Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Life in the Punchbowl

This is time of year when hikers start to get lost, people get stranded on roads and general outdoor chaos dominates the evening news. Someone is always wandering off the trail wearing a tank top or driving down a forest road only to find that it's a dead end and they've run out of gas.

Sometimes I can't believe B and I have never landed ourselves on the news.
We left Portland on Monday afternoon around 2pm bound for Eagle Creek in the Gorge. The clouds had been threatening rain all day, but we figured it would hold off long enough for us to scamper the short 2 miles up the Eagle Creek trail to Punchbowl Falls. B wanted to take photos, of-course.
After we shot upper Punchbowl, we slid/shimmied/fell off the trail down the steep side of the canyon to photograph lower Punchbowl falls. By that time, the sky was getting darker and the air cooler so we decided to hike out. We got back to the jeep just as the first rain drops started to fall and the light was quickly fading. It was about this time I took stock of our situation:
B had on sandals and his pants were wet up to his knees.
Half a bottle of water.
One Clif bar.
One headlamp.
Two rain jackets.
No cell phone coverage.

Like I said, it really is a wonder we don't end up on the news.

1 comment:

Olive Tree said...
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