Camping Trip: Iron Creek Campground and Lava Canyon, Washington

 

Cispus River near Iron Creek Campground

After our hike at Mount St. Helens, we were all ready to get to our next campsite and relax (and we were crossing our fingers for fewer mosquitoes, too!). When we pulled up into our campsite of the Iron Creek Campground, I let out a sigh of both relief and wonder. Massive Douglas firs towered over our campsite, moss draped over every visible surface, ferns rustled in a cool breeze, and the nearby Cispus River created a calming white noise. It was a slice of old-growth Northwestern forest, a place saved from the saws that devastated— and continue to devastate— the ecosystems all around it. 

This Week (Leaves and Snow, Water Kefir, and Pasta)

(Well, past couple weeks— but who's counting?)

Anniversary trip

Zach and I have been married seven years now, which kind of boggles my mind! We took a mini road trip (in our electric car!) which involved hiking during peak leaf season as well as visiting Cahokia Mounds, the largest ancient earthenworks in North America (I'd only visited once when I was a kid, and was not impressed— coming here as an adult, I was completely blown away!).

Pere Marquette State Park

Monk's Mound at Cahokia

View from Monk's Mound: see the St. Louis skyline in the distance?

Dismantling the compost pile

After two years of "cooking," our compost pile was ready to be taken apart so we could get some of the goodness inside. We pulled apart the pallets, raked off the woody stuff, and excavated more than a cubic yard of beautiful black soil! We hauled this to our front yard and covered half of it with a new layer of compost, into which we seeded some winter rye. The rye didn't get a chance to sprout, though, because sub-freezing nights and then an inch of snow hit soon afterward— crazy weather for this time of year! (We also harvested like three sunchoke plants and already had more tubers than we knew what to do with.)

Zach trimming our 15-foot-tall sunchokes

Getting started on the front yard!

First sunchoke haul of the year

Sunchokes pickling (bottom right) next to some daikon and carrot (bottom left), and sauerkraut and pickled beets up top

Water kefir

We got a new fermented pet— water kefir, which is a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY) that feeds on sugar water, and with some care can produce a sweet carbonated drink. I'll write a more detailed post on it later, but suffice it to say that it tastes like soda with a fraction of the sugar, so Zach is very happy to be working with it!

The "grains" we got in the mail

Homemade pasta and experimental lentils

I'd been wanting to try pasta-making for quite a while, and in the past couple weeks I've tried it out three different times, with success! My favorite recipe is this one because it doesn't require eggs (meaning I'm more likely to have the ingredients on hand to make it), although I used an egg-noodle recipe to make pierogis. Other kitchen adventures included lentil burgers and lentil loaf (like meatloaf), both of which turned out pretty well. We have a ton of lentils in our pantry for some reason, so I'm looking for ways to use them up!

What have you been up to this week?

 

Pierogis: mashed potatoes, cheese and sauerkraut tucked into a pasta wrapper and boiled, then fried in butter. YUM.
(May I also draw your attention to that delicious red-cabbage-apple-beet-ginger sauerkraut. Also yum.)

Lentil loaf with sweet chile sauce, quinoa, and sauerkraut

~~~

Portland 2019: Cottonwood Canyon State Park, Oregon

The John Day River

Before we hopped a plane to Missouri, we had time (and good weather) for one final mini-trip: a two-night camping trip with Gary to Cottonwood Canyon State Park in the desert of central Oregon.

Cottonwood Canyon was once a ranch, but was recently acquired by the state and transformed into a brand-new park full of amazing facilities— lush campsites along the willow-clad John Day River, camper cabins, bike amenities, free bikes to use while you're there, board games to borrow, a solar charging station, showers, and more! The arid hills rise up on all sides, but are widely-spaced to keep you from getting claustrophobic. 

Our first day, we set up camp and hiked the Pinnacles Trail, which took us 4.3 miles (and possibly further, when we consulted the map) down Cottonwood Canyon and sideways into Esau Canyon, all the while paralleling the river. Ravens wheeled far overhead, sparrows chirped from the underbrush, and we saw many deer hoof prints in the sand. The river reflected the yellowish hills and the blue sky, creating an intense melting palette of blue and orange. 

That night, some clouds rolled in, but we were still able to see some stars, including the thick band of the Milky Way. 

The next day, we did an hour-long road trip over the plateau and amongst huge lines of windmills to the town of Fossil. A chatty and helpful woman at the Oregon Paleo Lands Institute Center gave us directions to a field where we could dig fossils in exchange for a small donation to the local high school. We walked through the sleepy town, climbed a hill, ducked behind the high school, paid a fee, grabbed some of the tools in a crate, and began shoveling through the dirt on a hillside in search of fossils of 40-million-year-old pines, alders, and maples.

It took us a while to get our "fossil eyes" on, but once we did, we found a lot! We took pictures of many, but only kept a few. I searched through shards, while Zach chiseled apart layered rocks to find the fossils sandwiched in between.

That night, back at Cottonwood Canyon, we walked a three-mile trail up the canyon, then started a charcoal briquet fire (regular campfires were forbidden due to sparks) and roasted marshmallows. Some rain spat on us, but it never got too bad.

Zach said that the rocks around here look like low-resolution computer graphics because they're just shards.

The next day we drove home, and Zach and I quickly shifted gears into finishing up our final packing. But I was very glad we got the chance to visit this slice of Oregon's beautiful desert.

~~~

Portland 2019: Pictures from Yellowstone

Zach and I just returned from a whirlwind five-day trip to Montana, where we visited my brother Christian, who works at Yellowstone National Park (department of inventory— you never think about how many office jobs are needed to sustain a park of that size). Although it rained on and off the whole time we were there, we still managed to get in a few hikes and a bit of sightseeing. Here are some pictures!

The next several pictures are from the Beaver Pond Loop near Mammoth Hot Springs

Beautiful gumweed was growing everywhere!

Driving toward the Midway Geyser Basin in Yellowstone

Grand Prismatic Spring! We had never seen it before. Although we weren't able to get parking at the boardwalk that takes you to the edge of the spring, we were able to hike to this overlook. 

Grand Prismatic Spring from ground level

We drove past this smallish male right after seeing a gigantic bull further up the road (and a stupid tourist standing ten feet away to get a good shot). 

Driving down toward Mammoth Springs

Mammoth Hot Springs!

Looking up a hill toward the mountains swathed in clouds— this was on a hiking trail just outside of Gardiner, MT

Cactus!

Sunset on the Columbia River on our drive home

This Month: Cards, Hiking, and the Way Home

View from Harry's Ridge at Mt. St. Helens National Monument: Spirit Lake and Mt. Adams

Whew, it's been a while since I've posted a general life update! I've been so busy waxing eloquent about our backpacking trips and rambling about random things that I've let several weeks go by since the last "this week" post. 

The most important news is that Zach and I are officially on the last leg of our time out west; we're heading home to St. Louis in just over two weeks, and have been trying to cram as much Northwest into our remaining days as we possibly can. On Sunday we're heading to Yellowstone to visit my brother Christian for a week, and after that we're hoping to do a short camping trip with Gary, as well as see everyone one last time before hopping the plane.

The end of a trip is always surreal, and especially this one. Seven months is a long time to spend time in a place; I still don't quite feel like I can say we "lived" here, but realistically speaking, I suppose we have.

Now, at the end of our time, I keep on struggling with all the things we didn't do, all the places we didn't visit and events we said we'd attend but didn't. But I keep reminding myself that this is not the last time we'll be out here.

In the meantime, here is some stuff we did do over the past month…

Single Candle Card Productions

I've always made cards for people; one of the reasons I looked forward to Christmas, Valentine's Day, and birthdays was so I'd be able to make cards. When I was about seven, I thought it would be cool to draw a logo on the back of my cards, and I chose a single candle, along with the inscription "Single Candle Card Productions" on the back, because that sounded impressive to seven-year-old me.

Fast-forward twenty-three years, and I'd started drawing more consistently. After kicking around the idea for a few months, I finally took the plunge by setting up an online shop and ordering some prints. Single Candle Card Productions was "real!"

If you're interested in checking out my work, hop on over to my Facebook shop. I'd love it if you liked and followed my page, along with sharing any of my posts that catch your eye. (Thanks so much to all of you who have already done that!) And of course, if you'd like to buy some cards, that would be great too!

Hiking Mt. St. Helens

A couple Sundays ago, we hiked the eight-mile out-and-back trail Harry's Ridge at Mt. St. Helens National Monument. I'd seen the mountain on the Portland skyline for years, but never visited up close, and it was a perfect day for a hike: chilly and sunny. I highly recommend the hike; in addition to winding through some beautiful wildflowers and huckleberry bushes heavy with fruit, it took us up on a ridge with incredible views of Spirit Lake, which is lined with the white skeletons of trees destroyed by the blast. 

Exploring Ape Caves

Zach had visited this 2.4-mile-long lava tube as a teenager, and it had been on our to-do list for years now. We drove up to the park with our friends Tyler and Adrienne, and spent a couple hours hiking through the frigid hallway of the lava flow. Sometimes it felt like we were hiking in catacombs (we sang some Gregorian-chant-inspired improv), sometimes like the belly of a whale, sometimes a cathedral, sometimes a chamber lined with enormous eels. The Lower Cave route was smooth-floored and open, leading to a dead end tucked far beneath the surface. We returned to the Upper Cave route, which headed toward the surface and required some serious boulder-hopping and clambering over loose rock. It was the longest I had ever spent underground, and when we climbed a ladder through a skylight out into the sunlight, I felt like Jill emerging from the underground realm in The Silver Chair. It was an incredible place to visit— if you're ever in the Northwest, check it out!

Playing Xfest

Zach and I spent last weekend at the Xfest Christian music festival in Stevenson, Washington, visiting old friends, watching bands play, and taking lots of walks along Rock Cove and the Columbia River, watching gaggles of snow geese dabbling in the water, ospreys wheeling overhead, and huge bevies of California quail scurrying like cartoon roadrunners across the road into the blackberry thickets. We played with Insomniac Folklore on Sunday night, which was a lot of fun, too!

Morning at Rock Cove

Downtime

Since we're going to be traveling a lot the next couple weeks, we tried to take some downtime this week. We went peach- and blackberry-picking with Gary at Sauvie Island, played a house show with Insomniac Folklore, and took an eight-mile walk to downtown Vancouver (Washington) to hang out in the park and read books at the library. Now Zach is finishing up his last few days of work before his vacation days kick in.

Right now, going home doesn't feel real. I'm just floating along, trying to soak everything in, letting the current of events take me wherever I'm supposed to go.

~~~

A Jaunt on the PCT II, Day Three

A mountain with grayish splotches of burnt trees

August 20th, 2019:

I awoke in the earliest watch of the morning, when the sky was gray with a few stars still lingering, to the sound of a barred owl hooting in a tree nearby. I took out my earplugs to hear him better, listening to the rhythmic Who-cooks-for-you, who-cooks-for-you-all echoing across the lake in the morning stillness. Then I immediately fell back asleep.

I woke up a little while later, when the sky was still gray but a flaxen light was starting to paint the rim of the eastern mountain ridge that rose up as part of the bowl that encased Wahtum Lake. Zach and I packed up quickly and were on the trail by 7:15, just as golden light was pouring onto the uppermost trees on the far ridge.

My shins and calves were super sore, and we both knew that the hike today would entail a lot of downhill, as we were heading into the Columbia Gorge to meet Gary at Cascade Locks. The hikes of the past two days had been difficult, and I'd never felt like I'd gotten enough sleep, and that, combined with my muscle aches and the weather growing sticky and warm, made me feel leaden with exhaustion. We walked slowly and took lots of breaks, but I could not push myself harder.

Checking out this huge mushroom!

Although the forests were similar to the ones of the past two days, we wound in and out of distinct ecosystems, such as fir forests where the ground was carpeted almost entirely with waxy, bluish clumps of beargrass. 

Soon we began ducking in and out of burned areas that stretched from the gorge up onto the hills like fingers. I grimaced at the rows of scorched trunks, but Zach reminded me that the forest is supposed to reset every couple decades— and if a single spark from a firecracker was enough to set the entire gorge ablaze, it meant that the forest was past its due. Wanting the gorge to be only lush and green on our terms was pure nostalgia, not actually what's best for the woods.

"Still," I said, "it's sad that there are people around who will never live to see the forest in full glory again."

"But that's just a human perspective," Zach said. "An old forest that hasn't been burned in too long isn't a fire ecosystem in its full glory. Every stage is important. Humans just like certain stages less than others."

I looked around at the blackened trees, which had a handsome ombré effect due to the scorched bark giving way to sun-bleached wood above. Clumps of beargrass and whips of huckleberries were slowly retaking the ashy ground, and among the shards of burnt bark on the ground you could see fir trees half an inch tall, bristling like green stars. Black-and-white hairy woodpeckers flitted between the dead trees, rattling the silence with their pecking. The forest was still very much alive, just not in the way we're used to. The glory of a fire ecosystem is to be what it is, no matter what stage.

Still, I was glad we had hiked the Eagle Creek Trail when we'd had the chance.

The day grew hotter as we hiked back into live trees and started a never-ending downhill that hurt my tense muscles so badly that I groaned with every step (Zach was faring no better, with his knee hurting). Popping some Ibuprofen helped, but it was just a matter of getting through it, switchback by switchback. We got some last beautiful views of Mount Hood and Mount Adams before we disappeared behind the ridge of the mountains that stand right at the banks of the Columbia River: the blue water called to us from a thousand feet below, and we limped toward it.

After a couple hours of tedious and painful downhill, we paused by a spring to gather water and rest our sore legs. Unlike the still warmth of the forest, this cleft in the rock was a channel for cool air, which tumbled down from the mountain heights along with the water. Here we revived a bit, and felt better as we headed toward the last several miles of the hike.

The trail more or less leveled out now, winding us alongside the mountain shoulders, past twenty-foot-tall triangles of volcanic rock, and through woods that became full of familiar plants: cat-ears, Oregon grapes, big leaf maples, licorice ferns. 

We popped out into a gravel parking lot, followed PCT blazes on telephone poles down the road, ducked under a bridge, and came out at a little park right next to Bridge of the Gods, where Gary was waiting to pick us up.

We collapsed in the car, aching, sweaty, and stinky— and satisfied that we had completed this breathtaking section of the PCT. That night, I slept twelve hours straight.

 ~~~