Abort Mission

Not everything has to work out to make a successful vacation. We tried to do an overnight backpack trip and failed miserably. The forest had recently burned, so we were greeted by relentless hot sun instead of shade trees. We carried a tent, food, water filter, sleeping bags, beer, etc. for two miles uphill when we hit unmaintained trail. Poison Oak grew to eye level, and we could not continue to our destination. The steep terrain provided no alternative camp spots.

We hiked back to the car and spotted a nice beach across the river for camping. But Chris' brave river crossing attempt was also unsuccessful. Now with one spouse wet and cold, one spouse hot and sweaty, and both hungry we started making poor decisions like wasting 20 minutes driving the rental car through 50 feet of boulders instead of walking and packing and repacking our suitcases in attempt to find clothes, and trying to wash away old, greasy chili. It's a long, hilarious story. We looked like two bafoons who have never been outdoors.

So we chose to eat at a redneck RV park restaurant and drove for miles down winding dirt roads, finally coming to a magnificant camping spot. We were pretty over the backpacking at that point, so we opted to drive poor rental car down a steep, dirt road over a pretty mean drop off to access our riverside camp site.

A highlight of the day was our turn-around point at Buzzard's Roost. Quite a view: