Pacific Northwest Week #6-8

We’ve had an action packed few weeks and are just wrapping up our PNW van tour with a final week in the Bend area before we head south to California. We were discussing how this summer compared to our summer last year in Colorado and agreed that while Colorado likely has more pristine outdoor opportunities with fewer people, the PNW is also quite spectacular and seems to provide a more diverse multi-faceted experience. For example, we’ve loved visiting the farms and orchards of the PNW and have loved all of the greenery which was harder to come by in Colorado.  

I go backpacking with a core group of friends nearly every summer and this year was a special 50th birthday trip for both my friend Joel and myself. In celebration of the special occasion, we expanded the group from the four OG friends to include our friends Andy, Andrew and Dan. Miraculously, everyone was interested and we managed to schedule it such that everyone could make the trip! So we all converged on the Eagle Cap Wilderness in the Wallowa Mountains in NE Oregon for a 6 day, 5 night backpacking trip. We’re all old friends from college and most of us played ultimate frisbee together so we typically bring discs into the backcountry to try to relive some of our glory days. Some of us also bring fly fishing rods to catch some trout to supplement our freeze-dried backpacking meals. The fishing was pretty good and we all enjoyed some delicious parboiled trout one night for dinner. The scenery was also out of this world and reminded me of my beloved Sierras - lots of sparkling high alpine lakes with towering granite peaks surrounding them. 

We hiked up Eagle Cap Peak which is one of the tallest mountains in the Wallowas (9,577’) and provided some incredible views as well as a great disc golf course as we descended the mountain. We spent lots of time comparing our backpacking gear with several of us (myself included) strong converts of ultralight backpacking gear. Having lightweight gear makes a huge difference as you can just go further and faster without a heavy pack to lug around all day. Our friend Andy is still a bit old school and brought extra food, two extra tarps, a backpacking chair and a bear canister. Suffice to say that his pack was the heaviest by a country mile which slowed him down a little. We did all enjoy using his tarps though, especially during an unexpected downpour one day, and also took turns in his backpacking chair - pure luxury!  

The only mishap the whole trip occurred on our off day from backpacking when each of us headed off on different excursions from our base camp at Blue Lake. I went for a trail run, Paul went to climb a peak and the other guys headed for a different peak. Towards mid-day, an unexpected thunderstorm rolled into the mountains and caught a few of us out without proper gear for the occasion. I was headed up a mountain pass and didn’t have my rain shell so I hunkered down under some spindly fir trees to take shelter from the freezing rain and hail. I was getting very cold (especially my hands) so was incredibly relieved when I started to see some blue sky and the rain began to ease. As soon as that happened, I hit the trail again and made the final push for the pass which also helped to warm me up due to all the climbing. Once I made it back to camp, I learned that varying degrees of chaos had fallen on the group but fortunately everyone made it through the storm unscathed and we all learned a valuable lesson or two! 

The Eagle Cap trip was truly special as it’s rare to get to spend such quality time with old friends. It was great to reconnect with each other, catch up on what’s going on in everyone’s lives, hike together, laugh together, drink whiskey together and of course play a healthy dose of cards and dice! I think it’s safe to speak for all of us that we finished the trip on cloud nine looking forward to next year’s trip, wherever that may be.   

It was Ginny’s birthday during the backpacking trip so we agreed that we would celebrate when I got out by staying at the Jennings Hotel which is this super cool boutique hotel in Joseph, OR that Ginny has known about for about ten years. So we had a great couple of days lounging about the Jennings, taking saunas and exploring the cute little town of Joseph which is surrounded by the majestic peaks of the Wallowas. We did some thrifting and I scored myself a nice used Pendleton wool shirt and a Carhartt work shirt.

This past weekend I had big plans to race a 50k on the PCT in Southern Washington and then follow that up by running the Timberline Trail which is a 40-mile trail that circumnavigates Mt Hood. The 50k went really well as I finished 6th overall and won my age group. I was stung a couple times by a yellowjacket but that was really the only drama of the race. I spent a good amount of the race leap frogging with other runners as I tend to be a strong climber but a fairly slow descender while some of the other runners were the opposite. After the race, we headed towards Mt Hood to camp for the night. I hit the trail the next day and ran a little over 20 miles to meet Ginny on the other side of the mountain where we were planning to camp. Despite having tired, heavy legs, I had a fun day of trail running and enjoyed not worrying about my time as it wasn’t a race. The next day Ginny went out for a hike with her friend and her friend’s daughter while I finished the loop around Mt Hood. It was a little over 26 miles and I was blessed with mostly sunny skies which was greatly appreciated after having chilly cloudy weather the day before. All in all, it was an incredible long weekend of trail running through some unbelievably spectacular scenery.