People keep asking why I go alone. This trip is the answer, even if it spent the first two days doing its best to look like a warning.
The plan was simple. Four days up the river valley, camp high on day two, swim below the falls if the weather allowed, and walk out with dry socks in reserve. The forecast said scattered showers. The valley had other ideas. To be fair to the forecast, scattered is technically accurate if it scatters onto you nineteen separate times.
I counted the creek crossings on the way out because day one me refused to believe day four me. Nineteen. Most were rock hops. Four were boots off, straps loose, water to the knee. One had a log so slick I crawled it like a raccoon, and I am at peace with that. Nobody was there to see it, which is one of the underrated perks of going solo.
DAY 1Eleven miles in, and the rain started at mile two. The polite kind at first, the kind that makes the moss glow. By mile six it meant it. I stopped fighting it around mile eight, which is always the moment a wet trip gets good. You are not staying dry. Accept it, protect the sleep system, keep moving, eat more than you think you need.
Camp one went up fast because it had to. The pop-up tent earned its keep right there, bag to standing shelter while I counted one thousand one, one thousand two under my breath. Dinner was instant noodles upgraded with a smoked sausage I packed against my own weight rules. Zero regrets.
DAY 2The river was up in the morning, tea colored and loud. I filtered anyway and topped off the steel bottle with the coldest water of the trip. At the risk of sounding dramatic, cold creek water at hour twenty of rain is a small religion.
The middle miles were a green tunnel. Ferns to the shoulder, deadfall detours, one elk print the size of a dinner plate. I talked to myself a fair amount. Solo miles do that, and I have stopped pretending otherwise.
DAY 3Day three the sky owed me one and paid up. Ninety minutes of sun around noon, right as the trail bent under the second falls. There is a pool there the color of bottle glass. I checked the map, checked my watch, and decided lunch could be two hours long. The water was maybe fifty five degrees. I lasted four minutes and I am calling it swimming.
I dried out on a rock like a lizard and took stock. Everything load bearing had held. The cheap gaiters I was trialing had not. One buckle gone, the other packed with grit until it quit. They came off the test list right there, on the rock. That is the whole system working as intended.
The walk out was the fastest fourteen miles I have done this year, downhill with the rain finally behind me and a cheeseburger scheduled in my head. Fire on the last night had taken eight strikes off the ferro rod with everything soaked, which reads like an ad and is simply what happened. It rides on my pack strap so it goes where I go.
Final tally. Nineteen crossings, one crawled log, one failed gaiter, zero dry socks left, and the kind of tired that buys you two days of feeling smug back in normal life. The valley wins again. I will be back when the socks recover.
