I hope to get my ducks in a row to start backpacking again this year. But for now, this is the last one I did.
My son had engaged a lovely bride-to-be while overseas, and wanted to show her what backpacking in Oregon is like. I was living in Tennessee. “OK,” I said. “I’ll fly out to Oregon.” I bought a GPS unit for my camera. I wanted pinpoint locations for every photo I took. I chose the Erma Bell Lakes, of which there are three, in the Three Sisters Wilderness for our hike. It’s a nice, easy hike.
We invited his brother, who was about to deploy to Afghanistan. He obtained some official leave, which was later rescinded at the last minute. To put it mildly, he was peeved. He got busted down all the way to Private for how he dealt with that. It’s an epic story, but maybe I shouldn’t tell it here.
So I packed my backpack, flew out to Portland, rented a car, and rendezvoused with my son & future daughter in law. After a snafu in Eugene where plans changed late in the day, we headed up the Middle Fork of Oregon’s Willamette River into the Cascade Mountains to Black Canyon Campground, a spectacular low-elevation (only a thousand feet above sea level) spot that seems to have something growing on every square inch of the place. The place always reminds me of Dagobah, where the Jedi Knight Yoda lived in the Star Wars mythos. Green, green, green.
We got there at dusk. The next morning, we headed on up the river to the North Fork of the Middle Fork of the Willamette. When you get to a fork of a fork you know you’re getting up there in the mountains!
We stopped at one of Lane County’s numerous famed covered bridges. She had never seen a covered bridge before.
And then we headed on up the North Fork of the Middle Fork (I love saying that) on the famed Aufderheide Scenic Drive to Skookum Creek Campground, and one of the trailheads to the Erma Bell Lakes. Here’s the start of the trail.
It’s a short less-than-two-miles hike over almost flat terrain. But ah’d been livin’ in Tennessee, and eatin’ that fine Southern cookin’. An’ ah was a-gittin’ heavy. Fixin’ to git to 270 pounds. It felt like four miles, and I was exhausted. But… wilderness! There’s nothing like it.
The water was pure, the leaves were green, the air was fresh, and it was QUIET. I was home again. We made camp.
The next morning, I went out exploring while the lovebirds stayed in camp. Or I guess they did. I never did know what they did that day. It was August and at 4500 feet above sea level, pleasantly warm.
I found a waterfall between Lower and Middle Erma Bell Lakes and photographed it, but got disappointing results. I’ll share a better shot of it someday that I took years later, ‘coz that’s another pretty good story. Middle Erma Bell Lake wasn’t very photogenic, at least not that day. I never made it to Upper Erma Bell.
We hiked out the next day. The lady got a great introduction to the United States — the northwest corner of it, anyway — and as far as I know, has never been back. Oh, well. It was not a wasted trip for me!