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Last Minute- Like, Going Tomorrow, Hike of the Month


Criminal

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I’ve long wanted to see Dream Lake (Dream Cache) in the summer, and it’s as summery as it’s going to get. I plan on leaving early to make the trailhead by 8am, ride (Mt bike) to Big Creek, and hike in from there. If anyone was interested in seeing this incredible lake but was nervous about going alone, now’s your chance. I found the cache there back in 2004, the story is here, and have long wanted to return. I suspect it won’t be as dramatic as last time since I don’t intend to make the same mistakes again. There’s also an opportunity to hide a cache of your own over at Pothole Lake nearby. You may hurt a little on Monday, but you’ll never feel better.

 

Bring:

Day hike pack – travel light, no poles, bring a lunch

Bicycle- doesn’t need to be a mountain bike, just something that you can ride on the trail.

I’ll have my water filter to resupply anyone’s water

There is an incredible sense of accomplishment at triumphing over the "impossible", even when others… cannot fathom the effort such endeavors demand. Triumph like that does not arrive with ease, nor is it dependant on extreme terrain or dangerous environs. You set the goal and then you make it happen, all the while understanding that two stars or five, personal triumph always lies in that misty area just beyond your perceived abilities.
Edited by Criminal
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I would be interested, this has been one I have wanted to do for a while, but I don't have breaks that work on my bike.

 

If you are willing to hike it I will go, but otherwise I am out.

You won't need them going in, only coming out. Or get them fixed today, it's still early!

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I would be interested, this has been one I have wanted to do for a while, but I don't have breaks that work on my bike.

 

If you are willing to hike it I will go, but otherwise I am out.

You won't need them going in, only coming out. Or get them fixed today, it's still early!

Too many other things on my honneydo list just to get the free time. I will have to bow out... Have fun!

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I would be interested, this has been one I have wanted to do for a while, but I don't have breaks that work on my bike.

 

If you are willing to hike it I will go, but otherwise I am out.

You won't need them going in, only coming out. Or get them fixed today, it's still early!

Too many other things on my honneydo list just to get the free time. I will have to bow out... Have fun!

If you can get away, you're more than welcome to borrow my bike...

Edited by Allanon
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I would be interested, this has been one I have wanted to do for a while, but I don't have breaks that work on my bike.

 

If you are willing to hike it I will go, but otherwise I am out.

You won't need them going in, only coming out. Or get them fixed today, it's still early!

Too many other things on my honneydo list just to get the free time. I will have to bow out... Have fun!

If you can get away, you're more than welcome to borrow my bike...

thanks for the offer, but I will just have to try some other day.

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I’ve long wanted to see Dream Lake (Dream Cache) in the summer, and it’s as summery as it’s going to get. I plan on leaving early to make the trailhead by 8am, ride (Mt bike) to Big Creek, and hike in from there. If anyone was interested in seeing this incredible lake but was nervous about going alone, now’s your chance. I found the cache there back in 2004, the story is here, and have long wanted to return. I suspect it won’t be as dramatic as last time since I don’t intend to make the same mistakes again. There’s also an opportunity to hide a cache of your own over at Pothole Lake nearby. You may hurt a little on Monday, but you’ll never feel better.

 

Bring:

Day hike pack – travel light, no poles, bring a lunch

Bicycle- doesn’t need to be a mountain bike, just something that you can ride on the trail.

I’ll have my water filter to resupply anyone’s water

There is an incredible sense of accomplishment at triumphing over the "impossible", even when others… cannot fathom the effort such endeavors demand. Triumph like that does not arrive with ease, nor is it dependant on extreme terrain or dangerous environs. You set the goal and then you make it happen, all the while understanding that two stars or five, personal triumph always lies in that misty area just beyond your perceived abilities.

I hurt today from chasing your cache and tomorrow we're celebrating my daughter's 21st b-day.

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Angiogram?! Is that anything like a CandyGram? Man ... when it rains, it pours. I hope you feel better soon.

 

 

At least IM's nose looks good. :)

 

Last Friday I met with Criminal to talk about hiking another weekend. as we talked outside just before I left my face,neck and head started feeling like fire ants were biting me. By the time I drove 60 miles home my whole body felt like it was under attack. My temp was 102.6.

 

I didn't get out of bed till 4:00 pm Sat. and today still have a whopper headache and ringing in my ears. Hopefully I can still make the hike next weekend. Last weekend I was recovering from a allergic reaction to sulpha drugs that caused a high temp and full body rash. I am hoping next weekend goes well and I can get one hike in this summer.

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Last Friday I met with Criminal to talk about hiking another weekend. as we talked outside just before I left my face,neck and head started feeling like fire ants were biting me. By the time I drove 60 miles home my whole body felt like it was under attack. My temp was 102.6.

 

I didn't get out of bed till 4:00 pm Sat. and today still have a whopper headache and ringing in my ears. Hopefully I can still make the hike next weekend. Last weekend I was recovering from a allergic reaction to sulpha drugs that caused a high temp and full body rash. I am hoping next weekend goes well and I can get one hike in this summer.

 

Been there, done that, don't plan on doing it again.

 

I hope it's okay to stick my nose in here, but I just wanted to sympathize with IM for a minute.

 

Hope you're feeling better. That full body rash/hives thing sucks major rocks.

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Last Friday I met with Criminal to talk about hiking another weekend. as we talked outside just before I left my face,neck and head started feeling like fire ants were biting me. By the time I drove 60 miles home my whole body felt like it was under attack. My temp was 102.6.

 

I didn't get out of bed till 4:00 pm Sat. and today still have a whopper headache and ringing in my ears. Hopefully I can still make the hike next weekend. Last weekend I was recovering from a allergic reaction to sulpha drugs that caused a high temp and full body rash. I am hoping next weekend goes well and I can get one hike in this summer.

 

Been there, done that, don't plan on doing it again.

 

I hope it's okay to stick my nose in here, but I just wanted to sympathize with IM for a minute.

 

Hope you're feeling better. That full body rash/hives thing sucks major rocks.

 

That was so "LAST" WEEKEND.

 

This weekend I got the flu right after meeting with the OP. Fever 102.6 and my skin felt like fire ants biting me all over. I am better now and leaving for work.

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Last Friday I met with Criminal to talk about hiking another weekend. as we talked outside just before I left my face,neck and head started feeling like fire ants were biting me. By the time I drove 60 miles home my whole body felt like it was under attack. My temp was 102.6.

 

I didn't get out of bed till 4:00 pm Sat. and today still have a whopper headache and ringing in my ears. Hopefully I can still make the hike next weekend. Last weekend I was recovering from a allergic reaction to sulpha drugs that caused a high temp and full body rash. I am hoping next weekend goes well and I can get one hike in this summer.

 

Been there, done that, don't plan on doing it again.

 

I hope it's okay to stick my nose in here, but I just wanted to sympathize with IM for a minute.

 

Hope you're feeling better. That full body rash/hives thing sucks major rocks.

 

That was so "LAST" WEEKEND.

 

This weekend I got the flu right after meeting with the OP. Fever 102.6 and my skin felt like fire ants biting me all over. I am better now and leaving for work.

So maybe something is telling ya you shouldn't be hiking this year.

 

Seriously though.... wow. Hope you feel well enough to hike this weekend! We need to discuss a meet up time. PM me by Thursday if you're still up for it

Edited by TotemLake
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I saw Criminal's log at Dream Cache and came looking for his story about running into a coughing Bigfoot.

 

Perhaps Ironman was not really sick. He was just laying in wait for Criminal :cry:

 

 

I have only size 8 feet!

 

We are going to try a hike together this weekend. Provided the weather cooperates. I will try to asses whether my Psycho Vertigo cache is actually missing since we will be within 1/2 mile of it.

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Since we got back a bit early, I’ll post some of the pics from our unsuccessful expedition to Wonder Mountain Lakes. This was 2.5 miles down the Skok trail until we found the ribbons that lead up the mountainside to the lakes. The hard part was all off trail, but even the trail was more work than we expected. We didn’t quite make our destination, but we had a great time doing so. It’s a brutal mountainside…

Before the hike:

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IronMan on the first bridge

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Ironman and the forest elephant

83aea3a3-0114-416d-beef-a32585560eb4.jpg

 

The second bridge is GONE

8efe229d-b872-4bf4-8a77-a0fc57927d7d.jpg

 

We crossed on this log on the way in, we waded through on the way out. It’s a long, skinny, uneven log with water raging underneath.

e4260c5a-36d4-46f0-90d8-c8a75072cb0d.jpg

ecd36a88-1bdf-4d1f-a59d-893bba20bca6.jpg

 

Devil’s Club

949e44a7-644d-48b0-a3a1-d9d8ec53b719.jpg

 

Grapes

ada9eefb-ef8d-4097-a57d-f147f8892b26.jpg

 

Ironman on the trail

aa970dad-693d-421b-ae1a-e886470c0151.jpg

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I'll post my story and pics too:

 

You already saw our start pic. I was shocked by the size of my pack when i got a view from behind on Criminal's pic of me crossing the log. It weighed a ridiculous 65#. :sad: I can't believe I hiked 8 hours with that monstrosity. :sad:

 

b85c66f0-e648-484d-8d76-e7faca4e0112.jpg

 

Chris crossing log bridge.

 

The next bridge was washed out but nature provided her own crossing by way of a tree.

 

5aa16082-bd0e-4d9d-9f1e-414e45f4e65e.jpg

 

Chris tentatively making his way across the river.

 

After a couple of miles the steep off trail part begins:

 

2f4a035a-51a6-4f41-b821-375afa2e0a6d.jpg

 

Note the very short hiking stick. The steepness of the terrain demands a shorter hiking stick. We called this the "Yoda" stick.

 

After about 6 more hours of hiking our water ran out and we still had a half mile to go. We started going sidehill to get around some steeper portions ahead of us. At 8 pm we decided to make a dry camp due to approaching darkness and steepness of terrain.

 

Here is our camp area:

 

ae771fbe-8048-4326-9b6c-7e154c25c0e0.jpg

 

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This is another view of Criminal's tent. Taken from my bed the camera wasn't level so the true steepness of the ground isn't accurately portrayed. A log behind the tent kept it and Criminal from rolling down the hill.

 

a9c063c0-d846-435c-a175-63d4be65ea81.jpg

 

This is my makeshift bedroll made of a 6'x9' tarp a sleeping pad and my sleeping bag. The rock held me from rolling downhill. There was a nice hollow in front of the rock that made sleeping with my back to the rock quite comfortable. I slept with the headlamp on in case I needed light in the middle of the night.

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Rising in the morning we set out without a breakfast. after just an hour I was fading fast and Criminal dropped his pack and scouted ahead. The report wasn't good: Lots more up and no top of ridge in site.

 

Checking my Delorme map software at home I see we stopped just 500' below and 1200' feet from a small pond where we could have gotten water and had a flatter spot to camp. :laughing:

 

We still had 800' elevation gain to go to top the ridge and less than a half mile to the lake.

 

Not knowing this for a certainty we decided to go back down where we knew there was water and then head out.

 

Going back down:

 

3146d2c5-d519-4e21-ae0a-354f18b470c5.jpg

 

The steep part.

 

370fa563-c360-47b2-a532-af9d840c1f5d.jpg

 

Looking back up the steepest part of the descent.

 

We slipped and slid down much of this part. At one point a football size rock I had loosened decided to delay coming down until I was fifty feet below it. It tumbled and bounced head high and ended up hitting me in the back of my calf.

 

Flora we saw:

 

51e411e5-5dd5-4131-af9b-d7f1705f2d61.jpg

 

I don't know what these are and have only seen them twice in my35+ years of hunting and hiking. I call them "Fairy Bell" flowers. They sprout directly from the ground and don't seem to be connected to any leaves and are always ghostly white.

 

240f2886-c1e8-467c-ba97-82c3820fc7b6.jpg

 

This tree had an immense growth of "Chicken of the Woods" mushrooms. They are edible and good when picked young. I planned on getting some on our return but didn't get close to them and wasn't about to back track.

 

It took 2 hours to go down what took us 6 hours to climb the day before. Another 2 hours down the trail and wading the river on our return to the truck. We did stop to get water and have somethingh hot for lunch.

 

While we didn't make our goal of reaching the lake and attempting to place a cache, I am pleased with our experience and my ability to hike the steep terrain. I need to keep the ol heart strong for my heart valve replacement surgery in a few months. :sad:

 

My legs and shoulders hurt terrible but I did lose 4 more pounds on this hike. :D

 

We also broke both of our camera displays. :sad: Mine on the way up and his on the way down. At least they still took pics. :laughing:

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We also broke both of our camera displays. :sad: Mine on the way up and his on the way down. At least they still took pics. :sad:

 

And there is another reason for having an optical viewfinder! I find the Forest Elephant interesting.

 

The view screen affords you the luxury of making sure your shot came out the way you wanted it and to redo it if it wasn't framed right.

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Here is a view of the road in last January. This was just 2-3 miles from this same trailhead. I tried to turn around and got stuck. There is still over a foot of snow under my 32" tires.

 

de396e84-1909-4dc1-962d-e57a6a050b37.jpg

 

After 6 hours of digging I was still stuck and spent the night and walked 5 miles out at daylight.

 

This is tough country.

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51e411e5-5dd5-4131-af9b-d7f1705f2d61.jpg

 

I don't know what these are and have only seen them twice in my35+ years of hunting and hiking. I call them "Fairy Bell" flowers. They sprout directly from the ground and don't seem to be connected to any leaves and are always ghostly white.

That is Indian Pipe Monotropa uniflora Lucky you, to have run across them! I've never seen them other than in photos.

You beat me to it! I've seen them just a few times. The largest grouping I ever saw was July 2007 when I hiked to the Sugar Loaf cache (near Mt Erie) on Fidalgo Island. Wish I'd taken a photo, there was a whole field of them!

 

They are saprophytes (like fungi), and feed off dead plant matter. Here's the coolest saprophyte I've ever seen, captured while hiking back from Tubal Cain Treasure Hunt in the Olympics, also July 2007. I think it's snow plant:

 

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Edited by hydnsek
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We also broke both of our camera displays. :sad: Mine on the way up and his on the way down. At least they still took pics. :sad:

 

And there is another reason for having an optical viewfinder! I find the Forest Elephant interesting.

 

The view screen affords you the luxury of making sure your shot came out the way you wanted it and to redo it if it wasn't framed right.

 

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate being able to use instant review, but a good backup is always a good thing.

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