Duckabush Memories

In old age I shall walk quietly the beautiful trail.

Navajo Prayer

Whenever I hike a trail that is familiar to me after many years of returning, I am of course flooded with memories of past trips. Recently I revisited the Duckabush River Trail, which I first hiked in 1971, the year before I graduated from college. My friend Patty and I had planned to hike a section of the Crest Trail from Oregon to Canada, but heavy snow that year turned us back just south of Mt. Adams. I returned home and spent a couple of weeks feeling defeated and depressed, then called Patty and suggested that, since we had food and supplies packed for a summer of hiking, we should spend the rest of our summer doing exactly that. We loaded up the trunk of my parents’ Chrysler and headed to the Olympics, parking at different trailheads and exploring the backcountry, often hitchhiking back to the car from another trailhead.

The trail begins with a gradual ascent over Little Hump before descending to the river, where Patty and I spread out our ponchos, then our sleeping bags, to spend our first night on the trail. We never carried tents in those days. Backpacking tents were heavy and not very reliable, as was most of our gear in the early seventies. We would rig up a lean to with the ponchos if it looked like rain was likely. That was an amazing summer of hiking. We did not get rained on even once, and we explored most of the trails of Olympic National Park, including some off trail climbs to isolated alpine lakes.

A more recent memory was created just two years ago when I backpacked over Little Hump and Big Hump to arrive at Five Mile Camp, where I spent two nights. The trip was an experiment. I wanted to see how carrying a pack would effect my back pain, to find out whether I could still do this thing I loved. I saw almost no one else on the trail. The Duckabush is not a popular hike, as hikers prefer to avoid the two sleep climbs that lead into the Olympic Wilderness. That makes it a perfect location for me to hide out for a couple of nights, to day hike along the river and to sit on my bear canister and sip a cup of tea while I read a book. The sky was dark and ominous for the duration of my trip, but it never rained. In the morning I would find a small patch of sun, savoring the sweet warmth of the morning. It was a perfect trip, and I cherish the memory, as it was my last overnight adventure into the Olympic river valleys that I love.

On my last day I hiked the five miles to the trailhead under cloudy skies. I loaded my pack into the back of my vehicle then sat down in the drivers’ seat. The minute I closed the car door behind me the rain started, not a light sprinkle but a downpour. The wind started to blow. I drove down the narrow dirt road with the windshield wipers on high, and by the time I got to Hood Canal the waves were four feet high and were crashing onto the shore. I stopped at a small seafood restaurant, and as I attempted to close the screen door behind me it blew off its hinges. “Don’t worry about it,” the waiter said to me. “It happens all the time.”

Th storm felt like a kind of send off to a new kind of life, one I have not quite figured out, one that no longer includes backpacking. I congratulated myself that the experiment had been a success, that my back pain was no worse than usual, but the following year a new injury kept me off the trails for most of the summer. I made the decision not to backpack anymore, fearing more injuries if I continued. It was a reasonable choice if not a happy one. I am grateful that I can still hike, just not carry an overnight pack. Fifteen pounds seem to be my upper limit.

The hardest part about the decision has been redefining who I am. For almost sixty years I have carried a heavy pack into the mountains to spend as much as two weeks alone on the trail. The heavy pack I carried for those many years is the primary reason my back is crumbling now. It was worth it.

I am not a backpacker any more, but I am still a hiker, a woman who takes daily walks by a lake, a woman who camps, who still ventures into the wild places, and. . .most important…who has memories.