A Getaway into the Red Buttes Wilderness

     I am pleased to say that it has been raining for days. I like to think the winter rains have started and that it will be wet and gray for months to come. Should we be so lucky.

    However, I am just as pleased to say that there was no rain Wednesday through Saturday last week because I was on a backpacking trip in the Red Buttes Wilderness Area, my back yard, with my friends Cheryl, Janet, and Sandy.

L-R: Janet, Sandy, me, Cheryl                             (selfie by Janet)

          The weather was glorious, as was the landscape. Mostly, we were hiking through old-growth forests, past true-giant cedars and pines. We laid hands on the big, shaggy-barked trunks, in veneration and gratitude. How we need these magnificent forests!

Me with a ponderosa pine.         photo by Cheryl

After a seven-and-a-half gradual climb up the Butte Fork trail, we made camp at Cedar Basin.

                                                                                                    photo by Janet

    Then we made a late afternoon hike up to Lonesome Lake, where I had my best swim of the trip, under the headwall, where the water was deepest, even though that part of the lake was in shadow by that time.

Me, preparing for a swim in Lonesome Lake    photo by Janet

                                                                                                        photo by Cheryl
Coming into sunshine after swimming under the headwall.

Azalea Lake is large but probably not even six feet deep and the pond at Sucker Gap is even more shallow and dotted with lily pads, but because we camped at both places, I could indulge in one of my favorite things to do: step out of my tent into a lake first thing in the morning.

    In some places, low-growing bushes gleamed umber, copper, burnt sienna, fire-engine red.

                                                                        photo by Janet

They were especially striking where they lined Azalea Lake, with the ghostly trunks of the burned forest behind them and their reflection doubling the color in the lake in front of them.

    What else? Well, the company. What great backpacking partners they were! Besides the talks and the stepping in to help when needed, all three had brought chocolate to share. And at our first lunch stop, Cheryl astonished me by handing 'round large pieces of spanakopita and baklava she had made the night before. Imagine having carried all that weight! I had no qualms about helping lighten the weight of her pack by accepting the lunch she offered. 

    Janet and Sandy both joined me for swims in the lakes. Cheryl picked mushrooms we found on the trail. Janet religiously stuck to her commitment to meditate every day. 

Janet meditating at Azalea Lake     photo by Cheryl

    It's hunting season, so we used brightly colored pack covers to keep us from being mistaken for deer. We did meet two sets of two hunters, all in their camouflage. Afterward, Cheryl told us of the days of her past when she used to hunt.

                                                                                                        photo by Sandy

    We misjudged the mileage of the last day's hike, so we were two hours early for meeting the person coming to pick us up at the trailhead. Janet, Cheryl, and Sandy looked through the woods for morels. I read a novel on my Kindle. I recited a few poems, while Cheryl and Janet danced. The lovely long afternoon was waning when our driver arrived, and we returned to the valley for pizza and beer in the Applegate and a toast to a great four-day getaway with friends.