Category: Hank – the Dog

Overcast this morning 63 inside and 58 outside

The rain did not come last night, only the sprinkles just before dark.

Still smells like horse poo outside.
Hank and I out for a walk, taken earlier in our stay.

iPad to WordPress

Yesterday two young Forest Service guys stopped by to see how long we had been camped here.  There is a big event going on here this weekend and they wanted to ensure we had not overstayed our welcome.  The event is a fifty (50) mile run, up to Suntop and back then to Coral Pass and back.

Link to the trail they are running.

They anticipate a large number of people and wanted to free up as many camping site as possible.  At this point us and one other group at the far end of the runway are the only people here.  Not sure why they stopped, us being here would not make much difference in the areas camping capacity, not like there are a lot of people here during the week.  The funny thing is they didn’t even  check to see if we had paid for the time we have been here.  I did ask them what the camping restriction are for this area, it is 14 consecutive days and then you have to be gone for 2 days and the 14 days starts over.   We have decide to go home for the weekend and come back on Tuesday, I will go fishing Monday morning.

At 7:30 this morning the Honey Bucket guy drove by with eight Honey Buckets on his truck, you know that has just got to be a shitty job.

When Hank and I got up this morning it was 57 degrees inside and 48 degrees outside.  We have noticed the catalytic heater is putting out more heat here than it did during our Memorial Day trip. This one is over 10 years old and I was beginning to think about buying a new one.  At this point I think it is just an oxygen levels thing.  We are at 2500 feet here at Ranger Creek and during our trip we were at 6000 to 9000 feet, that is a big difference in the percentage of oxygen in the air.  I don’t know how long these are supposed to last, I do know that dust on the mat is what kills most of them.  When I got this one I found a big plastic container at WalMart which the heater just fits in and slides under the couch this keeps it pretty clean. It might be worth making a cover for it so it is also covered during the day when we are in the desert this fall and winter.  I could use a pillow case for a cover, that might work.
Here are a couple of trail pictures from this week.

Hank and I went for a walk today up the hill on the west side of the airstrip.  We followed a road up the side of hill leading to where I think the Coast Guard Station’s head works for their water system.  Last week I found an old pipe in the ground made of flat steel rolled and riveted into a pipe.

See the rivets in the flat steel which was rolled into a pipe.

We found a spot where at sometime in the past had been a water collection dam.  We spent some time looking around and found a newer pipe going further up the creek to another water collection spot.  It looks like the newer pipe is cast iron.
A trail continues past the end of the road up to the trail which runs from the airstrip to Suntop.  We continued along this trail for a while.  Looking at this trail it it is evident there was a mountain bike rally here on Saturday.  The trail was soothed out from all the bikes running down the trail and at trail junctions orange surveyor’s tape attached to limbs with clothes pins.  I am guessing someone we’ll come back later an take these down.

Here is a InReach map of where we hiked.  When we get home I think I will pair my InReach with my traveling Facebook site.  This way I can post locations from InReach to Facebook via satellite.

Friday 7/24/2015  I figured out how to post to Facebook from my InReach, posted the location of our house.

Ranger Creek Air Strip

Some of the things I like about camping and hiking in the hills ( in my motorhome ).
My comfortable bed and it is not on the ground.  Getting out of bed by placing your feet down onto carpet is no comparison to having to get up off the ground.  Crawling around on your knees to get dressed and out of the tent.  Always a joy to put your shoes on while sticking your feet out the tent door so dirt does not get into the tent.
Not having to hike a half mile just to dig a hole in bunch of rocks to deposit what is left of the previous day’s breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Things I don’t miss:
Cooking on a fire
Cooking on the ground, when using a stove
Walking a quarter to half a mile for a drink of cold water
Washing dishes standing on your head
Washing up in a bowl that is 6 inch across and 2 inches depth

I do miss multiple night hikes. We used to do 8 night hikes once a year. In my young years we would go 50+ miles.  Later we would cover 30 to 35 miles.  This would mean shorter distance each day carrying a pack and more afternoon and evening exploration hikes.  Dinner at five, with dishes done by6:00 and we would have until 9:00 or 9:30 to explore.

I do miss hiking one direction ( not having to walk back however far I hike from the motorhome. )

Today was not much of a hiking day.  Hank and I got an early start however it did not last very long.  Hank was tired, he was walking along side me or mostly trailing behind. After about half a mile we turned around and called it a day.  We are both getting older.

Today’s helicopter:
iPad note writer

Got the satellite TV dish set up this morning.  Last week I had changed our physical location to Crystal Mountain which is only a few miles away and in the same zip code as we are now.  Matter of fact when Google maps originally setting up zip codes 98022 (Enumclaw) was attached to the physical location of Crystal Mountain Ski Resort.  A lot of databases are still this way.  Most medical search databases when you search for doctors within 5 miles of 98022 the results are NONE.  When you change the search to 30 miles all the doctors in Enumclaw show up including the hospital.  Once a mistake is made it is very difficult to get it changed.  Anyway we have local Seattle-Tacoma TV stations coming down from the satellite.

Hank and I got out for a hike this afternoon.  Walked the trail along the river ( White River ) for 4 miles and then came back.  We were in heavy forest the whole time so it was really nice and shady with a dirt trail the whole way.  We saw two other groups out hiking in the nice weather.  I took my InReach GPS however being down inside a large stand of trees it only was able to transmit our location once during the three hours we were on the trail.  When we got back to camp I set the GPS out in the open so it could transmit it’s data, it will be interesting to see where it thinks we were. I also set a waypoint ( #10 ) for a point of reference.  This waypoint is after we had turned left away from the river for 0.6 miles and also our turn around point.
Another beautiful with a high of 85.
Hank was tired when we got home.

We are the only people here tonight, nice and quiet.

Army helicopter came into the landing strip this evening.  He came from the north, landed south to north, set for several minutes, took off north, came around and left going to the south.

iPad note writer