Fall Lessons in the North Cascades

The moment after making a vital decision there's a thought: "I did the right thing." Almost instantly afterwards, there's another: "Did I do the right thing?" Which is usually followed by "You're an idiot." Here's a funny story about the day I made a huge mistake, resulting in the lose of many needed hours of sleep. When you get lucky, you learn lessons.

A solo 40-mile back country trip into the wilds of North Cascades National Park was something I'd been thinking about all summer. I didn't have a partner, but I had a plan and that seemed good enough for me.

Pelton Basin in the dawn light

The Plan: I'd leave the night before and camp at Tumwater: the last front country site you can drive to. I'd wake early and hike 17 miles to Pelton Basin. The next day I'd do the short 3 miles to Sahale Glacier and the 3 miles to Horseshoe Basin and sleep at Cottonwood Camp. Next morning would be only 12 easier miles back to the bus and home for a shower and dinner.

But as the rain woke me from my sleep at Tumwater (cause of course I didn't put on my rain fly), I knew the trip was doomed from the beginning...

If you've ever hiked a mile in the pouring rain, you can begin to imagine how miserable it was to hike 17 miles in the rain in  early September. It's exactly as fun as it sounds.

So coming into camp, knowing I'd be alone (or so said the ranger, cause the popular short route to Sahale was closed), I was ready for a quiet night. But what I got was a packed campground, a windy tent site, and frozen feet. And because I had to put my tent as far from the bear box as possible and my body was borderline hypothermic, I was in no mood to trek back up the hill to put my food away. Enter my bad decision...

Lying in my tent, with my head not five feet from my food bag (that I never touched, cause I was too cold), listening to the yells coming from the other inhabitants around me, was enough to question every decision I've pretty much ever made. 'They're scaring away bears. Every five minutes. God they are persistent little buggers. Maybe they'll stay up there with them and not venture down here...' Needless to say, I'll never not store my food properly ever again.

The funny part of the story comes the following morning, when the other inhabitants of the campground were actually NPS rangers doing trail work. They were shocked to see me, since the easy route there was closed and needless to say, my ego was stoked as they were impressed I'd come from Stehekin the previous day. Alone. But the real kicker?  "Hey! We wished we'd known there was someone else here! You totally couldn't joined us for a beer. We were listening to the University of Washington football game!"

My sleepless night... brought on my beers and football... not bears...

Well, I can't fault them for it. They sure sounded like they were having a good time, now that I can put it all into context.

Horseshoe Basin

So to wrap it up, I skipped Sahale Glacier, stopped by Horseshoe basin on the way down, and booked it back 20 miles in only 7.5 hours. My sleeping bag and most of my stuff was wet, so there was no way I was spending another cold night in the wilds.

Highlights from the return journey: Cascading waterfalls in Horseshoe Basin, the growling black bear on its hind legs not ten feet away, and the older couple who rescued me and bought me dinner at the ranch. Oh, and the fall colors didn't suck.

Luckily all I lost was a good night's sleep. But I've learned that you're never too tired to properly store your food.