Don't we look adventurous? (And how cool is that hat hair of mine?)
As we hiked, we started noticing more and more snow on the ground. We were slowly ascending, which didn't make sense, since we thought that the campsite was below the trail head. But we trusted the map, maybe the trail went up before it went down. So we kept going.
And going.
And going.
At this point, we were getting a little worried (and a lot colder), so we double checked the map. What we had thought was an altitude reading of 5000 feet at the campsite was actually 6000 feet, well above the snow line. Oops. For the record, although I'm much more prone than most to clumsy travel slip-ups, the map reading error was comitted by my very well seasoned uncle. The guy's one click below park ranger, so if he's getting mixed up, there isn't much hope for the rest of us. But we had already traveled 3/4 of the way (and we're stubborn), so we trudged on, thinking that we'd evaluate things once we got to the campsite. As soon as we got there, the situation was obvious, we'd either have to pack back out or freeze our little tushies off. This is where we would have been sleeping (keep in mind, this photo was taken around 2pm, it was only going to get colder).
After a little pow-wow, we decided to throw in the towel. Better to swallow our pride than lose our testicles, after all they've already been in quite a lot of jeopardy on this trip. (Speaking of which, I'll take stale joke for 400, Alex.)
We hiked back down the mountain, thinking we'd camp out at a lower elevation. We saw a nice, secluded lake a couple miles back, so we were going to take our chances there. It was pretty and had some flat spots to put our tents.
We got there around 3, dropped our packs, and took it easy. Jeremy and I took a nap (some things never change), and Richard explored. When we woke up, he pointed out that it was 4pm--the hottest time of day--and still couldn't have been more than 45 degrees. We needed to keep going. We ended up leaving the park altogether, getting back to our car around 6. We had essentially taken the most geared-up day hike in the history of the sport.
So, we're again without a destination. Let's recap:
As we drove away, the clouds broke, giving us our first view of the mountain that we had spent all day trying to climb.
Irony's a cruel mistress.
Driving off, we saw a little campsite just a couple of miles from the trailhead, and it was well below the snow line. We had initially stopped to check out the area, but we knew this was the place. Here's what convinced us.
The view only got better as the sun went down.
And then got back up.
It almost made us happy that we couldn't stay in Sisters. Almost.
