The tragedy added to Hood’s sordid history, which includes a snowboarder who slipped off an icy ridge and plunged 2,500 feet to his death (also in 2002) and seven high school students and two teachers who froze to death in 1986.
Mount Hood’s deadly disposition was well disguised on the bright sunny day when we left Timberline Lodge, and skirted its slopes to the west. Cotton-ball clouds floated around the volcano’s cone while wisps of fog settled in the uppermost gullies, giving the mountain a soft, hazy aspect.
Traversing Hood’s flanks, we walked through fine sand and fields of yellow and purple flowers. Glacier-fed streams raging down steep canyons were milky white with “rock milk.” Just as we crossed one of the streams, a dog came rushing out of the bushes barking viciously. Two curious goats and a man’s yells followed him—“Bessie, Jasper, git back here.” In a clearing just beyond the stream a fortyish man with a round, bald head and glasses sat amongst blankets, a tarp, multiple cooking pots, and sundry bags of other gear. He was a goat-packer, we learned, which meant that his goats (pint-size black and white Bessie and the large, brown Jasper) carried his gear. “Bessie gives good milk, too,” he told us, while she pulled a straw hat from a bag and began eating it. “Goats can walk about fifteen to twenty miles a day and they graze like deer, so you don’t need to carry much food for them.”
“Besides straw hats,” I thought as I watched Bessie nibble the hat’s rim daintily.
Leaving the goats, we descended into a deep, lush forest blanketed with ferns and came upon Ramona Falls. Here a sheet of water rushed over a dark volcanic cliff and broke on a bed of rocks, emitting rainbows in myriad directions. The forest around the falls was so dank and gloomy that any light in the grove seemed to be emanating from the falls themselves.
On the advice of both our guidebook and a local trail maintenance crew, we veered off the PCT at Indian Mountain and headed down steep and muddy Indian Springs Trail to Eagle Creek. We hadn’t gone far down the Eagle Creek Trail when Duffy, who’d taken off his pack and sat down on a rock, held out to me a manure-green, mini-wiener-size slug. I shied away but he kept shoving his mittened hand closer, holding the slimy thing in my face.
“Kiss it. . . . Come on, Chiggy, kiss the banana slug.”
As I stared at the banana slug (which was busy secreting slime), I came to a few conclusions. One, no way was I kissing that mutant sludge ball. Two, since Duffy had already smooched his new oozy buddy, I didn’t plan on kissing him anytime soon, either. And three, someone (possibly the Forest Service) was pumping steroids into the northern Oregon wilderness.
Everything about the area surrounding Eagle Creek (approximately thirty-five miles from Timberline Lodge and 15.6 miles from the Washington border) seemed immensely exaggerated, from the mammoth slugs to the lush undergrowth with leaves the size of dinner plates. I felt like Alice in Wonderland—no, make that Alice in Wonder-jungle.
Light, airy moss hung from the trees like beards. The rocks were covered with carpets of a thick, spongy moss. Countless varieties of fern tickled our legs. Drizzle and dampness augmented the rain-forest effect. But while the verdant wood, literally sweating with dense vegetation, was spectacular, the real star of the show was Eagle Creek itself.
Roaring below us, Eagle Creek was like a watery Rube Goldberg contraption, whipping around corners, cascading into pools that overflowed into falls (and vice versa), pouring over basalt flats, and cutting through cracks. Even the trail along the creek was a wonder. Blasted into the cliffs of volcanic rock and frighteningly narrow, the precarious footpath heightened our sensitivity to the power of the water below. At some especially harrowing stretches trail workers had installed iron hand cables for safety, and I took full advantage of them.
Like a fine piece of classical music, Eagle Creek’s delights started subtly, with rock-bound washes, a fifty-foot cascade, and clear deep pools. Soon, though, the composition built to a crescendo with a two-stage hundred-foot fall sliced into a gorge and hiding around a corner. And the finale, Tunnel Falls (a popular day-hiker attraction) brought us scarily close to the heart of a 150-foot waterfall with the trail actually leading to its showery edge about halfway up, and then ducking, via a narrow, wet tunnel, behind the thundering cascade. And then came the encore, an eighty-foot fall and then the Punch Bowl, a huge pool with a sapphire hue fed by a boisterous, forty-foot plunge. The bowl would have tempted Duffy with a swim if he could have found a way down to it.
Eagle Creek is a hydrophile’s delight. And if we’d stuck to the PCT we would have missed it. While we were down by the creek, the PCT was high and dry above us, plodding through the same pine-forested terrain we’d seen a lot of in Oregon, proving once again that the PCT is not always the most scenic route to Canada.
Because horses and other pack animals are permitted on the PCT, it’s often forced away from major sites such as Eagle Creek and Crater Lake. And rightly so. Heavy hooves can damage trails; hikers and horses are often skittish around one another, making injuries a distinct possibility; and stock (when improperly attended) have a tendency to muddy water sources and defile campsites. This is not to say that the PCT should become horse-free; on the contrary, that would be quite unfair considering that equestrian groups played a critical role in building the trail in the first place and continue to be instrumental in its maintenance.
From Eagle Creek Trail we took a 2.4-mile bike path into the town of Cascade Locks, where I picked up a package from my friend Lisa that contained a new pair of sneakers. With my new shoes hanging off my pack, we headed to the Bridge of the Gods over the Columbia River Gorge. Made of metal and painted blue, the Bridge of the Gods didn’t quite live up to its name; the only godlike thing about the bridge was the fact that when cars whizzed by me on it (there was no sidewalk), I screamed, “Oh, my God!” The risk of becoming road-pizza made taking photographs difficult.
The 1,243-mile Columbia River begins in Canal Flats, British Columbia, and empties into the Pacific Ocean at the Washington coast. Along the way, water temperatures range from thirty-eight to seventy-three degrees. From our vantage point on the bridge, the water appeared clear and inviting, but I knew that it was heavily polluted with neurotoxins and other nasties. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, there are zinc levels sixty times greater than the safe limit for aquatic life in the Columbia River, along with thirty-five different types of pesticides, sixteen at levels higher than is deemed safe for human consumption, and some, like DDT, that are banned. Fourteen dams have created thirteen lakes along the river that are polluted with arsenic, chainsaw-bar oil, slag from metal smelters, sewage, and even nuclear waste. Downriver, in Portland, it’s not safe to swim in the Columbia, eat its fish, or drink its water. The once mighty Columbia, the famous watershed, is in a sorry state, but the boaters below appeared to be blissfully ignorant.
Arriving safely on the other side of the bridge, I looked across the river back into Oregon and couldn’t really wrap my head around the fact that this was it. We were in Washington—the homestretch. I was melancholy yet proud that we’d made it so far. I was excited to see what Washington would bring, but frightened, too. What would happen when this was all over? We’d go home, to Philadelphia. But what then?
Wet!
I COULDN’T BELIEVE ANGELA WOULDN’T DO IT. I was shocked. Didn’t she trust me? Why was she so inhibited? I mean, what was the big deal about a little protein-rich slime on the lips? It would be easy to clean off. To demonstrate the harmless nature of the proposed act, I squatted down and did it myself—gave that slimy chunk of mustard-green slug a big kiss.
As a middle-schooler, I’d taken a weeklong trip to the Pescadero Conservation Alliance in the Santa Cruz Mountains. There, on trails running through redwood forests, naturalist guides encouraged us to join the “Banana Slug Club” by giving one of the slippery buggers a kiss. They told us that because slugs do the dirty work of decomposing the forest floor, kissing one was an excellent way to get “in touch” with nature. As an added bo
nus, it made singing the “Banana Slug Song” around the campfire even more fun—“The way you wiggle your antennae, you know you give me such bliss. Come on, come on, come on banana slug, oh won’t you give me a kiss? BA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA, BA (clap) NA (clap) NA (clap) SLUG!”
My entire seventh grade class smooched slugs that week, including all of the pathologically color-coordinated twelve-year-old girls. But Angela, my hardened mountain lady—she refused to even touch a slug. Nothing I said, did, or attempted to sing could convince her otherwise. “Blaaah . . . yuck!” she responded, and kept walking down the Eagle Creek Trail. Eventually, my persistence started an argument. Neither of us could understand why the other was being so darn stubborn, and so naturally we locked horns. I accused Angela of not trusting me, and she demanded that I be more sensitive.
John Gray, Ph.D., that noted logician of love, would recognize this as a classic case of men and women failing to communicate. “Most couples start out arguing about one thing,” says Gray, “and within five minutes, [they] are arguing about the way they are arguing.” How true. I didn’t really care whether Angela kissed a slug or not, but I was angry that she wouldn’t even consider it. She resolutely dismissed the notion, and this caused me to feel as if she was resolutely dismissing me. I needed her to appreciate that I was right, that kissing a slug was a pretty cool thing to do. . . . “Some people think that she’s gross, but I don’t hear that jive. If it weren’t for my baby now, the forest might not survive. BA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA. . . .”
Even though I was singing at the top of my lungs, thinking this was an effective way of expressing myself, I should have realized that I’d fallen into another communication trap. “When a man feels challenged,” Gray writes, “his attention becomes focused on being right and he forgets to be loving as well. . . . A man unknowingly hurts his partner by speaking in an uncaring manner and then goes on to explain why she should not be upset.”
Well, once again, it was too bad that I hadn’t read Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus before the hike. If I had, I might have understood why we were having such a stupid argument. Ironically, according to Gray, intimacy aggravates conflict. The more intimate we are, the more difficult it is to listen to one another’s opinions without reacting to emotions instead. Automatic defenses come up to protect us from feeling that our partner’s disrespect or disapproval is deserved. And so, “Even if we agree with their point of view, we may stubbornly persist in arguing with them.” Absolutely right! It really was a shame that this John Gray fella hadn’t been hiking with us; he could have helped put everything in proper perspective. But I suppose he was too busy with his own sickly perfect relationship—you know, all open and honest and that kind of crap, making his wife tea when she was tired and dutifully sharpening her knives. The only “gray” with us this day, as it turned out, was the cloud over our moods. We continued to bicker and pout our way to the Washington border.
Eventually the wonders of the Eagle Creek Trail distracted us, and by the time we’d passed over the Columbia River via the Bridge of the Gods our fight was nearly forgotten. I say nearly, because if I’d seen a banana slug on the bridge, inching its way over the metal grates, we’d have been right back where we started. . . . “The way you slide through the forest, you know you look so fine. Come on, come on, come on banana slug, let me follow your slime!” The bridge, however, appeared to be slug-free and so did the town of Stevenson on the northern bank of the Columbia, so we spent a bicker-free night at one of our favorite hospitality establishments, the Econo Lodge.
The following morning was gorgeous—clear and sunny with a crisp taste of fall. We sat in a breakfast booth at Dee’s Kich-Inn, gazing at the windsurfers and para-sailers that dotted the Columbia River, discussing what lay ahead. Many hikers both rave and fret about the 508 miles of Washington’s PCT, especially the last 250 through the Northern Cascades, past Mount Baker and Glacier Peak. As we progressed north, the terrain would become more difficult, with increasingly steep, abrupt climbs followed by rapid descents. But the scenery and ambience would be worth it: Brilliant fall colors, snappy September air, and magnificent mountain vistas awaited us. Provided, of course, that the weather continued to cooperate. So far, our summer had been blessed with meteorological good fortune. For almost four months, while covering 2,100 miles, we’d experienced fewer than eight hours of precipitation—so little, in fact, that we’d nearly forgotten to worry about it. That would soon change.
Several hiking days into Washington the blue skies began to fill with clouds. We passed through the Indian Heaven Wilderness and into the Sawtooth huckleberry fields, where Yakima Indians were harvesting the fall crop. Joining in, we picked handfuls of the tart berries, staining our fingers pleasantly purple in the process. The trail led us through acres of multihued bushes and we tried to grab and swallow berries without breaking stride. On several occasions, Angela performed a black bear impression, squatting to eat the berries directly off the branches. Huckleberries are said to turn bear scat purple—Angela assured me that it had no such effect on Chigger scat.
Finally leaving the Yakima behind, we swept around the west side of Mount Adams, the third-highest North Cascade volcano. Despite being over 12,000 feet high, Mount Adams appeared plump and squat, its girth expanding laterally as if hefty gods had sat on its peak. Past the flanks of Mount Adams, we hiked through an early morning frost over Cispus Pass and into the Goat Rocks Wilderness. From across a wide valley we spotted a herd of white mountain goats, barely distinguishable from patches of snow on the rocky ridge.
Soon we stood at the remnants of the Dana Yvelteron Shelter on the south side of Old Snowy Mountain. Nearly forty years ago, Dana Yvelteron and a group of high school friends were hiking near this section of the PCT when inclement weather descended on them. With Dana unable to hike out because of hypothermia, her friends left to find help. When they returned, she was dead. The rock shelter, completed in 1965 in Dana’s honor, was now missing a roof and large chunks of its walls. It, too, had become a victim of the wild and unpredictable weather of the Goat Rocks Wilderness.
Departing from the stone rubble of the Yvelteron Shelter (which, in the two years since our hike, has been completely removed by the Forest Service), the PCT climbs up to and traverses scree and talus above the Packwood Glacier. The 7,930-foot peak of Old Snowy towers above. And as if the scree, talus, and glacier weren’t scary enough, the trail then proceeds along a knifelike ridge—for two miles. This ridge is a thirteen million-year-old leftover of a volcano that once stood as tall as Mount Hood. All this adds up to a dangerous stretch of trail, especially in bad weather.
I’d watched the skies somewhat nervously over the last twenty-four hours. Wispy cirrus clouds had evolved into pregnant cumulus ones. And then, just as we began the traverse underneath Old Snowy, the wind picked up and snow began to lightly dust our shoulders. The footing was slippery and the drop-off was steep. My nervousness quickly escalated to fear as we stepped deliberately across several hundred exposed yards of trail. Snow transformed into sleet and wind gusted violently from the northwest. Bowing my head, I pushed forward, frequently stabbing out my trekking poles to maintain balance. Halfway across, I looked back; Angela was moving slowly, chin tucked into her chest. I turned forward and the wind blasted my mouth so forcefully that it carried the saliva right out of it. So here it was—loud, cold, and wet and windy as hell—our introduction to Washington’s unpredictable weather.
A harrowing hour later, at Elk Pass, the trail dropped into whitebark and juniper forest, leaving the ridge and its fierce wind behind. A thick drizzle enveloped us as we marched the last sixteen miles to our re-supply at White Pass. To help pass the time, I turned to my now trusty friend, the AM/FM radio. From the NBA finals to major league baseball to NPR’s Talk of the Nation and All Things Considered, the radio helped ease the monotony of many tough miles. For the last couple weeks, though, I’d had a hard time finding anything but the most frivolous of talk shows. After listening to the inane ra
dio personalities that saturated the airwaves of Oregon and Washington, I’d decided that being a radio talk-show host was a pretty sweet gig. From what I could tell, all it required was spending five minutes or so each night thinking up a topic or two that might rile up folks.
For talk-show host Bill Gallagher, the topic du jour was Blockbuster’s five-day rental policy. Bill had recently been charged $24.13 in late fees for The Hurricane, a movie he was sure he’d never rented. Bill clearly felt that he was victim of a horrible injustice and he’d taken his revenge by formulating a theory: Blockbuster’s five-day rental policy is diabolically designed so that renters will forget the return date and hence return movies late. This, of course, means more late-fee revenues for Blockbuster’s coffers. I reluctantly listened to Bill and his callers debate this theory for nearly an hour before I found Dwight Jones on 860 AM. That day, Dwight was wondering if “age matters in love,” and whether “Dennis Miller dropped the f-bomb on his Monday Night Football broadcast, and if so, do you care?” Finally, a couple issues of national importance! Profanity associated with a football game—oh, the horror. I mean, imagine all of those naïve fortyish-year-old men, innocently swilling their six-packs and being unexpectedly bombarded with offensive language.
As I was preparing to loudly drop my own f-bomb on Dwight Jones, my radio trance was interrupted by a stampede. Branches cracked and the earth trembled. A herd of furry white rumps was bounding down the open slope—a rumbling, bumbling team of elk. Elk are one of the largest members of the deer family. Bulls can weigh up to a thousand pounds, and compared to the whitetail and mule deer, elk can make a major ruckus during a downhill crusade. I’d read in Clyde Ormond’s Outdoor Lore that elk migrating out of high country in the fall season signifies an impending snowstorm. I sure hoped Clyde was wrong.
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