Last weekend we loaded up the gang and headed over the river and through the woods to Eagle Creek Trail in the Columbia River Gorge. In addition to our two girls, our good friends Keith and Erin joined us for Erin's first overnight hike ever. Jane had to sit this one. After weakening her paws on the Three Sisters Hike, she was playing fetch with my oblivious daughter and tore the pad on one of her front paws. With all the chaos on this hike, I was glad for her to be resting at home with Granno.
Eagle Creek is located about 40 miles east of Portland on Highway 84. To get there from Portland, take Exit 41 after coming out of the tunnel. The off ramp starts just as you return to day light, so don't let it sneek up on you! If you are coming from the East, you will need to take the Bonneville Dam Exit 40 and turn around. Likewise, when leaving Eagle Creek, East is the only option. Turning around at the very next exit (Cascade Lock) is easy.
This trail offers a bajillion waterfalls in the first 7 miles. I am not sure there is a trail so close to Portland with so much bang for the buck if you like waterfalls. The trail is very easy and has several spots where you can walk down to the creek to cool off in the summer. For these reasons, it is very popular. Most people turn around at about Tenas Camp, though, so it gets more serene after that.
Day 1
At 6 am we had only to pull some food items out of the freezer, toss them in Gena's pack, make like a tree and leave Tillamook. The kids suddenly had to do this and that and forgot to pack this, that, and the other thing, but we made it out of the house only a few minutes late. We hadn't finalized the decision to leave Jane until Saturday morning in case she was well enough for the easy hike that Eagle Creek offers so we still had to drop her off before we could really get out of town. After dropping puppy with Granno, we got to the main Eagle Creek parking lot just before 9 am.
The safest parking lot is on the left as soon as you get off the ramp and take a right in front of the hatchery. This is the lot where you pay for day use if you don't have a NW Forest Pass. If you are headed up overnight or for several days, you will want to leave your car or truck here as it is closest to the Park Host and therefore has much lower rates of vandalism and theft.
For a day hike you can drive further up the creek to park at one of the two lots closer to the trail head. Note the signs on both sides of the street that say, "No Parking Between Signs." You will also notice little pull-out spots in the road where you may think you can park. YOU CAN'T. The signs should say, "No Parking This Side of Street." On our way out of the forest we have seen Park Ranger Boy writing dozens of tickets. This can turn a $5 trail visit day into that plus $125 for illegal parking. Don't be that guy!
So we got geared up and hit the trail. When we planned this trip several months ago, we thought we would be able to camp at Wahtum lake with the girls on this trip. Last year we had camped at 7 ½ mile camp for their first-ever overnight hike. This year we planned on taking them on several more leading up to this one, building them up for almost double the distance. Being a blended family, our kids are gone about every other week in the summer and stay very busy. This business, however, seems to include a lot of couch time and not enough fitness time so we didn't think them ready for 26 miles in two day. There are some campsites about another three miles up trail 440 towards Wahtum Lake along the tributaries of the East fork that we thought we would be able to push them to.
This was Erin's first ever overnighter!! As such, she was new to her pack and her shoes, while she had been wearing them on walks, were also new to the trail. For the first little while we were stopping every 15 minutes or so to adjust her pack looking for that sweet spot that every backpacker knows. I don't think we ever found it, leaving me to con clued that hers is the wrong pack for her.
We stopped at the overlooks to several of the waterfalls including Metlako, and the Punchbowl twins, but we didn't hike down into them. These can be done on a day hike, so we decided to save our calories and push on as far as we could early in the day.
About Tenas Camp (3.7 miles), we were ready for lunch and knew the perfect spot on top of a waterfall. There are two ways to get to this fall and one is through a campsite. Some people were resting at this campsite but we figured we could walk down through the site to our chosen lunch spot. NOPE! They had a buddy who had to use a tree! Understanding the urgency when nature calls, we gave their friend all the time he needed and waited for him to come back up the hill so we could walk down to the falls. It seems we gave him enough time to take care of the business and the paperwork but not enough time to bury his own scat! Thinking back, he was without a shovel or trowel and looked urban enough to forget that our ancestors knew how to use fancy tools like sticks to accomplish certain tasks. There on the edge of a campsite were his poop and paper for the world to see! How special.
We didn't let it get to us as we are sure the world is full of people who need to learn certain facts such as: When on a trail frequented by thousands of people every weekend, you should bury your turds. If half of the visitors here didn't do that, this would be a shitty trail instead of the piece of beauty I am sure he came here to enjoy. Don't ruin it for everyone else.
So we had lunch on INSERT NAME OF FALLS which consisted of a variety of jerky, cookies, and trail mix. Without close scrutiny, the kids went right to all the things they wanted NOW with no consideration to what they would eat tomorrow. You have to learn some things the hard way, so I let'em! I figure they aren't going to learn if I never let'em fail. Tomorrow they would have no cheese and cracker packets. Sad.
We were collecting our things, about to leave our lunch spot so Gena took Nicole up to use a bush. Carefully using her experienced eye, Gena found the perfect tree for little miss Nicole to hide behind to leave a tinkle. When Nicole had finished, I guess she didn't want to pull up her pants near where she peed, so she hobbled around the tree and stood up. Gena told her, "Um, the trail is right there!" Panic stricken, Nicole froze. I think this is residual instinct from when man shared the earth with larger predators who might not be able to see you so long as you didn't pull up your pants… I think tyrannosaurus was one such predator. Gena reminded Nicole, "Well pull up your pants!!" Nicole complied.
Nicole is learning more every hike. On the Tamanawaus Falls hike she peed all over the bag containing the toilet paper. I guess our residual instincts on this skill are patchy at best. At least the roll of TP was in a plastic bag so the rest of the crew could avoid using leave, branches, and pine cones.
Some of you may remember I thought I was fighting a case of the Beaver Fever through this hike. A couple miles after lunch, nature was giving me a call. "Who has the paper?" Wouldn't you know we were on a segment of trail with no easy way to get off the trail and behind some suitable concealment. Keep walking. Flex cheeks. Keep walking. There!
Gena tells me, "You know as a girl, that tree looks like a great spot to squat behind."
"Good eye. I will catch up with you soon."
I had to scramble up a fairly steep hill to get behind an old dead piece of old growth that would likely not benefit from my fertilizer. My stomach was starting to sound like an old percolator coffee pot so I decided the trowel too slow and dug a hole with my boot, dropped trow and hunkered down. Burying my work with several inches of dirt and rotten old growth, I donned my pack and started hiking at a trot… or should I say jog.
I was just whooped. I suddenly felt tired, dehydrated, winded, and in a state of general malaise. I caught the team at Tunnel Falls. Gorgeous. Just around the corner from Tunnel Falls is a little section of creek bank perfect for resting already tired feet. Seems all the girls except for Gena already had tired feet. It wasn't my feet that were tired, but I took the opportunity to catch a quick power nap.
As we were getting to 7 ½ Mile Camp it was clear that there were many pairs of sore feet. Gena and I decided that for social reasons, and in pitty of my rotting gut, we could go ahead and camp here for the night. After exploring what all campsites there were in this area, we settled on one close to the water with enough room for some room between out three tents.
I had to lay down again.
When camp was set, we decided to walk up stream for a while. Keith, Natalie and I decided this meant jumping from rock to rock trying not to fall into the drink. Eventually, I fell into the drink… It was bound to happen. I seem to push it until it happens!
For dinner we tried something new: we packed in hot dogs and buns. Not a great use of space, but since we were only doing one night, we thought it would be fun.
This weekend was also Erin's birthday, so we hiked in an apple pie courtesy of Granno. I mentioned the Freezer right? Freezing a baked pie and a bag of wieners worked out very well for an overnight hike like this. I wouldn't likely do it for a longer hike where weight was more of a concern or if we needed the pack space for more important gear. For this, though, PERFECT! The dogs were still cold and the pie was even still lightly frozen in the center! Were it a hotter day I am sure Gena would have appreciated the ice box on her back!
I was starting to feel more ill. The rest of the team sat down to play some Yahtzee but I decided just to watch as I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to last a full game. I was right.
Bidding a good night to the crew, I went to bed early. That night I would sweat through my clothes and my sleeping bag, wake in the night to pee, stumbling like a drunken sailor by the red l.e.d. of my headlamp, and fall back to sleep to dry my clothes by body heat. With a chance of rain forecasted, I was not surprised to find our tent wet in the morning. I was surprised to find mine the ONLY WET TENT!! I had sweated so bad that our tent was wet! There was no rain. I felt better in the morning.
Day 2
Waking in the morning when you are hiking with kids is always an adventure requiring more work than if you were with self-sufficient adults. Little hands lack strength to do things like tightly rolling sleeping bags, stuffing those bags into tight little mini-backpacks, and properly folding and stowing tents. That's the usual that you can expect. You can also expect to call them when hot cocoa is ready, then have them doddle until it is cold, complaining that it isn't hot enough. Of course, if they don't doddle, it's too hot! A battle I am finally laughing off. J
Aside from the usual, you may expect there to be minor issues with biological functions. On the Tamanawaus Falls hike, Natalie woke in the morning, whispering to Mom to, "Come'eer!"
"Closer."
Mom Crawled closer under the awning of the orange Hiker Biker tent the kids were in.
"You see that wet spot there? I peed there last night."
The "spot" was right where Gena was standing. In the night, Nat couldn't make it all the way out of the tent. While she swears she didn't pee ON the tent, it took two washings to get the smell of pee out of the fabric around the door! Similar story of the sleeping bag… Some say, "Don't pee where you sleep." I thought this was basic common sense. Not So! You aren't born knowing these things!
So back to day 2 of the Eagle Creek hike!
Knowing that the kids had "laid some brown eggs" nearby, she set out with the trowel to make sure all was properly buried. When doing this, it makes sense that you should be able to look for the obvious white paper atop melted eggs. Knowing about where to look, she scoured the area… nothing. Finally she looked up; paper hanging from a branch. Little Bits had apparently wiped and tossed the paper behind her with no concern for where it would land. Perhaps she thought the squirrels would like to see their trees decorated with brown stained white paper? Not sure. Can't get a straight answer through the giggles on that one!
Gena did her best to swat the paper off the branch with the little orange spade, then buried it but couldn't find the actual poo… until she got back to the tent where I was tearing down. First she thought she smelled it on her hand. Then she thought she was being paranoid. She smelled it again. Look around… Human poo seems harder to get out of boot tread that the usual dog or cattle that most people step in. It would take her a half hour to fix that mess.
I would like to take this opportunity to promote a handy little field guide called, "How to Shit in the Woods" by Kathleen Meyer. She covers these and many more points in much better detail with many points from many rafting trips, hikes, and other outdoor adventures.
After all of these shenanigans, the hike out seemed very fast. I don't think we stopped for food or water. Gena had thoughts of hiking the kids the mile in to Wahclella Falls south of Bonneville Dam. As we neared the bottom, however, Nicole's feet were sore so we decided to head to Red Robin to reward the kids with just about their favorite restaurant.
Gathered outside Red Robin's after eating a good burger, Nicole thought she heard a song she liked back inside so she hastily opened the industrial door. Her calculations of the door's swing must have been off because the door opened on a collision course with her foot. This might not have been a problem but for her non-protective flip-flops. Right away it was noticeable that the door had partially folded the toe nail back on her big toe and removed a few layers of skin higher on the same toe.
"BLOODY MURDER, BLOODY MURDER!!"
I would have cried too! That looked painful!! Fortunately the first aid kit was just a short carry to the tailgate of our truck where we got her patched up. She really handled it like a trooper once we got some Neosporin +Pain Relief on it and a couple of bandages.
So this was year two of my kids' backpacking education. We have some things to work on still, but I think they are going to make it. Hiking with kids is far from easy (I suggest ear plugs) but if you like hiking and backpacking, then the sooner you can get them into it, the more you can do it WITH THEM! Remember that they will not know many of the things you take for granted. They will take baby steps all over again.
