The 75-mile Hike

        One of the items on my 75x75 project for my 75th year (doing 75 things of 75 repetitions each) was to hike 75 miles. Mike agreed to go with me, so last week, packs on our backs, we set off for ten days on the 40-mile Rogue River Trail. Remembering that Mike was only a month past six months of chemotherapy, we would take a leisurely pace: five days to the end of the trail at the Illahe Lodge, a night at the lodge, then five days for the return to the Graves Creek Trailhead.

        The first step was an easy one.

         The Rogue River Trail follows the Wild and Scenic Rogue, a popular rafting river, for forty miles, mostly high on the canyon walls rather than riverside. Every day we saw rafting parties floating lazily down the river or running the rapids. At Blossom Bar, one of the notoriously most difficult, we stood at a vantage point and watched five or six rafts and kayaks negotiate the route. One kayak flipped, throwing its paddler into the water. We could see his helmeted head bobbing through the rapids until he was picked up in still water by one of the rafts. 

        The trail had a lot of long flat stretches through the woods, nicely shaded and easy to walk, but it also climbed up and over the ribs between the streams that flow into the Rogue, so there was a good amount of effort in the hike, too. It wasn't a lazy walk, especially with backpacks. Yellow tarweed, pink clarkia, white bistort, and purple crown brodiaea ornamented the hillsides. Poison oak was rampant, but avoidable with careful steps. Ospreys soared over the river. There were mosquitoes at the campsites, which were almost always in the woods, on a creek. We made camp in the early afternoon, then had some leisurely hours for reading, napping, exploring the creek, or, for me, if a swimming hole were available, taking a swim. We worked a New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle each evening. 

        Our fourth night we camped at Brushy Bar, a less than perfect campsite because it was at a distance from the creek, the creek was too small for a swim, and the mosquitoes were ferocious. But the tent was on a nice flat spot, and I was sleeping soundly when, around 4:00 a.m., I awoke to hear Mike yelling, from beyond the tent, where we had left our packs and bear barrels, "Git! Git!" Then he would give an exasperated, "Aw!" and start yelling at what I correctly took to be a bear. I thought I should get up and help chase the bear away, but I couldn't find one of my shoes, and my flashlight was stupidly in the pocket of my pack. Mike finally came back to the tent. The bear had been reluctant to leave. He had taken one of our bear barrels (backpackers' bear-proof food canisters), but Mike had retrieved it from the woods. The bear had torn the rain covers off our packs. We decided to assess other damage in the morning and tried to sleep. 

        As soon as dawn blossomed, I found both shoes and got up – and saw the bear! He was still hanging around, in the woods on the path. I yelled at him, but, yes, he was hard to intimidate. He did finally amble deeper into the woods, and I turned back to the campsite to check our gear. The bear had bitten a hole in one of my plastic water bottles and another hole in Mike's water filter system. Fortunately, I had another water bottle and another water filter. Mike's pack cover was more shredded than mine, but both were still usable. The packs were unhurt, and, of course, the bear was unable to get to our food. But we had had enough of this campsite. We packed up and left, stopping for breakfast farther down the trail.

        That day, Day 5, would end at the Illahe Lodge, which, as it turned out, was over the longest, steepest hill yet, and the temperature, we learned when we got to the lodge, was 103 degrees. It was a bear of a climb. When we got to the lodge, Colleen, the owner, gave us cold lemonade and frozen banana slices with peanut butter. We took showers, and while Mike was showering, I put all our clothes in the washing machine, as we were wearing the extra clothes Colleen had available for hikers and trail runners while they were doing their laundry. Dinner was good and nutritious, after five days of trail food: turkey, bean salad, potatoes, corn, homemade rolls, just-made carrot cake with ice cream. That night, since we were the only guests and our room upstairs was hot, we brought sheets downstairs and slept comfortably on the couches. 

        After a substantial breakfast of bacon, eggs, sticky buns (homemade), and fruit, we left for the return to the Graves Creek trailhead. Colleen and her father, Ernie (who had sold Illahe Lodge to Colleen a few years ago), had told us about a bear-proof, electric-fenced enclosure at the Tate Creek campsite, for packs and bear canisters. We found it and camped there the first night, sleeping well without bear worries.

Packs and bear barrels inside the electric fence

        In fact, the only bear problems we had were at Brushy Bar.

        The best thing about the Rogue River Trail (which I've hiked four times now), as far as I'm concerned, is its swimming holes. They are some of the deepest, greenest, coldest, and biggest swimming holes I know, always a treat whether at the end of a day's hike or somewhere in its middle. Even the long, very hot hike along Mule Creek Canyon on Day 7 was bearable because I could look forward to one of the best swimming holes on the trail at the day's end. Another of the most beautiful is Flora Dell, about three miles before the end of the trail at Illahe.

Swimming in Flora Dell

        On the tenth and final day, we left our campsite on Russian Creek early. We would hike almost six miles to the Graves Creek trailhead, making a total of 78 miles. Since I only needed to hike 75miles to accomplish my goal, Mike kept a close eye on his GPS. "You have two-tenths of a mile to go," he would say. "Now it's only one-tenth. Point 8," and so on until he said, "Congratulations! You have hiked 75 miles." I stopped right there to mark the victory.

Having hiked 75 miles

        Then we hiked to the Graves Creek trailhead, where we had started the hike ten days before. I was elated, not only because I had hiked the requisite 75 miles but also because I felt like I could have hiked another 75 miles, or ten days, without a murmur. Not bad, for turning 75 years old in a month.