November 13-14, 2011

Naches Camping Trip 2011

Oh boy. Let me set the stage for my very first snow camping trip:  A month or so ago, John and I were talking about how much he loves snow camping and how comfortable it is. He has a great set up - sturdy tent, cot, warm sleeping bag, tent heater, etc... In our conversation, I told him it didn't sound that bad and I might be up for a snow camping trip while I'm not pregnant or with a new kiddo.

In the next couple days he had a trip planned out with some of his jeep buddies! We planned on doing the Naches trail right next to Mt. Rainer.

The general area.

The red is the actual trail.

The plan was to start at Greenwater with the whole group, then Scott and Mike couldn't stay the night so they would finish the trail and head home while Monte, Jessi, John and I would camp over night and spend the next day in the town of Cliffdell. I've never been there (darn, I just gave away the end of the story!), but I've heard they have a great restaurant and some other cool attractions. 

Waiting at Monte and Jessi's to leave early in the morning. No, the jeep to the right didn't join us!

We should have known this wouldn't be the best trip ever when all 4 of us were pulled over on one of the back highway roads. It's one of those roads like highway 2 where the speed limit is 55 unless you're going through a rinky-dink town with 1 speed limit sign posted 35. Well, we all missed the sign. I blame Monte, he was our fearless leader.   ;-)   The cop was very generous to us though....

That's Monte on the side of the road in front of us!

Finally up in the snow. This was the last weekend that the trail was open, so there was still not a ton of snow on the ground.

And the mud.... blegh.

We saw this flag and note on the side of the trail. We were kind of concerned that there was someone who needed help or something...

We were wrong.

Mike's big yellow jeep is hidden behind John's jeep.

The view going down one of the *narrow* hills on the trail.

Right after going down that hill, we lost Scott. We waited and waited until finally Monte and John walked back up to check on him. They found him with a dangling steering box FOR THE THIRD TIME. Apparently it's a part that never breaks, in fact, auto shops and dealerships don't even stock steering boxes because they genuinely never break. Scott broke this part twice when the guys did the Rubicon trail last year and it was a huge ordeal and it happened again on this trip. He insists it's a jeep problem, we don't really agree. Lol!  (We really do love Scott, I promise!)  :-)

This is the "seriously?" face.

So we loaded up Scott and his gear in Mike's jeep and they left after only 1.5 hours on the trail.

And then there were three....

The plan was for Scott and Mike to drive the 2.5 hours home, take out Mike's box from his jeep, Scott would find a ride back up to the trail, and John and Monte would help him install the box in the middle of the night.

Our trip was ruined in that we couldn't just leave Scott to fix the jeep himself, so we set up camp just a little ways away and waited for Scott to show up. BUT, we determined not to let that ruin all our fun!

Our campsite. Isn't this a super clear picture! Ha!

Scott left his steak in our cooler, so the guys decided to take care of it for him. The only problem was that the bbq was in Scott's locked jeep, so they had to improvise. Monte opted for the slow-roast-on-a-stick method.

That was too slow for John, so he brought out the blow-torch. Monte choked his very rare steak down, but John's was never cooked enough to eat.

We really did have fun with Monte and Jessi around the fire. We set up camp around 4 in the afternoon and didn't go to bed until at least 11.

Oh, I almost forgot the best part about the night. I use the term "best" loosely! At the last minute back at home, we decided that instead of packing along all the camping gear, we would just sleep in the back of the jeep. We would be warmer, drier, and sleep way better. Wrong. The smaller tent heater didn't heat well and I couldn't get myself to sleep thinking I might knock it over. Our sleeping bags didn't keep us very warm. We both forgot pillows. And, there was so much condensation inside the jeep that we were getting dripped on all night. It was miserable at the time, but now it's kind of funny! Seriously, who does this??

Scott ended up getting lost and almost stuck driving back to the trail around midnight, so he went back to town and got a hotel room until the morning. Jessi and I took his ride back home while the guys stayed and helped him switch out the box.

It was definitely a memorable trip, but unless I somehow develop memory loss, I'm not sure I'll be joining John on any more snow camping trips for a while!