North Cascades Camping Trip

The first day in Geology class I was made aware of a camping trip up to the North Cascades. I’ve never been there, and I’m thinking YAY photo shoot, and contemplate asking if I may take my doxie on the trip with us. ( I decide against this in the end) I was excited. I’m thinking I can do this, I can take on a hiking trip~

We get prepared and I spend five F I V E … 5 days searching for my camera battery and charger. Every search ends with me

 

I eventually had to buy a universal charger to make it work.

We had got in groups to work together, I made some rules for those riding in my car with me:

•  No smoking, unless you are on fire.
•  What’s said in the car, stays in the car. You shouldn’t worry about what you share being shared with someone else.  (Although April and I do talk to each other  a lot ;)
• No judgments will be made. If we have to stop to pee and you want to judge someone outside my car, that is fine. But no judging people IN the car.
• Talk of religion is fine. Attempts at conversion is not.
•  There will be music.  Feel free to sing along. I’d love to hear your version of Riders on the Storm or Hotel California
•  No fighting. Differences of opinion are bound to happen, but we respect each other’s differences or we get duct taped and bungeed to the roof.
•  Try to be responsible for your stuff.  I over stress about my own schtuff,  and often forget  it when out of site, I would do the same with yours.
•  Please try to avoid vomiting in the car, I promise not to lock the windows on you so that you can stick your head out. I also promise not to roll the window up while your head is sticking out.
•  Arguing with the driver is a bad idea… especially in the middle of nowhere.
•  The driver is a dork. Please deal with that in your own way.

Time comes, everything is packed my car is seriously overloaded with 4 of us crammed in there along with obsolete camping equipment (not mine).

Schreiber's Meadow

We worried about getting lost as we left

Sedro-Wooly, a town about an hour away from where we already live, and we hoped we were going the correct direction. 

Especially since I’m driving.

After a couple wrong turns and not seeing anyone else’s vehicle from class. 

We make it to Schrieber’s Meadow

where will begin our ascent to MORDOR… I mean Mt. Baker. 

old river bed

It is a pleasant hike through the meadow, nice weather, no real need for a jacket, but we know to take one

any way. We pass a bed of river rocks, stop to discuss how they got there, and how this was no longer a river, and that every season it relocates itself.

SCIENCE

We continue up the man made and well-traveled trail. Here is where we start to have some problems. We need more breaks and stops. The mud is getting thicker, and snow is more visible. More stops, more snow.

We are getting close to a place to have lunch. We’re all hungry a little worn out and looking to sit down.

This is where we stop. There are no tables. We brush off rocks and lay our jackets down to sit on. 

Lunch time... we forgot silverware.

 Most of us don’t even put our coats back on. We are all sweating. 

After lunch we are ‘almost there’. 

We hear this enough times that we learn to hate the phrase. 

Saying ten more minutes to the …. whatever, is like saying five minutes left of football. There’s another half hour at least!

I get so close to giving up, I want to.

We are almost to the moraine, and my foot slides down.

The snow has given way beneath me. 

This happens a few more times as we ascend.

So close to the edge, and I slide, fall and a group separate behind us starts telling my friend to “push me up”. 

I finally regain balance, and slide further, almost losing my shoe. Our teacher hauls me up to the edge where the snow is thinner and I’m on slightly more solid ground.

We are now overlooking the moraine, where we can see the path of the glacier

We decide to head back down to a clearing and rest while feeding birds.

Someone made a fire, it was nice.

Seriously how friggin’ cool is this!? 

I'm standing like this to hold my arm steady.

Looks funny, but works.

If you see how my pants are different colors, they are soaking wet.  I slipped about 10- 15 times, pulling my groin and twisting my knee and ankle. 

It made for a fun walk back down the mountain let me tell you...

I should have hauled a sled up and I would have spent less time on my ass coming back down.  

I kept saying I was going to take my pants off when we made it back to the car… and I did just that. 

I couldn’t access my leggings or sweats because the rest of the passengers had their gear on top of my stuff, so I walked around in my underwear for about two hours until I could get pants again. No pictures of that.  I even drove to our campsite that way. People set up tents, we got our bedding arranged and we lit fires.


My teammate and I were planning on sleeping in the car.
At least it was warm,
because it definitely
was NOT comfortable.

After you

We were granted a reprieve from the hike the next day.
Thank goodness because I don't know if I would have been able to do it.

We were told it was mostly flat, but I didn’t think our teacher meant flat vertically. 

We drove out stopping to look at the geological wonders, so beautiful.

Eventually we were given permission to head back home.

It was worth it

I, however, am still having trouble walking.