Tentin' on the Ten-Ten — Fall Camping Trip, 2009

Secret Lake

Last weekend, October 9-11, 2009, Nick, Cody, and I went for an autumn camping trip near Detroit, OR. This event has been dubbed Tentin' on the Ten-Ten (month 10, day 10). It was a good time, filled with picture taking, hot dog eating, and the woodland exploration.

I have uploaded a bunch of my pictures from the trip. They are available in the image gallery, under the album "Camping." In actuality, I have uploaded less than 10% of what I took during the trip, but you probably would get bored looking through all 1600 of them.

The Crowded Woods

Once we got up into the mountains, we found a lot more people than we expected. I had figured that everyone stopped going camping nearly a month ago (back to school, etc). But I was wrong! The camp site we expected to stay at was about 3/4 full. Now, I like camping because it gives me a chance to get away from the hustle and bustle of daily life. As such, the prospect of camping out next to some loud drunkards didn't sound like any fun at all. Though it was late (about 11pm), I lobbied to find a less populated place to set up camp. We found a flat chunk of dirt at a nearby lake and called it good. It even had a fire pit already. It was good!

Cody gives a weird face

The next morning, we got up and made ourselves some warm breakfast. It had gotten quite cold over night and it was nice to warm up around the campfire. As you can see from the picture (right), we had a very nice view of the lake. It is a good lil' lake.

More fiery maples

After a semi-successful breakfast of lukewarm oatmeal and weak coffee, I headed down to the lake to take some pictures. There, I found some nice maples leaves, showing off their fall colors of brilliant shades of red and orange. Now, I am of the opinion that one never needs an excuse to go camping. However, I must admit that the driving force behind this camping trip was (for myself) finding awesome trees to take pictures of. I love the colorful trees of fall season; they're simply awesome.

Hillside Slides

Brilliant orange and yellow

Around 1pm, we started getting antsy, so we drove around on the old Forest Service roads. We set out with the intention of finding a small lake we happened upon several years ago. We just so happened to get a little bit lost! After conceding to this fact, we pulled over to consult the GPS map. Call it unfocused; call it A.D.D.; call it scatterbrained; called it the photographic eye. Whatever you call it, I quickly noticed a brightly colored tree on a steep, steep embankment a few yards away. Climbing a rocky hill with loose dirt seemed like a good idea — so I did. I found this tree (right) and a few others. The pictures turned out mediocre, but the experience was memorable as I scaled the mountainside.

Cody saw what I was up to and joined me shortly. We gazed down at Nick, still playing with the GPS. We must have climbed a good 50-60ft vertically. Check this picture out — the Blazer is hiding behind the tree in the center of the shot.

In my mind, it is an indisputable fact that going up is always safer than going down. On the way up the hill, I slipped once and slid down the hillside about 15ft (vertical), filling my coat with various pebbles and dirt clods. That was the good news. Here is the bad news. I let Cody traverse his way down the hill ahead of me. When he safely made it down to the bottom of the hill, I starting venturing out onto the steep hillside to make my own descent.

Look! It's little Nick!

But a single, cautious step still resulted in a massive landslide of tumbling rocks and clouds of dust. Cody was directly below this fantastic display of gravity and a rock hit him square in the brow. (Maybe some day Randomland will do a "Thank Goodness for Your Brow" segment. This and "Angle Grinder + Dog" would hit the top of the list...) Anyway, we were fortunate, and the rock did not hit his eye and it did not even break the skin. However, days later, he mentioned that it is still a bit bruised. Sorry Cody!

Blazer Fun

During this time, Nick had determined the proper roads to make our way to the lake we had set out to find. After driving (and backtracking) for a while, we came across an old gravel pit. Naturally, the Blazer had to take a spin! Most of the trails looked better suited for ATVs, but our vehicle handled it quite fine. Check out the video!

(Edit: sorry for the tease. I need to go back and find this video again)

The (sort of) Hidden Lake

Eventually, after all of these fun distractions, we found our way to the lake which we had set out to find. And it was worth it! The lake is actually about 1/3mi from the road, so a short hike is required. The campsites are secluded and clean (I think there is a correlation, but I'll save that theory for another time).

Here are some shots I took while at this hidden lake.

Secret Lake

Oh sure, there are a lot more pictures of the lake, and some silly stuff that went on (like a surfing-grade flip-flop and a lightning stick), but I shall not bore the internet with those. Instead, you should know that on our way back to camp, we decided to "take the jump."

"Taking the Jump"

"Taking the Jump"

This little stunt was actually done mostly in jest — but Nick gunned it and drove into the side of this pile of dirt (right). But, what you can't see is the giant hole from which all that dirt came. You see, the Forest Service occasionally gates off roads they no longer need to maintain. Or sometimes, as is the case here, they come along with an overzealous backhoe and dig a really deep ditch and throw a bunch of dirt in the way so you don't fall in. It's precautious on their part; it makes us all the more curious as to what lies beyond the man-made chasm.

So, Nick drove the Blazer to the left side of the berm so we could take a peek at the hole without having to be inconvenienced by silly things like using our own legs for walking. The dirt turned out to be surprisingly soft — we got stuck almost instantly! The picture to the right is taken level with the horizon, so yes, the Blazer really is that crooked!

In this video, Cody shows how easy it is to rock the vehicle as it balances mostly on 2 of the 4 wheels. Impressive! Kids, don't try this at home (try it in the woods ).

You may also notice that Cody is up front while the Blazer has its hood open. He is manually engaging the transfer case by squeezing a baffle under the hood, thus engaging 4 wheel drive. This is supposed to be done using a wacky system of vacuum hoses which the (stock) exhaust system has burned a hole through. Please, don't get me started on the marvels of GM engineering. Cody's method wasn't elegant, but it did get the job done. We will probably have the 4wd system fixed by the next time we venture out, in case you were worrying about Cody's toes.

Hyper squirrels

When we finally got back to camp that evening, we realized that we had been very bad campers — we forgot to put the food away when we left! Fortunately, the only thing we left out was a bag of trash and a box full of hot chocolate and instant instant coffee mix...but man, what a drag! The hot chocolate mix was completely missing, except for one empty packet, found about 20ft away from where we left it. The other 4-5 are missing forever. The squirrels were not, however, too keen on the coffee mix. But they did put the grubby little teeth into every packet.

Bitter Cold MourningMorning

The next morning was quite cold. After the aforementioned squirrel incident, we decided to forgo the traditional morning coffee. More disturbingly, we noticed something else was missing when we went to wash our pot...something too peculiar to steal (even for a squirrel). Our soap! They took our bar of soap!? Fortunately, we had a backup.

We got on with life, roasting bagels and eating oatmeal as we tried to warm ourselves around the fire. Then we took more pictures (as is tradition) and cleaned up our campsite. The only evidences we left of our stay are a few hyper squirrels and the running board part that fell off. We left that near the fire pit just to see if it'd stick around; it might be a good fire poker anyhow.

The Hose and Pic Hole

The hose, vandalized

But even as we finished cleaning up camp and headed out, our adventure was far from over. We agreed that our first stop on the way down the hill should be at what we like to call The Hose. Once upon a time, someone found a natural spring in the mountainside and hooked up several hundred feet of metal pipe and garden hose. Now, this is nothing to go swamp-diving over, but fresh water flowed freely from it providing passers-by width cold, flowing water to enjoy. It was a joyous mountain occurrence unlike any ever seen before or since. Sadly, it has recently been vandalized.

And we want these hose-cutting hosers put to justice! But since the damage had already been done, we decided just to take pictures and sample the plant life. We messed around for a while, doing silly stuff like making mock armor out of the scrap metal lying on the ground. This site was an abandoned mining operation, after all, so there is still a lot of industrial leftovers. We also witnessed what one man called out as a "party foul" after a group of high-tech woods-traipsers came by and Mr. Random Guy spilled his beer on his $13,000 Polaris buggy (see "The Crowded Woods," above).

After leaving the hose, we meandered down the mountain, stopping every few minutes to take pictures of the scenery. We have some favorite picture-taking spots up there, most of which are a few hundred yards off the main service roads. The picture to the left was taken down one such side road. Unfortunately, these spots are not hidden well enough to keep people's discarded trash out of sight (although it is occasionally fun to play with).

There exists another such spot next to a stream. We like to call this the Pic Hole because we have taken thousands of pictures here (perhaps even tens of thousands over the past 3-4 years). Here is a few of the better ones taken down at the Pic Hole.

Down at the Pic Hole

A cool, mossy rock

Sprout, waterfall in background

Alas, this was our camping trip's last hurrah. We had satisfied ourselves with the natural beauty of the Pic Hole and the accomplishment of having done weird stuff in the woods (like the scrap metal armor, mentioned earlier). We leisurely made our way back home to Salem, digital cameras brimming pictures, a slightly askew Bumper Buddy, and a car full of stank.

The Missing Camera

I wish the story could end right there, but there is a most unfortunate twist. You read the section heading so you already know it (what a spoiler, I know!). Yes, Nick lost his pocket camera and the bag which it was stored in. Not only is the camera and bag MIA, so are some fun lens adapters and other photo accessories which were in this bag.

That's the tragic part, but the clincher is this: it was in the car during the ride home! So, after traveling at least 60mi of highway, bouncing along tens of miles of occasionally serviced gravel roads, and sharing woodsspace with a few dozen drunken idiots, it goes missing on the last, most boring leg of the journey. And nearly a week later (10-16-2009), it is still missing in action. Pictures can be retaken, but they can never be replaced. Losing something is maddening and buying a new camera costs money...something Nick and I both have an aversion to. I sure do hope it shows up.