So after calling countless of Ranger stations to see if the trails were free of snow and getting the same response from all of them
"No"
I decided to go to the Boulder River Wilderness. The Ranger told me there was no campsite there but I knew better, every time I go hiking in there I always come across backpackers so I figured that Ranger must not get out much and actually take a walk down the trails they are suppose to be knowledgeable of.
Saturday morning before my alarm went off to wake me up and head out to pick up my friend Vaihbav, that nasty sun woke me up with it's nasty light rays broiling me in my bed. It was 7 a.m. for goodness sakes! Got up, took a shower and made sure I had all my gear ready and off I went!
When we got to the trailhead there must have been at least 3 dozen cars parked there! First thing that raced through my head was "oh no, what if they are all backpackers!!!!!!", as a group of three walked away from their car with their backpacking gear. Once I saw that I did the unthinkable, I actually walked past the waterfalls and made a beeline for the campsite while poor Vaihbav wanted to stop and look at them! That is so not me!
Finally the heat caught up with me and I had to take a breather and gulp down water. So we stopped at Unnamed Show Falls which was about 3 miles in from our final destination of 4.7 miles. I have to say that I didn't even recognize the waterfall from what it looked like last week with all that snow melt coming down the creek!
Finally after 4.7 miles we got to the campsite! The bad is what had been beat by 3 other pairs and the backpackers we saw at the trailhead. Well, we started looking for a place to pitch our tents and we found a spot where there was a tent already pitched up, but there was enough room for a couple more tents so we asked two guys that were sitting by the tent if i was OK with them if we pitched our tents by them and they just said "go head"!
They left and about 20 minutes later this young couple no older than 20 yrs old showed up all confused and then it hit us, that was their tent! We apologized and they just told us no worries, it's fine. Well it wasn't fine for me! I wanted to have my tent a few feet from the river just like theirs so I started scouting the area and I found a sweet spot! A small site with the river as my front door!
I had the breeze of the cool raging mad Boulder River coming straight into my tent. The sound of the rushing river was so soothing I started napping off, as it turned out that was all the sleep I was going to get on this trip!
As the sun started to set it was time to start fire and make dinner, well it turned out the wood we collected was so damp we couldn't get a fire started. Then the other campers came over (the ones we saw at the trailhead) and mentioned to us how they couldn't get a fire started either. We all looked around and noticed the two couples couldn't get a fire started either and we all started to laugh. It then hit me and thanks to my busy TV schedule I remembered that Bear Gylls from Man Vs. Wild had an episode where he mentioned to remove the bark from a tree and that should be good enough to start a fire. It worked and Vaihbav and I joined the other 3 and we all sat around the fire. While everyone was trying to get their stoves to work I grabbed my Jetboil stove and just pressed the starter and was boiling water in less than a minute while the rest couldn't get their stoves working. At the end I ended up boiling everyone's water till finally they got their stoves to work! It was great and we all had smores and they even shared with us whiskey!
Now here is when the trip actually turned so serious that we had to tell one of the couples that was camping (the ones I had originally set my tent by) that we weren't bear bait. After they finished cooking and eating, they proceeded to hang their food, they walked over to a tree and threw their food over a branch like they are suppose to- the problem? They hanged their food 30 feet from my tent and about 50 ft from the other campers' tents!!! As I saw them I was laughing in disbelief at what they were doing. Finally one of the guys got up and told them that we valued our lives and we didn't have any plans to turn our campsite into a Bear's playground. Their respond? "We can't find a tree". They couldn't find a tree!!! Wake up kids, you are in the forest surrounded by trees!!! They are everywhere!!!! Thank goodness I had moved my tent to a new location, Vaihbav on the other hand was 15 ft from their tent since he decided to not move his tent. When we finished eating we and the other 3 proceed to throw our food over tree branches like you are supposed to... 100 yards away from our tents and everybody else's tents too!
By 9:30 p.m. they were all falling asleep and the full moon was out giving us plenty of light. We said good night to each other and we went to our tents... well almost everybody, I stayed up and watched the river and the stars while taking all the sounds of nature. I then took a picture of my tent with my lantern on.
Then I started counting the hours left till sunrise, ugh!!! I was so relax yet I couldn't sleep! At 23:00 I went in my tent and I ended up just laying there. Around 1:00am I gave up and went out my tent and just sat on the river bank. At 2:30 I went back to my tent. Then at around 5 I told my self this is silly and I went back out. At 6 went back in and stayed there till about 7:30 when I proceeded to get out and cook brea
kfast and make myself scrambled eggs with bacon bits!At around 10:00 a.m. Vaihbav came out of his tent and half and hour later we were all packed up and said goodbye to our nice neighbors and we all headed out leaving the to couples
As we headed out we stopped at Feature Show Falls. That waterfall had what I thought was the most water I had ever seeing go over its 180 foot drop, but that was last week! Was I not even ready for how much water was going over those falls that morning! The pictures do no justice to those falls. It was amazing!
About 2 miles from the trailhead I finally caved in to the heat, I finally turned my convertible pants into shorts and I didn't care if I blinded anybody with my floodlight white legs, I figured the river was reflecting enough sun rays that it was blinding people who went by me anyways! Vaihbav looked at me and said "Yikes!" Well by the end I was thinking my legs got enough light for a tan so that my legs matched my arms, but that was wishful thinking, not only did I not get my legs tan, I ended getting my arms and face sunburned! Oops, that's what I get by sitting next to the river and backpaking in the sun with no sunscreen. Oh well, I'll make sure I don't repeat the same mistake again this Memorial Day weekend when I head out with a few friends to backpack to Shi Shi Beach at Olympic National Park on the Pacific Coast!
Now if the snow only melts a bit more so I can head deep into the Alpine Lakes Wilderness!
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