Walk from Lost Trails Pass

[ELKCHSR]

20-25 lbs, when the water was added...
10-12 lbs, when I got home

There are other alternatives that can be used with out packing in a tarp that are quite effective...

Now if I lived in Western Washington, I wouldn't leave home with out one (accept in mid summer or early fall), especially during the rainy season...

 

[ELKCHSR]

LOL...

I just saw your comment about the little guys...

No, I figured I'd leave them for the wolves and bears, which I did find a little sign of along the way, but not much, far less than I had anticipated

 

[stilllearning]

This is one of the best posts I have seen in a while. amazing. great job.

 

[ELKCHSR]

One of the best parts about these types of treks by your self is how it transforms an individual, thinking of the higher walks of life and the deeper meaning of self and others...

The stark loneliness of the wilds, begins one on a path to see the world in a different light, living to the abilities of ones own strengths or weakness

It's a great experience to feel the breath of Mother Earth on your face, the cold of her grasp on a chilly night or the sweat on a brow by attaining the summit of a spectacular view at the end of a long uphill climb

This experience as many others like this I've completed in the past, shows how alive any one can be, being one with the Spirit of the wilds

As the days moved along, one lesson came to me...

There are so many wonderful experiences that can be garnered from this sort of walk I'm surprised more don't undertake it

Watching the drip of melting snow thru moss

Or cascading water falls and how they move over the landscape

Or the movement of water as it crashes and winds its way towards its long journey to the oceans so far away

These are the parts of nature which tend to change a person, moving them from the every day shallow whispers of life, to deeper thought and personal growth this is the beginning of a higher standard of living ones life

Each of these walks I take makes it easier to take that next step...

 

[JoseCuervo]

Enough with the pictures of the flowers and water.....

Show us the holes you dug each night for shelter.....

 

[The Hedgehog]

 

[JoseCuervo]

 

[BuzzH]

Looks like Rusty Cheese put his 3 months of work in for the year...thanks to the taxpayers.

Time for the Cheese to post on eating grass, building pits in the woods, drinking piss, and other equally informative posts cheese is famous for.

 

[Tom]

Father Nature is great to teach us many things. I'm thinking if people weren't so busy with their modern lives in the city and only a couple weeks vacation a year, more would do this kind of thing.

I think he used pine branches for a shelter, not holes. No sleeping bag? You just drank creek water raw or what?

 

[Ridge Runner]

Russ.. You didn't find any payote or mushrooms along the way did ya??

 

[ELKCHSR]

A little to far North for one and a little to cold yet for the other...

Well, come to think of it, there were some mushrooms growing along some of the flowers but I don't know any of them

You'll have to come over one of these days Gene and show me what they look like....

 

[Moosie]

Eat all the mushrooms, Some are bound to be good

 

[noharleyyet]

Peyote;

A spineless, dome-shaped cactus (Lophophora williamsii) native to Mexico and the southwest United States, having buttonlike tubercles that are chewed fresh or dry as a narcotic drug by certain Native American peoples. Also called mescal.
See mescal button.
See mescaline.

Shrooms;

Psilocybin mushrooms (also called psilocybian mushrooms or Teónanácatl) are fungi that contain the psychedelic substances psilocybin and psilocin, and occasionally other psychoactive tryptamines. There are multiple colloquial terms for psilocybin mushrooms, the most common being Magic Mushrooms[1] or shrooms.[2]

Hunter Thompson never left home without them.

 

[ELKCHSR]

You'll have to show me how it's done Moosie, never been one to eat 'shrooms' unless they come from a known source...

Thanks Ken, will have to keep that in mind as I'm on my walks...

 

[ELKCHSR]

As the saga continues...

This is about what the first four days looked like, foggy, chilly, lots of snow, and scenery that wouldn't quit...

These little puddles dotted the landscape at the higher elevations, normally when I've seen these is after they’ve dried up during hunting season, once in a while, a treat would be to find moose tracks around them

High buttes and jagged ridges were every where; it was a great place to be, seeing an occasional sheep in the higher crags, to far to get a picture of (but sheep stories and pics come a little later in this thread)...

I climbed to the top of this one to see what I could see, fog in every direction except directly below me...

Reaching the top is rewarding, the cold wind biting at ones face, and ice build up on beard and mustache in these types of environments, make a person feel fully alive and at the same time miniscule in the big scheme of life, only a very small part of a huge and highly dynamic part of Mother Earth...

Self and thoughts of, are distant memories as the realization becomes apparent that we are only here for a short time and fill a miniscule space in the overall picture

 

[JoseCuervo]

Self and thoughts of, are distant memories as the realization becomes apparent that we are only here for a short time and fill a miniscule space in the overall picture

Translator? Anyone? Buehler??? Anyone?

 

[The Hedgehog]

shroomin..

 

[A-con]

Sound like quite a journey Russ. The minimalist approach can be very rewarding, I’ll be watching for more.
It’s been years (decades) since I spent that much time in the Mountains with nothing but a pack.

 

[ELKCHSR]

Last set of pics...

The walk was fun and watching some of the antics of the animals proved very interesting as it always is...

I watched this guy for about an hour as it was looking thru the grass for bugs or frogs is my guess...

The Natives say this would have been a good sign, I had this eagle follow me for about an hour, and it would circle overhead then land not far away and watch as I walked thru a valley it must have lived in...

It finally lit on this set of branches at the top of a cotton wood and watched me as I walked under it...

It was fun to see a bird such as this up fairly close or circling overhead...

Notice all the bugs around the eagle...

Towards the end of the second week, the sun had come out and melted off a good portion of the snow, so the walking became more ... squishy... to say the least...

The sheep on the North side of the Pintlers became more apparent...

They seemed to be following the snow line and were ragged looking being in the middle of changing the winter fur for summer...

Here are two of the little ones belonging to the one above... They weren't so little, but smaller than her...

These guys let me walk with in 20 yards of them and posed for a photo op...

This one was by far the worse looking one of the bunch; it even seemed to sport a black eye...

All in all, there were probably 75 sheep in the different groups...

I didn't get to see any rams up close, but on a couple of the ridges to far away for pics, there were a couple bachelor groups consisting of 5-6 rams

I'd take one of these types of walks about 5-10 times a year, if it weren't for the confines of other social dictates of promises made...

Hope you guys enjoyed the trip, I sure did...

The next one will be of the fires this summer...

There are a lot of fire pictures and experiences to be shared...

 

[mdcrossbow]

That was cool. Thanks Russ.