Saturday, July 17, 2004
Another Day on the CDT
07/17/04
Last night I had dreams about hiking with Yogi and about being in a giant outdoor mall/discount outlet with Anish and someone else. Hum...
A squirrel nibbled at one of my food bags last night. I usually critter-hang my food on a small tree, but last night's site offered no such option, so I laid my food bag on the braches of a big tree. I heard the squirrel sound the alarm in the early morning upon discovering us. Then it shut up when it discovered my food.
While we were breaking down camp, an interesting something ran by very closely. It was the size and shape of a small weasel. The fur on top was dark; below, white, except some exceptionally red patches toward the front underside.
We walked through clear cuts most of the morning, then finally made it into nature. After days of road walking and some clear cuts, by the end of the day I was celebrating being on a real trail while crossing an unmanaged stream.
Our first destination of the day was Storm Lake. Visually, I could see that something weird was happening: All the streams were flowing the wrong direction.
I was listening to music as we approached the lake, but I soon heard the noise.
Then I remembered that it's Saturday. Engines. Engines struggling. At first I thought I was hearing Jet Skis, but it turned out to be just cars. And trucks.
Why buy high suspension and all the four-wheelin' stuff if you can't use it to destroy nature?
Storm Lake was full of cars and people. And it wasn't a lake at all. It was a reservoir. What were "supposed to be" outlet streams were really inlet streams because the landscaped had been altered.
Since our first priority at the lake was a swim, we stopped short of the masses, found a nice spot to have lunch and access the lake, and got to the business of a dip in the lake on a hot day.
I was surprised that Spur went skinny dipping, and he later admitted that it was peer pressure than most influenced his decision.
The lake was great.
The one advantage to being around people with cars is the opportunity to get rid of garbage. We had it at hand so that when someone agreed to take it, we could hand it off before they had second thoughts. It worked.
Much later in the day, we passed a camp on our way to sleep at Flower Lake.
Dogs emerged from the camp barking, one wet from sleeping out in the rain. The wet dog turned out to be very friendly and nice. It walked us to camp and hung out a while.
I got settled in a hollow of trees, hoping the rain would stay away all night.
The site was nice, and probably the furthest from the trail that we've ever camped.
