Hume Lake 2008

This is a little overdue, but here is a recap of Hume Lake 2008. (Pictures will come later - once I get my own computer working again...I should say, once Jeremiah gets my computer working again :) )

Hume Lake was a lot of fun. We had so many people up there so that was nice to be able to connect with so many all at once. Jeremiah and I went on the infamous Death Hike, after his buddies bailed on him at the last minute (otherwise I wouldn't have gone, but it's tradition now for him to go every year and I didn't want his tradition to be ruined because the other guys were whimps).

In case you don't know what the Death Hike is, here's a breif explanation:

Way back when Jeremiah was younger, there was this older man that would go around Hume Lake Camp Ground picking up bottles to recycle. Josh, Jeremiah's brother, got to talking with him and helped him find bottles. His name was Chris and the family got to know him and his wife Mavis better over the years and Chris became Grandpa Chris to everyone. He died a little over a 1 1/2 years ago and I never got the chance to meet him myself. But I've been told he was a very loving man.

So Grandpa Chris would talk about this great fishing spot on Boulder Creek; the fish were apparently really big and native to the area. They would get to it by hiking down from this place called Camp 7 (an old logging campsite) and there was a path to get down to it. They left a frying pan down there so they could fry up the fish they caught at the creek instead of trying to preserve it and bring it back up. (The frying pan is still down there today, underneath a rock somewhere. Oh, and Grandpa Chris also talked about an old locomotive engine down in the area.)

For a number of years now, Jeremiah, Josh, Peter (my father-in-law), and various friends have tried to find Camp 7 and this path down to the Creek. They had yet to find the path. The first year, they found what they thought was Camp 7 and the start of a path but lost the path and ended up bush-whacking it down the moutain through manzanita bushes to the creek. They then bush-whacked it back up the mountain to get back. They were gone until late into the night and everyone back at Hume got worried about them. When they finally made it back, someone coined the name Death Hike after they described what they had gone through.

After that year, they tried to find different places in the nearby area to see if there was a path that led down to the creek, like the one that Grandpa Chris talked about (they knew there had to be a decent path at one point because when Mavis was 60 years old, she went down the path and made it back up - they were pretty sure she would not have put up with the bush-whacking at that age and she told them that was the only time she did it).

So I agreed to go on this hike but with the intention of turning around if there was no clear path.

We drove around for quite a bit just trying to find the right roads to get to what we hoped was Camp 7 from the first year (you have to drive about an hour away from Hume Lake on a bunch of rough, dirt roads to get there).

We got to the end of the road that you really need a 4-Wheel drive vehicle for (luckily we had one) and parked the truck. There was a sign post showing that the path ahead was a trail maintained by the Park Services. Not really sure who else would be out here if you need a good vehicle to get there but we thought it was a good sign.

We got our backpacks ready and found some walking sticks and starting walking the path.

The first section was pretty even and easy. We then got to a fork in the road and at that fork there was a sign that showed we had just come from Camp 7 and that the path to our left was to Boulder Creek!

So we took the path to our left. This is where the "fun" began. There was a well-defined path but it was very steep and at time slick because of all the leeves on the ground - it was easy to slide. Luckily we left decently early in the morning but it was starting to get warm. The first part of the hike was in the shade for the most part and there was one area where we weren't sure where the path went. But we did find where it picked up again and Jeremiah is thinking that that might have been where they lost the path the first year.

After we got down the first incline, we were on to another hump of the mountain where there was a ton of manzanita bushes, but we didn't have to bush-whack through these as there was definitely a path to go around them. This part of the hike was more like a dessert with sparse vegetation and spiky plants. In this area it was rather warm. However, I would prefer to be in the open hot areas than under the trees in the shade. As we hiked farther and farther down, each time we had to go through a section that was covered by lots of trees, there were bugs swarming everywhere! You had to constantly keep you hand moving in front of your face to not let them touch your face. There were so many that everytime your hand moved in front of your face, it would touch bugs! It was disgusting and it made me hyperventilate a few times just because I needed to get out of the shade so badly to get away from the bugs and sometimes the shaded area lasted for a while - you really didn't want to breath in these areas also.

We stopped a coupled times on the way down, more because my toes hurt from wearing poor shoes than from actually be tired from the hike. We weren't sure if this was the right path, but it sure did seem like it from them earlier sign and since the path was cleared so well.

Eventually, we started to hear the creek and we knew we couldn't be too far away. Not too much later and we found ourselves down at the creek! It was really beautiful. The water was so clear and it looked so refreshing.

We we got down a little closer to the water we saw a few fish swim away really quickly; they were very skidish and did not come back out while we ate our lunch until I started throwing some pieces of my cookie in for them. The ones we saw were pretty big.

After we ate our lunch, which was on a boulder next to what looked like the foundation to an old bridge that went across the creek, we walked down the creek for a bit to look some more. There were way too many rocks around to try to find the frying pan but I did keep my eyes open for the locomotive engine. We never did find it but we are both certain that this was the place Grandpa Chris was talking about.

There were big pools of water around and the water was just the right temperature. It was very refreshing for the warm day it was turning out to be. The water rushed over some rocks a little ways down and, except for the pain you would probably feel, it looked like a fun waterslide. At the bottom of this slide, there was an incredibly deep pool of water that was almost black - you couldn't see the bottom of the pool.

We spent some time down there but then packed up to head back just to make sure we weren't still out there when it started to get dark.

It took us 1 1/2 hours to hike down and 2 1/4 hours to hike up. And it was a 2,500 elevation difference from the top of the mountain to the creek.

The hike back up was a lot more strenuous than the hike down. We stopped so many times to catch our breath. It was incredible how many times you would put one foot in front of the other to take a step but not go very far because your the length of the steps you could take were so short up such a steep incline.

We took a lot of pictures on the way down and even some video recordings, but none on the way up; that's how exhausting it was.

The bugs seemed even worse in the shadey areas on the way up and I'm sure that's partly because it took so much more time to walk through them because you could only go so quickly up the hill.

It was such a relief to get back to the sign that showed Camp 7 and Boulder Creek. We knew from there to the truck would be a piece of cake. And seeing the truck was a wonderful site! We were so happy to be back.

All in all it was a fun hike and I'm really glad I was the one to be with Jeremiah when he found the right path and made it down to the correct spot in the creek for the first time. I don't know when I'll be doing it again, but maybe someday.

I spent the next day at Hume relaxing after the strenuous hike and we mainly spent it at the Cove (a beach area on one part of the lake) with the rest of the gang. The next day we went to Crystal Cave with my parents and Kyle and just enjoyed the day with them.

That night, I got really sick. I spent Friday and Saturday laying about the campsite reading because there was nothing else I could do with how I was feeling. Friday night, we had a big get-together with the whole gang at one campsite and had a potluck dinner. A lot of people played games afterwards (I stayed by the campfire talking). That was a very fun night with everyone. Sunday we packed up and went back home while listening to a good audio book.