This post is part of a short series of posts describing my weekend backpacking the first three sections of the Benton MacKaye Trail on March 21st-23rd:
Backpacking Benton MacKaye Trail Prologue
Backpacking Benton MacKaye Trail Section 1
Backpacking Benton MacKaye Trail Section 2
Backpacking Benton MacKaye Trail Section 3
Backpacking Benton MacKaye Trail Epilogue
Benton MacKaye Trail, Section 3: Highway 60 to Skeenah Gap Road
The BMT continues at Highway 60 across Wallalah, Licklog and Rhodes mountains. It’s approximately 3.5 miles in length, according to the BMT Section Mileages. http://www.bmta.org/SectionMileages.php
Sunday morning began with the typical smells and sounds associated with hikers fed on a steady diet of camp food. Bryan wisely decided if he were ever to walk normally again, he would sit this part of the hike out. I believe Trent decided to sleep in. That left: Brandon, Brian, Greg, Jason, Ross and myself.
The plan was to begin early in the morning, on trail at dawn and hopefully finish this excursion before the rain set in. Only, it started raining the moment we set foot on the road pointed toward the trail and didn’t let up until we were somewhere on the other side of Wallalah Mountain. I apologize for the lack of photos, but my phone went into my bag at this point and didn’t see the light of day until I stepped off the trail.
I don’t normally injure myself on the trail, but when I do, I make it memorable. We weren’t even ten minutes on the trail and my head had an intimate encounter with a tree that had fallen across the trail but was suspended about 6 feet in the air. I was watching my footing as I was climbing a set of steps, and with my jacket hood obstructing my view, I stood right into it. I immediately crumpled but instead of falling to my knees I got hung up on my hiking poles. I remained hunched over for a few minutes while the stars stopped swimming circles around my head.