The Blind Beggar

My good friends and spiritual brothers Bill Donald, Ken Houston and I have been backpacking together for over 25 years. We have pounded out hundreds of miles together in some of the most spectacular wilderness areas here in the Pacific Northwest corner of the US. Our relationship is about as close to that of a “Band of Brothers” as you can get this side of the hell of war.

We were out again logging 14.3 miles (6.6 under pack and 7.7 day hiking) in the Indian Heaven Wilderness over a long Labor Day weekend.

As you can see from the map below, the Indian Heaven Wilderness is full of subalpine meadows and over 170 lakes, ponds and tarns. During this time of year, the huckleberries (a small wild blue berry native to the region) are thick and good eating. There are still large huckleberry “fields” in the northern part of Indian Heaven that are set aside for the exclusive use of our Native America people who consider the rituals of picking, preserving, and eating berries as a cultural and traditional use with religious significance.

From our base camp at Blue Lake (pictured below), we day hiked North up the Pacific Crest Trail #2000 to Junction Lake and then did the loop trail (#179) around and back to Junction Lake (see map). It is a 7.7 mile hike. Since it was a holiday weekend, the lakes were packed with dozens of backpackers and day hikers. There was no solitude this weekend.

As a side note, the Pacific Crest Trail is one continues 2,600 mile path that begins on the Mexican border and ends in Canada. Several hundred people attempt to hike the entire route each years (and a bunch of them actually do finish). They start out in mid-April on the Mexican border and finish in Canada during September. It has been called the “six moon trail” because that is how many full moons you are out. Most of the “through hikers” had already come through Indian Heaven at this time of year, so we didn’t get to visit with any of them — which is always a treat.

Bill always packs with his guitar and sings lots of the old classics from people like Cat Stevens and Neil Young. Some of the old 70’s and 80’s praise songs get mixed in also.

Below we are cleaning up our camp on the last day. Hear we are removing every last bit of charcoal, burnt wood and debris from where our small campfire was located (which was in the proper and previously used spot). The entire camp area was “scrubbed” to leave as little trace of our presences as possible.

This is a shot of Mount St. Helens on the trail out. The family on the trail has been out picking huckleberries. Mount St. Helens is an active volcano just a few miles from our trailhead and visible at a number of places within the wilderness.

I know most of you can’t do this type of trip, but I hope you are taking time to be refreshed and restored.

Tags: Bill Donald, Indian Heaven Wilderness, Ken Houston, Wilderness Weekend

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