Thursday, August 18, 2011

Backpacking Vicariously ...


A strange thing happened to me about a year-and-a-half ago when I reached the 3/4 century mark. For some strange reason, my zeal for backpacking had abated. So, when Tasha announced that she was heading out for an overnight backpack trip to the Green Lakes Area out of Bend, OR on August 13-14, I had no deep passion to go along. Very strange, huh?
Tasha's roommate from Korea joined the group (4 in all) for her very first backpacking adventure. The weather was spectacular for the trip with bright sunny skies and a full moon at night (one night after the high point of the Perseid meteor shower!). Because of the record levels of snow in the Cascades this year there was an abundance of snow on the peaks, and even on the ground at about 7000', half way through August. Because of the clear skies, no one even took a tent!Tasha's report of the climb to the top of Broken Top indicated that it was pretty much a "walk-up" from Green Lakes until you get to the place where you need to use careful handholds and footholds to scramble up the last 15-20 feet to the summit. (The pix is of trip leader Troy assisting Tasha in finding footholds for the harder part of getting down!)The picture below of Tasha and her roommate was taken not far from Green Lakes prior to the Sunday morning climb. - rw


2 comments:

N said...

ah, looks like a great trip... in fact, it was a great trip. just would have been better had you and mom been along.

Doug said...

Ah, what a great trip. Even better if I had been along. Sigh.

So sad. what is this -- camera borrowing? Or is Nzol now a guest-blogger?