A Good Walk Unspoiled: September 2016

At the trailhead

It is always a challenge to try and stay camino ready. Life tends to get in the way of the best laid plans for good nutrition and exercise. But, as always, the lure of another camino helps to recapture our resolve to get our minds and bodies ready for another walk. This coming January we will be returning to the Basque Country, Euskadi, to walk the Camino Vasco from Irun to Santo Domingo. This is a short camino of about 8 days. We then are hoping to move on to Porto and walk the Portuguese Camino as well. There are always many options but these two shorter routes seem right for us at this point. So, God willing, we will be getting underway mid January and should be away for about a month. Weather is always an issue when walking in the winter especially in the Basque mountains, but we will be cautious, and roads can be walked when passes are not open. So, now Robin and I must dust off our fitness goals and get ready to face the new year in fine camino trim. To that end we already have been doing some hiking in the local mountains. Today, was another exceptionally fine early fall day and we decided to challenge ourselves with a difficult hike in the Columbia River Gorge, Dog Mountain. This is a great training hike which we have done before. It is a steep climb all the way up to the summit at 2800 feet. What makes it particularly exhausting is that it is accomplished in 3.5 miles. It took us 2 hours to reach the summit, and then after a quick lunch break, another 1.5 hours to descend. We were pretty tired but the gorgeous weather and cool temperatures made for a perfect day in the Gorge. But, I'll let you be the judge. Have a look.

The steeper trail is to the left. Guess where we went.

Looking back early on

The one reasonably flat spot on the whole mountain

Columbia River

Robin pushing towards the summit

Steep?

Mt. Hood beyond the ridge

Summit lunch break spot

View from the top

Robin holding onto her hat (25 mph wind)

Call a taxi!

Trail heading down

Mind your step

Mt. Hood greets us on the trail

One of the ongoing gifts of walking the camino is the joy one finds in simply being afoot in nature. Busy lives and bustling communities make modern day life stressful, but fortunately help is often nearby. Most of us can find a bit of solace and quietude in some nearby park or less traveled part of whatever town or city we live in. We who live in the Pacific Northwest are truly blessed to have an abundance of places of great natural beauty, close at hand, where our weary bodies can go to find peace and renewal. Yes, it takes a bit of effort and there is some physical challenge, but the feeling one finds after a day in the mountains is worth every calorie burned to get there.

Yesterday, was a perfect early fall day with clear skies over the Cascade Mountains in western Oregon. A friend of mine emailed me and suggested a trip up to Mt. Hood to hike the McNeil Point trail. I have never hiked this particular trail and with the weather being so perfect I quickly agreed to join him. We met up, I shifted my gear into Hal's Suburu, and off we went. We chugged along freeways and then secondary roads and then after the little town of Zig Zag (Named after a local river), we turned onto Lolo Pass road and headed off to where we thought we would easily find the trailhead. We ambled along and as luck would have it we drove past our turn off and spent another 40 minutes or so probing the flanks of Mt. Hood looking for our destination. Eventually, we came to our senses when we chatted with two young ladies who were wandering around, as we were, looking for the same trailhead. They mentioned an unmarked road that they had briefly followed before abandoning it because it just didn't seem like it was taking them where there wanted to go. They read off the road number from their GPS and we compared that to our very sparse notes and sure enough that was the road we were looking for. As it turns out it was just before where the Pacific Crest Trail crosses Lolo Pass road. We backtracked together and after a few miles we found ourselves snaking into a parking pass alongside a narrow road filled with many other cars. This had to be the place, and it was. A few minutes later, with backpacks snugged up, off we went into the woods and started climbing. This is what unfolded as we ascended the mountain. Quite a day.