April 4, 1968
Getting up at midnight to set off on a 2-day excursion makes going to bed hardly worthwhile, but the nature of the excursion can make disruption of our customary way of doing things seem less than trivial.
A few minutes before midnight last Friday my alarm savagely yanked me out of a sound sleep and reminded me that it was time to get cracking. Half an hour later I was on any way to Grants Pass with my cross-country ski equipment; extra cold weather clothing, sleeping bag and two day grub supply. At Pruitt’s I found Bill ready to travel. Transferring any stuff to Bill’s car, we picked up Charles and his gear and left Grants Pass at 1:30 a.m., our destination the Green Lakes area over in the Bend-Sisters country in the high Cascades.
In Bend we rendezvoused with a pair of young Forest Service chaps, Dave Clemens and Jim Torrance, who are stationed at Chemult, about 50 miles south of Bend, and the five of us had a restaurant breakfast there before continuing on together to our next stop, the ski resort at Bachelor Butte, from which point our x-c tour was to begin.
When we reached Bachelor Butte we had driven more than 200 miles, and our ski tour from there, most of it over rugged, forested terrain with numerous ridges and canyons to cross, was 30 miles round-trip.
Maneuvering, over ticklish, broken terrain on x-c skis can be a valuable experience in both exercise and fun; but going over the same route with a loaded pack on your back puts an added strain not only on your muscles, but on your sense of balance as well. When your skis run into an unexpected sticky or slick spot, where ordinarily you would quickly regain your upset balance, the inertia of your backload tends to cancel your sense of balance, and likely as not you just take off into orbit. In some situations such an unscheduled performance can be embarrassing. Like, for instance, the time Charles – but I promised to say nothing about that. Anyway, it happened to all of us on this trip.
In addition to their touring equipment, Bill, Dave, and Jim also carried climbing gear, which made their packs considerably heavier than Charles’ and mine. Bill’s load was nearly 60 lbs., those of his climbing companions nearly as much. Mine and Charles’ were 25 lbs. each – until we were elected to add the two small tents (an extra 10 lbs. or so) to our packs so we could have them set up by the time the climbers got to camp late in the evening.
Part way up the side of Broken Top (otherwise known as St. Mary Butte), which lies 6- or 7-miles airline north of Bachelor, the climbers took off for the summit and Charles and I began working our way around the mountain to where the little Green Lakes lie nestled between Broken Top; and South Sister. Just short of the lakes, late in the afternoon, we found a likely spot to make camp, and we were glad to call it a day after the hours we’d spent crossing what seemed an endless series of partly timbered ridges and canyons,
We set up the two little mountain tents on the soft, deep snow on a near-enough level spot on a low ridge, the icy wind mercifully giving us a break during the setting-up. Soon afterward we had a good fire going under a big sheltering tree and were contentedly thawing out our numb fingers and toes. An hour later the climbers found us, and we all got busy with the enjoyable task of preparing and stowing away the delayed supper we’d been looking forward to.
During the night the temperature dropped to zero. Next morning we had to take our ski boots into our sleeping bags to thaw them soft enough to get into. After breakfast we packed up and headed down Fall Creek between the mountains, a different route than we’d used coming in. About 10 miles of choppy going brought us to a road which we followed – an upgrade for more than 5 miles – to the vicinity of Bachelor Butte, where we had left our cars. We arrived there at 4:30 p.m. having spent the better part of 2 days on skis.
We had had some rough going, but the experience we’d had in that unbelievably beautiful mountainous setting was one of the most wonderful experiences I’ve ever known.
After having dinner together in Bend, we bade our two top-flight traveling companions from Chemult, Dave and Jim, adieu, and we other three were back in Grants Pass around 10:30 p.m.
At the exact time of night that I had left home two days before, a few minutes before midnight, I was back in my warm little bunk in Packer’s Gulch – and with one of my most memorable weekends tucked snugly away among my memories.
