Our first campsite, in a desolate, dead forest.

Lost in The Wilderness

Adminisk8or

07/04/2023

If anyone really actually follows my stories and was worried the excitement couldn't be topped from last week, FEAR NOT. And buckle up.

After finally getting back from our fun Germany trip (and less-than-fun experience at the Zurich airport), I had Thursday morning to pack and then leave on a big backcountry backpacking trip. The goal: drive out to a very remote part of Idaho and stay a night at a very remote hot springs resort; the next several days would be spent driving a couple hours to a trailhead, hiking 16 miles in, and 16 miles out of an incredibly remote wilderness; the last evening/morning would be spent back at the resort before making the long drive back home. So, Thursday afternoon, I get picked up by my two friends, and we drive, drive and drive. I think we spent roughly 11 hours altogether driving out, not including breaks.

To get there, after traveling all afternoon and evening, we found ourselves driving up a long canyon near midnight. As we pulled off and got out at one point in this canyon, the sudden scent of the backwoods hit us like an incredible wall of bricks; and with that, and a look up into the stars, along with the sound of the river running in the darkness below, we all began to feel a very strong and exciting sense of adventure. We finished our drive (a very beautiful one, I might add) and made it to the resort at 2 AM, where the owners kindly showed us our rooms after we called them. Sleeping soundly that night, first thing in the morning, we soaked in the springs, and, once again, it was so beautiful! I am going to sound like a broken record with that descriptor for a moment, here, probably, but trust me. After a soak, and a good conversation with the kind owners at the springs, we headed on to the trailhead. And there is where the fun really began.

We started on the trail at noon. From the very beginning of the trail, we had a tree that had fallen across it, but we easily walked around it. We would continue to find this problem a number of times in the next several miles, but it was no big problem, at all. The scenery was... interesting. On the one hand, much of the area was quite beautiful, being a very remote mountain forest. On the other hand, there were MANY large areas of this wilderness where the trees, rather than being a thriving forest, had become a landscape of toothpicks- both vertical and horizontal. Perhaps more fascinating, the reasons for this sparseness seemed to vary between grub kill, fungal growth, and forest fires- and sometimes combinations of two or more. Besides the trees, the rockscapes were also rather interesting. Much of it was granite stone (I think), and unlike the stone that most people see day to day, these rocks had hardly been touched; no dynamite, paving, moving or any of that jazz- these all had moss and lichens teaming on them, and you could tell that long, long ago, this had been a very volcanic place with very projectile rocks. The millennia had long smoothed those stones from jagged pieces to rough but rounded boulders, ridges and outcroppings. There was certainly a LOT of gravel. As for wildlife? We had seen many a deer on our drive up- dozens! And we had brought along firearms and bear spray, as this area was well known to be bear and wolf country. Our entire hike? We saw two chipmunks. And the tracks of an elk. Aside from that, hardly a single thing, aside from the birds. It was... weird.

But weird or not, we were coming along nicely on our hike. We watered at a stream (gotta love filtration systems!) and had made it more than four miles in, when we began descending into a valley. It was here that our adventure became more adventurous, for the trail we had been following began to... disappear. We were not terribly concerned, though, as we had downloaded a GPS map in advance, and were actively following it as well as we could. However, as we got to the canyon floor of the narrow valley, the sun was starting to grow more orange in the sky, and the way forward didn't appear to be clear, as we needed to reach the opposite ridge. So, we followed what probably was a trail, but was a VERY old and unmaintained one up the steep and treacherous hillside. Having gotten to the top of this, we rested at the saddle. Just as we had started back on our way again, I hopped over a log, following our route; all of a sudden, I screamed, because I heard a sudden, LOUD hissing sound right next to me. It lasted a split second and then stopped. I looked down, and realized that the bear spray I had holstered on my belt had somehow dislodged its safety pin and released a mighty spray to my rear. As I looked at the damage, it appeared all I had done was sprayed my left arm pretty well- and thankfully, the strong capsaicin wasn't really burning too bad. I was relieved. ...that is, until I looked back, and realized the damage wasn't over. I had quite effectively misted my friend right in the face and eyes, and it was not good.

It was in this moment I actually learned what bear spray was, and I was thankful capsaicin was all it was, and not some bizarre chemicals. But for the next 36 or so hours, my friend, who had meant to bring his glasses and forgot, would be going on with only his right contact, because he did what I would've thought to do and take out his contacts. He realized how bad of a mistake that was after the first one. Feeling a little less than in proper shape, we carried on to try to get to our first stop at a halfway point of a lake. As we continued following the ridges, we were still on no physical trail we could discern, but following the guidance of the GPS map. As the sun set over the last of the hills, we were getting very anxious- because we had found the lake, but we were hundreds of feet above it, and we would have to navigate our own way down in the darkness. Also, the friend I accidentally bear sprayed in the face (I'm still never going to live that down) had packed a bit too heavy, and we were taking occasional turns carrying his pack just to try and make it in time. As we collected ourselves at sundown, we determined we needed water and camp, and the best way to accomplish both would be to hike down to the lake as quickly as possible. So, we started descending the ridge, climbing down gravelly hillside, dodging many a dead tree, and using what occasional grass and bushes there were for proper footholds. We had probably gotten about a quarter of the way to the lake down this hill (if that), and now the sun had well disappeared behind the horizon and darkness was our companion. We stopped for a moment to gain our breath as we dangerously descended this slope, when I thought I heard something. As we quieted down, we all suddenly realized what it was, and happily rushed towards it- for it was the sound of a brook! Sure enough, we got our water supplies replenished and our butts were saved. At this point, we decided traveling the rest of the way to the lake was a mistake, and made our way carefully back up the steep slope we had scrambled down. Finally, in the darkness, we found a place flat enough to call camp, made a fire, ate food, and slept like rocks.

After that ordeal, we awoke the next morning still feeling tired, but at least better than the evening before. But just as we were planning the rest of the trail ahead, we heard some rumbling in the distance- a thunderstorm was passing by. Soon, a small rain began to pitter patter, and it turned into a steady rain, which we waited out in the tent. After it ceased, and it appeared the storm was moving away from us, we quickly packed everything up and carried on over the ridges. I was not feeling particularly brave or hopeful, because the thunder was still dancing all around the hills, and here I was on top of a ridge, wearing an external-frame backpack, with aluminum hiking poles. Just call me thunder bait. But then, if that wasn't enough to make me uneasy, the rains came back to meet us. And then it rained a little harder. And then it really started coming down. And then it was hailing. And then it was hailing the size of marbles. We found a few live trees in the dead forest we were hiking through, and took shelter for the moment. At this point, we finally came to the very wise decision- however cowardly- to stop in the road and rethink our plans. We knew we wouldn't have the proper energy or resources to keep going on like we were, and the storm wasn't a pleasant encouragement, either. So, we changed plans- instead of hiking out to the lake we planned to, we changed course, instead, to go back to another very small lake we had seen on our way. This, we accomplished, and made camp at the south shore. Of course, there were still no trails at all. Oh, but the worst part of the trip (in my opinion) was really made manifest at this lake.

Up until this point, we were constantly bothered by a fair good many mosquitoes- and these mosquitoes weren't just any ordinary brand, no sir. These little vampires of the air had hardly ever seen a human, if we had to surmise. As such, they had no notion or fear of a hand swatting them away, or of a campfire smoke being not-so-fun. And so we were constantly bothered; the flies weren't very fun, either. But however bad they were while on the trails, this lake was a paradise for those evil bugs. We had to remain in covered hammocks or else in the tent to avoid being eaten- otherwise, we were constantly swatting them away, and only with little success. But this day, at least, we got to wash ourselves off and recover and rest.

The following day we reserved to hike back out. We came back to that steep valley I described several paragraphs ago and descended back into it (we dubbed it Hell's Canyon for how steep in and out it was to get to), we got the bottom and watered up. Just we got going again, I heard a SNAP! and suddenly, I was only carrying my backpack by a single strap. Up until this point, I had had issues with the belt part of that backpack and had long since given up on trying to use the belt, so I had just been carrying it on my shoulders. But now things were looking less than ideal and hopeful. But I took no time at all to get creative and make a solution. I took the belt straps I had been trying to use and MacGyver'd them into a proper shoulder strap, also using a couple of carabiners. It worked- though, the carabiners were not very friendly on my shoulder the remaining 5 or so miles. And thankfully, we did indeed make it back.

After we made it back to the truck, we took no time at all lingering, as the mosquitoes were getting excited at our presence. Our plan at this point was to find a BLM campground, stay the night, go to the hot springs the next day, spend our reserved time there, and then drive home. As we pulled into the BLM campground, it was dusk, and just before we got out, we thought to ourselves that we'd really rather just stay at a hotel at this point, for how tired and weary and dirty we were. Seeing that there was a hotel at the nearby city, I suggested we try that. And there's where things got weirder than everything we had already been through.

Elk City- probably not a place many people have heard about. We made our way there after dusk had fallen, and drove past the RV park in the process. It didn't look particularly nice, but we didn't really care, since it wasn't our destination. As we drove through some of the outlying structures down these forested mountain roads, we came to realize the town was clearly originally built on mining. And I know it's practically a trope of its own, but believe me when I say that, aside from that knowledge, we all began feeling a little... spiritually uneasy about this place, for lack of a better term. Anyways, we finally arrived at the town proper- if could call it that, and found the hotel. I have seen some pretty sketchy looking buildings in my life- from the abandoned and decrepit, to the forsaken and haunted.
This one beat them all. It was this old, old building that looked like it hadn't been tended to in a century; its surroundings were cluttered; its windows were all dark; you felt as though a hundred souls were peering out at you from the darkness, and the vacancy light was lit in dim green, as though trying to ensnare the weary and foolish enough traveler. It took each of us a solid 1.7 seconds to look at it and easily declare that we would sleep anywhere- ANYWHERE on earth- except there.

We drove on from the disturbing scene, looking now instead for at least somewhere to get food. There were two bars I looked up that said they were open. We tried bar number one. Before we could even get there (and it was right down the road), we had a sheriff parked "subtly" on a side road, waiting to catch us speeding- which of course they didn't. And as we pulled up to the bar, we had another cop car pull off on the other side of the road and run our plates. Seeing no one at this bar, we decided to try the other one, but we had to leave the town proper just to get this cop car to leave us alone and stop following us. We then turned back and pulled up to the next bar. This time, we had not a cop car, but a creepy old man sitting out on his front porch in his wooden rocking chair staring silently at us. But alas, we found food at this bar, and went in to eat. We were entertained by (or more appropriately, we entertained) what we gathered was the town drunk, as he went on telling us about his life story, a tragic tale of his young infant's death, his prior line of work, fourth of July fireworks, and more. As fun as he was, we ate quickly and went on our way. As we finally left Elk City behind, we couldn't help but feel like a strange heavy atmosphere had disappeared. I'm sure that being there after dark had a good deal to do with it, but MAN was that a bizarre city! I mean, talk about a warm welcome with the cops on us like that; and with the creepy hotel, the man on the porch and the abandoned mining industry there- it seriously felt more like an episode of The Twilight Zone than real life!

We drove down the road, thinking we'd go to a hotel in the next small city. The next small city was Grangeville, and the options were... meh. So we decided to continue on to Boise. But then we realized that we'd be getting there at 4 AM- and by then, paying for a room would not really be worth the six hours or less we'd get it- so we made the decision to pull an all-nighter and drive straight home, abandoning our plans to stay at the hot springs resort the following day. And we did- we got back into our hometown at 8:30 in the morning. Talk about a weird end to a weird trip!

And at the end of this description, I think that's the best way I can describe it- weird. Don't get me wrong, it was a very fun trip, and in spite of all the changes in plans, weird phenomena and challenges on the trail, I had quite a good time! But there was truly something that felt strange, off and just silent and forsaken about not only Elk City, but even parts of the wilderness we were in. The photo I posted, alone, shows just how dead and lifeless many of these areas felt. Would I go on a trip like this again? Yes! But probably with different preparations and ideas about goals.

And that's the end of this week's long story. It's well past midnight, and I have work in the morning. Until next time, see ya!