Today we have full packs. It feels like it should be day one, but we can’t forget the 19 miles we’ve already walked! We started out from the family cabin in north Seaside at 8:45am and headed south along the Promenade until it gave out. (Yikes, these packs are heavy!)
We took a little detour to see the Salt Works of the Lewis & Clark Expedition. Margaret is thrilled.
An hour later we reach Seltzer Park and stop for restrooms and to attempt to readjust our packs.
A bit later we reach the end of Seaside and the start of the Tillamook Head Trail. Time to go up!
Unfortunately, up means WAY up and over all kinds of windfall. This is a bit more treacherous than we were expecting.
We take a late morning break near the base of a giant downed tree. Time for a snack and some bug spray.
Another quick break to recover from all the downed trees that we either have to climb over or under or bushwhack around. My spirits are still high, right?
Did I mention the downed trees yet?
How about a little mud? The mud became yet another huge hurdle. The weight of our packs made balance so difficult. At this point we have been climbing and slipping and sliding for hours and are way behind schedule. Future note: don’t hold lunch if you are starving, it makes the last few miles even harder.
At 3pm we stumble into the Tillamook Head walk-in campground and can’t get our packs off fast enough. We chose one of the three adorable little cabins and set up late lunch/early dinner. Yum. (It tastes better than it looks, we devoured the entire pot.)
Margaret took a break by the fire while I walked down to the lighthouse viewpoint. Why no picture of a lighthouse? Oh, maybe because we were all the way up in a cloud and I had no view at all. Bummer.
We discovered that we were only 1.3 miles from the lower parking lot and invited Chuck (Meg’s dad), Ben, Will and puppy Jackson up to say hi and check out our accommodations. Had a great visit with them (Chuck had stuck a bottle of wine in his pocket along with paper cups.) We then finished setting up camp by actually setting up our tent inside the log cabin. This turned out to be a good call, it helped with warmth and overall bug and rodent security. By the time we went to bed at 9pm, the other two cabins had filled up. There was a rain shower over night and at 1am I awoke to a rustling and found a mouse trying to get into our food. We heard our neighbors up and about until at least 3am. Hard night, we were sore and the floorboards were hard under our thermarests. We might be crazy.
Sounds like a good first day of ADVENTURE! Wow, what a lot of messy windfall to get through. Don’t leave food in your packs at night – the critters will chew right through the packs. Hang the food in a stuff stack from a tree branch – tie a line to a rock and throw it over, then hoist it up and tie it off. Keeps the food and the packs safer. I’m rooting for you! Looking forward to the next update.
Great Start! I love seeing the pictures. Kathy’s right about the critters eating your packs…we’ve had holes chewed into ours by determined squirrels. One night we had a deer trying to paw his way into our food supply! (It was scary… in the dark we thought it was a bear.) We learned our lesson. 🙂
I would love to know daily stats: How many miles you cover, and elevation gain, if you know it. How much weight are you each carrying? Looks heavy!
One foot in front of the other……keep going!
[…] was windfall here, though not nearly as bad as Day 4. We had an easy clamber once, and had to detour (on well-worn tracks) a couple more […]