Day 15 – The Long Way to the Great

August 29 – Trail of the blue mountainsNe oregon

Ladd Canyon Road

Anthony Lake camp was still mostly asleep when I left. It did not rain more last night and was outlined to be a hot, misty and sunny day. I had 40 miles to walk in two days to reach the big one, and had the goal of addressing most of that mileage today.

There was an active record on the road, non -commercial thinning of Pinos Lodgepole.

There is not much to say about the walk today. It was hot. There was not much water along the route. But he was on a fairly busy road and people headed for the weekend of Labor Day and at the beginning of the archery season. To be clear, by «busy» I mean a vehicle perhaps every hour.

An attached sheriff from Baker County came out on the way, stopped and wondered politely what the hell he was doing (paraphrasing) and did you know that the archery season began tomorrow? We ended up having a good talk about the BMT and I appreciated him for registering.

Although today’s route was largely on a fairly important forest road, from time to time it took a shortcut along old roads and weeds. Those shortcuts were great. In addition, I needed to go through the trees!

Truck water angel

Today I had two angels of water. The first was early in the afternoon. He was hot and thirsty and there was no water around, so I didn’t doubt a truck loaded with camping equipment and asked them if they had plenty of water. In the truck there was a father and his young children. He was super friendly and placed a 5 gallon bowl on his back gate to fill my face from my face. It was heading for a month for the archery season. I had to scratch my head at that, since I was with their young children but apparently school age. I guess they were preparing the camp and then went to the big one for the month?

Cows pond water angels

The true angels, and even bigger, the head of the head, were the couple that came while looking at a totally disgusting pond (on Waypoint 4013). It was later in the day and still had some water from the van, but I was preparing to camp the night and wanted to have enough to have dinner and breakfast. He had just started raining lightly and was standing there, carefully looking at this horrible pond. The cattle had definitely been there recently, but it seemed even worse than that. I wasn’t sure my water filter recovered from that pond. There were some recreational vehicles nearby, presumably from people who prepared for the archery season, but I couldn’t see anyone.

Then a great white truck arrived on the small road of the forest. The old couple inside asked me what I was doing. I told them that I was contemplating to get water out of the pond. They immediately said: «Oh no, you don’t want to do that. There are old oil filters and even worse there. Put on the back and take it to our camp and fill your water.» So I got into the truck’s bed and took me a few hundred yards to their RV and filled me.

The part of the head of this is that I am quite old, and even for me they seemed quite old. In fact, the guy could not walk so well. While we talked, I asked them what they were doing and said they were there for the archery season. What were they going to do, sit in front of their RV with a crossbow and wait for a great bull alce to pass?

I think he was understanding more about the archery season. For some, it is really just an excuse to live in the forest during the month and escape the heat of the end of summer in the city. What sounds good to me!

Although he was misty, he was starting to obtain views from the Valle de Grande Ronde, which he would arrive in Tomorrow, and the Wallowa mountains, which he had played in a few weeks after taking a very tortuous route.

A good camp

Not long after the water angels of the cows pond, I found a beautiful shoulder crest on the road in which to establish the camp. He had a view at the sunset of the valley and issues. Although it was near the road and could listen to the occasional vehicle, it was out of view and was probably camping in the place where no one had ever camped. I love places to camp like this.

Elevation tracker

Day 15: 2,487 ‘

Total: 39,084 ‘

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