Emerging from nature - Seven Lakes Basin

A journey of self discovery, starts in nature.

To my husband; on our third anniversary. There is almost nothing better than the gift of memories and the journey of our self discovery as a married couple. With love, Amanda

We had been planning this trip for MONTHS! As a Washington Native, this has been on my radar for years! (And it took me months to find the time and words to share the adventure).

Leading up to the trip, we planned food, picked up a bear canister and got our gear ready. The week of, we started scouting the weather. Monday… we noticed a small chance of rain (10% with half of an inch) … considering this is right next to the Hoh Rain Forest, this is to be expected and was understanding. As we packed our gear to leave on Thursday, I hollered to my husband if I should pack an extra emergency layer, he suggested no. considering the weather was light Thursday and free of rain the rest of the weekend. I laughed to myself and tossed the extra thin later in my “after hiking” bag. We headed out mid afternoon with a good 4-hour drive to the trail head. We stopped for dinner, filled our bellies with warm food and headed straight to the trail head. On our way out my husband says, I should check the weather again. He laughs out loud, in not really a funny tone of laughing…. He says, “Oh shit, the weather has changed. 1-2 inches possible starting at 8pm”. It was 6pm, and we hadn’t reached the trail head yet. We debated, should we head out, should we sleep in the car and keep our gear dry? It became not even a discussion as we got to the trail head. We changed our clothes; I stuffed that extra layer in my bag, and we headed out. It’s funny, my husband has a humorous history of telling me about the trail conditions… “oh it is really easy, only 3 easy miles. Oh, only .8 miles…”. Ok, thanks babe.

Before the rain

We made it about 2 so miles watching the sky above us and checking the clock nonstop! The rain was either near and riding our coat tails or wasn’t going to happen, it was gamble. We got to the 3rd camp on the trail and no one was there near dusk, we set up camp quickly and crawled into bed with enough time to spare to take a deep breath, then laugh. As the rain came literally pouring down. And it did not stop till around 6am.

Almost all of our gear stayed dry with the exception of my side of our tent took on some water and my sleeping pad got a tad damp. We woke up, made some coffee, a quick breakfast and made our way out. We laughed a bit about the weight of the incredibly drenched tent on Chris’s back, it was all we could do. We had over 10 miles of hiking to do that morning.

Ok, so this trail was a challenge, if we had lighter packs I would say it wasn’t bad, with heavy packs it was a grunt. As typical trail runners we tend to move to quickly on the trail even if we are weighed down, we tried to slow down to stop and embrace the views.

We set off on the trail around 8am that morning, the clouds were still lingering over for most of the morning, when we reached a saddle section of the trail the clouds opened up enough for some sunshine to peak through the clouds. We decided to stop for lunch, filter some water and dry out the soaking WET tent. What a view!

We got to our camp for that evening – Heart Lake. This place was magical.

As we were setting up our tents, we had a family of mountain goats with 2 babies in tow visit our camp! We wandered down to splash our faces with fresh spring water. And sat and watched little black bears tumble around on the hills across the valley. At this time, I didn’t think it was possible it could get any better.

Heart Lake

We went back to camp and cooked up dinner- I had made a delicious version of a stuffed pepper I suppose. (Recipe to follow).

As we sat enjoying our meals, watching the clouds roll through the trees. Our family of goats came trotting back through.

I dozed off shortly after this. And I hear my husband, “babe- wake up”. He says I debated on whether I should tell you this, but there’s a black bear outside our camp. Come see!!! Up to this trip, I had yet to ever see a bear close up in the wild. And this trail in particular was well known for having a lot of bear sightings. So, I had some slight fears of seeing them. So, here is one in our camp! And I was so grateful he choose to wake me up! As it was incredible to watch it scramble around.

The next morning we slept in and stayed at camp until almost 11 as the clouds had lifted and we had so much exploring left to do up there.

We set off to our next camp, which was only about a 4 mile hike. Once we arrived, we were greeted with a miserable swarm of mosquitoes! We sat down to fuel up on some food. The mosquitoes were so bad, as we the camp site was right next to a tiny creek. Ugh, so we choose to power through the remaining hike and make it back to my car and find some pizza. LOL. Day 2.5 and all I could think about was getting my paws on some gluten free pizza and a glass of red vino.

We got back to my car and high tailed it to Port Angeles, with a quick stop at Lake Crescent for a quick dip aka “shower.” Then managed to find ourselves at our favorite winery; Harbinger Winery. Not sure the huge glass of wine had ever tasted so dang good! We picked up a gf pizza at the market- which we tried to cook with the jet boil and honestly just became a mess (it sounded like a great idea yet the plan was not executed well and become a disaster) and we ended up eating the rest of our dehydrated food.

Chris and I are really good at picking the worst of times to do things. Now, let me explain. I don’t care to plan things out much not because I am not organized but I truly believe in the journey of adventure and for me that starts where the plans end (sometimes). We headed up to hurricane ridge to find a place to camp, or sleep in my car. Where we found out there was a HUGE bike race that next morning so they would be closing the road at dawn. Awk. Ok, so we found a beautiful place to pull over, watch the sun go down- sleep and better yet watching the sun come up. Quickly followed by a full plate of fresh food and a mimosa. It all worked out.

Marriage, is a beautifully interesting creature in my opinion. A best friend who loves you always, yet the first person you will likely fight with.

What I find is waking up in the mountains with you, whether it is crammed inside my car, in a soaking wet tent, a perfect situation in a canyon in Hawaii, there is no wondering how much I love you even when the situations are often challenging. I soon realized something beautiful happens each time we emerge from nature together is the self discovery of our marriage and our selves as individuals.

This trip was a beautiful journey. I wouldn’t have traded a single thing. Sometimes things don’t work out, take up Plan B, when Plan B goes to shit, laugh and find Plan C. Now if Plan C doesn’t work out; just laugh and drink more wine, go to bed get up and try again tomorrow. It will be worth it. If you don’t drink wine, or you don’t have any; just go to bed and get up and try it again tomorrow.

At times we laughed so hard we almost cried, sometimes we were so tired we didn’t even want to talk to each other. But the memories were all well worth it.

The timing of this hike couldn’t have been more perfect, as it was a few weeks after we had decided to take the leap of faith and move to Idaho and was a few weeks before the actual move. It was a last hurrah of Washington and boy, it did not disappoint.

A person who emerges from a journey towards deep embodiment of nature is not the same person or couple who started.

With love,

Amanda