fleabane? How do you tell them apart? |
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| Forget-me-nots, the state flower of Alaska. These were on a bush up to my waist! |
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| Phacelia |
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| More lupine! |
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| Groundsel |
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| Currant bush and a baby larch tree |
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| Columbine |
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| Jacob's Ladder |
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| Could these be pink yarrow buds? |
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| A terrible name for a pretty, petite flower: broomrape |
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Shrubby Penstemon
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| Prairie Star |
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Because I was so taken with the flowers and the scenery, it never dawned on me that I was descending too far. Once I hit the road, I knew I'd made an error. I spent some time flipping back and forth between GaiaGPS and the image of the map from the hiking book in order to identify my location and locate the correct trail.
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| Oops! Also starred in a game camera for a moment at the head of this road. |
Once I was back on track and located the correct trail, I placed sticks on the trail so that I wouldn't take the wrong trail on my way back:
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| When you come to the fork, go right, Lindsey! |
I hiked out of the recent burn and into a much, much older burn with trees regrown and taller than me!
I began to ascend to the highest of all the Kettles, Copper Butte. This peak used to be a fire lookout station.
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| "Relics" are what the guidebook called it... how about old trash? |
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| Multiple piles of rocks. Notice the old bed frame atop it. Notice what looks like dirt at the bottom of the pile... |
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| At the bottom of the pile of rocks was thousands of lady bug carcasses! |
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| The second game camera of the day I starred in. Science! I should have made a silly face! |
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| The view from Copper Butte, the highest point on the ridge |
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The previous trail report called for deep, deep snow. But this was what was left on the whole trail. I kept searching for pink snow but to no avail.
I then descended through the forest en route for a camp spot with water; my water bladder had gone dry.
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| Spring at Jungle Hill Trail |
Day two was a 15-mile day, not counting my foray into the wrong turn. At the end of day two, I, AGAIN, found a tick! Luckily, this one had been squashed under the elastic it was hiding under and never bit me. But the heebeejeebees returned! Damn those ticks! The most recent burn had high brush that I assumed was leading to the tick invasion. Day 2, I had hiked with my pants tucked into my socks, making my style one Aladdin would be envious of.
Day three, I retraced my steps of Day 2, heading back the 15 miles I had hiked previously. I noticed quite a few tracks in the mud... dry, old tracks:
Tracks of elk, deer, cow, and even little baby ungulate prints covered the ground.
Because day three was cooler, because I had already taken all my flower photos, and because I didn't get lost again due to my stellar trail markings for my return trip, I returned to the camping area with a few extra hours. I decided to scramble to the summit of Mount Leona that overlooked my camp location. I had seen from a distance that some type of structure and radar sat at the peak so I went up for a closer look: roughly 1 mile and 1,000 feet of elevation gain.
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Mount Leona from a distance
Looking up to begin the scramble
The structures at the top |
Heading back down the mile scramble, the ground squirrels were on high alert!
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| Ground squirrel--much of the scat on the trail had red fur in it... |
I also startled a cow elk on my hike down! At first, I thought,
That was a HUGE deer! But then it dawned on me that the white rump was indicative of elk! Very cool!
I camped back in the same location as night one and the mating sound of the Nighthawk was the last thing I heard that night and woke me up with the early light about 4:30 am... He is persistent...
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| In the same forest, I spotted a field of blueberries! |
I am happy to report there were no ticks the night of camp #3! My tucked-in pants were doing the trick. I was also being very careful of what I touched along the trail and constantly checking my arms and legs for bugs.
On the final day, the hike out, I again made better time than the hike in since I had seen and smelled all the flowers along the trail at this point. It was a hot day back in the blackened forest. A lovely couple I ran into on the end of my trip invited me back to Republic at the end of the month for an outdoor festival that would include mountain bikers riding the Kettle Crest Ridge trail. I told the couple of how I had cleared some of the trees from the trail or smashed some enough to be able to walk over them. The high brush would make being the first rider on that bike group not so much fun, but perhaps the 50th would have a great cleared trail ahead of them!
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| This little squirrel was my last sighting of wildlife |
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| Example of a downed tree that needed smashing |
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| Burned out trees falling over into the trail; smashing did the trick. |
Final items of note:
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| In Alaska, seeing plants whose tops had been chomped off was a common occurrence, but not in Seattle. It was exciting to see this! Just below two big piles of bear scat. |
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| This National Forest land allows for cattle grazing so most streams have a trough at some location. |
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| Another spring-fed trough |
Because there was no trail on GaiaGPS of the route, I recorded my track and posted to GaiaGPS for others to use. This is a beautiful area!
What did I gain?
Melissa also knows me by my trail name: Midnight Rise. I pass out after dinner and sleep for a solid 4-5 hour chunk, but then I wake up and am nervous about every sound I hear. The first night, I started to freak myself out, but I thought of the article and how much safer I am in the woods than in our downtown Seattle apartment. I repeated the mantra "I am safe, I am safe" until I was able to go to sleep. After that first fear the first night, I was much calmer the rest of the nights.
There was a 36-hour time span where I did not see another human. I noticed that the serenity of the birds and bee buzzing and wind was a very calm sound and my voice was very brusque. When I shouted "Hey, Bear. Coming through!" for the first time in the day, my voice nearly startled me. When I hit my knee on a branch and shouted "ouch!" my voice caught me off guard.
As with all backpacking trips, focusing on the basics of life out there, like food, water, shelter, and walking, helped calm my mind. Living in Seattle is busy. Very busy. Life in the mountains is slow. I felt a calmness inside of me, leaving my anxieties behind.
So, yes, I did reconnect with nature and stopping to literally smell the flowers helped me do that. Sleeping under the stars helped me do that. I don't think the biting ticks helped, but filtering water from little streams did. But not only did I reconnect with nature, but I also reconnected with myself. I kept thinking about the John Muir quote on my blog: "In every walk with nature, one receives far more than [she] seeks." I was thinking that it definitely applied to my time on the trail. My mind was processing long-ago events as well as more recent events. I thought about my upcoming job and brainstormed ideas. I was able to focus on just me and my thoughts and my needs and consider emotions and actions. I was very excited to get home to Brooks and I sincerely missed his presence on the trail, but I know I'll be doing a solo trip every year from now on.
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| After! |
