In February, we spent a night in Tillamook forest and determined that hammocks are NOT what we're going to take on the West Coast Trail.

Since then, we've been making conditioning hikes and backyard camping and training up our stamina. This weekend past, we started with about 35 pounds each fully packed and hiked up the Eagle Creek Trail. At a wide spot where we rested for a few minutes, a friendly hiker going the other direction asked where we were headed. "Wy'East Campground!" we said. "It's full, and so is Blue Grouse, and everything above it, but there's a single site just past the low bridge that is after High Bridge, just big enough for a couple." We were very grateful - especially since we hit the trail at about 4pm and Wy'East was just over 5 miles from the trailhead (which was half a mile from the car). Carrying on, we crossed paths with another couple who gave the same info. Finally we reached the recommended location -- and there was a couple already in it. Fortunately, it was slightly larger than we'd been led to imagine, and Brit and Jeff were gracious enough to share space and generous enough to lend us their water filtration when we discovered that ours had not made it into a bag during the second re-pack.

Food was delicious, mosquitos were plentiful, weather was hot, and sleep was slow to come, but eventually I fell asleep to the sound of cedarfoxy reading aloud the introduction to "Lip Smackin' Backpackin'".

We rose fairly early the next morning, packed up and headed back downhill, with an added detour to Punch Bowl Falls just so we wouldn't have missed it. We also leapfrogged a cheerful photographer getting pictures of the many waterfalls and some macro shots of beautiful plants.

I've already bought the things I really missed on this excursion, and cedarfoxy is the Keeper of the Notes, so I shan't reiterate all of them here.