From the Gym to the Mountain: Lower Ramey Meadows

We slept in relatively late this morning before heading out. We wanted it to be light out enough to see, since some of the trails were not in the best of shapes. And that was just the part that we knew of, that Bill had traveled from the junction to Upper Ramey Meadows.

Mike was very helpful with finding the trail through tall grasses. The situation reminded me of when Ambrose and I went to Blackmare Lake one year. We met a couple with dogs who were coming back from the lake, and saw them again on our way back. As per usual, we got lost on the way there. The couple told us, after the fact, that if it hadn't been for their dogs finding the trail, they would have gotten lost too.

Bill had left a note at the junction sign for us, just in case we didn't meet up. He made sure to grab it when we reached the junction so as not to a) leave trash and b) confuse future trail users. At the junction, we turned south and started heading up a switchback through a recently burned area. It was burned long enough ago that some green plants had started growing, but recently enough that all of the trees were blackened and standing, and the ground was dark and ashy.

The view was rather stark, but it did provide an advantage. We found more morels. I cut one for Ambrose that I liked because it looked like a dunce cap. Ambrose would have had me cut more, but he didn't realize that he had so much room in his mesh bag for them or we would have cut every single morel there.

For a while, Mike was in the lead, but when Bill fell back, Mike followed him. I led the way for a bit, and called a break when my alarm told me it was time. Of course, the guys were behind me, so I had to wait for them to catch up before they could take a break. We were at the top of a rise, still in the burned zone, with good views all the way around. I tried to find Rock Rabbit Point, but either it wasn't visible from there or I just couldn't see it. I did see One Man Butte.

The men left before me so I could have some privacy to dig a hole off trail. That's one nice thing about burned areas - they tend to be easy to dig in.

I took a bit longer than I anticipated and it took me a while to catch up. I admired Haypress Meadow as the trail wound around it, and caught Ambrose first. By the time we reached Bill, it was well past break time. He was sitting in the shade of some trees, and Ambrose and I found our own spots of shade.

I kept an eye on the time and announced it was time to get moving after about ten minutes. Then came the spontaneous utterance.

See, in backpacking, there is a thing called a trail name. A name that one goes by while on the trail. A person can have more than one, different ones for different hikes, and they are more common on thru hikes. Some people choose their own trail names, while others have them bestowed upon them. In the past, Ambrose had referred to me as Rabbit, but it was more like a joke between the two of us.

But when I told the group on that morning that it was time to get going, Bill gave a reply tinged with sarcasm, "Okay, Taskmaster."

And while we didn't talk about trail names until later that day, when we did talk about them, that's what came to my mind. The spontaneous utterance, without forethought or gendering (Bill's suggestion after more thought was something like Boss Lady).

On these trips with Bill, to the coast and the Frank Church, Ambrose encouraged me to take the lead. He had done the planning, and I was in charge of executing. I took that duty seriously. Perhaps a bit too seriously at times, but that's how I roll.

We moved on. The trail soon turned to cut right through the meadow, and Mike's help was invaluable again. Though he did sometimes get distracted from where the trail actually went.

The trail was marked in an innovative way where blazes and cut logs were impractical by small posts with rocks around their bases. That made sense where the ground was boggy.

The terrain was no longer burned, and we got some nice shade as the trail traversed the side of a ridge, rising high above both meadows and water. We got a bit more climbing in, where I pulled ahead out of the sheer joy of climbing. And I waited at the top. Bill caught up, and then went on, while I waited to make sure Ambrose was catching up. We like to stay connected on trails that we haven't taken before.

At the next break, it was getting pretty warm, so I decided to try my new piece of gear. In addition to my regular hiking pants, I had packed a hiking skort. I wouldn't want to do a skirt, because my thighs rub together and I don't like how that feels. But I thought the skort would provide a nice level of coolness with less rub.

So as we all sat on the side of the trail I announced that anyone who didn't want to see my pretty, purple hiking underwear should avoid looking in my direction for the next few minutes and I switched from pants to skort.

It was definitely cooler. But also very much more exposed. Where with my Rail Riders pants, I could push through brush and branches with impunity, now my skin was exposed to every little piece of nature that could puncture or scrape it. Also, the shorts part kept riding up, allowing my thighs to rub, so I'd have to stop and pull them back down.

There were definitely some things I didn't like about wearing the skort, but I was determined to give them a good long try.

We reached Moose Meadow before lunch and found a nice spot to camp. After eating lunch, Bill and I explored the trail ahead to see if there was a better camping spot closer to where we were headed the next morning. Unfornately, there weren't any flat, open spots near the next junction, and we didn't want to leave the water behind, so we came back with the news that this spot was best, and that there was water right next to our current campsite.

Ah yes, that water. It was a very small stream, but fast flowing. It used to be bridged, but the bridge was now torn up, with just two planks and a bunch of nails laid across. Since we were 4 days in, I wanted to wash my hair, because if I don't wash my hair, I get intractable headaches. And I was going to take my two liter water bag to fill and use. But Ambrose insisted - insisted - that I take his gallon bag.

So I did. And I filled it and grabbed the large cap and started to screw that cap on. And I lost my grip on the cap and dropped it. Directly into the swift flow of the stream. Where it promptly got sucked away into the meadow.

I tried to find it. I dug my hand under and felt the fast flow of the water. I tried to follow the path of the stream into the meadow through bushes and grass, where it hid and I tried calling for help. But no one came to my calls. Two strong men within shouting distance and neither wanted to come help me. Fine! I kept looking, and then I took a wrong step and submersed my leg up to my thigh.

That was enough. I yelled even louder and, finally, Ambrose came to see what was up. I explained the problem, and I have to give him credit for not flipping out that I had lost a key piece of gear.

Of course, just because he didn't flip out didn't mean I didn't feel horrible about it. But I washed my hair and then we got to work figuring out a way to rig the bag so it was still usable, even if the large cap was missing. Since the bag actually had two caps, one little one for the filter and one big one for filling, we were able to tape down the big hole that now lacked a cap and still use the bag to filter water using the power of gravity.

Thank goodness, because we still had days of travel.

Later that evening, I noticed that I had lost one of the threaded balls from my nose ring.

This leads me to conclude that Moose Meadows is ravenous and will take a toll of passers-through. I see no flaws in this logic.

We didn't see any moose in Moose Meadows, but we did see a good number of birds and the view was quite lovely. It was an early night, because we planned to get up as early as possible, hiking in the dark by headlamp as needed, in order to try and beat the head of the day. The next day would have a ten mile dry stretch, and the more we could get done before the sun started baking us, the better.

Ambrose is ready to head out from Lower Ramey Meadows. Bill is working on getting Mike's pack on.

We started the morning with a boots on crossing of Big Ramey Creek.

Mike knows where the trail is.

Another unexpected morel.

Bill taking his note down from the sign.

Heading up and over a ridge.

The sun is catching us.

Another morel! I cut this one for Ambrose.

A little bit of burned area hiking.

But it's green by the streams.

And Haypress Meadow has some good swaths of greenery as well.

Easy and enjoyable trail.

Some ups and downs, but for the most part the trail was flat next to Haypress.

I could see a lot of water down in the meadow and it made me glad that the trail was high above.

Finally caught up to Ambrose.

I sat on these logs to take a break.

That's kind of the trail...

Definitely trail.

Trail-ish.

We made it to the other side of the meadow and began to climb again.

We hiked through more recovering burned areas.

Trail post - and Mike.

Somewhere around here is where I switched over to my skort.

Feeling grass on my calves was definitely a new sensation.

This rock looked like a rat to me, but Ambrose thought it looked like a toad.

Last big stream crossing before Moose Meadows.

I was starting to get the hang of catching Mike being cute.

We made it to Moose Meadows before lunch.

It was a pretty meadow, though I still preferred Lower Ramey.

Mike decided this was the stream he needed to drink from.

We came to a nice campsite and decided to stay.

The voracious Moose Meadows, eater of my equipment.

Okay, it's pretty too.

We had a bit of a disagreement as to how the day should go this morning. Well, the disagreement started the prior night, but continued on to the morning. Both Ambrose and I wanted to go, as planned, to Lower Ramey Meadows. Bill thought that we should heed the word of the horsepacker and go by way of Upper Ramey Meadows instead, since the trail to Lower was supposed to be no longer maintained.

But we all agreed that we should go and check out Rock Rabbit Point, as long as the trail wasn't too horrendous to get there.

So we set out, taking the trail the horsepacker had taken to exit. It rejoined the main trail at a familiar junction. Last year, I thought this trail was the start of the old one going down to Beaver Creek, but nope, it leads to the spring. A very steep trail, so I got warm pretty quick.

Then we had a nice morning ridge walk, through some recovering burned areas and some places that still had trees to shade us from the rising sun's rays. This part of the trail was familiar to me, so I was prepared when the ridge had a few climbs, and when the trail went over to the east side of the ridge, I knew to start looking for a right angle turn.

Bill and I were walking ahead of Ambrose and reached the sign for Lower Ramey Meadows. I, of course, took the sign to be an indication that said trail was still there. But Bill still had his doubts. We rested until Ambrose arrived and then there was some dithering about whether we should go on. I insisted that we all wanted to check out Rock Rabbit, so let's go. And I walked off. I was feeling a bit snitty.

And the trail got a bit rough, with lots of deadfall, and I waited for everyone to catch up and asked if they wanted to turn back. We all agreed to press on at least to the point.

I am so, so glad that we did.

I didn't know what to expect at Rock Rabbit Point, but I was not at all expecting a cabin. Not recently lived in, I'd say, with the broken window glass on the floor and some floorboards missing, but it's standing and has a door. There's also an old lookout tower that is barely standing and large piles of rocks.

No rabbits that I saw.

After gawking at the cabin and its environs, we kept going for a bit. The trail started easy and then got ridiculous with the amount of blowdown. For some reason, we all persisted past the worst of the blowdowns, and then I asked if everyone was comfortable going on. Bill volunteered that he was not, because Mike has a harder time navigating through rough trail.

But now Ambrose was set on going on. So we compromised. Bill would head back to the main trail with Mike and they would go through Upper Ramey Meadows and spend the night somewhere along there. We would meet up in the morning where the trail from Lower Ramey met up with the trail from Upper Ramey and then continue together.

I was quite satisfied with this solution, since Ambrose wasn't sure about making the extra distance going around to Upper Ramey would entail. And it meant that I got to have a bit of adventure alone with my husband.

Maybe a bit more than a bit of adventure...

The trail was decent for a while. And then we came upon a recently burned area. Recently enough that the ground was black ash, with very few sprouts of green growth. Trees were blackened and many had fallen. Blazes were not visible and neither was the trail. But we knew the direction we had to take. We persevered and regained the trail.

And again, it was good for a while. Some blowdowns, but nothing to write home about. We got pretty far, far enough to be thoroughly committed to our route before the trail completely disappeared.

We did not panic. We used our tools. First, map and compass, but the heading we got didn't feel right. So we pulled out the GPS and used it to navigate in the general direction of Lower Ramey Meadows. We weren't going to find the trail on this particular GPS model, but we could find the meadow. Not a direct route, because we detoured around a really thick section of young trees. And we actually ended up a bit too high in the wrong direction and had to come down into a kind of burnt bog.

And in this bog, in August, we stumbled upon a treasure hoard of morel mushrooms.

We have hunted for these little suckers in the "right" season (early spring), in the "right" places and never found more than a single mushroom at a time. And now, in the completely wrong season, in the middle of nowhere, we found this bounty. But we did forget to tag it on the GPS...

I harvested several mushrooms for Ambrose to carry and then we hiked on, soon reaching the meadow. It was such a wide, open space of green. Yellow also, because it was later in the season, but the colors were all fresh and right. Two cranes were startled by our arrival and flew off, honking at us in protest. We walked across the meadow, taking care not to step into a hidden stream, and came to rest under the shade of a couple of large pine trees.

We could have camped there. It was lovely. But I like to be prepared, and that meant finding the trail again before settling in for the night. We stumbled around a bit before I figured out a good tactic. Follow the water - the trail crossed Big Ramey Creek, and the GPS could show us that creek. So we just had to follow it up until we hit the trail. Easy.

The trail, however, wasn't the first indication that we were in the right place. No, that was Mike, running along and barking greeting on the far side of the creek.

Bill had decided to continue past Upper Ramey Meadows to the junction, and then explored and decided to cross the creek because he found a sign for Lower Ramey Meadows - and that's where he was camped.

Ambrose and I set up camp not too far from Bill and we got to the business of chores and relaxing and settling down for the evening. At one point, I thought I might need to dig a hole, so I took a walk. I found a little mini-meadow and walked into it to find a good spot. Instead, I found a grouse, just sitting on the ground, absolutely still. I left, because I didn't want to frighten it. And I didn't need to dig a hole anyway.

It was a pretty good place to camp, fairly flat and forested. But it was nothing like the meadow. There wasn't even a view of the meadow. And that was a bit disappointing.