Guns, Axes, and Wrist Rockets

“Hey Scatman, did you get a hike in this weekend?”

“Yes I did!”

“How was it? Did you see anything?”

“Yeah, two wrist rockets an axe and a 9 mm”

So today was day 1 of a 2 day hiking weekend. I got to the Pratt Lake TH around 8:20 am. It would appear I only forgot my wallet, which meant I was a bit hunger when I started.

Pratt Lake

Most of my hike was done inside my head. I crunched numbers for next weekend the whole time. It was quite sad actually. Though the spell was broken when I got to Melakwa Lake. Up to that point I had my head down and my feet were moving. I barely stopped my relentless forward motion. I had gotten the heads up by another hiker that if I wanted to see Melakwa Lake I would have to take the side trail or I wouldn’t even see it and he said I had to see it.

I’m getting ahead of myself. After my one and only stop to use the pit toilet at Pratt Lake I caught two guys. Jeans, heavy boots, cotton t-shirts, fleece vests and one of them had a 9 mm strapped to his right thigh. I spotted the gun from 100′ back. It was like one of those pictures where your supposed to find the one thing that is out of place. I smiled and said my pleasantries as I passed but I was really thinking, “Really? A gun! Good god man to you think some black bear or cougar is going to just jump out and attack you. Seriously, your 10 times safer out here in these woods then you would be in downtown and you brought your guy!” It amazes me every time.

Next on the day was my “So I married an axe murder” encounter (movie with Mike Myers). I came a cross four guys with packs the size of small houses on their backs, they were friggin huge man. Each one dressed in cotton and one was wheedling a small axe. He sung it at branches as he strolled along the path. I thought, “my arms are not twigs, my arms are not twigs, please don’t take my arms”. Lucky for me his buddy distracted him as we passed each other. I think his buddy was looking out for me or I’d like to think he was.

It was just after my axe encounter that I got to the beautiful Melakwa Lakes. I can not begin to tell you how beautiful they were. I will go back and camp there soon! Hopefully there will not be so many people those. It was packed. I could have sworn there was a Silver Pouch (Gray Hound) parked just out of sight and it really wasn’t a 4.5 mile hike up hill to get there. As I skirted the lake and got to Upper Melakwa Lake I had my dream like experience shattered when I see more friends in COTTON. This time they were trying to blend in with nature and wore camo. As I watch these two men who look like their out to hunt buck walk past I saw they were both strapped with wrist rockets.

Hemlock Pass

I watched as they strolled around picking up random pebbles and load them into their slings, take aim across the lake and let it fly. It was better than them using the poor little Pikas as target practiced but it was still oddly out of place for a high alpine lake of such beauty.

After that the hike got tame. I passed boy scouts with everything but their Xboxs on their backs, cotton gave way to kids in bathing suits at the water slides, and cute families replaced overnight hikers. Soon I was back to my car and on my way to the civilized world.

Scatman

Get out there!