Nice Monsters

It took me so long to complete my recap of my backpacking trip earlier this summer, that I am committed to doing this one all in one shot. Interestingly, that means that I will complete the recap of one trip before completing the first one which happened months ago, but there you have it.

So, with out much further ado, here is the recap of my most recent backpacking trip. Enjoy.

September 1, 2006.

Around the time of the trip I’ve been blogging about that I took to Three Sisters with my lovely wife Tanya and my brother Enoch, we asked my oldest son Gibson what he wanted for his 6th birthday. I think he was feeling a bit left out at the time as he doesn’t believe we should ever do anything without him except for maybe eat vegetables. Anyway, he told us that he wanted to go backpacking for his birthday without even having the first clue what that meant.

Nevertheless, both Tanya and I believe that the best way to raise children is to give them whatever they ask for without exception so we agreed to take him backpacking. Ok, that’s a lie. Just amazes me that some people actually take that philosophy to raising criminals…er…I mean children and I thought maybe if I wrote the sentence out it would make more sense. It doesn’t. Tanya and I actually believe that it is better to discipline your children all the time whether they deserve it or not and then sit around judging other parents.

But we did agree to go backpacking. The first issue of where to go was relatively easy. When one wants to go backpacking and is in search of a place to go, one need only ask my Father. My Dad has hiked every trail in the Pacific Northwest and BC at least 200 times. He knows every rock, forest, pond, glacier, creek and trail head within 1000 miles of Portland. How is this possible you might ask? I don’t know, but it’s true and that’s what makes it such a mystery. But as with all truly great mysteries, like why hasn’t there been a Green Lantern or Wonder Woman movie, or why people voted to re-elect Bill Clinton or why John York is allowed to continue to run a professional football team or why you can’t buy that big fluffy popcorn they use for kettle corn to pop at home, you’re better off not even asking.

Anyway, my Dad knows all this stuff, so we asked him where to go. He said, “Ramona Falls. It is about a 2 mile, relatively easy hike and a perfect spot to take Gibson.” That’s what he said….at first. More on that later.

The next question was the real tough one. Do we bring Griffin? Here are some of the pros and cons we weighed in making that decision:

Pro – Griffin is amazingly cute and fun and pure entertainment to have around.
Con – Griff is 2 and a half and can go from pure entertainment to pure raging tantrum in approximately 4 tenths of a second.

Pro – We get to experience Gibson’s first backpacking trip with the whole family

Con – Trying to hike 2 miles with Griffin walking the trail would take even longer than it has taken me to write my blog recap of my last trip. Let’s just say he’s not a focused walker

Pro – Griffin is old enough now to know when he is getting left behind and hates it and manages to make me feel really really bad whenever I do it. I like to avoid that.

Con – Taking Griffin would mean carrying Griffin and that means Tanya would have to carry him in a backpack which would mean I would need to carry enough stuff for 4 people in my pack and sometimes “blogging” is the most exercise I get in a day.

We weighed the options (literally) and decided Griffin was coming and it was just time for Daddy to channel his inner sherpa. I just wasn’t going to start this trip with Griffin clinging tearfully to my pant leg saying “I want to go Daddy.” I’m just not man enough to endure that sort of thing.

As mentioned above, Griffin coming would mean that whatever couldn’t be fit in the bottom pocket of the pack that would carry Griffin would have to go in my pack. That means, food and shelter in the woods for 4 people including an un-potty-trained 2 year old. I was going to need help. So, as usual, I went to my Dad. His first reaction was to wince and inhale sharply through clinched teeth making a sort of whistling sound that roughly translates to “that is a terrible idea and I marvel that someone with my genes would even contemplate this.” Thankfully he moved past this bit of wisdom and began providing me with some of the gear I would need to pull this off.

My Dad’s garage makes the REI mothership in Seattle look like some hack’s camping box they drag out of their attic once a decade. Getting the gear would not be a problem. Carrying all that gear would be. I assembled my own and my Dad’s super-hightech, featherweight equipment along with 14 diapers, enough food to feed a football team and enough power bars to suck all the moisture out of Lake Michigan (in other words, 3 power pars). Tanya packed the bottom of her pack full and was set to carry 20 pounds plus Griffin’s 30. My wife is tough and strong as mentioned in previous posts, but I didn’t want her to have to carry that much weight especially since the injury to her leg from our last trip hasn’t quite healed and she has been resting it by hauling car sized boulders down to our back yard to build a retaining wall.

So, I took some stuff out and added it to the 73 pounds I already had in there. That might not sound like a lot, but if you are a backpacker you know that a good, heavy, extended use pack load will run you about 55-60 pounds with the right equipment. 80ish pounds is too much weight if you are any small than Shaquille O’Neal. And I am just a bit smaller than Shaq. But there was no getting around it. We had to take what we had to take and that meant carrying a lot of weight, for both Tanya and me.

A couple days before we were set to leave on this trip, my Dad inexplicably completely changed his mind about Ramona Falls, our agreed upon destination. It seems he recalled his last outing to that area included being trapped in a cabin with packrats the size of bobcats and was just remembering more and more that it wasn’t really that great a place to camp. Being a seasoned veteran of the marriage game, I knew that bedding down with my family in a field of large rodents would not encourage my lovely wife to continue going anywhere with me, much less backpacking. So, now I was in trouble.

You see, my only job for this trip was get the equipment and find a location suitable for a hiking 6 year old. My lovely wife, as she normally does, would do everything else, which was almost everything. I had the equipment, but now I had no location and I was 2 days a way. Fortunately, my Dad had several alternatives. Unfortunately, the best one was at the end of a 3.2 mile hike, all up hill with the last mile or so being a steep ascent up to a beautiful lake. First, that’s about 2 miles more than I wanted to hike. Second, the two worse words you can use about a path is “all uphill.”

That said, the promised location, by a scenic mountain lake where the boys could learn to skip rocks and otherwise terrorize some lake dwelling creatures with their presence on the shore, sounded too good to pass up. So, I decided to take the risk that my son could go the full distance, that my wife’s leg would hold up for that climb and that I could carry roughly the weight of a Backstreet Boy up the mountain. Success would be a glorious weekend in the wilderness. Failure would mean my wife tying me to a tree and leaving me to die in that same wilderness. In other words, “risky.”

The new destination was Burnt Lake which is on your way up Mt. Hood about an hour and a half out of Portland. My Dad gave me these directions for getting there:

Take 26 up toward Hood.
Be watching for a Ranger Station and right before you see one turn left on Lolo road.
Go on that road for “a while” until the road sort of forks and then go right….I think…Yeah, right.
Go until you see the trail head.

In other words, “I could drive straight there, but I can’t get you any closer than 10 miles.” Fortunately, he also reminded me that said Ranger Station would be open and they could tell me where to go.

So, we headed on the road to the trip. The boys were in great spirits, excited for the new adventure ahead. Then 4 minutes down the road they got bored. Their boredom led to, as it often does, a discussion of monsters. The following discussion ensued:

Gibson: Daddy, are all monsters bad or are some nice?
Daddy: Well there’s not really any such thing as monsters

Mommy: (looking at Daddy with a look that says, “really? That’s your answer? I have to do everything?) Some monsters are nice. Remember Sully and Mike Wasowski (sp?) from Monsters, Inc.?

Gibson: Oh yeah, that’s true.

Griffin: Grrrrrr, I monster.

Gibson: But how do you know if a monster is nice or mean?

Daddy: Well, I don’t think it really matters because there is no such thing...

Mommy: (cutting Daddy off with the same “seriously?” look): how do you think you could tell?

Gibson: Well, you could ask them to help you load the dishwasher and if they said, “yes” you would know they are nice.

Mommy: That’s true, that’s very good.

Gibson: Also, if they didn’t eat you, they must be nice because it would be mean if they ate me.

Daddy: Good point.

Griffin: Grrrr…I monster…I eat you….grrrrr.

With that age-old debate settled we arrived at the Ranger Station for final directions. The Ranger was very friendly as they all are. How is that possible? How can every ranger be friendly? This is some sort of strange statistical anomaly that should be studied by the brightest minds in our culture. Also, could they not spare even a couple people to work at the post office or DMV? Even 2? The Ranger confirmed what my Dad had said about Burnt Lake (even his directions were right as far as that goes). She said it was pretty, but not the easiest hike, but we had come too far. We were going in.

When we reached the trail head I had 7 strong men coming off the trail hoist my backpack onto my shoulders and immediately felt my bones compressing in a way that could only mean I would make a Hollywood leading man seem tall after the inches I would lose on this trip. Griffin was loaded into his pack and rode in there peacefully for about 9 steps before begging and pleading to be allowed down to walk with his very excited brother.

Gibson was fascinated by everything. Every plant, bird, burned tree, small forest path, or animal dropping needed to be studied carefully and marveled over. And, of course, he had about 10,000 questions per step. In other words, he was in heaven. The trip was going great until I could tell my youngest son’s begging was beginning to wear on my wife. There were only two possible outcomes once Griffin’s cries for freedom began to inch their way under my wife’s thick skin. First, my wife would start to go temporarily insane or second, she would give in and let Griffin out. I know the second option seems much better, but once you let Griffin out of his pack/stroller/high-chair, there is no putting him back. And that would mean we hike at Griffin’s pace the rest of the trip or carry him when the path got too steep. I knew he wouldn’t last the whole hike in the pack, but keeping him in there as long as possible was important. Then again, so is my wife’s sanity.

So, after a mile or mile and a half or so, Griffin got out and “hiked” with us. By comparison, his brother’s focus described above, was intense and precise. Even so, both boys did amazingly well. There were several small water crossings which Gibson became an expert in navigating. There were hollowed out trees for the boys to “hide” in and scare their approaching parents. And there was some mysterious gravitational pull that made my pack gain weight exponentially with ever stride. I was, once again, very thankful to have good equipment. If I had to carry all the stuff we had without the benefit of good equipment my pack would have outweighed my H2. As it was, for all my complaining here, it wasn’t that bad and the forest and hiking were beautiful.

The path got considerably steeper as we approached the lake. Griffin did his best, but wore out and had to be carried in our arms and finally replaced in the pack which he responded to the way he responds to falling off his bike on the asphalt. Eventually, though, he calmed himself down by constantly blowing on a whistle we had attached to my wife’s pack. Since absolutely nothing happened when he blew that whistle, I realized it made a mediocre distress call at best. Gibson, however, gained strength as the hike went on. He nearly ran up the hill leaving his huffing and puffing parents behind to deal with their asbestosis (see previous posts for explanation).

Finally, we reached our destination. It was a perfect small mountain lake surrounded by thick evergreen forest. The still water of the lake perfectly reflected the shore line in an amazing sparkling display. We made it. And better than that, Gibson had conquered the trail and my wife’s leg had not ruined the experience for her. Thankfully, going up on the Friday of the Labor Day weekend proved to be a good call as we were only the second group of campers and had our pick of private campsites around the lake. We walked about half way around the lake, managing to lose the trail twice and finally found a great spot.

When you are picking out a campsite, you of course need a nice flat spot for your tent, but you also shouldn’t overlook the importance of downed trees to sit on. After hiking, sitting is very important. In fact, I must insist that you purchase one of those folding seats that have two square panels held in an L shape by adjustable straps if you are going to go backpacking. They are a must. I will not argue about this.

Our campsite had it all. Flat spot, down trees, privacy, proximity to the lake, no mosquitoes. It was paradise.

We set about setting up the tent and fixing dinner and the boys played with all the joy and energy they could muster, which was about 1000 times more than I had. I could watch that for hours. We ate our dinner and discovered that one 3 mile hike does not get you hungry enough to enjoy freeze-dried teriyaki chicken with rice. Wow, that was bad. But we had bagels and jerky and soup and plenty to eat.

Finally, it got dark and after one more outing down to the lake where rocks were skipped and shoes and socks were baptized by missteps, we got ready for bed in our tent. Gibson had been begging all day to hear a story at bedtime, which ranks as one of his favorite things in life and so I started racking my brain for a story that wouldn’t be too scary since we were in the middle of the dark woods. Before I thought of anything, Tanya started talking to the boys about all the friendly animals in the woods to explain all the strange noises that could be heard outside our tent. In reality, my wife and I both knew that those noises consisted of a pack of huge mutant bloodthirsty timberwolves, Bigfoot and a rabid Kodiak Grizzley bear, but it seemed prudent to keep that from the children.

My wife mentioned beavers and my son responded that no animal with teeth of that size could be nice and therefore, the beavers must be mean and something to be feared. Tanya reminded him of the friendly beavers in “The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe “which prompted Gibson to say, “that’s enough story time, let’s just got to sleep.” We assumed, since Gibson was asleep about 5 seconds later that he was so worn out he just wanted to sleep. However, as he told us later, it was really that he remembered that in the story, the beavers get attacked by wolves shortly after their introduction and Gibson was in no mood to hear about attacking wolves…and neither was I thank you very much.

Griffin decided to stay awake. At first it was cute as he wanted to keep kissing his mom goodnight and it was still sort of fun when he would sing to himself or play with the flashlight, but the fun ended when the shrieking began. We had slept maybe 10 minutes and Griffin started screaming. Why? Who knows? Because he can, I suppose. Anyway, Griffin and his mom and to a slightly lesser degree his dad, got NO sleep. Pretty brutal really.

The next morning, Griffin seemed amazingly well rested and ready to greet the challenges of the coming day. Mommy and Daddy, not so much. But breakfast was made, stick sword fights were had, camp was broken down and the hike back began. The hike back went like the hike in with Gibson scampering along, Griffin getting out early and walking along the best he could and everyone enjoying themselves.

Taking the pack off was matched in pleasure only by the extra-huge hamburger that made up our first “out of the woods” meal and the drive home was enough to put the boys asleep. All in all, it was a great trip and much fun was had by all and I think we all learned something important: Nice monsters growl at you from hollow trees on the path and they dance around your campsite like drunken elves and scream all night long in your tent, but they do not eat you and if you ask them to help you with the dishes they will say yes and if you can find a way to take your own nice monsters backpacking you might just discovery a whole new way to enjoy them.