Mountain Camping - Escaping the City Noise & Pollution
Susie Larsson
I made the decision to pack my car up and head to the mountains on Friday, the Fourth of July to avoid the big bombs and firecrackers that are set off directly in front of my condominium. These loud booms are disturbing to both me and my little Cairn Terrier.
On Thursday night, my car was packed with my camping gear which had only been used two times in the past three years. I worked at my day job and finished earlier than normal. I still had some packing to finish and then we set off. Every time I head up to the mountains, I check the weather. This was especially important for this trip because we were going to stay overnight, high up above Snoqualmie Pass (above 4,000 feet) where the weather showed cooler temperatures and dips into the mid-40’s overnight.
Kaela was a very, very, happy dog. I let her off-leash and she ran and jumped and frolicked and had the best time ever. It has been over 24 hours since we returned home and she is still snoozing and quite tired.
We arrived just at 6pm to our destination. Luckily, here in the Pacific Northwest at this time of year, the sun doesn’t set until after 9pm, so we had three hours until we needed to think of bundling into the tiny tent.
It took several trips from the car to carry all of our things up about 1/3 mile to our beautiful destination. Nobody was here of course, because it is off the beaten track and nobody knows about this place. The wind was blowing quite hard and I found a flatter spot below the winds to set up the tent.
After getting our tent in order, I walked around and took photos and some videos and enjoyed the beautiful summer scenery. The open areas were covered in wildflowers in purple, white and splashes of red-orange Indian Paintbrush. I took out my sketchbook and did a few brushstrokes before heading out to explore further.
I sat down in my new light-weight camping chair and wrote in my journal in the fading light and when I looked up from my page, I noticed the light in the sky fading, but fading into pinks and purples and grey clouds. I put this down and went to the top of the “mountain” where the view was a 360 degree vista overlooking thousands of trees and open skies and Lake Keechelus below. As the minutes went by, the sky became a deeper hot-pink and purple. It was stunning. This sunset was one of the best I have ever seen in my life, not just because of the amazing color pallette but because of where I was, on a mountain, surrounded by fresh air and wildflowers and trees.
The night was very rough. Both Kaela and I had a very hard time falling asleep. The air mattress I had didn’t seem sufficient to cushion my body and I was stiff with cold and anticipated fear. I was surprised I was so scared when I am usually an extremely fearless person. What put more fear into me was when Kaela stood still, looking into the woods, a low growling, she turned and ran towards me and jumped into my lap! She has NEVER done this before. Was she trying to warn me that some huge wild animal was lurking in the woods? Waiting for us to fall asleep before attacking us? Or worse yet, was this a crazy human waiting for us?
We finally both fell asleep, we could hear the booms from fireworks lower down by the pass but they stopped around 10pm.
After a few hours of fitful sleep, I awoke to find Kaela sitting straight up beside me looking skyward. My tent cover had blown off during the night. I unzipped the tent and put on my hiking boots and went out and put the tent cover back on.
More time tossing and turning and vowing to myself to never sleep in a tent outside again. Camping was not fun, it was a mantra that wouldn’t leave my mind as I eventually fell asleep again. We woke at 5am when light was just beginning. It was beautiful outside and I wanted to get up and start enjoying the day early, but it was 45 degrees out!! Too cold, so we both went back in the tent and slept until 7:30.
What a fantastic experience. Even though sleeping outside in a tent on a mountain was not restful at all, the experience of being alone in the forest with my dog and experiencing such a gorgeous sunset, it was worth it. Will I do it again? Maybe…