Priceless.

Backpacking. Oh, the joy of packing up what one needs for a few days in the wilderness, hiking in to a beautiful, secluded part of the earth where you can breathe the fresh air and clear your mind. Adam and I did just that this weekend and for some reason we can never get off without a glitch. Rewind to friday night...........



We set off for a camping spot for friday night at Breitenbush Lake, which is about 70 miles south of us. Within a few miles (or so we thought) of our turn off, we see a stopped line of cars on this godforsaken road in the middle of nowhere. The flaggers tell us there's been a fatal motorcycle accident and we won't be moving for an hour or two. Hmmm. Okay. We were in good spirits about it, grateful we weren't a part of the accident. We got out our camp stove, cooked our dinner right there in the middle of HWY 224. Fast forward an hour and 45 minutes to when they let us through. We drove for a few miles until we realized we had passed up our turn off (which just so happened to be about a mile or two away from where we were stopped in the OTHER DIRECTION!) Turns out we didn't have to wait in the traffic. Oh well - We didn't let it get us down. We made it to our camp site in the dark, set up our tent, had a beer and went to sleep.

It was chilly up there at 5500 feet. Probably about 40 degrees or so in the early morning hours when we woke up to set off into the backcountry. Once we got going though, it wasn't bad. And,once we saw some of the views everything was worth it. We were hiking to Jefferson Park. A wilderness reserve in a valley at the base of Mt. Jefferson.






At 5.5 miles along the trail, the valley where we were camping came into view. It looked like a quaint Swiss Village in the Alps. It definately wasn't any warmer there though. A cold Canadian front was moving in, freezing our noses and fingers. It was okay though. We had found our campsite and Adam was preparing our fire to keep us warm and toasty.

This is Adam making our fire.

Enter Williamette National Forest ranger.

Ranger: "Hi - Ranger Service".
Us: Hello.
R: "You can't have fires in Jeff Park".
U: Huh? I called the contact # in our guide book
and the lady there told me of NO fire restrictions.
R: "Oh really? Sorry".
U: And this fire pit was already here with a burnt
log in it.
R: "Really? Well, I still have to write you a
ticket".
U: But we didn't see any signs at the trailhead on
our way in....
R: "Sorry guys. If it were up to me, I wouldn't
write it, but I have to. You can contest it..."

(bla-bla-bla...turns out she wrote us a dang ticket for $250. can you believe it? and in a frenzy to put out the fire he had just got going, adam dumped on it all of our clean drinking water. when he went to the lake to use our pump filter to get us more clean water, he discovered it was BROKEN. we had to boil anything we wanted to drink now AND we had no fire to keep us warm in this steadily dropping alpine air).


So we were 0 - 3 against the odds with this trip. We were so cold we spent the majority of the evening in our tent playing cards and drinking whiskey. It didn't break our spirits though.











I guess you could say for only $250 per night, you can get a room with this view.

Check out my glacial ice climbing skills.

Just kidding. This is the hike back through the semi-permanent snow fields. We were a little loopy. I should also mention that on the morning we woke up to pack up and hike back to our car, it was probably in the upper 20 degrees and snowing. Maybe we shoulda stayed home and drank beer.....?

• Oatmeal, couscous, peanut butter, bagels, dried fruit and instant coffee: $12.50
• Tank of gas for car ride: $54.00
• Pint of Jim Beam: $8.95
• Seeing the look on Adam's face when he returns from the lake with frothy lake water in our drinking bottles: PRICELESS!