Mariah and I decided that we wanted to do a overnight trip that didn't required a 2 or 3 hour drive. My toes have been giving me trouble the last few weeks (strained?, metatarsalgia Morton's neuroma?, gout?) so I wanted to do a hike that wasn't to strenuous. At about 1 hour from Pullman, WA. The Potlatch Canyon Loop sounded perfect.
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| Mariah hittin' the pavement |
The loop it self is between 5 and 6 miles. The first mile of the trail is a straight shot on black asphalt running adjacent to the East Fork of the Potlatch River. Althoug the trail peaceful and completely flat, I wish the trail surface was dirt rather than asphalt. However, I imagine this trail would a great for a wheelchair or a bike with training wheels. After the 30 minutes of so of walking the trail continues along the river as a dirt single track. At some point there is fork. One to the left is the loop trail and to the right is what that looks like a cattle trail. We decided to explore this cattle trail turn off, which continues a while, but ultimately dead ends. However, we found a distinct game trail that lead back to the loop trail. There a few pretty meadow with lots of Blue Camas flowers (apparently a Nez Perce food staple). At some point the trail leaves the river side and climbs through a evergreen forest. White and lavender trilium flowers were in full bloom! We also saw a bunch of the elusive and beautiful calypso orchid and a few remaining glacier lilies (one of my favorites!).
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| Trilium |
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| Glacier lily |
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| A really big trilium |
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| Calypso orchid |
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| Caterpiller (aka Fuzzy Wuzzy) |
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| Blue Camas |
The trail eventually tops out on a ridge and we walked by a nice clearing with a fire pit. Oddly enough there were also evidence of two other fire pits less than 20 ft from the other pit. Why do people keep making new ones? I tried to scatter most of the ashes from the other fire pits in the forest and dispersed some the the rocks. There was also a big piece of plywood left at the campsite that we burned later to get rid of it.
Since it did look like rain was likely, we decided not to set up the tarps. Although a major purpose of these shakeout hikes is try out our new gear, laziness is powerful. Instead of setting up the tarp we collected some firewood and tinder from the surrounding wood. In contrast to our earlier trip to The Wenaha River where it had been raining for a few days, all of the tinder was very dry. I had a small pile of dry grass, pine needles, and very small sticks which ignited the rest of the wood with one match!
About this time we decided to start cooking dinner. For our first course, we had some throwback food - red potatoes fire baked in tin foil. Unfortunately, halfway through eating I stepped on the butter that we brought. But no worries, we were able scrape it off of my shoe with our forks. I think our city selves would frown upon this activity but trail us thinks nothing of such things. For our second course we had one of our favorites - curry couscous with walnuts, cranberries, and honey roasted sunflower seeds. It is delicious and super easy to prepare if you want to try it. Ahead of time, put in a quart size ziplock plain cous-cous, dried cranberries, walnuts, other nuts, dried onion, dried chicken bullion, and yellow curry powder. We didn't have oil but to make a more tasty and to add extra calories on a thru-hike you can add some canola or olive oil. Cooking is incredibly simple: Just boil water, add contents of bag, and let sit five minutes or so.
I have been testing (very unscientifically) our two alcohol stove over the last few trips. They are virtually identical but one is much larger diameter. Although the large diameter stove is more stable, I think that the small stove is more fuel efficient and boils water faster. To increase stability I surround the stove with three tall rocks that sort of hold the pot in place and keep food from spilling out even when stirring.
After a few hours hanging out around the fire and stargazing we were ready for bed. I am pretty impressed how good the stars are so close to town. I love Idaho!
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| Happy campers! |
Our third night with the shared sleeping bag/bivy combo was pretty successful however I did notice a few things. First, my legs and feet were a bit cold for the first 30 minutes. I think this is probably because my legs were cold before getting in to bed. I also noticed that there was a lot of condensation beading up on the the outside of our bag but not on the bivy. Did the condensation soak through from the bivy surface? Or is the bivy top not breathable enough to allow water vapor to escape. More testing needed.
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| Boy scout bench looking with view of the Potlatch River |
The next morning we woke to a beautiful new day. As we like to leave our watches at home on weekend trips I can only guess what time we got out of our bag. We hung out for a while, ate some Clif bars and fruit snacks, and then packed up. The hike back the to the trailhead was probably 2 miles at most.
Overall, the trip was great. Short drive, easy and scenic hike, and good company! My knees felt pretty good in general and my toe actually feels better than it has the last few week despite the additional activity. Odd. Excited to get out again next weekend!
