South Fork to Dry Lake
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So earlier in the month, Steve and I decided to get out on a trip together. It's been a long time since he and I've been backpacking. So we plan on a two-night adventure at the dry lake in the San Oregonian wilderness at the end of April going into May 2022.
It was a lovely Friday. Blue skies. The weather wasn't too bad, about 70 degrees out. Steve had an interview with the school district that day, so I decided to wait for him. And then, once he got to my house, we would head up to the mountain.
He got to my house around noon on Friday, and we got in my truck and stopped at Staters and got the usual water, some sandwiches, snacks, and "fuel" for the way up. It was looking to be a great day.
We drove up the mountain and chatted for a bit. It's always a good time hanging out with Steve. He and I have very similar personalities. We find the same things funny. We have the same sense of humor, which goes a long way, being friends with somebody.
It's pretty funny when you tell a joke to somebody, and they give you that look like, "what the heck are you talking about?" Steve doesn't do that. He always laughs. We drove up the mountain and got to the trailhead, south fork, the usual spot. We've been there many times before, and in fact, we've been to Dry Lake several times before this trip.
We started heading up the mountain. And it's been a long time since each of us has been backpacking. So it was a little bit of a struggle. I'm not going to lie.
We were going up a few switchbacks before Horse Meadow, about a mile in the sun. It felt a little warm because this is the burn area from 2015. The trees don't have any needles, so the sun-scorched down on us. Also, there's a bunch of buckthorn on the trail, so make sure you wear those leggings. Otherwise, your legs are going to get scrapped up. We finally got the horse meadow. It was the breeze blowing. There's a little shade there because they saved many trees from the fire, and we took a long break. I think longer than we should have is at least half an hour. We were sitting there talking.
Steve was excited about his interview, so he checked his email to see if he got the job or not. Of course, he wanted to hear back.
We ate some snacks; the grass was green, and the birds chirped. Things are going well. We got our packs on, heading up to the next spot. What's going to be next? The next prominent spot would be Poop Out Hill, which is, I would think, about a half-mile from that point.
So we headed up, got the poop out hill, and ran into a hiker who looked like an alpinist. He had a German accent and had all the gears, ice ax, and stuff because there still is a lot of snow left on that side of the mountain. So we chatted with him briefly. He gave us some trail reports. He was a great guy. And we all headed on our way and started heading up the south fork trail.
The South Fork trail is a super beautiful area. So we kept heading up the trail. We eventually got to South Fork Meadow, the waterfall, which is good. It's not falling at an excellent rate, which is interesting for that time of year; it usually flows pretty well in April when the snow is melting.
But I guess that would be our first sign of coming. So we took a break at South Fork Meadow; we drank a little bit of water, ate some snacks, get the fuel for the next section, which is the rock garden, which is a bunch of steps through a bunch of rocks. And then the switchbacks up the dry lake, so I'm not going extremely fast on this hike.
I'm going pretty slow. As I said, it's been a long time since I've been out on a trip, so I do not have my hiking legs underneath me at this point. So we're going exceptionally slow. But being that, my brain is right, my attitude is right.
So yeah, that's all because we made our way up to the rock garden, which we both hated. We were swearing, and curse words have taken step by step. It's agonizing, like, why? Why is this like this? Finally, we got through the rock garden and eventually into the switchbacks. To me, it was like, wow, a relief. We're at switchbacks, but you're getting a little tired.
You're about four miles in, and at this point, it's about 800 more feet up to dry lake; about two miles straight, heading up the switchbacks, you start getting glorious views below the South Fork Valley. You see Mount Jepson and San G, all in the background, covered in snow. It's beautiful, just a wonderful area. The sun starts going down, the alpine colors lighting up the peaks, and there's almost a sense of urgency like we need to get to the camp. And so that makes it difficult. So I'm just at a snail's pace going up. Steve kind of starts breaking apart for me. He gets out ahead, but I can still see him for the most part. But as we start going up through the valley where the valley walls are closing in on the last switchback up the dry lake, it's a long one.
You start going through a canyon, and the light starts getting low. So I pulled out my headlamp and put it on my head. I haven't turned it on yet, but I start losing sight of Steve. I'm 45. So I'm not the BEST!!, so I can't see him much anymore.
We continue, and eventually, I turn my head that far because I can't see the ground anymore, which becomes a tripping hazard. So I'm heading up and finally see his headlamp up the way, and then what he's standing at is something he dubbed Hope Rock. Hope Rock is a giant boulder that sits about a couple of hundred feet from the entrance into Dry Lake. You know you're there when you see that rock, which is a great feeling. It felt so good seeing that finally, finally, we're here as we go up and over where we can see the lake. The lake was dried up, maybe a couple of small pools of water. But one thing that we noticed as we were walking in the dark is there's a lot of frogs, pretty good-sized frogs almost stepped on a few like, wow, they're all over the place right here. So we turn our headlights brighter. I don't want to step on a frog. So we continue walking around the lake to the east side and eventually get over to Lodgepole Spring. One other person had their tent set up at the Dry Lake Camp, and there was nobody else over at the lodge pool camp. We get to the camp area, and we decide, Hey, instead of dropping our packs and going to get water since it's dark, it's probably a good idea if we walk back to the spring with our packs on so an animal doesn't grab a pack because of the food that's inside of them while we're getting water spring. That would be bad, especially in the dark; come back to your backpacks, gone or torn to shreds. That would suck. So we walk back to the spring. It seems like a long walk, and you're going back up into the canyon. It goes towards Fish Creek Saddle, and we get to the spot that we usually would get water from in most cases. The water runs over a log, and it's dried up. There's no water. I'm like, "Oh, crap, this is not good ." Both of us are pretty low water at this point. Steve has maybe a little over a liter. I'm sitting with perhaps a half a liter or less total this is total water for camping.
That's not good. We have dehydrated meals which require water to cook. So it's just not looking good. So we decided to head back further up the kit to see if we could find the actual spring we were heading back to, hundreds of feet back in this canyon. And there is overgrowth everywhere. And it is a pain to get through. So, you know, we're like, crap, and this is not good. I wouldn't even call it running. It was just like wet ground like it was running previously. But it's just it wasn't like a good water source. It wasn't moving; I guess I could say. Or it was barely moving.
So we dug a hole in that water, and we're like, OK, we're, and let's try to make a pool of water that we can let the sediment drop and then get the water out of that. But as we did that, the bugs swarmed this water, and it was filled with bugs. So it was crazy, like, "oh, no!", so Steve and I had started discussing what the plan would be.
And we did think about hiking out, which would be another six miles or so back down the mountain. At this point, I'm having terrible, terrible cramps. Every portion of my body turning a certain way would cramp up like a knot would form. And it'd be so painful. And I've been having a lot of problems with cramps lately. I don't know the problem, but it wasn't good. So maybe it's because I haven't been out hiking in a long time, and I'm using muscles and doing things that I haven't done in a while. So I suggest, why don't we just set up the tent and make it through the night and we won't eat dinner. We won't use any water for dinner on this hike out at first light. Steve had the great idea to take his jet boil and melt some snow and all the snow there. It was a big old patch of snow that was all around. It was all hard compacted snow.
So that was, you know, it made for an excellent yield. I could feel that up. Steve took a gallon Ziploc bag, filling it full of snow. And we ended up making at least two liters of water, which was awesome. We boiled the water in the jet boil and then poured it through a rag into the containers I had. And it was actually kind of a nice filling up with the hot water. It stayed hot for a long time. Later on, I was able to put that in my sleeping bag to keep warm.
But we filled those up, and our spirits were up a little bit. And it started getting cold. So we were both getting chilled to the bone and decided we would hit the sack and try to go to bed. But it took a while from being out, filtering the melt in the snow. We were chilled so severely that it took a long time to warm up inside our sleeping bags; at least an hour and a half of time, it finally felt nice and warm. So we both didn't get the best night's sleep that night. It was past midnight when we finally hit the sack, and at first light, sure enough, I could see Steve's headlamp on.
Steve got out of the tent, his red light was on, which is courteous, but I knew he was awake. I was awake as well, and my temperature thermometer read 28 degrees. I did not want to get out of my sleeping bag. It was nice and warm. I was like, no way do I want to get out.
But we wanted to go down the mountain and get some air, get to the south fork meadow again, and get some water to chug some because we're both pretty thirsty. So we had to conserve, so we packed up camp pretty early, and we hit the trail at about 6:45, 7 a.m. So we had a few snacks, drank a tiny bit of water, and headed down the mountain, and it was a cold, cold hike out.
We heard a couple of coyotes in the canyon howling as we were hiking out, which sounded incredible. That was awesome. And those campers at Dry Lake, we're still there. I don't think they were awake yet at this point. The sun was coming up. The mountains were all lit up and were beautiful. You got to look at Dry Lake and how dry it was headed down the mountain.
We got down to South Fork Meadow and filtered some nice cold water. I think I drank two smaller bottles of the smart water bottles and ate a Snickers bar. My hopes were feeling pretty good again; things were good. Steve filled up is made a Gatorade. We headed out the trail and kept walking and walking, and anyone who's walked that trail just got you to know rocks and all kinds of stuff.
So by the end of it, you're pretty tired, but it felt good, but that was the first time on the trail on a backpacking trip that we had a mile of snow to get water. But now we can say that that happened, and we know what to do. And if you have patches of snow and stuff, you will get by, so it's nothing to worry about. But sad to see that everything's dried up so early in the season. Last year, Lodgepole Spring pretty much ran the entire year. We went later in the year last year with Teo and Steve, and I think it was in June, and that thing was still running pretty good. So snow years have been pretty low, and that's why it is what it is.
But you know, that's what happens. You see, it's not always going to have a big snow year every year. That's it's an ebb and flows; that's how the process is. So we headed back, and we eventually got to the trailhead, or both of us were pretty sun scorching at the end. They're getting hot. Take off the shoes, take off the socks.
One of the best feelings is putting those flip flops on, getting in the truck, and blasting that AC. So that's what I did. I got my vehicle and turned that AC to full blast. When it was finally over, I got in the truck and headed down the mountain, went to lunch, and that's how this trip went.