Day 4 – Bears and Magic

August 18 – Trail of the blue mountainsNe oregon

Rush hour

It seems that it takes me a long time to go to the way in the morning. I always have this moment when I think I am almost ready, and suddenly it is an hour later. But start, I did it, below and down from the strawberries until I arrived at Paved Forest Road 62, by snow Creek Sno-Park. The path was not bad compared to the desert paths, so I spent a decent time. I could have cooked breakfast in the middle of that road without any danger of being hit by a vehicle. Once I headed uphill half a mile of the road, I heard a truck pass, but that was all for the peak of the morning.

Hunger is my favorite

Today’s route included my first segment through the country, so I was excited and thrilling to reach that segment. It turns out that there was a path kept by the user, which was in fact in a better way than the paths in the desert. On the way there was a spring marked on my data sheet as a hunger spring of «maybe». What a great spring turned out to be! It seemed intact, with moss growing inside and around it, and without signs of cattle at all. Definitely my favorite spring so far!

After coming uphill along this route and hitting a gravel road again, I was sitting there emptying the seeds and reeds of my shoes and socks when a type of forest service came in his truck. He gave me a double took and stopped. He was surprised that there was a path, and perhaps even more surprised to have gone.

Redux power

How many low trees are a lot? I think this qualifies.

After this, it was a long road walk exposed beyond Lookout Mountain (I think I walked through around 8 lookout mountains in the BMT!). I finally arrived at the Horseshoe path that would drop the N Fk Malheur river. It was a strange trace because I was mostly maintained … except for tons of exploitation. Yes, I know that makes no sense, but that was my impression. I felt strong and ready to make good progress, but the path had none of that. I persisted and finally arrived at N Fk Malheur, my first important river on the trip. He felt great drinking my filling and washing.

Bears

It was decision time. Acamvo next to the river or do I go through the 5 miles farmhouse? I decided that I would. It was completely a road walk in what seemed to be a rather important gravel road. I was climbing the road when two black bears charged the embankment to the left, ran through the road to about 100 feet in front of me and climbed 50 feet through a large tree immediately on the right side of the road. They climbed that tree so fast!

It seemed that there were two young people, maybe one year. What begged the question, where was mom? I backed up the road, giving them some space and thinking about my next steps. I didn’t have much time before dusk and surely I wasn’t leaving the road where Mom could be waiting. After about 15 minutes, I checked them and were still at the top of the tree. So I decided to look big, make a lot of noise and also act as non -threatening as I could as I passed. Surely they saw me, but they didn’t move. And his mother did not appear.

Incredible magic

I was desperate to get to Elk Flat CG before dusk, but I knew it would be close. There was no drinking water there, just a spring. And that was fine for me. Then I finally rounded the corner and I saw the camp. What disappointment! It was just a sad look full of cow cakes with a latrine dating from approximately 1946. There were 3 picnic tables and this type was installed in two of them with an extensive camp kitchen. I ventured to ask him if I could head to spring, and he said he could, but I didn’t want to drink from him because the cattle were there. I was dejected.

The black stain in the middle of the photo is a black bear. On the way to a tree.

But then this guy, Jessie, offered me as much water as I wanted, in addition to a banana salad and a green salad once I told him what he was doing. He even offered to cook a steak dinner, which I rejected. He was attending to his nephew and the 15 -year -old son of nephew, who was hunting ups on the son’s youth tag. Jessie was very kind to me, like her nephew and the son of nephew once they returned to the camp! I was next to them, using the only remaining picnic table as my base, then I spent the time with all three at night. They couldn’t believe he was walking along this path, and alone. They virtually feed me from Gatorade. What a great end for a full day. Thanks Jessie!

Elevation tracker

Day 4: 2,707 ‘

Total: 12,739 ‘

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