OTT Take 2: Day 8: Shedd Camp Area to Tule Camp
I was in need of alone time and a break, which was just one day away. This day was very painful and wore on my every nerve.
Bear Grass on the way up to Scar Mountain
The day started by having to borrow fuel for both Aliza and my breakfast, due to my anything bag ejecting from my bike the day before. We rolled out around 9:15am and immediately started climbing up narrow, chunky single track. On top of that, it started getting very steep, meaning either max sustained efforts or a bunch of hike a bike. I varied between both. We climbed for a few hours until we got to an intersection. We decided this was a good time for lunch and a regroup. When I arrived at the top, I went to get my lunch out and I looked down and realized that MY OTHER ANYTHING BAG WAS MISSING! I could have cried! Well, I did cry a little bit… And cussed a lot. We had just climbed and climbed and climbed and climbed…and I was just devastated that my bag was missing in action. And frustrated at the situation, because I felt like I had been stupid not to make sure it had been attached more properly after the incident with the bag the day before.
Without even thinking, I quickly de-bagged my bike, grabbed some sugar snacks and my Garmin InReach tracker and headed back down the hill. I told everyone that if they wanted to go ahead they could after lunch, but to leave one person to wait for me and rode off. The descent would have been a blast, but I was going so slowly, looking for my bag, that it wasn’t much fun. I made my way down and almost 3/4 of the way down the mountain I saw it. My bag was hanging by it’s hook clasp on a branch that was sticking out in the trail, where it had been plucked from it’s holster off of my fork. So I got it back on my bike and headed back up the long climb. This time up the hill was much better and I climbed much more quickly due to the fact that my bike weighed 28 lbs instead of 60 lbs, but it was still a long haul. Aliza had ridden down part way and met me on my way up to make sure I was doing alright and we pedaled back up together towhere everyone was waiting. I ate a quick lunch after being much relieved to have my belongings back on board.
Top of Scar Mountain
By the time we got going again, it was already 3:00 and we still had some distance to cover. Aliza and I both had very tired legs at this point, and had almost 6k feet of climbing under our belt by that point. We continued on our journey up the horrible hike-a-bike section to the summit of Scar Mountain. The “trail” up to the summit is steep, tight switch backs, which at the top are also covered in shale and rock. The summit is a dramatic rock formation on the top of a knife edge ridge with views of Jefferson and the Sisters. We didn’t have much time to stop there because it was 5:00pm by the time we got there, so just made some phone calls and headed back down. On my way up the switchbacks, I was taking a break and decided to check my phone cause we hadn’t had service for a while. I turned it on and miraculously had service and got a few texts from my friend Sue. Lo and behold, she had been doing trail work in the area where we had been riding the day before and….. SHE HAD FOUND MY MISSING BAG!!!! What are the odds? Because the place where we were was pretty far out in the middle of no where and not heavily populated by riders or hikers. I was so relieved and had another mini cry session. I was able to arrange for my bag to be sent to Janelle’s other half who was bringing us a resupply a few days later. What a miracle!
The descent from Scar Mountain was a blast, though tiring because it was undulating terrain at first and we were all in a hurry to get where we needed to for the night. We rolled into Tule camp, a small alpine lake with a perfect camp site, at about 6:30pm. We set up, made dinner, and went to bed as soon as we could.