Hike to Grayback Meadows

    What a hike it was!

    I and four other hikers started up the O'Brien Creek trail, which is very steep, but I was hiking well enough even with a 25-pound pack. (I am training for a backpacking trip in August.) After about a mile and a quarter we took a side trail to a cabin erected in 1944 for emergency use for hikers and, more probably, hunters. We rested there a while, then followed a sort-of path up the hill through the beautiful Grayback Meadows to some rocks overlooking the snowy peak of Mt. McLoughlin, where we had lunch and looked at flowers and admired the view.

Just before leaving the lunch spot. Note the snow.

When it was time to go, Cheryl suggested it would be easier to continue up the slope to meet the Boundary Trail and return to the trailhead that way than to slip-slide down the meadow the way we had come. So we started up.

    7000-foot Grayback Mountain, where we were hiking, still had thick banks of snow above us. That much snow in June is a gladsome sight, but, of course, the snow is melting fast, and the slope we were climbing had turned into a steep marsh with rivulets of snowmelt gushing down in sheets. So it was both a steep and a slippery climb. Oh, my God, it was hard to get up that hill! And me with a 25-pound pack. Thank goodness I was hiking with poles. They pulled me up the mountain.

    When we finally got to the Boundary Trail, we took a moment to congratulate ourselves,

then turned right to go back to the O'Brien Creek trail.

    I thought the hard part was over.

    Not true! The storms of last sinter had hurled winds down the mountain, toppling trees in a long, wide swath. We clambered over big logs, trying not to scratch bare legs on broken knobs. We walked down logs like walking tightropes, then had to jump off at the end. Maybe the hardest thing was climbing through tangled branches of two or three trees that had fallen together. What a mess it was! We would get through one net of tangled tree trunks and branches and find, just ahead, another mess. It didn't end until we were almost to the side trail to the cabin.

    The only treacherous thing after that was a steep section where the trail was covered with slippery pine needles. I went down once, as my right foot slipped, but I half-stood again before I hit the ground, only to have the weight of the pack push me down again, and my left foot slipped. Once again I righted myself before I hit the ground and this time managed to stand. The hiker behind me said it looked like I had done telemark turns on a ski slope.

    It was a hard day's hike and a barrel of fun. And the wet meadows and gushing streams—more full than I had ever seen them—seemed to refute drought and filled my heart with gratitude.

Approaching O'Brien Creek

    As we drove together back to my car, I asked my fellow hikers, who hike together weekly, if their hikes were always like this. They laughed. "Yes," they said. "There's always an adventure."