Threemile Lake
June 17, 2004
“Yes, Virginia, there IS a few mosquitoes at the coast . . .” actually three, and all three bit me, but they are no more :-) Otherwise it was a perfect hike, on a beautiful day, with not a whisp of fog hiding the sharp blue line where ocean and sky met. Too bad that we hauled two empty seats in the back of the car with us, as the other two hikers who had signed up (both Obsidians) stayed home, one cancelling, the other a no show. And it would have been a free ride, too! So non-member Barbara Revere and I left Eugene at 8:05 a.m. Thursday, June 17, arriving at the Tahkenitch Campground 75 miles and 2 hours later. We didn’t see a single other person on the trail to the beach, and were all alone hiking south on the wet, hard sand to the marker for the connecting trail inland to Threemile Lake where we finally met a lone hiker heading south. We had the lake entirely to ourselves. I went in for a brief swim. The lake had receded some, leaving three rings of debris along the sandy shore, yet it was still so high that it blocked our way back along the shore of the arm that reaches to the new foot bridge a frustratingly short distance away. I felt bad having “misled” Barbara, so I promised her dessert later as we back-tracked until we found an opening in the thick brush to struggle up the steep hillside to the trail. Halfway back to the campground we encountered another couple, for a total of three other humans on this hike. We stopped at the Alpha Bits Cafe in Mapleton for coffee, milk, and fruit bars, arriving back in Eugene at 5 p.m. Hikers were: Barbara Revere and Helmut Plant, leader.
“I’m sorry, we’re going to have to back track!”
Blocked trail viewed from the foot bridge: so near, yet so far!
—photos by Helmut Plant