A Backpackers Folly...

My First Trip

My buddy Ben Miller around our fire at base camp.

It's an understatement to say that my first backpacking trip was anything but a major failure. Even though it wasn't a success it taught me quite a few lessons that will keep me safer on future trips. My first trip that I chose to attempt to tackle was West Fork Foss River and Lakes in Washington. The system of mountain lakes is part of the Alpine Lake Wilderness and consists of four large lakes along a 6.5 mile trail. The trail starts at a 1,200 foot altitude and closes out at the final lake, Big Heart Lake, at 4,900 feet. It was an ambitious plan to say the least. I chose to try backpacking this trail in late May, thinking the snow would be gone and the trail would be easy. Nothing could have been further from the truth. I checked and double checked snow levels for the area using NOAAs weather forcasting site. The key piece of information that I misinterpreted off the NOAA site was that what they call the snow level is where the snow should fall. What I didn't know is that it doesn't mean that snow couldn't have already fallen below that level and not melted. Since it was early in the season the snow at lower altitudes in this area had not melted. My buddies and I set out for Big Heart Lake early in the morning on a Friday to get the earliest start possible. We found the road leading to the trail using Mapquest. We turned on the road that led to the trail head and I soon realized the error in my planning. When we turned on the road there was already snow littering the side of it as we drove to the trail head. The altitude of the road is only 1,100 feet. We continued driving down the road and the snow got worse until it became impassable. We parked our car a decided to hoof it the mile to the trail head. There was at least five feet of snow on the road as we walked. Since we didn't anticipate the snow none of us were carrying snow shoes. The walk to the trail head was atrocious, with every step I sank at least two feet into the snow. It made our pace extremely slow and exhaustive. We switched off leading so everyone got equal exposure to breaking the trail. It took us almost four hours to reach the trail head. When we arrived we realized that the trail was also buried beneath the snow. Our determination was unwavering at this point and we decided to carry on. We had a map and compass and aVERY basic knowledge on how to use them for navigation. I also carried, for emergencies, my MYTOUCH 4G with GPS. I was smart enough to research some apps because I knew you needed to download the maps to your phone or GPS prior to leaving since there is no signal in the back-country. I got the APP Backcountry Navigator to download TOPO Maps with. The APP itself worked flawlessly but the problem was that our GPS was spotting since we were in a valley. We continued into the wilderness using our "instincts" and "navigation skills" to get us where we needed to go. Our goal at this point shifted from Big Heart Lake to Trout Lake. Trout Lake is the first lake along the trail and was only half a mile off the road. We pressed foward finding nothing that wasn't covered in snow. We never reached Trout Lake, a few hours before the sun went down we decided to turn back for a small clearing we could make our camp at for the night. We knew we'd never reach our car before sundown. We found a clearing in a dried up river bed, but it was covered in large rocks that were not fit to pitch our tent on. With no other options we decided to pitch our tent on the snow. It was a STUPID plan, we didn't lay any insulation layer before pitching the tent. The only thing that protected us from the cold snow was our tent bottom and our sleeping bags but none of us had mattresses. We made a fire and ate dinner. It was amazing around the fire. Night fell and we chatted around the fire and stayed warm. We even took our shoes off to dry them around the fire. As we sat around the temperature plummeted to an unknown degree. We retired to our tent and got inside our sleeping bags and prepared for a nice warm night under the stars. What we didn't know is that your sleeping bag  insulation crushes under you from you body weight, effectively making it useless as an insulating layer. We spent the longest  and coldest night we had ever encountered in that tent. I'm fairly confident that if it was any colder we would have froze to death. We made it through the night and got the hell out of there the next day but not without learning some very valuable lessons. I learned that no matter how much you plan things change and that you need to be ready to adapt. Since I went on this trip I have done a multitude of research about camping in cold weather conditions. I also invested in a sleeping pad that I always carry in Washington. If your planning a trip to an unknown area make sure you do your research and read about the gear you need for that time of year. One small mistake could be your last so always check and double check. Be safe out there.

Learn. Explore. Survive.

What's the best lesson you've learned from a bad scenario? Feel free to leave comments about my story or 
about your own.