“Why don’t we ever take easy vacations?” I asked, in part rhetorically but I think something inside me was despairing. We had just completed a 4 mile climb, gaining probably 2000 feet. It was still the morning, but the day would end up in the 90’s and sweat was already pouring down my back. There was no trail, despite the data book saying we should be following an old logging road, and we had bushwhacked our way, tripping over fallen logs and struggling up rocky terrain. All this might have been manageable, but the mosquitoes were out in force on this section. Every 20 seconds I was swatting at my shoulders, whipping my head back and forth, cringing at the horrible whining filling my ears, and I genuinely believe that the chaotic state of mind induced by mosquitoes must be what insanity feels like. We had reached the top of the climb in the Vinegar Hill Scenic Area, either adjacent to or in the Umptilla wilderness, I wasn’t too sure. The view was beautiful, but it wasn’t spectacular, and I peered around, breathing heavily, scratching my shoulders, trying to ignore my sticky back. It may not have been spectacular, but we had earned that view.
“What?” O’Well asked, swigging his water.
“Why don’t we take easy vacations?” I repeated, not really looking for an answer, just wanting to complain I guess. “Why don’t we just go sit on a beach somewhere or whatever?”
He didn’t answer right away, and ultimately the answer turned out not to be too profound. “Well, because it would be too easy. I want to earn the right to do nothing.”
In case any readers are wondering why one would sign up for a hike like this, the honest truth is I don’t really know. I know that it’s true that I will get bored sitting around too much. I know that the sense of accomplishment feels good, and the beauty of the wilderness is hard to beat. But why do we keep coming back to it? I really don’t know. And yet, we keep walking.
We had a slow morning in Austin Junction, waiting until the restaurant opened at 8 so we could grab breakfast and coffee before hiking out. There was no cell service or wifi, but we watched the news which was kind of nice to see what was going on in the world, but mostly the reporters were focusing on the heat wave, issuing very dire warnings indeed. We didn’t take too much notice, as a through hiker, you tend to hike through any conditions. We had talked about doing a short day out of town but ended up doing 18 miles despite the late start and the heat. For what felt like the first time on the whole trail, we were actually on a cleared atv trail through the woods in a non burn area called the Davis Creek Trail. It had a lot of rather sharp inclines and declines and was essentially a “green tunnel”, meaning on views, but we were very grateful to have lots of good water and shade due to the heat, I think it probably broke 100 that day. Later in the day the trail transitioned to a forest road and we camped part way up a long gradual climb we would have to tackle the next day. At that stage we were about a day ahead of schedule and feeling good, although feeling the fact that we hadn’t really rested in 7 days, and we had just hit 100 miles early in the day. We certainly had the tan lines and sweat stains to show it. But our gear and our feet were feeling broken in and we were looking forward to getting out of all the road walking and into real wilderness again.
The next morning I had the moment of soul searching described at the beginning of this post. It was a tough morning and it only got harder as the day wore on. It got hotter, and we were discouraged to find we had only traveled 6 miles by 11 am. None of us had realized before the trail how much time and energy cross country travel takes from you.
We continued on through the Greenhorn Mountains and ended up on a section where there was once again supposed to be trail but it was easy to lose and we did even more bushwhacking. When we finally did get to a smooth trail, meandering pleasantly through a series of lakes it was absolutely swarming with mosquitoes and we had to basically run to keep them off of us. We were actually relieved when the trail dumped us out on a wide gravel forest service road. So relieved that we didn’t realize we had missed our last opportunity for good water before our intended campsite, meaning we would have to go another 6 miles to get to water and it was already after 5 pm. Rather than backtracking and wasting time, we decided to go for it.
My feet were already sore at that point in the day and by the time we got to camp they were incredibly painful. It was a feeling I was not unfamiliar with, when your feet are unaccustomed to the terrain and the impact for such distances day after day, it’s difficult to describe the intensity of the ache. I forced O’Well to chatter to me for the last 2 miles to distract my mind, and when he ran out of things to say I sang to myself as we descended a steep, switch-backing trail into the river valley. When we got to where Gretzky was making camp on the river bank, it was after 9, dusk and approaching dark. There was no moon. I collapsed on the ground and stayed there until the tent was pitched and the chores were done before limping my way to bed. We did 21 miles, not a record breaking distance but certainly more than what my body was prepared for yet. Concerns about plantar fasciitis flitted through my head, but I just had to hope that the rest overnight, and maybe a lighter day the next day would remedy things. I slept with my feet elevated on my pack.
We did just 16.5 miles the next day and my feet did improve greatly. Most of the day was on a really nicely defined trail called the Miner Blackwell trail which snaked pleasantly through the river valley. We saw 3 or 4 separate mining cabins and lots of remnants of mining operations which O’Well was very interested in. We then followed a different creek up the canyon and through a long and lovely meadowy section and by the end of the day we were back on FS roads. I made a point of getting my feet elevated every time we stopped for a break and stretching my calves really well. We also had to ford the river twice, which was nice to get my feet submerged in the cold water. The first time I took off my shoes and went barefoot but the second time I just plowed through, shoes and pants and all; it was so hot. We were already wet so we decided to just strip off and jump in to cool off. We weren’t in too much of a rush, by the end of the day we only had 17 miles to get into Sumpter the next day and we ended the night early, camping at the site of another mining cabin and chatting pleasantly about our families and our lives back home, enjoying each others company and the absence of mosquitoes and hoping for what I imagined would be a relatively low-key day into town and a hot shower the next day.
Somehow, every time the trail seemed to have taken an easier course, it found ways to reach new levels of torment. We didn’t realize there was a huge climb to the top of Crown Point, 8000 feet, and then 5 miles of cross country travel to get all the way off the summit to the forest road into the valley where Sumpter lay. We did ultimately make it to the Gold Rush Campground in Sumpter by 6:30 but we took a beating to get there. The climbing was intense to reach the Northern ridgeline spurring off the peak, and then we had to traverse the ridgeline, again with no trail to reach the summit. We scrambled over and around huge boulders, borrowing mountain goat trails when they suited and making our own way when the game wandered in a different direction. The summit was beautiful, with a lovely meadow filled with butterfly’s and a 300 degree view. I made sure to take a moment to pause and appreciate that view – once again we had worked for it, and I knew we were about to work just as hard to lose all that elevation we had just gained.
We had to navigate down the southern ridgeline now, then when the ridge ran out continue down a steep slope, and along a creek. In all it was about 6 miles of cross country travel from the approach and the descent. Towards the end I was getting really exhausted and I actually rolled my ankle nicely, stepping off a log I had clambered up on and finding the sticks I stepped down onto concealed a hole. My stomach dropped as I heard a loud crack of the sticks breaking and pain burst in my ankle – that momentary confusion of “was that my ankle breaking, am I actually okay?” I collapsed in a heap and waited for the pain to subside, determining that I was fine but that the injury was probably going to stick around with me for a bit. I ended up tripping and rolling it twice more which compounded the injury. We were all kind of questioning the sanity of doing this trail, but we were here and none of us were backing out now.
When we rolled into camp all the hardship was forgotten though. Although the bugs were pretty bad at the campground, I was able to call and talk to my family, and we all got showers and laundry at the campground. It was our first time doing laundry and I hadn’t realized how grimy my clothes had become. We hiked 10 full days to get to Sumpter with no rest days.
We left the campground around 11 to go get lunch in town before hiking out. I received many very large and painful mosquito bites the night before and I broke down and bought bug spray at the gas station despite my spite for the stuff and my reluctance to pack the weight. We picked up our resupply box from the Post Officee and loitered on the front porch while we repackaged things, discarding some items and snacking. We also were able to package up and mail home some gear we no longer needed, primarily our microspikes as snow crossings had been non-existent since Strawberry Mountain. We had a lot of people chatting to us on their way in and out of the Post Office which was kind of nice. Unlike other trails each of us had hiked, not very many people know what the BMT is but I found the locals to be very friendly and interested in learning about it. They were generally stunned and impressed when we said we had hiked from John Day, although one many did give us an unsolicited warning about there being extra bears up in the mountains this year. We had only seen signs of one bear on the last section, some fairly dried out prints in the muddy river bank on the Miner Blackwell trail that looked at least several days old and we weren’t concerned.
We once again intended to do just a few miles out of town the next day, but we still ended up hiking 10 miles. We hiked out around 2, feeling lethargic in the heat and not thinking too much. After a few miles, we realized the first water source marked reliable wasn’t for 25 miles, which had us nervous as none of us were packing more than a liter. There were a couple potential options including a spring which may or may not be dry, and some creeks that looked reliable on the map but weren’t even noted as existing in our data book. Again, we were through hikers and we figured we would make do as best we could. Fortunately we were by chance able to flag down a forest service truck passing by and they very kindly topped off all our bottles, telling us about the fuel reduction work they were doing close to town, but they had to stop early due to equipment usage restrictions with the fire risk. Even so, we did end up getting water from a spring that was just trickling into a cow trough, and then several miles on there was a well flowing creek. We diligently took notes of the unidentified watersources to share with the owners of the data book so the next BMT hikers would be aware of their options.
We camped at the trailhead for twin lakes, ready to ascend to Elkhorn Ridge, one of the highlights of the BMT. We were officially in the Wallowa Whitman National Forest.
The ascent in the morning was very pleasant – the trail was easy to follow and well maintained, and we got views pretty much the whole way. We also saw other hikers for the first time, mostly weekend backpackers. After making the ascent we spent the rest of the day ridge walking the Elkhorn Crest Trail. It felt awesome to be really on the mountaintops again and not just road walking to get between wilderness’s. We walked 20 miles and my feet were hurting quite a bit by the end of the day, my ankle acting up somewhat but it was mostly just stiff and not painful. I also had heel blisters, another trouble I had experienced before but don’t have a solution to. They are too tough to drain and the only thing that seems to help them is to stop walking.
We were a little loopy when we got to camp, it was a long day and we’re looking forward to a zero day in La Grande. We camped at mile marker 200, still on Elkhorn Ridge above a very stagnant looking Lost Lake, and the mosquitoes were after us. Although my bug spray seemed to be workin, Gretzky’s tent had a broken zipper and he had to safety pin the rain fly shut to keep the mosquitoes out – it was not ideal.
The next couple days rolled by very easily. We were highly anticipating our arrival in La Grande, and the remaining miles to town were mostly active Forest Service roads which make for easy days. However, because we had already booked the hotel we needed to get there at a set time we couldn’t just hike as many miles as we wanted so we still did a 16.5 mile day and then a 22 mile day, leaving just 5 miles on the last day of the section to get to town.
On the last descent from Elkhorn ridge I was hiking alone when I passed a hunter in a t-shirt with very minimal gear. “Have a good day!” I said brightly, “Don’t let the bugs getcha,” I grinned. I was wearing my rain coat which mosquitoes can’t bite through, my pants were dowsed in spray and I had a mesh head net over my head – I was prepared for battle. “Yeah… you don’t have any bug spray do you?” He chuckled and I whipped out my can from my water bottle pouch like it was a holster. We was very relieved and asked me if I had seen any mountain goats. I said that I had too quickly before I realized that he wanted to shoot them, and quickly followed up by saying they were about 20 miles back, “Way back!” I insisted vigorously.
We passed through Anthony Lakes Resort, the restaurant didn’t open until 11 so we missed our opportunity at a hot meal to everyone’s dismay. But the miles passed by quickly. Gretzky picked up an empty can of Keystone Light can and began to carry it – he had decided that although the BMT wasn’t blazed, if you saw a Keystone Light you knew you were on the BMT as we had been finding them everywhere, FS roads, trails, cross country, abandoned mining cabins. We stopped early that night and I got to read my book for a long time, luxuriating in the fact that I rarely have an hour to just sit down and read when I’m at home.
The next day passed much the same, easy road walking and miles slipping away under our feet. I kept thinking of the song Take It Easy, and the line “Don’t let the sound of your own feet, drive you crazy,” as the gravel crunched and we tried to pick out the ruts in the road that were a little smoother and easier to walk in. My headspace was generally very light though. I remember from the PCT the day before getting to town often being a slog, the anticipation for a good meal and a shower totally overriding my ability to stay focused on the task at hand, but it wasn’t like that now despite being in a green tunnel for the most part of the day. I narrated the plot of my book to John for a while and we took our normal breaks, first lunch at 11 and second lunch at 3 with intermittent water breaks as water sources were available. O’Well and Gretzky skipped rocks for 30 minutes at first lunch, and we stopped for 90 minutes at second lunch as we had already done 17 miles and only planned to do 3 more for the day. We got to where we wanted to camp at 20 miles for the day, and found it was really buggy and kept hiking in hopes it would clear up but it really only seemed to get worse. We eventually stopped and camped in the middle of a disused FS road and just jumped in our tents and ate dinner inside.
Then, finally, it was town day. It was a nice stroll downhill and we got to walk through town and look at all the houses and examine various things like the community garden. We hadn’t eaten breakfast and our first stop was a breakfast diner. We had some time to kill before checking into our hotel, but they did let us leave our packs in the lobby. We had 5 hours so we took the bus downtown to the gear store to have them look at Gretzky’s tent zipper and purchase some sundries like socks, a new spoon (O’Well left his behind at a lunch spot a few days prior), and some better, deet free bugspray. We got some lunch at an Asian fusion restaurant and debated seeing a movie or going bowling but we hadn’t showered yet and everything seemed like too much work. We ended up just taking the bus back and hanging out at Safeway for a little bit in the AC, but by the it wasn’t long before we could check in. We got into our hotel and took showers and became couch potatos the rest of the day, anticipating a full zero day the next day. I did the math on the rest of the trail and decided we need to average 21 miles a day from here on out due to some logistical complications with one of our resupplies, and we had just a day or so of wiggle room. The intensity is definitely going to peak, and we were very glad to have time to rest then. We were just a little shy of halfway through the trail.
Not Technically a Hobo 