Backpacking Badger Creek


 This is how we role: Sandi carrying the bulk of our gear and me enjoying a cool glass of water.

Last weekend was our backpacking trip.  Backpacking has such a narrow season in the Northwest that hiking at Mt. Hood or other popular trails would probably be crowded.  We opted for Badger Creek just southeast of Mt. Hood. 

 

As the name implies, it is a hiking trail that runs parallel to Badger Creek for 12 miles until it reaches Badger Lake. 

 

Even with our early start on Friday morning, our boots didn't hit the trail until almost noon.  We hiked a couple miles before stopping at a campsite for lunch.  Trail is dotted with campsites with great creek access.

 

Since it followed a creek the slope rose fairly gradually.  I think we only hiked one switchback - certainly a departure from most hikes around here.

 

I'm sure there are a lot of good reasons to strap 50-pound packs to your back and start walking for a few days.  We do it for the food.  It's amazing how good dehydrated food tastes after hiking 8 miles through the heat.

This is our lunch the first day: Dry salami on
ciabata rolls and a fresh peach. 

This is a new one for us: Gnochi (Italian-style potatoes) seasoned with cheese and peperoni. 

 

 

It was a pleasure having dinner by the creek

 We tried it for a few reasons: it came vacuumed-packed and only needs to boil for 2 minutes.  It turned out well, though next time I will go easier on the peperoni.

Breakfast on both mornings consisted of black tea and instant oatmeal and flax with trail mix. 

Our campsites were great both nights.  We had easy access to water and plenty of level ground for our tent.  The only bummer was we couldn't have campfires.

 

The first day we hiked 6.5 miles.  Our idea on Saturday morning was to hike a couple miles toward Badger Lake and set up camp.  That would leave us about 3 miles to hike to the lake and have lunch before turning back to our campsite.  The advantage, obviously, is that we could drop our packs and have a nice walk.  That would also leave us with about 8-miles to hike out on Sunday.  Here what happened: we found the next campsite just over a mile of our first site - too early, I felt, to drop our packs.  Certainly, there must be another site a little farther down the trail.  It was probably 3 miles before we saw the next site and it was taken.  We didn't see another site until we reached the lake.

We had lunch and started back to the first site we saw that morning - each carrying our full load. 

 

 

 

That made it a ten-mile day, about eight of which could have been done without our packs.

 

Even with that massive miscalculation we had a great time.  We broke a couple personal records: most miles backpacked in one day (10) and most miles hiked in a trip (24). The trail was beautiful and well maintained, the food was great and we had a good time together away from the normal routine.