Things that go bump in the night version 3 point ooooooooooohhhhh.

It seems that most of the really exciting things that have happened to us on this little adventure like to happen right around 2 am. Just at the time when we should be nice and cozy in our beds, with visions of gumdrops and candy canes is when chaos strikes. While we were on the boat this past summer cruising the Inside Passage, the worst storms always hit at night. In Death Valley a couple of months ago, a violent sand storm crashed into us while we were sleeping. In Moab, the most intense rain, lightning storms, and flash floods decided that waking us up was better than waiting for the morning. In Yellowstone, we had lightning striking so close to our camper that we could smell the electricity in the air, it sounded like a freight train was in our bed, and it was so bright that it looked like someone turned on a stadium's worth of lights right in our face...all while we were sound asleep. For some reason, darkness brings out the worst in mother nature...at least it sometimes seems that way to us.

The last time I wrote a little blurb, we were in the middle of a winter storm. Our winter weather that was forecast to stay with us for a little stretch ended up only lasting for about 4 days. We did what we could up on Mt Bachelor and had some really fun ski days, but when spring skiing became summer skiing, we decided to hit the trail and do some more exploring. Since we like to see things that are wonders of nature, we thought that we should load up the car with our camping gear, leave our home on wheels behind, and take a few days to focus on a few of those things that are in the area.

This little adventure started just like all the rest. We decided that we needed to see some cool stuff so off we go to see said cool stuff. Within an hour of Bend, there is the largest Ponderosa Pine Tree in the world and it's only a short hike to go and see it...I guess we need to see that...check...it's been seen. Not to far from the big tree, an ancient volcano left behind the largest obsidian flow in the world...check...it's been seen. Not too far from that ancient volcano is the deepest lake in the United States...Crater Lake...check...seen it. And this is where things got interesting.

For this part of the story, we are going to back up a little bit. The focus of this whole little side trip was actually to go to Crater Lake and take our back-country skis and do some touring around the rim of the lake, maybe find some mountains to climb, and ski some wide open slopes that no one else has touched. The other stuff that we saw was really just a bonus. We were going to commune with nature, sleep in our tent, and eat freeze dried food for a couple of days while we admired the stars at night. We timed our little trip to line up with the full moon, which if you have never camped under a full moon, is pretty incredible.

I'm going to back up a little bit more now and tell you that before we left Seattle almost a year ago, we got rid of a lot of stuff. One of the things that we parted ways with was our winter rated tent. This little tent was something that I didn't think we would ever need again because our original plan never put us anywhere near a snowflake during our travels. We thought that we would be sitting on our boat in Mexico right about now, not sleeping in a tent on the side of a mountain at 7,500 feet in the snow. We also thought that since it was almost 60 degrees outside during the day on the side of this mountain and the forecast was to be around 35 degrees at night, our lightweight summer tent would be just fine. We still had our winter sleeping bags and all of our other needed winter gear so really, 35 degrees was no big deal.

When we get to Crater Lake, the first thing we do is get our campsite set up. It's is a pretty great spot. It's actually really close to our car so we don't have to haul our gear very far which gives us plenty of time to explore the lake. So we take our skis and our touring gear and head out around the lake. It is beautiful, it's sunny, and it's warm. We find a couple of side peaks to climb and do some skiing in some nice and open bowls. We really couldn't have had better conditions and had a great time exploring. We get back to camp just before dark and have a delicious freeze dried dinner just as the stars come out (dinner was actually terrible but hey, what do you expect from a boil and eat ready-made-meal). It was a great day and a beautiful night but we were exhausted from exploring so it was time for beddy-bye.

Well, the forecasted 35 degrees came and went. At my last check, we had 22 degrees outside and a whopping 24 degrees inside our lightweight summer tent. It turns out that a summer tent is really made for summer weather. Luckily our winter sleeping bags are rated for 0 degrees so we weren't going to die. We were just a little bit chilly and uncomfortable and that made it hard to sleep. And because it was hard to sleep, we were wide awake with a full moon shining in our faces at full force. A full moon on the side of a mountain in the snow is incredibly beautiful but it is really bright. It looks like someone left the light on which makes it even harder to sleep...a doubly hard to sleep night.

It turns out that not only do I like to howl at a full moon but wild animals do as well. Now that we were wide awake, we could hear a pack of coyotes off in the distance howling and barking at the moon. Great...coyotes. Now it was a tripley hard to sleep night. Cold, a bright light in our face, and wild animals...a trifecta of anti sleeping devices. These coyotes were really making a lot of noise...and they seemed to be getting closer. We listened to them for about an hour, steadily getting closer to our tent when right on cue, at 2 am, when we should be sound asleep, mother nature decides she wants to play hardball. We were surrounded! A pack of coyotes is barking and growling at us right outside our tent.

I don't know if you have ever been surrounded by a pack of wild animals, so if you haven't, I'll let you in on a little secret...it's not as much fun as it sounds. It's actually pretty scary. Our lightweight little summer tent didn't give us that much of a sense of security either since a mosquito flying at full speed could probably break through it's wall. Brenda was a quick thinker though. We were camping close enough to our car that when she grabbed the car keys and pushed the car alarm button, the alarm actually went off and silenced the pack...for about 2 seconds. After the alarm stopped, they went right back to barking and growling at us through the tent. So another shot of the car alarm, then we turned on our headlights and lantern, and we made a bunch of noise inside the tent, and then the pack seemed to disperse. Not fun at all.

At this point, we were both completely wide awake and didn't have any hopes of sleeping for about 4 days since we are so jacked up on adrenaline, so I say “I've had enough, let's get out of here!” Brenda agrees. Our little tent has 2 zip up doors. There is one on each side of the tent so either one of us can get out without having to crawl over the other person. After our animal encounter, I of course forget that I have a door on my side of the tent so I tell Brenda to get out so we can pack up really quickly and hit the road. “I'll follow you out” I say. I obviously shouldn't be the first one out of the tent just in case the wild dogs are still hanging around. I needed Brenda to flush them out so I could make a clean getaway. She seems to remember that fact vividly because when we later tell the story to our good friends over dinner, that part of the story takes the longest to tell. She tells our friends “and then he just tells me to get out!” Yep, that's exactly how it happened and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

Anyway, while scanning for beady eyes staring back at us, we packed up our campsite in a flash, threw our stuff in the car, drove back to our home on wheels, and were back to sleep in our cozy and warm bed by 6 am. A pretty exciting night, and all-in-all, a pretty fun little side trip.

So, what are we doing next? Well...we don't really know. There is an old saying that goes something like, “why leave fun to find fun.” We are having too much fun right now to leave Bend so we have actually booked one more month at the RV park that we are staying at. The snow is falling again at Mt Bachelor so skiing is back on the table. There are quite a few more sites that we want to see in the area so I am sure that will be a focus. After this next month is up, I am pretty sure that it will be time to move on, we just aren't sure where we are moving on to yet. We will keep you posted. Until then, watch out for coyotes...they aren't as cute and cuddly as they look.

The largest ponderosa pine in the world, aka "Big Tree".

petrified ash beds

Brenda on the climb up

Brenda making perfect "S's" down a wide open bowl next to Crater Lake...a perfect day!

Spring Skiing at it's best on a slope somewhere next to the lake

Crater Lake

another view of Crater Lake

Another wide open slope that we had to track up on the way around Crater Lake