Spring 2010: I Am An Unraveler; A Story Telling Traveler

This blog has certainly taken a back seat for a while, so I am making an effort to cover 2010 before the year is up. I will write it in three chapters: Spring, Summer, and Fall since many epic things happened in each season.

In January, 2010, I drove from San Diego to Portland where I decided to plant myself until work started in Alaska in May. I stayed with my great high school friend Tami until I found an apartment with a wonderful roommate, Anya. My apartment was located close to Washington Park and Forest Park so I would go there to explore on the nice days. It was wonderful to be among such green! There seemed to be moss on everything and I was lucky to be exploring all this nature just after the rain was finished drenching the North West for their winter. I was in amazement on my first trip to Silver Falls State Park, the trail of Ten Falls I joined a meetup group with to hike. Ten waterfalls all in this one place, four you could walk behind! It was a great introduction to Portland.

Behind one of the falls on the Trail of Ten Falls.

Meetup.com was how I did everything in the spring since I didn't know very many people. I joined a group of females to go on a four day hike along the coast. I met all the girls the day we headed out to the coast. We had one girl who had never done anything like this before, two girls who were my age and quite outdoorsy, and one woman in her fifties who was recently unemployed but lived her life very similar to mine when she was my age. We bonded fast and called ourselves the Sacred Socks after the concept of always keeping one pair of dry socks for sleeping, those socks would mean the world to you after a day of hiking in wet shoes.

We hiked through all kinds of vegetation and terrain. Sometimes we were in lush forest, sometimes we were surrounded by spaced out trees that had thinned out their leaves, and other times we were walking on the beach. At one point we got chased off the beach by high tide coming in much earlier than anticipated and had to do some crawling, struggling, sloshing up a steep embankment through the foulest smelling clay like mud. We stood on the point where Lewis and Clark saw the ocean for the first time, we explored old World War II bunkers at a campsite where we slept inside wood huts with bunks in them. We had to illegally pitch tents other nights due to changes in park rules since the trail book we were following had been written. We covered our tents with branches in one case to not be visible to passers by.

We looked very odd walking along the beach with big packs on our back in comparison to folks out to play just for the day. We felt we emasculated all the cologne O.D.ing, pink colored shirted, backward hat wearing men we happened to see that day... and I wasn't sure if I should be proud or worried as a single woman.

The new girl had a bad habit of animals eating her food. She would leave things out and about and have sandwiches taken by birds or in the morning find food bags empty and chewed through. The best night of all was when she woke me up by screaming “hello?” to no one. She was my tent mate and I woke up scared at the idea of someone standing outside our tent. I told her to be quite since we were, after all, trying to hide. I heard some munching of the the girl who was guiding the trek in her tent eating a midnight snack, which she did every night. I point that out to the new to camping girl, but she insists she hears a closer rustling, and sure enough, it was a raccoon who found her pack which was under the vestibule of our tent, open begging for all the food to be eaten. He had snuck off with the last bit of her food.

I ended up with bad blisters on the soles of my feet which I had to drain every night. It was incredibly painful to walk our 12-14 miles a day, so I had to keep putting myself in a happy place or pay close attention to the games we would play as we walked the trails. It was an incredible bonding experience, to meet four people and spend four days straight with them, sharing camping meals, close sleeping quarters, and accepting all of our smells. We became comfortable real quick with using the outdoors for a bathroom, passing gas, or blowing snot rockets. I loved it.

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I had a week off before I was off to my next, and much bigger, adventure. A meetup guide I met at Silver Falls, Scott, and I had been getting together with friends often to watch the PBS National Parks special. Yosemite was mentioned a lot, being one of the first to become a National Park. I was particularly drawn to how it affected John Muir who fought his whole life to preserve this piece of land he lived and breathed in. I was so impressed by his passion for nature and was sad that he lost some of the battle (another story) that Scott decided we just HAD to go to Yosemite, his favorite park, so I could see why this place is so amazing.

My feet were just healed and I had a terrible cold when we had set out on the next adventure, I didn't feel like I had too much time to recuperate between these two epic backpacking trips, but how often do you get to do this kind of thing? Scott did most of the food preparation, I had a bunch of stuff myself and made sandwiches, but he had all the goodies. We planned for ten days, the first four days would be out in the wilderness. We showed up, got our permits to camp and an interesting carry-with-you-potty. Because the snow was more than six feet deep, we couldn't very well dig the required six inches into the ground to place our excrement in, so we were given these bags, not much bigger than a sandwich Ziploc bag, to use. You open it up, just like a Ziploc bag, and unfold a larger bag within it that is more like a small garbage bag. You poo in that, roll it up and stick it back in the original bag and take it with you. There are chemicals to break down your doo doo and you throw it out when you get a chance. It comes with some toilet paper and handy wipes, both of which Scott promptly lost when he first used his and had to use crunchy semi-melted snow to clean up. Hilarious!

Scott was a great travel partner, and it was established ahead of time this was to be a non romantic trip to take the ease off two folks of opposite sex sleeping, once again, in the tight quarters of a tent and having to share information like “I need to use the plastic bag potty” can I have a moment alone? We had practiced using our compasses in Portland ahead of time and each donned one around our necks. We had a map of the area we were going backpacking in, strapped on our snow shoes and headed out. We walked for the first day on the groomed trail for skiers. It was warm enough to wear just my long sleeved Morino Wool shirt, which is pretty thin, but warm. We played with all the snow, threw snow balls, marveled over walking over the tops of road signs because the snow was that high. The second day we decided “what the heck” let's go off trail and really get into the back-country. We stepped off the easy to walk on with snow shoes groomed trail onto what the park ranger called “Sierra Cement”.

The snow was a mixture of all the varieties of snow one could have. It was mostly partly melted so pretty crunchy, but incredibly difficult to walk on. Sometimes your steps would stay on top of the snow, other times you would sink down a foot and you never knew when that would happen. Lifting your snow shoe out of those holes, carrying a bunch of partially melted snow (the heaviest kind of snow as northern folk know) caused us to walk incredibly slow. Despite our efforts of using the map and compass, and following what we thought were creeks (they were covered with snow of course) we ended up completely off track and lost. It was rolling mountain land full of trees, we had no horizon to look too, and we kept getting fed to the East when we wanted to go West. We got a little crabby, being lost and trying to walk uphill in the worst snow shoeing terrain ever, we decided to go straight up a mountain we thought we needed to get over. If anything we'd be able to see landmarks to figure out where the hell we were. It was very steep, and we made steps in the snow. Scott made switch backs but I went straight up, climbing the snow like it was a ladder using all my extremities, sometimes hitting a boulder under the snow and slipping.

When we got to the top we were rewarded with such an amazing view Scott actually got teary eyed. It was not the view of our actual destination, but close enough. We sat up there with our boots and socks off to dry a bit in the sun as we soaked in actually being able to see over the tree line of the forest we were lost in. We could see half dome and other well known Yosemite landmarks from there, and thankfully figured out where we were and made a plan to get back to the groomed trail the next day. We were so well rested and happy that we ran down the mountain in our snowshoes like little kids, and it felt like flying. Each step I could launch ten feet thanks to geology and gravity. Despite having grown up in year wintry wonderlands, I have never seen what actually happens when you roll a snowball down a hill. On TV it's depicted as rolling into a big ball, but in real life it turns into a wheel. We created many of them as we walked and kicked up snow. I thought they were beautiful. I started rolling balls of snow down the mountain to see how big I could get the wheels and we would launch other balls to see how long they would roll for (pretty long). I felt like a child discovering a new playground.

That last day of back country was the hardest for me. I was mentally and physically tired beyond anything I had been before, and my feet hurt so bad from new blisters. My feet were constantly wet and cold (accept at night thanks to my sacred socks). Once on the groomed trail I actually went slower than before, while Scott had renewed energy and bolted off happily towards the car about 4 miles away. That was the longest day of my life, I never thought it would end and vowed to never ever wear snow shoes again. But that was just the tiredness talking of course, because once at the car it was over, we were out of the back-country, stinking to high heaven, but happy as clams.

We went out that night to one of the fancier restaurants because the pizza place was over run by youngsters on a field trip, and clearly not enjoying themselves nearly as much as Scott and I were to be in such a wondrous place featured in the photographs that got Ansel Adams famous. We slept in the car that night. The following day, day five without showering, we went hiking up to the top of Vernal and Nevada Falls. I got my hiking legs back and I was hauling butt up the steep incline. It was so beautiful the whole way. We got the top of Vernal Falls first and rested, ate, watched the crazy squirrels, and took epic photos.

Vernal Falls


On the way to the top Nevada Falls we met a man, Steve, who had gotten a bit lost on the trail. Scott adopted him as his hiking conversation buddy and we hiked onward, on the right trail. We had to hike through slippery snow again and it felt like an obstacle course, my FAVORITE kind of hiking. The long long hike up was worth it when we got to the top of Nevada Falls. Hands down the highest waterfall I've ever looked over. We stayed up there taking “artsy” pictures and taking in the scene, throwing snowballs over and seeing how long it took to hit anything. It was wonderful.

Nevada Falls

When we hiked down Steve offered for us to use his room at the hotel he rented to shower and clean up and a place to sleep that night. We were pretty surprised this stranger was willing to share his paid for private room with two stinky strangers, but we couldn't pass up a shower. We cleaned up, went to the local bar/restaurant and ate food and s'mores over their indoor fire and passed out in a warm bed.

The next day we marveled at a frosty Yosemite Falls and hiked to Mirror Lake with Steve and took a thousand pictures of different ways to get our reflections on this glass like body of water. Steve went home and Scott and I hiked some simpler trails before decided to head to the place of big trees, the wondrous giant Sequoias (the only English word harboring all vowels). There is nothing more impressive than standing next to trees that were around when Jesus walked the earth and were so wide it would take ten of me standing side by side to cover the base. Meet The Grizzly Giant: 209 ft tall, 96 ft in circumference, 28 ft wide and 1800 years old and me happily standing next to it jumping.

I felt like I got a great opportunity to really grow into my backpacking self during the month of March. After the Yosemite/Crater Lake trip I had visited six National Parks: Olympic in Washington, Redwood, Joshua Tree, and Yosemite in California, The Everglades in Florida, and Crater Lake in Oregon. The rest of the time in Portland I spent with friends, biking, hiking the local parks, exploring the beach, and enjoying the sunlight and warmth. I was very sad to head north again, knowing how great Oregon is in the summer time, but one must work, and where better to work than Alaska?

Pondering Crater Lake

Hilarious video made this summer by my friend on one of our camping trips on the Old Denali Highway.

Alaska to California in 82 days

(This is one of two posts I've put up today, please look below to find the one about my Alaskan Summer)

My contract ended a week before David’s did and so I went down to Anchorage to pack up my things and have my car pimped up for the some 4,500 mile journey from Alaska to California.

The trip started in Denali and from there we went to:
Fairbanks, AK
Whitehorse, Yukon Territory Canada
Liard Hot springs, British Columbia Canada
Vancouver, Canada
Bellingham, Washington
Olympic National Park, Washington
Astoria, Seaside, Tillamook, OR
Portland, OR
Eugene, OR
Florence, OR
Crescent City, CA
Redwood area, CA
San Francisco, CA
Napa Valley and Sonoma Valley, CA
Corning, Redding, and Chico, CA
San Diego, CA
Joshua Tree, CA
Los Angeles, CA

(sort of in that order)

As with my drive to Denali to start the summer, my drive back to pick up David was just as amazing and clear. I took my own touristy picture at the south view point again and moved on. There had been a snow storm that hit a few days earlier in the park and it was pretty to see all the trees covered in snow. Even though I had never spent a winter in the park, visiting the housing area and seeing it covered in snow was an oddly familiar feeling of the change in seasons.



I was a bit nervous about having to drive in this kind of weather, it was somewhere between rain and snow. Luckily David’s co-worker met up with us in Fairbanks and we caravanned through most of Canada. On the drive we saw lots of animals on the side of the road, crossing the road, following the road. Buffalo, elk, sheep, once even a black bear. We stopped in a place called Liard Hotsprings just on the border of BC and the Yukon. The night we got there it was dumping heavy snow on us and throughout the night we woke up to sagging tent fabric in our faces and we would have to punch it off from the inside. Our poor friend’s massive tent collapsed a bit and a lot of their things got wet. In the morning we ventured to the hotsprings and got refreshingly warm. We stayed there two days before hitting the road again. We were driving 10 to 12 hour days covering lots of ground to get through Canada and closer to warmth.

The boardwalk to the hot springs

an elk blocking our friend's car

On the way we camped at various places where I didn’t bother remembering the names, and finally we come to Vancouver! We explored the city for a few days, checking out a film festival, getting excited over a building where the A-Team movie was being filmed at the time, watching a filming of Super Natural in a park, and getting a first hand experience with the Canadian health care system. No waiting, it was awesome, and cheap.



In British Columbia, Canada

Almost to Vancouver

Bellingham, WA

Highlights of the trip were definitely the Olympic National Park, Redwoods National Park, Wine tasting in Napa Valley, camping on the beach, attending a global warming event in Portland, exploring San Francisco, and Joshua Tree National Park.

In Olympic National Park we were able to be dazzled by the rainforest, but it wasn’t as moving as the Redwoods. The whole area in northern California was mesmerizing with these gigantic trees that were up to 1000 years old! We did ourselves some tree huggin’ of course.

Ho Rainforest, Olympic National Park in Washington

Redwood National Forest

Told you we got into tree hugging























Beautiful forest

Biking 6 miles in Portland to 350.org event

350.org event

Somewhere in California

One of many amazing sunsets along the way, this one was in California

In San Francisco we did the touristy things like ride the trolley, check out the Painted Ladies (which most people know from the Full House opening), and Alcatraz. Though I started feeling too touristy in San Francisco, it wasn’t as fun as exploring in the woods, despite how much I love Victorian style houses. We headed back north to wine country to visit the vineyards. I learned all about the Coppola family at one vineyard, and about the self sustaining vineyard of Benzinger. The land was gorgeous and the free wine quite tasty, though our salesman at Benzinger was sort of rude to us with our background (road tripping, living out of car, can’t afford cases of wine like other customers he serves, and drilling for oil in Alaska doesn’t harm the wildlife at all sort of thing).

Painted Ladies

Nude Beach



"nooooooooooo"

Isolation

Wine country

Taste testing

Magical place in Redding, CA

Went to Sierra Nevada brewing company in Chico, CA and found an old style box of Point beer in there. Awesome!!!!

We headed north still back up just north of Arcata to visit a place called the Gold Coast and Fern Canyon. We went on a 5 star, 10 mile, 6 hour hike through Fern Canyon, which was basically a narrow passage carved out by water where the walls were straight up and down and covered in ferns. Park of the second Jurassic Park had been filmed there, and no wonder, we felt like we were in a different world in there. The second day we biked along the park’s “bike trail” which was muddy, narrow, full of weird obstacles I was surprised it was considered a bike trail. We were on search of a waterfall, which we completely missed on the way in, but on the trail we were surprised to come across an elk herd gazing right on our bike path. We stopped and ate and hoped they’d leave, but they didn’t. Some of the big boys had some pretty impressive racks, but they seemed so docile and indifferent to our presence that we decided to push through anyway. A few looked up at us from their grazing and before we were even pasted them they went back to eating. I enjoyed that experience very much for some reason.

Beautiful elk

Sunset on the Gold Coast beach, CA

The Gold Coast, being in a State and National Park, is where we learned that sadly funding for parks had been cut and costs to camp and enter had spiked enormously. It was $35/night to just tent. In other parks if you had a RV it was up to $50/night. If I were traveling alone, I would be better off in a hostel for those prices. This would affect our camping drastically. We decided we’ve played enough in the woods and headed to San Diego to visit David’s brother and be rent free for a bit. We still needed places to stay on the way and somewhere between LA and San Diego we went through a bunch of parks where the prices were so high we were discouraged. Camping is so hard now, just finding a spot to throw up a tent for free in the woods is nearly impossible. There is no more un-owned land! Even sleeping in your car is illegal (which we found out the hard way). We had been plotting all the way down ways to cheat the system like getting in late and leaving early before the rangers patrol (we failed once), or writing bad checks (which were cashed anyway). Times are rough for everyone, so we were just trying to get by.

Luckily that night, on an explorative turn, we found ourselves a horse campground that was empty. The signs were unclear who and how to pay so we figured that meant it’s free. Also luckily, that night was one of the peak nights of the Leonid Meteor Shower, and it was a clear night and the eastern sky was unblocked by trees. So we laid on the picnic tables wrapped in our sleeping bags and watched falling stars, wishing we knew a bit more about the constellations since so many were visible, along with the Milky Way.

The weeks following we spent our time between San Diego and Los Angeles, saving money until our departure for Florida where we are to spend Christmas and New Year’s. LA was never a city I cared to visit but my time spent there was really nice. David’s friends took us around and I saw those cemented names, feet, and hands of famous people, the Hollywood sign, and various studios. No famous people though.



Free tickets to a Safari thing in San Diego, cute kitties.

For a weekend after Thanksgiving a group of five of us headed to Joshua Tree National Park. It was the first time I was in a desert that felt like a desert… but that was while it wasn’t hailing/snowing/raining on us. The first night we attempted to camp in some serious windy area where we were afraid we’d fly away in the tent. The next day it hailed on us in the park and I felt like it was a bit weird to look at a cactus covered in snow. It did clear up and the night time in the park was beautiful, more stars and beautiful scenery.

Gettin' snowed on in Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree

I really do think I made it move



It was cold but so beautiful

So now I’m headed to Miami for my first Christmas away from Wisconsin. I’m excited for the new experience, but do miss my family and the family get togethers. Happy Holidays to everyone!