Friday, August 28, 2020
In retrospect I did Friday and Saturday backwards, but hindsight, etc. It was a gorgeous day. I slept in, I woke up, made some coffee, stretched, looked at the sun, looked at the clear blue sky, and went back to bed only to get up at noon. Originally I didn't want to stay on Three because it was almost entirely encompassed by the 2011 wildfire, but the island I was on had no visible fire damage, unlike the southern/western chunks of Three, so other than the human-caused damage to the site (again -- visible fresh cuts or breaks where branches were removed up to arm's reach all the way around camp. wtf!) it was good. On the McKenzie map there's 'old logging camp' labeled on the south end of Three and I set off to see what I could see there, but that nearest site was occupied and it's not like I'd be able to find much there post-wildfire anyway, other than rings or chains mounted into a rock that are mostly overgrown. I got a collection of good photos, which were appropriately creepy as it was cloudy and overcast, with dead trees poking out of the decade's worth of regrowth beneath it.
Also, as I got down through the narrows at the south end of Three, I found 3 rock cairns stacked oh-so-artistically along the shorelines. I'm sure those looked amazing on Instagram. Leave no trace except if you can deface the wilderness for internet points. I then disassembled 3 rock cairns.
"Arbitrarily building these types of rock piles with no regard for official or cultural purposes or environmental issues is “almost like graffiti,” Pescaia says. It announces, “I was here,” just without the spray paint."
This would have been the perfect day to do the Three-Two-Rifle-Bridge-Four-Three daytrip I had planned. Best laid plans.
Fresh eggs for lunch (one of these guys has worked great for me https://www.amazon.com/Coghlans-Egg-Holder-12-Eggs/dp/B000LC84PK, except for the tradeoff of when all the eggs are gone and now I've got incompressible plastic. Fortunately by the time all the eggs are gone, more of the food is gone from the bearvault and it can easily fit inside). Backpackers pantry chicken pad thai for dinner. A solo trip is a rare occasion for me to eat foods with peanuts given my wife's allergy, and I was impressed by that freezedried meal.
I had about one bar of cell signal flickering in and out, enough for me to send an update to the family that I was alive and squeeze a couple photos out with multiple "Failed to send. Tap to retry." efforts. I brought that along primarily for pictures, so that was a mild bonus.