Trip 1: Opal Creek Wilderness
I love Opal Creek Wilderness, but it was a little crazy this year. I was shocked by the amount of people out there (on a weekday no less), and how many people were in large groups and not wearing masks. It was kind of..... disconcerting... and I didn't spend a lot of time dilly-dallying to take photos. Most of these photos are from the portion of the Kopetski Trail between Opal Pool and Ceder Flats. I was going to go to Three Pools, but it was PACKED. So...being the conscientious guy I try to be...I skipped doing that. Anyway, here's some Opal Creek Wilderness pictures.
I drove up to the Broken Top trailhead on Tuesday (25 August) and arrived at about 6pm...so about 2 hours before sunset. I decided to just sleep in the back of my SUV (I set up a mini-bed made of stacked foam padding and sleeping bags I bought at Goodwill). I ended up doing some review work out of Sepanski's abstract algebra textbook by electric lantern light, lost track of time, and all of a sudden noticed it was 2am. So I went to bed, but slept fitfully. I think I got about 2 hours of sleep total. So I woke up and decided I was probably too beat to start out on an "around Broken Top" adventure. I figured I'd just try to bushwack to Corral Lake (sort of south of the Green Lakes and east of Fall Creek). So I started out towards the Green Lakes on the Broken Top trail. I ended up at a little stream, and decided I'd just do some off trail hiking. and follow the stream. I ended up on the other trail to the Green Lakes (the one that essentially runs parallel with Fall Creek). I had found a low-elevation climb to Corral Lake that ran straight south from a specific point on this other trail to Green Lakes, so I started following the Fall Creek trail south to find the point. I ended up passing the point. So I backtracked (after trying and failing to hike a second, straight east, off trail route to Corral Lake), and looked at the supposedly easy straight south route and remembered maps aren't the real world. So I ended up going ot Green Lakes, a little disappointed. It was still fun. It's too beautiful of a spot to be disappointed for too long. After some roaming around the basin, I climbed a little hill and relaxed and even did some more abstract algebra (no, really, I'm TONS OF FUN!)..
After a while, I was feeling the effects of my lack of sleep, so I decided to start back to the trailhead. At some point on the trail (I won't be more location-specific than that)I came across a steam that caught my attention for whatever reason. I saw some little stream-sized waterfalls further up, towards Broken Top. So, I basically started following the stream to the waterfalls. I was in love with this stream and, feeling reinvigorated, decided to follow it to its source. It was a extremely steep climb, but it was so satisfying when I found the source. I'm not sure if it was a true spring or not. It was in a bowl, so maybe it could be a snow melt pond earlier in the year? Regardless, the spot blew me away. Great mountain views, a tiny meadow, tons of butterflies, some cool rock furniture (big rocks that make good chairs), and a sense of having a secret spot that the vast majority of people wouldn't even bother to try to find. After a while, I started back to the trailhead, because the adrenaline had worn off.
The final sequence of photos (everything after the picture of the backpack w/ the Jamaican flag coloured bandanas) in the next slide show document the journey along the stream.
So I got back to my car and just felt dead on my feet. My hike had ended up being about 20-ish miles with about 2000 ft. total elevation gain. I ended up going to a hotel and drinking about 365mL of prosecco to make me pass out (once a year, I drink a little bit to help me remember how much I hate drinking and how bad it is for me*). I did pass out... but ended up waking up after only 5 hours. I definitely wasn't doing the "around Broken Top" adventure by this point, but I wanted to do a small hike (even though my body was still screaming from sum of the drive to Broken Top and the hike. I decided to go to Jack Lake to hike up to Canyon Creek Meadows (a pretty low-impact hike). Since I'm a genius, I decided it would be fun to drive Forest Service Road 370 in its entirety from Todd Lake to Three Creek. FS 370 is an insane road. It's basically ruts and rocks. I drove at about 10 mph the whole route. I actually ended up getting a little lost, and added about an hour to my drive (on equally harsh roads). My back was just a giant region of pain by the time I hit road 16. With my back (and legs) totally obliterated, I just said "Eff this) and came home. I might try to get one more trip in before fall term, but I have to work on a few things, too.
Anyway, here's the second set of pics:
The hardest part about recovery from alcohol addiction is definitely the initial steps. No question about it. It's getting over that first hump of drying out for a significant amount of time. Where you can truly say you quit drinking. For me, it took about a year. Some people take longer, some take less time. But you eventually hit that moment where you say "ok, I've quit.. I'm done drinking.".
But there's a second point in recovery that's almost as difficult: the moment where you've convinced yourself that you're "recovered". The thing is, there's no such thing as "recovered" when it comes to addiction; recovery is a life-long process with no true end. I've hit the "I'm recovered" thing a few times. I would see people having fun with alcohol; couples buying wine for a romantic night in, people hanging out together and laughing at bars, and so on...and I would think "I'm recovered. I can manage this". So I have a drink or two. Then a few days later I'm back to drinking a pint and a half of whisky a night again. Sometimes invasive thoughts due to past abuse triggers it, and I get wasted to chase away the pain. The last few times I relapsed, I was lucky enough to catch myself before it got out of hand. The last relapse had me thinking: that relapses are inevitable. You're going to do it for one reason or another. So I asked myself: what if I tried a "controlled detonation" relapse? Like plan for a one or two day relapse. So the last two years I've done that, and it''s worked. My method is as follows:
1) Get a hotel out of town.
2)Wait until bars and stores are closing, and go have a drink at a bar (and/or buy a few drinks at the store) and have 2 or 3 drinks total. I don't talk to anyone except to order.
3) I drink, and then I try to do math. Invariably I get to the point where I can't even read the theorems and such, much less work problems. This part is crucial for me, because it reminds me that drinking takes something that makes me happy from me.
4)I wake up, think about how shitty drinking is, and leave for home.
Both times I've done this (last summer and this summer) I've bought (relatively) classier drinks than just beer or cheap whisky. Last year I had a Lagavulin 16 year at a bar as it was closing, then got a double Hennessy XO. This year it was the two mini bottles of prosecco (that equaled a bit over half of a standard-sized 750mL bottle).
I don't know...it worked well for me last year. I didn't drink at all in the year between then and now. I'm hoping it works as well for me this year. Unfortunately, when we plan, alcoholism laughs. I guess the point is...you have to expect and accept that you're going to relapse at some point. They key is to plan for it as much as you can. You have to be sure you can catch yourself. If you just let yourself slide... you have to start all over from the beginning of your recovery.