The Almost 50 Miler

July 27-30, 2016
Spending the weekend with my family was such a blast and a wild adventure!  Rob and I flew into Portland around 9:00 Wednesday night. Lindsey had left her car in the economy lot for us so we wouldn’t have to rent a car. We found the car in the blue lot. The car has a few surprises of its own…The trunk lock was broken so Rob crawled inside the trunk from the inside of the car, sweating like crazy, and zip tied it closed. We couldn’t leave it at the trail head with our belongings inside if everything was free access from the trunk. The transmission had some issues. It would make a loud thumping sound almost every time Rob let off the breaks. Sounded like someone was pounding on the floor boards from underneath the car. And there was no air conditioning. We were so grateful to have a car, even if it had a few quirks of its own :}

We needed a few supplies that we couldn’t bring on the plane with us, so we went out of our way to find a Wal-Mart. You can imagine what kind of people we ran into at this practically off-the-grid Wal-Mart, especially at this hour of night. When we finally walked in, a huge area was taped off because they were jack hammering the floor – Yes I’m serious! They were jack hammering during operating hours, and it was SO LOUD! I felt like I was walking through a nightmare with how loud and chaotic the Wal-Mart was and how out of it both Rob and I were. We were both tired and Rob was grumpy because he was sweaty and we didn’t have air conditioning in the car. We wandered around aimlessly for way longer than we needed to trying to find snacks and drinks to keep us awake on the drive; Laughing about how we could pick up mac n’ cheese and women’s’ apparel in the same section, because of how the aisles had been shuffled around so that they could work on the floor. After about 45 minutes we walked out with gatorade, 2 bags of Sanitas tortilla chips (Rob’s staple), and a few other treats. It was a memorable trip :]

We were so tired, instead of making the drive all the way to the Obsidian trail head, we found a place to camp next to Detroit Lake. The lake was beautiful to see in the morning. We drove about 2 hours to meet up with my mom and Conner. I was so happy to see them, because my mom didn’t sleep all night with her hip aching and so I thought they might change their minds and not come for the hike, but they made it! She is so strong and amazing. She wanted to do it for Isaiah. She is always sacrificing for others, especially our family.

We picked Mom and Conner up in Lindsey’s car, left the suburban at the trail head and drove the 2 hours to Sister’s Mirror Lake trail head. It was pretty hot out. It took us 2 1/2 hours to hike the short 3.5 miles to the lake. I could tell Mom was in a lot of pain. We tried to get her to let us take some things from her pack to lighten the weight, but she wanted to do it herself. We were worried about her. Lookin’ like Quasimodo as she walked; limping and favoring her stronger hip. We nicknamed her Quasi. We felt so bad for her.

Conner eating dry Top Ramen noodles on the trail. Gross. :}

We arrived at the lake early afternoon. The scenery was gorgeous. So much green! The rest of our family of hikers hadn’t made it to the lake yet, so we continued on the trail in search of them. Shortly after we began, we ran into Lindsey and Isaiah. They were hot, sweaty, and we could tell they had been hiking a very long time. They had filtered water at every lake they came to, but it wasn’t nearly enough. They were completely out of water and had been for miles. They had planned for about a 12 mile hike that day, but it turned out to be over 17 miles! They were not prepared for that kind of mileage. They had split up, into three groups of two, each group moving at their best pace. Dad and Maddie were together somewhere in the middle of the pack. Lucas was sick and had a sprained ankle. Andi had been recovering from surgery the last few months, so they were bringing up the rear. Doing exceptionally well!

Mom and I hiked in with water for Dad, Maddie, Luke, and Andi. They were so grateful to see us! Dad looked exhausted. He only had one tiny water bottle for the whole hike! Not nearly enough water, especially with how much they were sweating. After all that hiking, and climbing, he wasn’t even hungry. He was definitely dehydrated and most likely had heat stroke.

When we made it back to camp, the mosquitoes were horrible!! Lucas and I both had bad sunburns and were already itchy and pealing. The mosquitoes only complicated things. They always love me. I got inside of my and Rob’s tent to take refuge from the fleets of mosquitoes that were eating me alive. But when I got in I noticed 1, then 2, then 3, then 4, then 5…those little buggers were everywhere! I started to geek out; scratching everywhere. They didn’t bother Rob one bit. He was calm and found humor in the situation, but kindly escorted the villains from the tent for my sake. Took me a while to get out of the tent and brave the mosquitoes again, but I did.

Later on we made a fire. Rob surprised the kids with popcorn he made over his stove. Special treat! Treats always taste better when you’re camping :} We were going to continue on the next day and hike up to Obsidian, but Isaiah decided the 40 miles they had hiked over the past 4 days was good enough. Instead we hiked out Friday morning and went out to Mazatlan; Isaiah’s favorite! The 50 miler had been for Isaiah all along, his last family trip before he left on his mission, so he got to choose where we ate and what we did the rest of the weekend. Nobody was disappointed with Mazatlan. They never short change us on the chips and salsa! We had an awesome weekend together. Isaiah was so happy we could all hike with him. It meant so much to him.