Goat Lake Cold Camp

We couldn't know. We just could know that after the hottest summer on record, Labor Day weekend would be the weekend that it'd cool down 40 degrees and spit snow from the sky at high elevations. After all, we're not god. We're not omniscient. We have no power vested in us, weather-wise, destiny-wise, or other.

In other words, I need to report that I went backpacking with Mark and Jeremy in Gifford Pinchot National Forest, AKA Goat Rocks Wildneress, AKA middle-of-nowhere Washington, and it was an epic journey full of rain, sleet, wind, and deep, billowy clouds roving through the valleys; full of fierce starry skies, tear-wrenching shivers, and sweeping mountain vistas that danced in and out of the fog.

True story: we were supposed to camp two nights but only camped one. However, this did not lessen the amount of miles hiked, or more appropriately stumbled, around the Goat Lake Loop. It just means that at some point on Saturday as we traversed through the storm, someone started talking about nachos—and all was over. Our gear was wet and we were wet and our freeze-dried lunch was long, long gone, and so it was silently decided, as if by ESP, that we wouldn't, as planned, find a campsite protected by trees to wait out the weather, but that instead we'd hobble the many miles back to the car and drive all the way back to Portland—our knees, feet, backs, and wavering spirits be damned.

It was an adventure in the truest sense, entailing unplanned hijinks and great feats of strength. I wouldn't take it back for anything—it has, in fact, already become legendary in my mind. The wildnerness is beautiful, even at its most savage—actually, more so at its most savage. Now, here, I can sit back at my desk and feel lucky to have been really out in it. And maybe, just maybe, I might do it all over again. Sorry, though, only if it's sunny!