Category: Washington

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.