My big adventure - day 1

40 years ago this month my mother took my younger brother and me backpacking for two nights in the North Cascades, into the town of Stehekin on Lake Chelan in Washington State. Neither of us has done the hike since, but my younger sister (who inherited my mother’s adventure gene) has done it every year since 2006. This year she invited my brother and me to join her.

Because the road into the trail entrance was closed by a landslide, we got up at 4 a.m. to make the much longer drive through a more southerly route to catch the trail on the east side of the mountains. We didn’t start hiking until noon and the next few hours were filled with adventure: we saw fresh bear tracks on the trail, we had to cross one broken bridge, and scramble up and down a rocky hillside to reach another, and it rained throughout the afternoon.

This picture was taken at 7:30 p.m. when I arrived in camp very wet, tired, and sore after hiking 10 miles. When I opened my pack I found that one of the stuff bags I’d used wasn’t waterproof and my extra socks, as well as my sister’s sleeping bag, had gotten wet. This was the low point of the trip.

More pictures and stories to follow ....