Articles (2020)

Strathspey is a wide valley (which is what strath means) lying in the north of the Cairngorms National Park in the Scottish Highlands. The strath is a mixture of conifer plantations, remnants of natural woodland, marsh, low moorland, rough pasture, and farmed fields, through which the river Spey winds its way and above which rise the high Cairngorms. In autumn the woods of Strathspey are spectacular as the birches, aspens, larches, and rowans turn gold and red. In 2008 the colors were even more impressive than usual, the trees glowing with light and brightness. On several day hikes near my home in the strath, I took these photos of that wonderful autumn.

“So, how was your trip?”

“Awesome!” I reply unrevealingly. Or, “It was everything.” Or, “It was a year…,” my voice trailing off in the hopelessness of answering.

We get this question from everyone. As if we could sum up a year-long expedition in the same few words one might use to describe a week on a Caribbean cruise.

Images pop into my head. Swatting a seemingly infinite stream of mosquitoes beneath a baking July sun while climbing through a steep forest of yellow cedar… Nudging our packrafts through a maze of shifting ice floes while trying to find a way across the nearly-solid Knik Arm… Hunkering down in a thicket of alders which were shaking and roaring in a late May snowstorm…

Tracing the line of the journey back, I can picture each of the events that came between, connecting these disparate images. But I have a hard time believing that they were part of the same trip.

We journeyed from the middle of Seattle to the first Aleutian Island. We traveled 4,000 miles – about 1,000 by packraft, 1,000 by skis, and the remaining 2,000 on foot. We finished on day 385 – a year and two weeks from the journey’s beginning. In over a year, we didn’t step into a car, skiff, airplane, or any other form of motorized transport. Temperatures ranged from 90F to -30F. I can’t even guess at the speed of the wind or the number of storms.

“The weather was awesome.”

Soon after we returned, we gave an interview to an NPR’s Weekend America. “I asked you about what you learned, and you keep telling me about the weather!” the host exclaimed.

When we attempt to add flesh to the skeleton description of our journey, we find our words inevitably circling in the pattern of seasons and storms. Long before we decided on this particular trip, I was enchanted by the idea of an expedition that spanned the seasons. Summer would be warm. Winter would be cold. We would need to change our gear and mode of transport with the seasons. We would see everything.

Only the last of those expectations began to approach the true experience of a year spent entirely outdoors. Snow melted, bugs came out, berries ripened, day breezes broke the uncomfortable heat, we wore shorts and silly sun hats, leaves turned yellow and brown, mushrooms popped up, leaves blew off the bushes, we wore fleece most of the time, we were moistened by a seemingly endless gray drizzle, mushrooms froze, the days grew darker, waves whipped the ocean’s surface, storms howled along the coast, bears denned up, snow flew, thin ice crept across the water, we stuffed grass in our too-thin mittens, snow piled on our coats and packrafts, we added a down quilt to our gear, we stepped into skis, zero degree weather started feeling warm, we skied firmly-frozen rivers and lakes, the sun returned, wind blew, snow fell, we left forests behind, blowing rain ended the cold snaps, the sun rose high and blazing, thundering booms went off beneath the slowly-thawing lake ice, snow melted, wind blew, skis were abandoned, sea ice cracked up, snow fell, lakes began to thaw, wind howled, snow fell, bears woke up, wind screamed, the first green sprouts poked above the red-brown tundra, snow fell, wind roared, we floated full spring rivers, wild greens graced all our meals, rain blew sideways, flowers bloomed, and the wind shook the earth.

Our moods were shackled to the weather. The first storms were an exhilarating rush of wind. Later gales left us feeling weary and battered. Even now in a calmer world, a strong gust of wind subconsciously triggers excitement and apprehension – for a gale that never comes. The persistent drizzles of fall soaked into our psyches, and it sometimes felt as if my brain itself would dissolve. The call of a new bird returning north could turn any day wondrous. Flashes of sun made us ecstatic. Waiting for spring was a months-long state of being that penetrated every corner of our minds. With only a few sheets of lightweight fabric between us and the outside world, through regions with some of the most extreme weather in the world, our moods followed the swirls of the air.

“The terrain was amazing.”

“I’ve flown over all that country,” the pilot said, shaking his head in incredulity. “And I can’t even begin to imagine how you would do it!”

There’s a reason that when people set out to walk around the world, they go nowhere near this coast, preferring to pass through Alaska in the more open, less-rugged arctic. The arc of the north Pacific is a line that seems simple only when viewed from a long way up in space.

We fought our way through thickets of logging slash, salal, devils’ club, willow, and blueberry. We struggled over steep bouldery scrambles and treacherous snow slopes. We walked the open expanses of gravel roads, sandy beaches, granite ridgetops, mossy meadows, crumbling blufftops, frozen lakes, windblown tundra, wind-packed snow, and fields of lava. We paddled bouldery creeks, giant rivers, calm inlets, swirling tidal rapids, crystal clear lakes, white-capping channels, and iceberg-choked bays. We skied on rutted snowmachine trails, through fluffy snow on frozen creeks and in thick black spruce forest, across frozen estuaries, on glare ice in six inches of water, over the wind-packed snow on lakes, valleys, and ridges, and on the half exposed cranberry plants where there was hardly any snow left at all.

It was a purposeful inconsistency. We’ve never been attracted to polar expeditions, long desert crossings, or journeys across the ocean. We’re impatient. Both Hig and I have a mindset perfect for a packrafter – someone who’s not content to travel in the same way or through the same sort terrain for any appreciable chunk of time.

You might think that after seeing so much wild terrain, one would become jaded – that each piece of new country would be a little less interesting than the last. But even at the end of the journey, battered by blowing rain, out of food, and with nearly every piece of our gear rent by bushes, stones, and one particularly unwelcoming bear, we never stopped planning for future expeditions.

“Nothing will ever be the same.”

It’s a tired cliché that a long journey will change your life. Even for two experienced people who thought we’d gone through all the metamorphosis the wilderness had to offer long ago. Even for people who weren’t looking for change. There’s something inexplicably powerful about stepping out beyond the realm of anything you’ve ever done before.

Maybe we’ll even do the same trip again, in another 25 years or so to see how the world has changed. But next time, we’ll pick a warmer year.

When glaciers moved through Oregon’s Eagle Cap Wilderness, they ripped apart the earth, leaving dramatic granite faces streaked and exposed, creating what is now the Wallowa Mountains, the state’s premier backpacking location. As my father likes to say, "This is God’s country," and I’ll hand it to him that the Wallowas do provoke a sense of awe and perhaps even a spiritual feeling within me. Maybe it’s the solitude or the openness of the landscape. Maybe it’s the people I meet when I am on the trail, cowboys mostly, who shuffle by on horses and remind me that there is a simpler life happening not too far from where I stand, on the sloping ranches and golden farms of La Grande and Lostine.

My family is from Portland, Oregon, and the Wallowa Mountains are our tradition. From the time my three brothers and I could strap on a backpack, our father loaded us in the car for a six-hour drive east, followed by a two-day hike into the heart of the Eagle Cap Wilderness, where we’d explore for a week or so. Though our family is spread out now, we make an effort each year to come home and hike into those familiar alpine meadows. We do it for us, but we also do it for dad, as nothing makes him happier than seeing his children suffering under the weight of a pack or tenderly applying moleskin to enlarged blisters on our heels and toes. By the end of our trips to the Wallowas, we are sunburnt, mosquito-bitten, blister-covered, and physically exhausted. We are also happy. Some families have picnic reunions or vacations to Cancun; ours goes backpacking.

This summer, we came back together after a lapse of a couple of years. We loaded up the car with packs, sleeping bags, oatmeal, and a beat up map that no one ever looks at because there’s no need. We know to take Highway 84 east from Portland through the windy Columbia River Gorge and then out onto the plains of the state’s cattle country, eventually turning off in La Grande. We then head through Wallowa and Lostine, small farming and timber towns. Past Lostine, at the end of a forty-minute drive down a rocky road that can pop the toughest tire, we park at Two Pan trailhead and unload.

This year, as usual, we’ve taken our time getting to Two Pan, and the sun is starting to go down. No matter. We take off down the trail with our headlamps handy for when darkness hits. My brother Jason is quickly ahead of us, disappearing up the path. We call him "the antelope" because of his long stride, which has had us eating his dust since he was fifteen years old. Each one of us has a different way of approaching the hike up. My father keeps a steady, sturdy pace far ahead of me, but way behind Jason. Greg, my "little" brother, is 6’5" and hikes like a pack mule. He can carry more weight than any of us, but is slower because of it. He also never complains. Chad is light and quick and keeps the mood upbeat. I am the slowest, the turtle to Jason’s hare. I stop a lot to take photos and search the landscape for white mountain goats in rocky knolls and slide areas. We’ve seen goats a few times up here, bounding like ballerinas from boulder to boulder, sometimes with kids.

An hour and a half into the hike, and it’s dark. We’ve turned on our headlamps, but only use them to watch for roots and complicated rocks on the trail, as the moon is just about full, lighting up the night forest around us in a magical blue shadow. The trail out of Two Pan up to Blue Lake, our destination, is the West Fork trail, which follows the Lostine River most of the way. There are fifty-two named alpine lakes in the Wallowas, and some are more secluded than others. Falcon Guide author on the Wallowas, Fred Barstad, rates the climb from Two Pan to Blue Lake as "moderately difficult" with an elevation gain of over 2,000 feet. Tonight, we won’t make it to Blue Lake, and instead decide to make camp near a trail split in a meadow. It’s a good stopping spot because of the soft grass and fresh water nearby. The rest of us set up our tents, but Jason decides to sleep under the stars, which are thick and ablaze in the August sky, tainted only slightly by the light pollution coming from the white moon. At night he’ll hear white-tailed deer nosing around the meadow, and in the morning he’ll wake with dew on his face.

On day two, we take the hike more seriously. It’s up, then up some more, which is how I love to hike first thing in the morning. This series of switchbacks makes for a dramatic climb in elevation on a slim, rocky, dirt path. Because it’s Wednesday, we don’t see many hikers. After a couple hours, a group of cowboys with saddle stock pass us. We stand off the path and let them go by, saying our "howdies" and smiling, but my father and brothers consider all these "horse people" to be traitors to the Wallowas. Unless you’re wearing a pack, you’re lazy in my father’s eyes.

He also hates the way the horses tear up the stream banks and muddy the trails. I have often dreamed of having an alpaca or mule carry my pack come late in the afternoon on day two of the hike and so can’t share my father’s distaste for the horses. Plus, for the most part, the cowboys are laid back local guys who know and love the Wallowas. A couple years ago, on the hike out from Mirror Lake, one brother and I were stopped by a group of them riding enormous horses and trailing loaded up mules behind them. After some small talk they offered us a drink.

"A drink?" we asked.

"Yeah, how ’bout a Bud?" one of them said and opened up a large sack attached to a hazel-color mule. Inside was not only a case of beer, but ice. They gave us each a Budweiser, which is not my favorite beer, but was probably the best one I have ever had after spending six days in the wilderness. We emptied our cans, and they headed up the trail, while we carefully headed down. Since then, the "horse people" have made my good list.

This hot Wednesday, no one offers us drinks as they pass us by, leaving a dusty trail to tackle. As we continue, I stop and look west at 9,000-foot Elkhorn Peak in the distance. In the scree fields, there are pika chirping and bobbing in and out, doing whatever it is they do. The Wallowas are rich in flora and fauna, but they have a very short summertime growing period from June to September. As a result, in August everything is in full swing. Come earlier or later, and you’ll be up against cold, difficult river crossings, rain, hail, and even possibly snow. Because of the harsh climate, the Ponderosa and lodgepole pines are sparse, and people are advised to protect the native plants, which do their best to reproduce in the summer. Wildfires are also a big concern, so campfires are limited in most places and required to be made 200 feet or more away from alpine lakes.

According to ranger Sweyn Wall, the alpine lakes are the most fragile ecosystems in the Eagle Cap Wilderness. With about 30,000 to 40,000 hikers and horses coming through the Wallowas each year, human impact is a significant issue. "Other areas of concern include invasive plants in the lower elevations, and the removal of natural fire from the ecosystem. We do actively inventory and manage invasive plants, but it is often difficult to locate populations when they are at a stage that is easily manageable," says Wall.

Working our way up the trail, we reach a meadow and stop for lunch along the Lostine River. By this time, we have crossed the river twice, using river rocks as makeshift bridges. Some years we’ve had to take off our boots and wade across, but this time the river is low enough to keep our shoes on. When the Lostine River is not criss-crossing the West Fork trail, it’s meandering through meadows scattered with Indian paintbrush, yarrow flowers, and wild onion. These picture-perfect settings beg us to sit down and take a load off… so we do, using a fallen tree as a bench and keeping our eyes open for golden eagles and red digger squirrels.

We eat our cheese and salami lunch in almost total silence. It’s not that we’ve got nothing to say, it’s that the kind of peace these mountains evoke should not be disturbed. The other part is that one of my dad’s Wallowas rules is "no useless chattering." Over the years, Dad has compiled an unofficial list of rules that his children know and abide by. A sampling:

1. No electronics (leave iPods, phones, and GPS at home).
2. No time (don’t ask how long the hike will take or what time it is, because it doesn’t matter anyway).
3. Self sufficiency (you pack your own food, and you pump your own water).
4. No whiners (unless you have a cougar attached to your leg, he doesn’t want to hear about it).
5. No mothers (um, let me explain).

That last rule may put some people off, but it is actually Dad’s Rule Number One. When he first started coming up to the Eagle Cap Wilderness, he came with his buddies, who were all married with young children. They came up as a group of men probably trying to escape their families for a week. When their kids got older, they started bringing us along, but held fast to the idea that their wives couldn’t come up. The Wallowas was always a trip for guys and eventually became a trip for dads and kids. The fathers feared that with wives in tow, their kids would be pampered (see #4 above), and that the ruggedness of the experience would be altered. Wives and mothers might want certain comforts that the fathers didn’t care to bother with, and so moms were banned from the trip. Sexist? Perhaps. But it’s been like this for twenty years, and only time will tell if grandchildren or other circumstances might eventually change Dad’s mind. I doubt it.

Back on the trail, we cross more lush meadow and reach Minam Lake, circling around it. Many hikers stay at Minam, as it’s a crystal-clear beauty with plenty of swimming, trout fishing, and a handful of established campsites along the perimeter. For us, the Wallowas is all about solitude, and we want to camp alone, so we keep going another 300 feet up to Blue Lake. Camp is in a boulder-clad clearing surrounded by shady lodgepole pine and fir trees, plus a mountainside backdrop which alternates between granite rock slides and patches of snowfields, leftovers from those glacial days.

The next day, Jason and a friend climb up to the snow fields, scrambling and hopping over boulders. With them they’ve brought a poncho and a pot. I am laid out on Swim Rock, reading a David Sedaris book when I hear, "Whoop!! Ahhh! Hoo, hoo, hoo," coming from the snowfields. With the binoculars, I watch them zip down the snowfield using a rubber poncho as a sled. Later, they return with Jell-O, which they premixed and cooled in a titanium pot in the snow while sledding.

Around the campfire, there is talk of climbing Eagle Cap the next day, a strenuous hike from Minam Lake with an elevation gain of 1,972 feet. This is the central point of the Wallowa Wilderness, with unobstructed views reaching Idaho on a clear day, plus views of most of the Eagle Cap Wilderness and the Imnaha River headwaters. Another day hike option out of Blue Lake is the loop trail to Mirror Lake. From Blue Lake, the trail heads down to Minam, then crosses an 8,500-foot pass after a series of switchbacks, eventually dropping onto Mirror Lake. If a hiker didn’t want to take the same West Fork trail back to Two Pan, he could hike over to Mirror Lake, then hike out on the East Fork trail.

There are many day hikes, many trails to traverse, and plenty of ridges to explore in the Wallowas. Jason and his friends will head out and try new trails, plus re-visit some old ones. Greg will fish for trout and cook them up late in the afternoon. Dad will hike too, fish a bit, and sit on boulders in the sun. Packing up and leaving Blue Lake at the end of the week is always hard. We drag our feet and take our time heading out on the trail. Leaving is difficult because the Wallowas are so perfect, but also because it means we’re all going to go our separate ways. Not to worry, we’ll get together next year at the same time and same place, on the edge of a different alpine lake with new campfire stories to tell under a starry sky that thankfully never changes.