We didn’t have a roaring creek to invade my nocturnal dreams to awaken me with thoughts of water so I had to make due with reliving my fall down the mountain. I kept jerking myself awake just as I was about to go over the cliff that I had stopped from going over yesterday. Of course each time I woke up, I had to empty my bladder. It’s interesting that adrenaline filled dreams cause your kidneys to flush even more water than usual.
To show you how shook up I still was this morning, we cooked a scrambled egg skillet for breakfast and I ate it. I’ve never been a big fan of chicken abortions as a nutrition source so this is a major indicator that I wasn’t back to normal (that is, if normal is a term that even/ever applies to me). Even though we camped in an existing camp, it wasn’t an official camp maintained by the NPS. This is a round-a-bout way of saying that there was no outhouse available so we had to wild dog it. I went about 100 yards uphill into the woods to make sure I was secluded and far from the campsite, any water, or the trail. Imagine my surprise when people walked by only 20’ away. Apparently the trail takes a sharp left after our camp.
I high tailed it back to camp after covering my hole (the one in the ground—I was already done when I saw them and if they saw me, they were polite enough to pretend they hadn’t; and I don’t think they did because no one was vomiting). Pam was still gun shy after yesterday’s experiences and wanted to turn back. I was trying to convince her we were already half way so we might as well keep going. She was focused on two more unknown passes in front of us. The 3 people now approaching us were doing the same loop in reverse of what we were. They were also natives of the area and they were able to convince Pam that Cameron Pass was the worst on the entire loop so we’d be golden except for the 1100’ climb in 0.8 miles that we were just about to start once we left camp.
After convincing Pam to keep going, I also let her lead the entire way. It was a tough slog but Pam kept going. I could tell she was nervous the entire way uphill. Even though it was steep, it was never as exposed or as scary as Cameron Pass. The pass itself was not nearly as dramatic either. It was more of a high meadow than a narrow pass so Pam calmed down once we were over it.
We hiked on into Dose Meadow Camp which was where we had planned to stay last night. We decided to take a long lunch and relax for a while (Pam was crashing after her anxiety of the morning). Pam took a nap while I filtered and boiled water for a lunch of Pad Thai. Dos Meadows was a very nice camp with a set bear rope and a creek about 50 feet below as a water source. After we ate, we explored a bit before setting off.
In 1.7 miles, we could see a shelter off to the side of the trail—Bear Camp. As we got nearer, we saw some paper in the trail. I stopped to pick it up and saw that it wasn’t trash, but it was a warning: 50 yards ahead on the left is a hornet’s nest. I’m glad they left the note because it was right on the trail and would be real easy to accidentally bump it if you weren’t paying attention. We stopped at the shelter for a little rest stop and to make use of the outhouse just off the trail (even in civilization, I have a hard time passing up bathrooms so if I have an opportunity to not dig a hole…).
The trail we were on paralleled the Dosewallips River and actually runs all the way to the Dosewallips Ranger Station about 13 miles from Bear Camp if something goes wrong or Pam freaks on the next pass. We were going to take a side trail to the left to go over Gray Wolf Pass tomorrow. We hadn’t seen anyone since the 3 people that got a moon shot this morning. We were thinking we were getting close to the turn when we ran into a ranger and a trail crew member. They told us there was a great camping spot in about 100 yards to the right and that we were right on top of our turn. That was good enough for us.
We set up camp on a 3 sided bluff with easily 100’ drop down to the river. The path out to the camp was very narrow and could be easily defended in a survival situation (fortunately, we, as a society, haven’t devolved to that level just yet). We fixed Shepherd’s Pie and Hot Chocolate for supper before drifting off to sleep with the roar of the river below us.
