SANDY'S JOURNAL: 1985 CREST TRAIL RIDE

CONTINUED


Packing up at
Brahma Lake
Saturday, July 20: I did remember how to braid that rope end back. As we were packing up that morning, two men who were hiking the Crest from Mexican-California border to Manning Park in Canada stopped by our camp. They introduced themselves as Zary Kamchamcha from North Shore, Hawaii and Tim Argo from Seaman, Ohio. They visited with us while we were packing and then headed on down the trail. We caught up with them about four miles later. We found a meadow and let the horses eat for about 30 minutes.

The mosquitoes' were so bad that Pat and I put our nets on while riding, down the trail. Roy would not put his on. We teased him, saying we were his "harem" as we rode "veiled" down the trail.

We came to Island Meadow, and decided to make camp since the horses hadn't had any feed for the last couple of days, but it depended on whether we could find some water. We started riding around on end of the meadow looking for water. Pat and Roy stopped and waited while I continued on around. I made almost a full circle before I found a creek and tied up all my horses. I sat down to wait for Roy and Pat to come, but they didn't show up. I finally climbed on Wayward and rode back to see where they were. They were still sitting over in one corner of the meadow waiting for me to come back. I took them over to where my other horses were and asked if this place was okay. We went ahead and camped there for the day. At least the horses were getting something to eat and drink. The mosquitoes were the worst we had ever run into. They swarmed around the horses' heads. We had to keep our mosquito nets on all the time. If you took a breath and you didn't have a net on, you inhaled the little devils. While the net kept the mosquitoes off of us, the netting was hard to see through and made it seem dark before nightfall.
Island Meadow

It was really kind of neat at the meadow because it went all the way around an island of trees, and the inside the stand of trees there was a little lake. The weather was really good again that day. We had planned to camp at Elk Lake that day. Roy was hoping there would be a resort there so he could get some cigarettes. He was getting a little low as he smokes two packs a day. For the last couple of days he had cut down to smoking about one and a half packs. That was about to kill him off. Our next food drop, where Roy might get more packs, was a couple of days away. Anyway, we decided to camp here and give the horses a good feed. Roy would have to make do.

We must have put on 18 miles that day. That night I didn't put up my tent, and boy, did I regret it. Those mosquitoes were buzzing around me all night. I was so hot in my sleeping bag. I ended up putting my jeans on, and crawling under my sleeping bag, so I could cool down. I swore that from then on my tent was going up. I wasn't sleeping with mosquitoes anymore.


Sunday, July 21: Somewhere we got off the Crest Trail that day. The only place I can figure where this happened was when we came into a big meadow, I followed the well-traveled trail that went along side. There was one post, out in the middle of the meadow, but I didn't go out to it because I couldn't see any trail going that way or any grass knocked down. That must have been where we got off the trail.

We ended up down at the Horse Lake Trail head, three miles out of our way. That was where we had planned to go the day before to see if Roy could get some cigarettes. We gave the horses a ten-minute break and headed on up the Horse Lake Trail to the Crest. This is really quite a popular horse area. It was hard sometime to stick to the Crest since it was not marked well. Areas where there were no Crest Trail marker's it became a guessing game. We could only hope we chose the right one. This was one of those multiple-choice quizzes.

We ran into some other horse people by Sisters Mirror Lake. We went on to other end of the lake to have lunch. After lunch Roy was in the lead when we came to a junction in the trail. He took the most used one.

"Wait a minute, Roy," I said. "I think we are heading in the wrong direction. We are not headed north any more we are going east." I went back to the junction and read the signs. I looked for the name on my map. I found Mesa Creek on the map and it was up north crossing the Crest Trail. The sign showed Mesa going the other way from the trail we were on. One other indication that we had taken the wrong route was that I had noticed one pair of footprints that I knew to be Zary's going toward Mesa Creek. Zary's boots made little circular marks on the trail. Since he had made his way from Mexico this far and was going the same destination we were, I felt that he was probably on the right trail. I sat there waiting for Pat and Roy to come, but they didn't. I rode back to get them. I thought they were coming with me to check the signs out, but Roy had decided to work on one of the pack on his mules.

Roy did the same thing I usually did, which is stay on the most worn trail. I told them that Mesa Creek was further up north, on the Crest. Coming around The House Rock we came upon a hillside full of trees down across the trail. Boy, that wasn't fun getting through. Thankfully, without unpacking a single horse we wove our way in and out until we made it. None of the horses got hurt. Coming off The House Rock we came to the Mesa Lava flow. It's a big lava flow going through a flat valley. We could see something glittering over in the rock mass. Roy rode over to see what it was. It was black rocks, with the sun reflected off of them. Roy looked like a little ant compared to the height of the lava flow. As we were riding through the valley by the lava, we noticed the South Sister Mt. looming ahead of us.
On trial to South Sister
South Sister
We camped at Linton Springs. We had South Sister to the south of us, Middle Sister to the east and on the west side was the Husband. Mountains surrounded us.

It was really spectacular. Putting on my telephoto lens, I lined up a shot of the South Sister to see if I could get a picture of the north glacier from there. There was a little feed around, so the horses had some grass and water. I rode Scooter that day. We put on about 20 miles.


Monday, July 22: We started out with good weather again. There were a few clouds in the sky. We rode by North Sister, Little Brother and Collier Cone, what a beautiful area.

Then we started into the lava beds. It was really interesting seeing the different shapes and forms the rocks had taken as they cooled. The formations were different than the other lava beds we had ridden through. Some of them were nice and round
while others would be flat like someone had cut them off with a big knife. Another place looked like a furrow someone had plowed. Little shrubs and trees were beginning to grow in the furrow. The horses started getting sore feet riding through there. When we were riding toward highway 242, we saw a building made out of rock. I guess it was the Dee Wright Observatory. I thought the trail was going to get close to the Rock House so I didn't get out my telephoto lens to take a picture. We ended up going away from it. I was not going to ride up the highway with all the traffic to get a picture.
Lava beds
Lava beds
North Sister in back

We were trying to find a place to camp, as it was getting a late. We still had a lot of lava to ride in before we could find a site. We could see some trees in the distance where we thought we might be able to camp. Roy read on his map about Lake George, and he wanted to try for it. This meant we had to ride all the way down around the end of a lava flow that came out of Belknap Cater. We were riding along side of the lava flow when I got off and walked as Scooter was getting very tired and sore-footed. I didn't think she was going to make it through too many more miles. I had walked about a mile when we got down by the end of the of the lava flow. We were all tired.

"We have to quit here," I told Roy. "These horses are too tired to keep going. I don't want to play out the two three-year-old fillies totally."

According to the map the lake should have been down around the point of the lava flow and a few miles further up the trail from where we were. The lake was off the trail, meaning we would have to cross country to it, close to dusk and uncertain of our destination. We decided to camped right by the end of the lava flow. There was little room and no water or feed. Roy laid his tarp down and slept under it. Pat put up her tent on one side of the trail, and I went down a little further and put up my tent by the horses on the other side of the trail.

There weren't too many places to put the horses so they were all on the side of the trail as my tent. I ended up getting up in the middle of the night and moving Mireeyah to stop Georgie from kicking her. Trying in the dark to find a place to tie her wasn't much fun when my flashlight kept going out on me. I couldn't understand why Pat kept putting those two horses so close together. Georgie would start kicking Mireeyah every time they were tied to close. I never did see her get up in the night to do anything about them. She was lucky that one of her horses didn't get a broken leg.

It was another dry camp with just the water in our canteens. I always hated it when Roy would build a fire and we had no water to put it out with if anything happened. It was like a hot tinderbox ready to go.


Tuesday, July 23: I tore the fire pit apart so Roy wouldn't build a fire that morning. I didn't want to ride away that day and leave a hot bed of coals to start a forest fire.

I was having a lot of trouble with Sarid that day. He kept pulling back and breaking the piggin string off the saddle of the horse in front of him that he was tied to. I started leading him, but he would still pull back. He would stop and pull his lead rope off the horn of my saddle. The little filly I was riding, Val, would be jerked to a stop or pulled sideways. I ended up putting a chain behind his ears, and around his nose. He still pulled back a couple of times. Then he settled down. I lost my Sierra cup that was hooked to my belt while fighting with him. He seemed to be taking lessons from Gracie who had been pulling back for a week or more. She had taken the leather right off the horn on Roy's saddle.

We came to a little lake about three miles before we got to Santiam Lodge. We cleaned up a little bit since we had no water the night before. We made it to Santiam Lodge, the Presbyterian Church Camp, that day about 2:30 P.M.. We had traveled around 12 miles altogether making it a short day.

When we arrived at the Lodge, we asked the Pastor if there was any water available for our horses. There was a little creek by his house, but we noticed that the tiny trickle of water looked stagnant. Then he told us about a lake that was about a mile and a half up the trail that started off by the Lodge. So we planned to camp that night at the lake.

We washed our clothes, showered, picked up our food boxes and repacked our pack boxes. The pastor and his wife were very nice to let us use their washing machine and dryer. Our plans changed when the dryer wasn't getting the clothes dry and it was getting late. We asked the Pastor if we could camp there for the night. He showed us where we could tie the horses.

We had dinner at the lodge with about 15 kids. We thought it was nice that those who are traveling the Crest Trail were given a lower price on their meals than other quests. While waiting for dinner, we signed their Crest Trail Register at their front counter.

We had spaghetti, a big salad, string beans and garlic bread. Then the Pastor's wife gave us a head of lettuce, tomatoes, carrots and nectarines to take with us. We packed buckets of water out from the Pastor's house to the horses, but since they had gotten a good drink back at the lake, they refused the water. While our clothes were in the dryer, we worked on putting the new food in the pack boxes. These people were very considerate and helpful. We were glad this was one of our food drops.


Wednesday, July 24: We stayed and ate breakfast at 8 A.M., with the other people in the lodge. We had everything ready to pack on the horses when we finished eating. We packed up and headed on up the trail behind the lodge for about three miles before we cut back over to the Crest. We were going along pretty good when we came to some downed trees.
Three Fingered Jack
Going down and around one of them, Wayward twisted a shoe. Right after going around the trees, we stopped by a snow pile to have lunch. That was when I noticed that her shoe was turned sideways. In order to get the shoeing equipment, which was on Scooter, I had to undo her packs. The shoes were under the boxes that were in canvas pack. I put a new shoe on Wayward while Roy and Pat ate lunch. Then I ate lunch and went for a little hike over the hill. There was a little lake there so when I came back, we took the horses over so they could get a drink. We camped at Rock Pile Lake.

We usually leave the saddles on for a one half hour after unpacking. Roy turned Fizz loose while we unpacked the other animals. After we got all the animals unpacked, Roy looked up and could not find Fizz. The two mules were over by my horses, but we could not see Fizz anywhere. I grabbed Val, since she still had her saddle on, and went looking for Fizz. I had never ridden Val away from the other horses before so I didn't know what she would do. I took off over the hillside looking for Fizz. Val did a lot of whinnying, but she went. I was proud of her since that was the first time she had been asked to leave the other. When we came back, Fizz was there. She had been behind some trees so we couldn't see her.

There were all kinds of deer around the area. I think we saw more deer here than we saw on the whole trip. They kept trying to get to our saddles that night. We trapped the saddle to keep the deer from chewing them up for the salt. I could hear them pawing at the tarps over my saddles, and I would hit the side of my tent. Then I could hear them run away. I took some pictures of the deer. The weather was good and we rode about 16 miles.


Thursday, July 25: It was really hot weather that day. We were going along pretty good when we came to a junction in the trail where the Oregon Skyline Trail cuts off from the Crest Trail. Roy wanted to take the Oregon Skyline Trail to Pamelia Lake. He though it looked shorter going that way than going by the Crest. I told him it looked like a lot of up and down hills to me. I wanted to ride the Crest that was the object of our ride. So we started down the Crest. When we came to the first couple of logs down on the trail, all I heard was that we should have taken the Oregon Skyline Trail.

"Well, we could turn the horses around," I said, "and go back a ways then cut down the gully, then come up on the other side of the trees that were on the trail." Roy kept complaining so I got fed up.

"Okay, lets go back to the Skyline Trail." I had to unhook each one of my horses individually to turn them around, then tie them back up again, because there was no room on the trail to turn all four around while tied together. Roy was able to turn his around because he had more room. Pat and Roy started out before I got all of my horses hooked up again. This I didn't appreciate because horses being herd creatures try to stick together. They don't like being left by part of the group and will try at all costs to keep together. This can make for very dangerous situations. Indeed, this would prove true later that same day.

When we came to an open space, I hooked all the horses back up the right way. Pat and Roy thought the trail was the one down in the valley. We cut across country down to the trail. We ended up in a marshy place in the valley. Then we could not find the trail. Pat went checking one way. I went another but mine just went straight down over a steep hill. It was slick and muddy so I came back to where Roy was waiting until Pat returned. There wasn't any trail the way she went either, she said. I said it was muddy the way I went, but it looked like it might be a trail. We started out that way, but it kept getting muddier. I said, if this is the way to Pamelia Lake, I would rather go around the logs. So we headed back for the Crest.

On the way down that trail my horses got tangled up around a tree. Val went on the wrong side of the tree. Scooter almost lost her pack. I got the pack straightened back on her okay without having to unpack her. On the way back up they did it again. For the second time Val went on one side of a tree and Scooter on the other. This time Scooter lost the pack off her side. This time we had to repack her and fix her broken breast-collar. We cut across country to get back up to the Crest. It was very steep, and I mean steep. It was steeper than what it would have been if we had gone around the couple of trees on the Crest, but we did get there, and past the downed trees. Roy was still talking about going to Pamelia Lake.

We met some girls at Shate Lake. They left the Santiam Loge by another trail going to Pamelia Lake and then on to Shate Lake. They were out on a three-day hike. While we were talking to them, I asked if there was any grass around Pamelia Lake. They said there were only rhododendrons. Since Rhodes are poisonous to horses, that kind of settled that. They also told us there were other trees, down on the trail. We decided to take our chances further on up the trail. Our map showed that there was a little lake a couple of miles past the Pamelia Lake Trail. We got to the trees that the girls had said were on the trail. We got around the first ones okay, but we had a little trouble with the second ones.

I was in the lead. I dismounted, walked around to check out the area first. I climbed up the hill following where other horses had gone, but by the time I got there, I saw that the Crest Trail had cut back over to our left. That way wouldn't work. I could see that other horses had gone back down the way they had come up. When I got across to the other side of the trees, I walked down the trail a ways then saw where other horses had crossed lower down. I yelled back to Roy, telling him what I had discovered. Roy turned his horses around and cut off over the side of the hill before I got back to Sarid. Sarid likes to be in the lead so when Roy turned around, Sarid followed, that caused chaos in my string. The pack animals were tied to Sarid so they all tried to turn around. I watched helplessly as they crashed with pack boxes hitting one other. I hadn't tied up Sarid because he could not go forward anyway. Roy was behind him so I thought my string wouldn't go anywhere either. I ended up with a couple of broken piggin strings. Scooter had a broken breast-collar and her pack was almost off. To say the least I was not very happy. I finally got everything straightened up.

To get back to where Roy was, we had to cut down off the trail. I wanted Pat to go ahead of me, but she wouldn't. Val was on the end of my string now so when I went down off the trail, she went up it a little too close to Pat with her pack. The pack hit Pat's leg. We got them down in the gully and then sent them up one at a time to Roy so he could tie them up. We made it okay except for Pat's leg. We were just lucky none of the horses, got hurt. We didn't find any more logs down, after that.

We rode until we came to the little lake that was pass the Pamelia trail. It was a pretty little spot with Mt. Jefferson reflecting in the water. There wasn't much room to get off the trail for camping so we rode the length of the lake looking for a place. There was a little bit grass down at one end and nowhere to camp. We went back to the other end of the lake, and set up camp.

There wasn't very much level ground around. Pat pitched her tent in the only level area. Roy could have slept there too, but she put her tent right in the middle of the level area. I slept under one of the trees. It was fairly level there. I told Roy to put his tarp over as close to mine as he could since that was about the only other level spot we could find.

I took my horses down to the other end of the lake so they could eat some grass. Roy and Pat brought their animals down a little later. While the horses were eating, I was out looking for a place to tie them up for the night. There wasn't much area to do this in because it was pretty rocky all around. It was about an eighth of a mile down from our camp when I found a place, to put my high line up for horses. Pat brought her rope down to the same place for her two horses. Roy said he was leaving his right there by the camp where he had tied before we unpacked them. Pat's tent wasn't too far from the mules. Fizz started whinnying during the night. We thought the first time she did this that the two mule's had gotten loose. Roy got out of bed to check on them. He came back and said nothing was wrong. Fizz started up again during the night, and I got up this time. Roy said she was just whinnying. I checked on all of the horses. We just let her whinny after that.


Friday, July 26: Pat was a little bad that day because she said she didn't get much sleep. Who did? We had been the ones who had gotten up and had checked on the horses. She never did.
On trail to Mt. Jefferson
South side of Mt. Jefferson

North side of
Mt. Jefferson

It was really a nice ride going through Mt. Jefferson. It was in the open and really beautiful with lots of lakes around. The only problem was there were plenty of people around, too. It was a Friday and we passed about 25 people going in to camp. I hated to see what Saturday would bring.

We had to cross a snowfield on the north side of Mt. Jefferson. Some people thought we would have trouble getting across the snowfield. Others told us that if we followed the sticks poking out of the snow and rocks piled up, that we would stay on the trail pretty good and not have any trouble. We had no trouble crossing the snowfield.

Ed and Tony Grice and
Dogs; Cat and Sundance

After leaving the park past Breitenbush Lake, we came upon some hikers who had a couple of dogs with them. They were Ed and Tonya Grice and their dogs were Sundance and Cat. What a name for a dog, Cat! He was a black Lab. They had the dogs packed too.

We continued on down to Olallie Lake. We were planning to camp there, but a female ranger said it would be better for us to camp at Head Lake, just down the road a little way. The horses would be able to get water at the lake and there wasn't any place for horses by Olallie Lake. I

asked her when they were going to get the trail logged out. Every time we have to go around a log we break down the side of the trail. We do not like breaking the trail down because it destroys it. Then the Forest Service wants to close the trails to horses saying we're misusing the trail. She said they wouldn't be in to log it out until the end of the season. By then it would be closed anyway. I said that didn't make a lot of sense.

We went on down to Head Lake where she said to camp. The lake was by the side of the road. We pulled up at the first campsite. I was ready to stop, but Roy and Pat wanted to get further from the road and up into the trees. It was hard getting the packhorses through the trees with their packs on. My string kept going on opposite sides of the trees from each other. It is a lot easier to lead on or two horses, but when you have three tied together, it is harder to maneuver them through the trees, particularly being a young string, that doesn't know anything yet.

When we got to the next camp site, I said I was going to leave my horses right there where I was unpacking them for the night. Of course, Pat wanted to put her tent right by the horses. She was moaning and groaning that she wasn't having horses keep her awake again all night. I left the horses there while Roy and I rode down to the store to see if he could get some cigarettes. Pat didn't want to go to the store

"I'm not listening to her complain about the horses all night," I told Roy on the way to the store. "I will take mine and camp somewhere else." We brought some bread, and Roy bought enough cigarettes to last him until we got to the next food drop.

I had a can of pop and a candy bar. Roy bought a can of pop for Pat. Then we rode back to camp. When I got there, I just untied my other horses and led them back down the road. Then I went up the side of the hill a little way to tie them up off the road. I went back to get my sleeping bag and some grain for my horses. I left the rest of my things there. I tarped the boxes up for the night. Pat asked, me where I was going. "I'm moving my horses out so you are not complaining that they kept you awake." I said. "I didn't say it was your horses that kept me awake," she said. "That's what you've been complaining about," I said, that they will keep you awake. You put your tent up by where I said I was going to leave my horses. I don't want to hear about it so I'm going down to sleep with my horses. I figured at least I would have peace and quiet. I had to laugh to myself because her horses kept whinnying for my horses. I went back up to get something from my pack. "Are you ready for dinner?" Pat asked. "I'm not hungry," I said. "You have to eat something," Pat said. "I had a couple of candy bars earlier," I said. I ate a little bit with them. As I said, I had to chuckle to myself. I thought we'll see whose horses keep her awake tonight. Pat's horses were fairly quiet through the night, but they did do a little bit of whinnying. We had ridden about 16 miles that day in beautiful weather.


Saturday, July 27: We didn't get started until 9:45 A.M.. It was good weather again that day. We rode on the Warm Springs Indian reservation all day, except for when we cut off the trail to go down to Olallie Meadow. After we had gone about a mile down the trail, we took another side trail down to the meadow. There was a lot of grass around, but it was boggy and the horses kept sinking. After riding down the road, I discovered a cabin. I let my horses eat around the cabin. It wasn't as bad as where we had come out to the road. There were a lot of campsites, but also a sign that said no horses. We stayed by the cabin and let the animals eat for an hour. Then we headed on back up to the Crest.

It was kind of a boring ride that day. It was just hot and dusty riding in trees where you couldn't get out and see anything. We covered around 19 miles and camped at the Warm Springs River. I hiked up the hill because at first it didn't look like there was anything around for the horses to eat except for a couple of little spots by the water. There was plenty of grass up on the hill so I took my horses up there to eat. Pat brought her horses up, too. Roy did not want to hike up the hill so he let his animals eat by the river. After my horses had eaten for about two hours, I brought them back down and tied them up on their high lines for the evening. I fed them grain. I covered all of my pack boxes for the night. Roy didn't cover his pack boxes that held his grain that night. The packs were by my horses on the other side of the trail from the camp.

I slept under the tarps that night, as I didn't feel like putting up my tent. I slept alongside the trail. The horses were on the other side of the trail.

"Are you going to sleep that close to the trail?" Roy asked.

"Yeah, I'm going to try to stay over here by the horses," I said. "I don't think anybody will be going down the trail at night in the dark." Pat had her horses on the same side we camped on but back of the camp, where she and Roy were sleeping.

The horses woke me up once during the night so I got up to check them out and make sure everyone was okay. I couldn't see where anything was wrong so I went back to bed.


Sunday, July 28: I got up at 5 A.M., and put my horses up on the hill to eat. Then I came down and started to pack my sleeping bag. Roy went to feed his animals some grain. He was not going to hike up the hill to turn his animals out for some grass. He was missing a nosebag for one of his mules. He asked me if I had seen it. I told him that when I had taken the last one off of Red the night before that I had put it with the other two by his pack boxes. We looked all over the place for it, but we could not find it.

"It has to be around here someplace," I said. "It doesn't have legs." I told him to go ahead and use one of mine since my horses were still up on the hill eating. While Roy was feeding his animal's grain, I thought I heard someone talking up on the hill. I was just getting ready to go up to see what was going on up there when this guy came down the trail on a mule. He didn't want to stop, but we asked him where he was heading. He said, he was going to California. He had started from Yakima, Washington. He was noticing Roy's mules so he and Roy began talking about mules. His mule was about the same size as Roy's Red. His mule didn't have any shoes. He said that he had them on the front feet when he left, but the mule's feet had grown too long so he had taken them off. He said he didn't have any money to have the shoes replaced. The man said he had bought a mule because it was a "poor man's animal," and he didn't have much money for the trip.

"How are you going to get through the lava beds, with no shoes on your mule?" I said. "Our horses and Roy's mules got sore feet even with shoes."

He said he was going to try to go around the lava beds. I saw Roy's nose bag lying along side the trail, half way down the hill, after the man left. The nosebag was soaking wet and looked like it had been washed out.

When I first saw the man, he was pulling his mule to the side of the trail where I found the nosebag. I told Roy I wondered if he didn't come down here last night and get the nosebag and feed for his mule since he didn't have any with him. I knew I had laid the last nosebag down with the others the night before. There was no way of proving it, but I couldn't help wondering if he hadn't come down to help himself to the grain, and that was what woke me up during the night. There are usually little pieces of grain left in the bottom of bags after animals are done eating, but this bag had nothing in it at all.

It would have been nice if he had asked for it. We would have been glad to give him something for his mule. The mule looked like he needed something to eat. I don't know how he planned to make it to California, but I hope he and his mules make it.

Roy and I had our animals all packed and Pat's boxes weren't even closed. I don't know what she was doing, but she was off somewhere. Roy and I closed up the boxes and started to put them on her horses when she came back.

"I didn't have them packed," she started hollering. She stormed back and forth saying, "I'm brushing my teeth anyway before I do anything else," and off she went. We went ahead and packed up her horse to get going. We were late starting that morning again. We rode on down the trail and came out on highway 42. There was a sign there that read Joe Graham Horse Camp. Roy stayed out by the highway while Pat and I rode in to see if anybody there might have some shoes to fit her horse. Georgie needed some shoes on her back feet. The back shoes were really worn thin. I had put a couple of nails, in them a few days before, hoping they would make it. She did not bring any extra shoes with her, and I didn't have any that would fit her horses. We were hoping the shoes would last until we arrived at Stevenson where we could get some. In talking to some people there, one guy told us there was one man that did shoeing so he might have some. We found him and he did have a set that would work on her hind feet. Pat was hoping he would put them on. He didn't, but he did give them to her. We thanked him and went back to where Roy was waiting.

We rode by Timothy Lake. It was a real big lake, and we rode three and a half miles to get to the other end. It was half way to the end of the before we could find a place to get down to the water so the animals could get a drink. We also had lunch while we were there. When we reached the end of the lake, we found lots of grass. We talked about camping there for the night, but it was still early in the day. We let the animals eat for an hour before going on. There was a bunch of blueberries there so Roy picked them while Pat took a nap. I helped him some, but since I don't like berries, I didn't pick much.

We decided to go on to Little Crater Meadow. Roy was in the lead when we came up to a "Y" in the trail. A cow came out of the right hand side and Roy took to the left. As he took the left trail, I thought maybe he decided to go to Dry Creek Meadow instead of Little Crater Meadow. About a half a mile down the trail he said something about the Meadow.

"It is back over there to our right. That is the end of it there," I said. "That isn't the end of the meadow. That's all trees," he said. I didn't want to argue with him so we went on up the trail. Further on we started climbing up a hill. "We ought to have been to the Little Crater Meadow by now," Roy said.

Roy, we passed Little Crater Meadow. I tried to tell you that, was the Meadow, I said.

"The meadow was where the cow came out. I thought you had decided to go on to Dry Creek Meadow." He was not too happy about that. We learned that although it read "Meadow" on the map, it wasn't always true. Instead of grass we found trees, more than once. We rode on trying to find the Dry Creek Meadow.

We got to a road that was supposed to be by the meadow according to the map. Again, there was no meadow. It also showed a creek. We crossed over the road and headed on up the trail.

"Wait a minute," I said. "According to the map the creek may be down the road a little way." So I tied up my packhorses and rode back to the road to see if I could find a creek. I did find a little creek right alongside of the road about a fourth of a mile. I went back for Roy and Pat. We went back, looked it over, and decided we would stay there. There was a little side rode that I had noticed off the one we were on, so we went down it a way to camp.

I was helping Pat get Mireeyah unpacked, but all Mireeyah was doing was jumping around. Finally, I hauled off and smacked the horse on the rear end, told her to get over there and straighten out. Pat blew her stack. She told me not to hit her horses and to leave them alone.

"Okay," I said. "You take care of yours, and I'll take care of mine." I turned around, walked off and left her to unpack her own horse. I went over to unpack mine by myself. Roy helped Pat get her horse unpacked. I helped Roy unpack his after I finished with mine. Later, he confided that he thought Pat and I was going to come to blows. I felt sorry for Roy because he was caught in the middle, but I had about all I could take of Pat.

She never got up in the morning when Roy and I did, but she was always saying that it was our horses that caused us to get a late start. Roy and I would have our horses packed up before she was ever ready. I thought to myself as I was unpacking my horses, this person is going to want me to shoe her horse, but she says she doesn't want me to touch them. She had better change her attitude in a hurry.

Roy and I took the shovels and went down and dug out the creek a little deeper so the water would build up, for the animals could get a drink. I dug a hole on one side of the road, and Roy dug one on the other. On the way back we dug a hole up further toward camp for us to get water.

There wasn't much grass around there, just a couple of little spots. I took my horse's way over to the far end. Pat staked, hers right by camp. We had to take all our animals by hers in order to get ours to grass. Every time we went by, Mireeyah would come over and start kicking the horses. She went after little Red and he jumped out into a pile of logs and brush. I thought he was going to have a broken leg, but he came out on the other side okay. Pat apologized to me that night for hollering at me earlier. I just stayed away from her and let her do what ever she wanted with her horses. I guess I was feeling unforgiving.

We did about 17 miles that day. Wayward's hind leg was bothering her. This was the same leg that she had cut open to the bone on a barbed wire when we started out. When I went looking for the creek, she felt like she was getting a flat tire on that side. She had broken the wound open while getting over some down trees.


Monday, July 29: The weather was good again that day, nice and clear. We came to a downed tree and had to chop it out of the trail. There was no way to get up and around it with the packhorses. Some horses had gone up high to pass around it, but you couldn't take the packs through. I said we might as well chop it out. I'd rather be safe than get up there and get one of the packs hung up. Roy got his axe off his pack mule, and I went back to my saddle horse for my axe. Roy started chopping on the tree on the downhill side, something I never would have done. I was limbing it out while he was chopping. We took turns chopping on the log. It was about eight inches through.

"You watch," Roy said. "Pat will asked if we need any help after we get done and start heading back to our animals." It took us just about ten minutes to get it limbed and chopped in half. Pat just sat there on her horse and never offered to help. It happened just like Roy said. When we headed back to our animals, she asked if we needed any help. I told Roy he was right.

When we got the tree chopped in half, the low end slid down over the bank, the upper half dropped off into the trail. The horses could step over it now. Roy got his three animals across, and I got my four across with no problems. Then Pat's saddle horse, Georgie, wouldn't step over it.

"Come on George, come on Georgie," Pat kept saying in a sweet tone. We must have listened to this for about three minutes when I told Roy I was not going back their as she didn't want me to touch her horses. We told Pat we would go up a little further on the trail around the bend where Georgie wouldn't see our horses. Maybe when our horses were out of sight, she might step over the log. Georgie still would not across the tree. Georgie pulled away from Pat and went back Mireeyah down the trail. Pat brought Mireeyah up from where she was tied. Mireeyah went right over it and came to our horses. Georgie still would not go over the tree. Roy finally got off and went back to help Pat. As I said, I felt sorry for Roy. He went back there and hit Georgie on the rear and got her over the log.

"Well, you won't hit anymore," I heard Pat say to Georgie. I thought to myself, I would like to teach those horses some manners.

We kept riding. Even though we came across more downed trees, we were able to get around them. When we got to Highway 26, we found that the trail from there on had been logged out, which really made it nice. There was a huge amount of downed timber, and we would have had a heck of a time getting through it with the packhorses. We sure appreciated whoever did all of the chopping because most of it was chopped out, not sawed. Some of the trees must have been a foot or more through. Chopping trees that size was hard work. It was clear all the way to Timberline Lodge.

We found some grass on the way to Timberline, so we let the horses graze for a while. The clouds were starting to roll in as we headed on toward Timberline. It was getting quite dark to the south of us. As we reached the Timberline area, we found the ground was very sandy, like the sand dunes at the ocean, which made it hard going for the horses, especially when we started up hill.

Mt. Hood was not very pretty, just gray and drab, as there wasn't much snow on the south side. They kept some frozen with salt for the skiers. Competitive skiers come to work out there all the time. The mountain was really beautiful in April when I was there. It had all kinds of snow on it then.

Horses eating on way to
Timberline Lodge

This was one of our food drops. We finally found a place to camp after riding 14 miles that day. We got everything unpacked. Then we each took one horse down to get our grain and food boxes. The grain was over in a building where the Forest Service kept the salt. Our food boxes were over in the gift shop. Roy and I took Red, his mule, and went over to the gift shop. I went in and got the three boxes and paid for them. It cost three dollars for each box. We put the three boxes on Red and headed back to get the grain. Pat had stayed at the place the grain was with her horse and mine. I had two sacks, and Pat and Roy had one each. They divided their sacks in half putting half of it in each pack box. I put one sack on each side of Sarid's packs. Then we headed back to camp. I told Roy to get a hold of Sarid's tail to help him back up the trail since we were walking, and it was a tough climb. Since Roy is short on wind, he appreciated the help. When we got back to camp, we started getting the food boxes packed for the next day.

Roy and Pat wanted to go down to the lodge to have dinner. We need to eat ours, I said. We went to the lodge to have dinner and a shower.

A woman told us that Crest Trail users could use the showers. I guess you had to rent a room, to get a shower. It cost us a dollar for the shower. The shower sure felt great especially since it was not coin-operated and we could stay in it as long as we wanted to. It was well worth the dollar we paid. After the showers we went to the dining room for dinner. The dinner was not worth the price. On the way back to camp Pat and I stopped to talk with the woman who had told us about the showers.

"You girls sure look different," she said. We were so dirty when we came in we looked gray. Roy was losing his money, trying to get cigarettes from a machine.

Val was fussing because a storm was coming. The wind was blowing very hard and it was cold. I got up to put blankets on the horses. While put I saw Scooter had dug up a wire, and it was caught in her shoe. I had a hard time getting it out in the dark. After I blanketed them, they quieted down.






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