After acquiring some new gear for my birthday, including my fancy-schmancy HH Ultralite, I decided to take my black lab, Sarge, for an overnight hike to Bolt Camp. Because this was my first time in the wilderness by myself since I was 20, and my first time with my dog, and my first time with my hammock, and my first time going out to Bolt Camp, I decided it would be wise to get up there with time to spare. Instead I left work at noon and ran around like a crazy person gathering the last of my supplies, threw the dog and our packs in the truck, and headed up Friday afternoon. I was excited to see only one other car in the parking lot, and we ran into the owners of said car at the trailhead. They were wrapping up fishing for the day and informed me that I would have the normally popular trail to myself as they hadn't seen another soul all day. Woohoo!
It was about 3:30 when we finally got moving along the trail. The setting sun was reflecting off the water and lighting up the underside of the trees overhanging the river, the birds were chirping, the squirrels were chittering, and I was finally getting some much needed solitude and trail time. I was a happy girl!
Until I saw my normally over-protective and loud-mouth dog do something I've never seen him do in 8 years.
He was bounding along the trail, as labs typically do, until he reached a small rise where he promptly halted, tucked his head and tail, and cowered back to me. This caused me to freeze in my tracks. For those of you not familiar with that area: the Cascades are home to elk, bears, and cougars. I have dealt with elk and bears but cougars have always scared the crap out of me, especially after the abnormally dry summer we've had and the fact that I'm walking next to one of the largest water sources in the region as the dusk approaches. I looked down at Sarge and asked him to go on up there again. He walked up to the rise slowly, then immediately turned and cowered back again. I figured he was seeing or smelling something I wasn't, so I pulled out my bear mace, loudly praised Sarge for being a such good boy, and tested the mace downwind. I'll be darned if some stupid cougar turns me around less than a mile from the trailhead! (I can be a *little* stubborn) I continued talking loudly, over the heartbeat pounding in my ears, as I moved up and over the rise and walked right into... nothing. Needless to say, I felt like an idiot but was still a little unnerved from the whole ordeal.
We got out to Bolt Camp without further incident and I began looking for places to hang for the night. I forgot how big the trees were in the area and couldn't find anything close enough to the camp that my standard-issue tree huggers would fit. Now, I've read all the suggestions and whatnot regarding hanging in shelters but I was losing daylight fast and was not about to go bushwhacking at night in unfamiliar territory. So I relied on my engineering skills and studied the construction of the shelter until I was comfortable with a set up that I felt wouldn't bring it crashing down on my head during the night. NOT THAT ANYONE SHOULD HANG IN A SHELTER EVER! Even though my logical mind said I was ok, the rest of me stiffened up every time that thing creaked. I will NEVER do that again, if anything just for the peace of mind.
So with my hammock hung and camp set up, I sat down for an unsatisfactory dinner (I was too impatient for the water to boil - lukewarm mush is not pleasant), packed up my food stuffs, and hung my bear bag about 100 yards away tied to a tree. Sarge and I then settled in for the night.
I meekly tossed and turned for a while, still afraid of the shelter collapsing, until I realized that hammock camping would take some getting used to (as a sprawling stomach sleeper trying to suddenly sleep on her back). I listened to the normal louder-than-I-remember forest noises until about 11 pm, when I suddenly heard a rythmic rustling coming from the approximate area of my food bag. No pauses, no increase or decrease in tempo, just a constant "swish swish swish" like someone rubbing two ferns together. I listened to it until it stopped about 2-3 minutes later, and remarked to myself that it was an oddly regular pattern that maintained it's position the entire time. Well, I thought, worst case: I have no food in the morning and I'm hungry until I hit town 4 hours away. No one's starved to death in that time. Hope whatever it was enjoyed my *ahem* feminine items. Jerk.
I finally fell asleep around 11:30 and slept soundly until about 3:00 am when I was awakened by a very unusual whooping noise. I was half awake listening to the noise when I thought "That's odd, since when do gibbons live around here?" Then I woke up completely and thought "Gibbons DON'T live around here!" I laid there for another 30-40 seconds listening very intently to the call, which sounded like it was coming from the top of the ridge behind the camp, maybe 50 feet uphill of my food bag. I couldn't place the sound at all, aside from hearing something very similar in the monkey exhibit at the zoo. I looked down at my dog to see if he heard it too. He was out of bed, hackles up, and on point in the direction of the sound. "Great, I'm not crazy... S**t... Alright Sarge, go get it."
Sarge took off like a flash and did a lap around the camp at mach 1. He wasn't smelling or looking or anything, just a mad dash around once and back next to me, sitting and looking out into the night. I sighed and figured at least it wasn't a cougar, bear, or elk, and those are the only things I'm really worried about, so at least I won't be getting eaten in the next few minutes. I laid there and looked at the darkness above me for a while, then gave up and played Majhong on my phone until about 6 am, when the sun decided to grace the world with its presence. As soon as I could distinguish trees as more than amorphous blobs, I rolled out of my hammock, started a small fire and set about making coffee. The sunlight reached the hillside just as I sat down next to the river with my coffee in hand, so I watched it slowly light up the river while I threw a stick for my dog and practiced my Shug impersonation making comments about morning coffee from the hammock. With the sun finally up, I cooked up some stew for breakfast, moved on to practicing my "karate" moves and Scottish impersonations, and finally decided to take a stroll further up the trail to see what it had to offer.
After wandering back to camp and seeing none of the expected mountain bikers or fellow hikers, I broke camp at 10 am with the idea that I would camp near the apparently empty trailhead or possibly move up to a car camping spot further up the road. I meandered back to the main road and stumbled onto the busiest back-woods parking lot I have ever seen. There were 15 cars, 6 people unloading, and an RV. The noise alone was almost overwhelming compared to the peaceful respite I had just come from. I dropped our packs off, ninja-ed into my camp clothes while (hopefully) no one was looking, and decided to wander around a bit and maybe take a nap in my hammock to make up for the restless night I had just experienced. I finally found a good spot in the sun, away from the main road, and laid down for an hour or two just watching the trees sway in the breeze. When I realized traffic was only increasing I decided to turn tail from the hoardes desperately trying to get in their last fix of the summer, and headed on home. I've always been more of a rainy-season camper anyway.
Oh, and after hours and hours of me listening to animal clips, my coworker found the exact call I heard on the first try after I mimicked it for him. On bfro.net, the Sasquatch website. Yay.
Sorry for some of the images being sideways. If you know how to fix that, please let me know.
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I tried to get a picture of my (ill-advised) setup, but it's hard to see a dark green hammock in the dark.
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