Being an inherent optimist has its good and bad points, as I realized over this past weekend. While planning for our adventure, I looked at the 31-mile long East Bank Trail and thought to myself, “Hey, that’s not so long! I’ve hiked 10+ miles with a small pack many times with no issues, and that was all in one day. We have 3 whole days over the holiday weekend to walk!”
The funny thing is, I didn’t really have all that much stuffed into my backpack. All it contained was a few clothes, some bagged dehydrated food, sandals, a sleeping bag, the tent, some water, and a secret stash of Ding-Dongs and candles to create an impromptu 30th birthday cake for my brother, who traveled up from Portland to hike with us. Even without excessive weight, however, my hiking stance went from a straight and cheery upright brisk walk to a bent and smiling slower wander to a hunched and ground-staring trudge, all within the first day’s 10-mile travels. Here’s an early-in-the-day picture. For a later-in-the-day picture, just turn your head 90 degrees to the right and erase the smile.
(Note: This is without excessive weight! And this picture is from the 3rd day’s hike. The first two days I actually wore my hiking boots and packed my sandals, instead of the other way around.)
When we signed up for our backcountry camping permit early the first morning, they asked for an itinerary for the weekend, and I chose a campsite about 13 miles up the trail, followed by one another 7 miles along for the second night. In reality, we hiked 9 miles the first day, realized that blisters were forming at an alarming rate and that our pace was progressively slowing (while the next campsite was 3 miles away, and it was getting late), then we turned around and hiked back a mile to take over an empty stock camp at May Creek. The choice was hard to make, but once we set up camp and cooked dinner, the beauty of the site won us over and we decided to take the next day for exploration of the local area instead of pushing on to hike more trail.
After a lazy day of checking out the local trails, lake, and waterfalls, part of our group headed home while the rest of us remained at another campsite further down the path for one more night in the woods. It was heavenly to wake to such peaceful scenery, and we ended the trip wanting to do it all over again (with less weight in the packs, however! Not sure how we would do that, but I’d be willing to wear only 1 shirt for a week just to be able to hike upright the whole way)
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