One of those trips that there's lots of little stories to tell, yet not much to tell. Really in a nutshell, one of the longest, hardest walks in the woods I've ever been part of.

- Highlights -


The trail basically isn't graded so it's up and down, up and down, up and down. Very frustrating.

Saw 3 bears. The first was pretty close and right on the trail so as we got closer it just casually walked up hill away from us; maybe got to within 40' of us. The other 2 were a little ways off. Saw 3 large buck elks just down slope from us. Also saw a large heard of them but they were a ways away.

Rained at the very first and then a bit on the 3rd day. Pretty much everything was wet, dirty, and smelled like ass for the entire trip.

- Daily Accounts -


Day 1: trail head to Three Lakes
The first day Jon's friend Jason was moving fairly slow and said he didn't feel good. We covered 7 miles in 7 hours the first day and we just called it good at some lake; which put us 4 miles short of our first night's camp destination and behind schedule for most of the trip.
The first few miles took you literally through swampy mud holes where my shoes started to get wet. I then realized that my trusty old Nike ACGs had slits in them where the leather panels started to separate and you could see my socks through them; not good.
Setting up camp Jason realized that he forgot his poles for his tent. He also mentioned his "recent throwing up" was probably his reason for moving slow; even though I had never hiked with him before, it was clear that this was proving NOT to be one of his better outtings.
Anyway, the 2nd day after 3 miles he turned down the only side trail option and hiked 16 miles that day back to his car.

Day 2: Three Lakes to "half way between Kimta Peak and Lake Beauty"
Woke up to clear skies and it stayed that way for much of the day.
Since we stopped short the first night we had 16 miles before our 2nd night's official destination. Pushed 14 or so miles that day through some very hard terrain but got dangerously dehydrated and had to whip out the hydration salts out of my first aid kit.
There was little option to stop just anywhere due to a lack of water sources. Told Jon to find the very first place that had reliable water and suitable tent spots. 2 hours later, countless feet of gain, and me continuing to get worse, Jon found the Cadillac of camp spots at the highest point (5300') of the Skyline trail. After drinking more, resting, and eating, I started to regain my faculties and fully started to appreciate that our emergency camp spot turned out to be one of the most dramatic camps I've ever been before. (Note to self - never leave home without those damn hydration salts; tasted pretty funky, but they saved your butt!)

Day 3: nice camp spot to Twelvemile Camp
More traumatic up and down crap! This trail was rarely level and your "loss of 100 feet" only came as a net result of gaining 200' then descending 300'. Really tough on the legs since they never get into either a rhythm or are allowed a chance to recover.
Midway through this day it started to rain light but steady. Had to make 1 creek fording which felt nice to get the boots off and the chance to plunge the feet in some cold water; sucked putting them back on. Literally could pour water out of those boots when I first removed them.
Finally got back onto the official trail and made up some time and finally arrived at our correct 3rd night's destination.

Day 4: Twelvemile Camp out to trail head
Awake at 3AM, finally gave up sleeping and got out of the tent at 5AM, made breakfast and started cleaning camp by headlamp. Already on the trail by 7.
We were wet, stinky, and tired..... and moving really fast. We coved the 12 miles out in less than 4.5 hours. This with the inevitable up and down this area seems to love to punish the hiker with. At times I was leaving Jon in the dust; I think he was pretty tired, where I was just fueled by delirium and could only think about getting the boots off permanently.
I didn't want to stop since any rests just made my feet hurt more when we started back up.
The packs were digging into my body in many different places. I knew it was bad when even Jon started to complain about pain.
My knee began to have these sharp pains, but luckily this didn't start until maybe the last 3 miles; likely due to a worn out tendon.
About a mile to go and up the trail I see some guy.... it was Jason! He looked shocked to see us already.
He figured he'd run into us much further up but then we told him about the early start and insane pace. The highlight of the trip is when he put his pack down, looked at us, and said "you guys wanna beer?". He then whipped out 4 beautiful brown bottles; they were gone in a matter of minutes (or was that seconds?).
Since Jason got out 2 days early and was the driver, he just spent his time screwing around at the beach and went fishing. Gotta say though that it was really nice to see him on our way out with that pack full of beer!

- Final Thoughts -


- lots of mosquitoes!
- the trail was surprisingly cleared of downed trees. I say surprisingly due to it lacking any other feature of a "maintained" trail.
- you definitely feel remote out there.... except we got cell signals a couple times.
- 4 days to do this was a bit extreme; a more friendly pace from what others say on the web is to take 6 or 7 days.
- living out of, and packing/re-packing, bear canisters is a pain... especially when there aren't many bears around.
- you always had huckleberries around for the first 3 days. Most were still pretty sour even though they looked promising.
- even though we weren't technically that high up, it sure felt like you were way up there.
- ran into a decent number of people up there for such a difficult trip. Including individuals and groups if you added them all up there were probably 20-30 people we ran across.
- never before have I been on a trail where my pace had averaged 1 mph or less. This really screwed with my ETAs and made for some pretty long days.
- Since it got dark at 8:30 I was in bed by 9. Pretty typical crappy sleep, and generally "awake for the day" by 3.
- The first night home and in a real bed, slept with my feet raised up (to help with the swelling) and conked out at 10. Woke up the next morning at in exactly the same position and didn't even remember waking up once that night.
- Even though the trailhead starts at about 700' and the highest point is about 5300, the entire elevation gain was something like 9500. So it was like climbing 2 Mt. Hoods, with 40 lb packs, over 46 miles.... translation: very tough.
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