Trail of Lessons

What a trip. We were going to head up to the mountain on Friday and stay through Saturday.. but we got a late start on Friday and decided to run some errands and load our packs with more time and precision. Somehow we ended up still ended up loading our packs at 1:00 AM on Friday night and finishing in the morning. Despite our rescheduled trip, we still got a late start to the trail head on Saturday afternoon.

Adams Creek Meadows

37+/- miles out of Randal, Wa is the Killen Creek Trail #113. Our directions were slightly inaccurate from the get-go, and poor signage didn't help. At one point we found ourselves two miles deep on what we are affectionately calling the Goat Trail. Somehow we missed a sign that told us to turn (which the directions didn't bother to mention) and we ended up giving up on the Goat Trail, two miles out of four and wished we'd given up after about one tenth of a mile. There was a good lesson here about communication, listening to your gut and respecting your leader's decisions. I would have kept going the other two miles - just to be sure it wasn't the right trail road - but Blake wisely felt that we should have turned around at our first chance. I deferred to his intuition (Lesson number 1) and we were so happy to be off that narrow path. Upon backtracking, we found the sign that lead us to the trail head.

The Goat Trail.
The permanent scratches on my car from the overgrown Alder trees.. affectionately called 'nature's pin-striping'.. are a nice reminder of this lesson. 

My hero. Maneuvered that crazy trail like a champ, with lots of concentration. 

Finally at the trail head... not that you can tell, because I'm standing in front of the sign.

It was after the picture above that I see that my camera battery light is flashing red. Oops. I forgot to grab the charged battery or the car charger. Doh! Lesson number 2. I was taking a photo challenge picture that morning and found the battery dead, so I popped in the reserve battery that was fully charged at one point.. only to see that it had drained itself. I intended to bring the battery and charge it on the way with the car charger but thought I might as well give it extra time while we were still packing. Oops. Here's the funny part. I still drug my big camera and an extra lens up the trail because this trip was a practice run for our bigger hike, and I needed to troubleshoot my camera carrying method and see if I could handle the extra weight of the gear. Even though I knew it would test Blake's patience, I ran back to the car and got my old point and shoot camera, and I'm so glad I did!

Our map

Adams Creek Meadows. This is where we ended up camping, in those trees at the far left. 

We kept hiking UP past the meadows, hoping to get to the PCT and
really, we wanted to camp at Killen Meadows.

Blake said, turn around... look at the view. Mt. Rainier.

We couldn't find the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail) and it was getting late. We snapped this picture and headed down.

Blake setting up our new air-beam supported Nemo tent. This thing is awesome.

The view from our tent door.

The next morning, and I mean morning, we headed out again to try to find the PCT. It turns out that we less than 50 yards away when we gave up. Lesson number 3.. sometimes I should give my opinion.

Made it. Blake's first time on the PCT. Can't tell where the trail really is,
but this marker tells us that it should be somewhere under this snow.

Mt. Adams in the background.

And of course some flowers from the trip down. It was a quick hike out, even with all the snow.

I loved all these flowers pushing through the snow.

Lesson number 4: check your campsite thoroughly before leaving and double check the location of each expensive item, namely your iPhone.

We were in our car, a mere one tenth of a mile down the road when I realized I didn't know where my phone was. We pulled over and emptied my pack... no where to be found. I knew I had it at breakfast, but didn't remember seeing it after that. I didn't think I had it in my pockets on the hike out, so we though it must have been dropped at our camp site. Boots back on and back up the trail we went. At least we didn't have to carry our packs the second time!

Five miles, two hours and a pulled muscle later - no phone. I also checked my sleeping bag and that confirmed that it wasn't anywhere in my things, wasn't at camp and wasn't on the trail. On the way home, we thought that the only other possibility was that it could be in the tent, and that is where we found it. (Yay!!)

Lesson number 5: even if you think you have plenty of gas when you leave civilization.. fill up anyway. No, we didn't run out, but all it takes is a wrong turn or a goat trail to make your margin of error pretty slim. We were coasting into town on the reserves and really wishing we'd filled up before.

Lesson number 6: training makes a difference. This was a good lesson. All of my training and working out has seemed to help! I was still a little slow, but had a noticeably better pace. Yay!! Enchantment Lakes, here I come.