Mountain Mama

Which is a lyric that has never made sense to me, but I'm not from West Virginia. 

Over the past few years DOB has been working out how to do some off-roading in the Olympics. It started as just a diversion en route to the annual beach pilgrimage, involving a lot of dead ends and occasionally bees. Over the years he has acquired more off-roading capable vehicles and figured out where to print off maps of the logging roads. 

This year we spent Memorial Day chasing down roads along with a few other people. He wanted to do that again on the 5th, but it didn't work out for anyone else, so just Dash and I went along. I suggested a relatively tame loop, but Dash and DOB wanted something more interesting. We went as far as the trailhead for Mount Ellinor, which my father used to climb regularly in his youth and which I ascended with him when I was about 10. My only memory of this trip is clinging to the summit in terror. Still, it was cool to be up there and Dash and I are discussing doing a summit. It's a challenging trail but there were plenty of people coming down with grade school children in tow, so it can't be that difficult, right?  On the other hand, while I walk a good deal on relatively level ground I was getting winded just descending a bit from the parking lot, so I probably should try some lesser elevation hikes first. 

After that we tried various roads. The first one had apparently been wiped out by a landslide several years back (judging from the scrubby trees growing out of it). Fortunately the wipe out was clearly visible from where it turned off the main(ish) road and there was a parking lot, so DOB stayed there while Dash and I hiked a short way down and discovered it would indeed have had incredible views if it had been traversible. But that one would have been a dead end at best anyway, so we were not too disappointed.  

The next one we had passed on the way up and the maps indicated would lead us on a large and windy loop that would eventually get us back to Highway 101. However, as should be indicated by my statement above, the maps are not in any way updated to show that roads have become impassable or closed. It is entirely a use at your own risk system, and often we would see roads clearly marked on the map of which there was no sign that a road had ever existed. 

The entrance to this one was rocky and narrow but clear, so we headed out and DOB was rather disappointed when the rocks dissipated to gravel and a clear but narrow road lined heavily by trees that looked more like an overgrown driveway than a mountain adventure. We continued for quite awhile with nothing more terrifying that a good bit of paint damage when the road began to be more along the edge and we came across a rockslide where a boulder blocked half the road and there was no shoulder on the other side. Dash got out and determined it was *just* wide enough for the truck and he spotted DOB through it while I tried valiantly but not always successfully not to scream. 

There were a few other narrow spots between fallen trees and boulders, and one with loose scree high on one side and a narrow edge on the other. There were also some lovely views and absolutely no other vehicles on the road, which was both a relief and a concern. 

I decided after the first time, that it would be for the good of all if I got out and walked around the next bend and examined the very lovely wildflowers while these locations were being traversed. So we continued on for a couple of hours (at about 5 mph) thinking that at least we would not need to past *those* obstacles again when we came to a place where the road was entirely covered a couple feet thick in loose scree that tapered off into more landslide on the other side. There were tire tracks on it, and the road did continue on the other side, but DOB concluded that it was beyond even his considerable skill except in a Jeep with a winch. (I did not previously realize that having equipment to tie your car to a tree and drag it over such obstacles was even a thing.)

Well. That meant all those obstacles we were relieved to get past were still waiting behind us, and that only after DOB backed the truck the quarter mile back to the closest turnout. I did even more walking ahead on the way back, along with some fervent prayers and, at that hour, some bug slapping. However, we did eventually make it all out alive. (DOB swore that death was not really a potential outcome, although getting the truck stuck in a stand of trees was one, in which case I felt like I would still be in a much better position to render aid if I waited down the road.) We got back to the main forest road and took the more mundane loop back to the highway, although we did pass where the road would, theoretically, have come out. 

Anyway, having discovered that while I do still have some fear of edges, edges with my feet on solid ground are much less scary than edges in the passenger seat of a 3-ton truck with an inch clearance for its tires, so I am looking forward to tackling Mt. Ellinor again.