Outdoor Adventures with Ancient Brit
PCT 2002 - September 9th
Day 139: Monday 9th September
Arch Rock shelter – below Blowout Mountain
I left at 7.30am and immediately passed “Sumara”, his sister, Shelley, and friend,
Chris, who had turned up after dark and camped just above me. They were still having
breakfast. The weather had cleared, but it was cool in the dark forest.
I stopped for second breakfast at Camp Ulrich. Camp Ulrich was a cabin built to
commemorate the life of Mike Ulrich, a trail worker in the 40’s and 50’s. There was a
plaque at the camp reading:
“The mountain Gods from seats on high, rejoiced to see Mike Ulrich die. And at his
death gave this decree “To all who pass here, know that we entrust to big Mike Ulrich’s
hands these camps, these trails, these forest lands to rule, protect, to love and scan well
as he did while mortal man; And deal out sentence stern and just on those who violate
his trust”
“Stranger, beware, leave not a fire – foul not Mike’s camp, rouse not his ire!”
Already at the cabin was “Salmon” taking a long meandering backpack through
Washington and “Tamarack” and “Bud” hiking from Canada to Ashland. “Tamarack”
and “Bud” had thru-hiked the AT last year.
Mike Ulrich would have been turning in his grave, as I entered an area of steep
heavily logged hills, criss-crossed with jeep tracks, before entering an area burnt in the
Falls Creek fire of 1988. Naches Pass was crossed where David Longmire crossed the
Cascades in 1853, before building a military road in 1855. There was a temporary
diversion to the PCT to avoid an area where they were in the process of clear felling.
The main redeeming feature of the trail was the abundance of huckleberries beside
the trail. On the NW ridge of Blowout Mountain, I was passed by “Flying Dutchman”,
“Fire Marshall” and “Ranger”. I then dropped steeply off the PCT down to a spring on
the east face of Blowout Mountain to camp. Here I was joined by “Sumara”, Shelley and
Chris. Chris and Shelley had joined “Sumara” for a few days. Chris was an (ex)
mountaineer, from Colorado, with the ascent of the 20,320ft Mount McKinley in Alaska
as well as a 5-day ascent of the vertical rockface of El Cap in Yosemite to his credit.
Day 139: 17.2 miles 7.22 hours Camp: Tarn below Blowout Mountain
Arch Rock shelter – below Blowout Mountain
I left at 7.30am and immediately passed “Sumara”, his sister, Shelley, and friend,
Chris, who had turned up after dark and camped just above me. They were still having
breakfast. The weather had cleared, but it was cool in the dark forest.
I stopped for second breakfast at Camp Ulrich. Camp Ulrich was a cabin built to
commemorate the life of Mike Ulrich, a trail worker in the 40’s and 50’s. There was a
plaque at the camp reading:
“The mountain Gods from seats on high, rejoiced to see Mike Ulrich die. And at his
death gave this decree “To all who pass here, know that we entrust to big Mike Ulrich’s
hands these camps, these trails, these forest lands to rule, protect, to love and scan well
as he did while mortal man; And deal out sentence stern and just on those who violate
his trust”
“Stranger, beware, leave not a fire – foul not Mike’s camp, rouse not his ire!”
Already at the cabin was “Salmon” taking a long meandering backpack through
Washington and “Tamarack” and “Bud” hiking from Canada to Ashland. “Tamarack”
and “Bud” had thru-hiked the AT last year.
Mike Ulrich would have been turning in his grave, as I entered an area of steep
heavily logged hills, criss-crossed with jeep tracks, before entering an area burnt in the
Falls Creek fire of 1988. Naches Pass was crossed where David Longmire crossed the
Cascades in 1853, before building a military road in 1855. There was a temporary
diversion to the PCT to avoid an area where they were in the process of clear felling.
The main redeeming feature of the trail was the abundance of huckleberries beside
the trail. On the NW ridge of Blowout Mountain, I was passed by “Flying Dutchman”,
“Fire Marshall” and “Ranger”. I then dropped steeply off the PCT down to a spring on
the east face of Blowout Mountain to camp. Here I was joined by “Sumara”, Shelley and
Chris. Chris and Shelley had joined “Sumara” for a few days. Chris was an (ex)
mountaineer, from Colorado, with the ascent of the 20,320ft Mount McKinley in Alaska
as well as a 5-day ascent of the vertical rockface of El Cap in Yosemite to his credit.
Day 139: 17.2 miles 7.22 hours Camp: Tarn below Blowout Mountain
Bud, Tamarack and
Salmon at Camp Ulrich
Salmon at Camp Ulrich
Ghost Trees at Falls
Creek Burn
Creek Burn
Ranger, Flying
Dutchman and Fire
Marshall
Dutchman and Fire
Marshall
Shelley, Chris
and Sumara
and Sumara
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