South Fork Hoh: April 1998

It seemed like a good idea at the time. I was on spring break from Willamette University (my freshman year) and Anton had a few days off from coaching the UPS crew team. We wanted to explore the Olympic peninsula, particularly an area with old growth forest. Rather than head to the touristy Hoh rainforest, we decided to go down a lesser-known path: the south fork of the Hoh river.

When we headed it out, it was overcast but not raining. That soon changed of course. We expected this, as this region gets a whopping 165 inches per year. Donning our rain gear, we hiked along, enjoying the lucious smell of the forest, the enormous trees, and thick vegetation. The south fork trail is a dead end and our plan was to hike as far as we could and set up camp. We had enough supplies to last for two nights. By the time we reached what seemed to be the end of the maintained trail we found a campsite and set up our tent in the pouring rain. Anton managed to get the stove going, but it was so wet we stayed inside the tent and only reached out to stir the pot. Anton had planned the meals since his Tacoma apartment was our departure point. The menu for the first night was some sort of back-packing friendly chicken pot pie. I think Anton made a double batch or something, because the pot was brimming with chicken stew and a bisquick top. Unfortunately this made it impossible to stir. The end result: a burnt crust on the bottom and raw chicken on the inside. Ugh! We finally got it cooked through, but there wasn't much we could do about the burnt part. We choked down the meal and guzzled water. After that the meal was infamously known as "Chicken Slop." Not a highlight.

The rain thundered down on our tent that night. By morning we both felt soaked to the bone. We decided to go ahead and hike out where at least we could dry out in the car. Rather than camp another night, we chose to take a driving tour of the peninsula instead. We headed north on 101, stopping at the beach for a quick run on the sand. We circled the whole peninsula and arrived back at Anton's apartment by evening. We each took a hot shower, changed into dry clothes, and then sat in front of the TV eating burritos (the other dinner we had packed for our trip!)

This was our first backpacking trip as a couple. Little did we know that 10 years into marriage we would have taken on hiking the Olympics as a major project. Despite the obvious glitches in our trip on the south fork, we still had a great trip just enjoying each other's company. We also learned the following:

1. Hiking in a rainforest in April is probably not the best timing.

2. Chicken Slop should never make the menu again.

3. Burritos on the couch makes a pretty good spring vacation too.

It would be a while before we would backpack together again, as life got busy and we were working on camp staff every summer. When we did finally plan another trip together we planned a little better than this first time. But even now we still have a good laugh over the chicken slop story!