Exit to Eternal Summers: They followed me here...

After breakfast at the Canyon Cafeteria, we were off to the Wapiti Trailhead parking lot to start our adventure.

Not too far into Hayden we found a spot with lots of broken dishes. Could it have been the site of an old hotel? We were relieved to find that my parent’s packs looked heavier than they were. No extra extra flashlights here. Then it was out to the east across the end of Hayden and into the trees. We were in awe of the mushrooms grown from this year’s rains. Fairy rings of cottage cheese – dotted amanitas sprung up along the trail.

Lines of bizarre, sponge like, tangerine-hued fungi gave away the locations of long ago rotted away logs.

I found a really weird fungus that looked like a pink sponge dripping blood.

Best of all, massive boletus sprouted all over the place. The largest were the size of footstools, the smallest, like oversized dinner rolls. Daddy mentioned a French chef he knew of willing to pay $50 an ounce for dried boletus. We marched on past several thousand dollars worth of mushrooms before stopping for lunch at 4M2.
Then it was GPS time. We left the trail and headed off into the trackless hills toward Joseph’s Coat. Jeff heckled me for my ‘drunken sailor’ style of navigating in which I weave and swerve to avoid deadfall and keep a short-person friendly route.

Finally we popped out in Joseph’s Coat, made our way past the blue green lake and arrived at 4B1. The blue green clock usually keeps these springs submerged, but this year they were on dry land.
Our timing couldn’t have been better; we had just enough time to pitch tents, gather and cover firewood and hang the bear bag before a nasty storm swept up on us. Rain, ice, thunder and lightning pelted us for hours.

We were trapped in the tents for about two hours - long enough for us to realize that neither of our brand new tents were waterproof. Yay wet sleeping bags!

Eventually the rain lessened enough for a bathroom break and I called everyone out to make dinner. The rain started up again before we’d finished boiling the second pot of water. Dinner was a cramped affair eaten in my parents’ tent. As we ate we savored the aromas of everyone’s wet, 12-mile trail feet. Mmmmm!

Then, miracle of miracles, the sun came out and it stopped raining. We climbed out of the tents and made a fire.

The rest of the evening was spent roasting socks over the fire and waterproofing the tents by tying emergency foil blankets over them.

Then we said goodnights and headed off to our sleeping bags. Jeff and I had selected the $20 Ozark Trails Junior Tent for this adventure – a child’s tent. It was absurdly small but that was OK because we had to carry it 24 miles and it only weighed 2 lbs. Changing into our dry sleeping clothes was like a game of Twister with only enough room for one person to move at a time. When we were finally ready to sleep we lay there for about 15 minutes before realizing that we were both gasping for air. The emergency blanket had sealed the tents ventilation fly down and we were slowly suffocating.

Amazingly enough the night was still and rainless. In the morning we awoke to a small hailstorm and made a quick, unanimous decision to skip our second night at 4B1 and head immediately back to the nearest hotel with a hot tub.

Here are some Indian Pipe flowers that feed off fungi and produce no chlorophyll.

Other than the weather, it was a good backpacking trip.

I watched my father running around (literally running) with a huge pack on his back looking at mushrooms.

I realized that as long as she had pretty scenery to enjoy, my mother could forget the weight of her pack too.

When we reached the trailhead we looked back to see the hills we’d come from – blue with rain. On the drive to Gardiner we saw slopes at 9,000 ft freshly dusted with snow. Joseph’s Coat is at about 9,000 ft. Leaving early was a good decision.

Rest stop on the hike out.