Day 4- Using What I Learned

Feb 15, 2017

Segment: Grouse Gap Shelter to Callahans Lodge, 11.8 miles.

Weather: Low 30 degrees, high 40 degrees, gray, extremely windy.

It’s a lesson I have been learning, but once in a while I still revert to old habits. I stopped early the previous day, so I had plenty of time to take pictures of the two sided shelter with its massive beams, rock walls, and open fire pit. I also could have taken a picture of the vault outhouse to which you needed to climb down the snow to get into the half open door. Alas, I figured I could get fantastic pictures the next morning at sunrise of the east facing structure. Yeah, right. This day was gray, gray, gray. I packed up and totally forgot the photos. Sigh.

Looking north after leaving the shelter

This morning was not a friendly morning like the previous ones, but it looked like the weather would hold off enough so I could not only get back to the car 2 miles away, but go past it to my final goal at I-5 and Callahans Lodge, another 8 miles or more away.

The wind was something else! As I walked around the icy cirque it would gust and blow me up hill two steps before I could fully recover my balance. At least I did not need to worry about slipping down the slope and climbing back up!

Looking east to Pilot Rock from shortly before the parking lot.

The wind was steadily increasing and as I crossed the parking lot on the saddle at the ski lodge my skis were literally blowing almost straight out as I held them in my left hand. My strategy was to cut down the slope into the trees and quickly descend several hundred feet.

As I crossed the lower road and re-entered the PCT, the wind decreased to a strong breeze with gusts. I was now paralleling the road in a slow 2000‘ descent.

The trail in this 8 mile section is unusual. It is squeezed between the highway and a lowering ridge with small peaks that is also dotted with private properties. When I did some trail clearing with the PCTA regional director last summer, he told me how he negotiated with a homeowner to move the trail from between the house and garage to next to the road. It is pretty tight traveling through here!

As the day and elevation loss warmed the snow to a slippery slop, I had to revert to some road walking, but not before following the blue diamond markers on the tree the wrong direction. (see the oops! marker on the map)

However, road walking is not the goal of a ski trip. As I came to another saddle, I noticed a road and favorable terrain, apparently. I headed back up, instead of down. My plan was once again to gain and keep the ridge and then descend from the north side in a partial spiral to the south near the highway.

I am so glad I did! Even with the strong wind again, the views were worth it and there is nothing like being on top in a snowy meadow with all the world stretched out below your feet! I also would not have got the pictures of the rainbow below.

Nothing like a dark gray sky to make a rainbow pop in all its brilliance!

Looking north-northeast up the Ashland valley

Because of my climb up the ridge, I was now left with a final descent of over 2000‘ in a mile and a half. And what a descent it was! Carving back and forth across meadows until I found the wide road and then it was carefully oscillating from the left to right side in braking maneuvers. Finally, the road was little more than a four wheel drive track covered in 6 inches of slush. Repeat after me, Slide on your butt to stop before you hit that tree!!!

I think it is fitting that my last picture is of this railroad tunnel that I never knew was there. I had hiked over it on the PCT, but was unaware of what was beneath me. I think that is a fitting metaphor for any of life’s adventures, and for life itself. We get started on a path, but the future is really a dark unknown. We have bright hopes, but who can predict the trials, the lessons, the joys, or the hurts along the way? But we never need to travel the dark tunnel of life alone, because we have One who wants to walk with us and bring us out successfully to the other side where there is eternal adventure without the negatives.

I reached the lodge in the early afternoon and waited for Rhonda so we could eat lunch in the restaurant. We like to eat in lodges at the end of long trails. It’s a great way to reward my support crew!

Winds are advertisements of all they touch,

however much or little we may be able to read them;

telling their wanderings even by their scents alone.

— John Muir

Today I thank thank Jesus for lessons taught and applied, and rainbows in the sky, and light at the end of every tunnel.