Wallowas

Last weekend, Mary and I spent 3 nights backpacking in the Wallowas near Eagle Cap. For those of you unfamiliar with the Wallowas, they're kind of like the Sierras, only a little smaller, and in Oregon. Beautiful granite peaks, crystal clear lakes and streams. A wonderful place to spend a few days.

The trip was great, the company good too. A quick trip description is: Hiked from Two Pan up the east fork of the Lostine river to Mirror lake. Day hike to Glacier Lake. Day hike to top of Eagle Cap (Mary and I just hung out at Mirror lake while Ron & Cyndi were macho). Hike out.

The wildflowers were still blooming, and the weather was excellent (except for a 1 hour thunderstorm - which provided a good excuse for a nap). About half an hour after the quick rainstorm, the ground was dry as a bone. Amazing.

Unfortunately, the first night did not afford Mary the best sleep. One of our cats (Jade presumably) had punctured Mary's mattress with their claws, and the mattress would not hold air. My dad would probably say, "That's why we always use the closed-cell foam pads - they can't go flat!" Of course, with those pads you just feel "soft" rocks - whereas the air mattress can actually keep you from feeling the rocks at all.

Long story short, I swapped with Mary and slept on top of her thermarest and sleeping bag, and she used my thermarest and bag.

Luckily, I'm always prepared, and I had a patch kit for the pad. For pinhole punctures, you don't even have to apply a patch - you just rub in some of the glue, and voila! 1 minute of work, 15 minutes of waiting, and we had a good-as-new mattress. I highly recommend picking up a patch kit - because a deflated thermarest sucks.

We had just received our new digital camera, and Mary was very excited to check it out. It, of course, has a gazillion features and modes, but one of the most exciting is the macro lens. With it you can focus on objects only 1/2 inch away from the lens!

Check out some of the pretty flowers we saw.