2010 July 21, 2010 Oh Be Joyful Trail

July 21, 2010 Oh Be Joyful Trail

I am just going to remind myself over and over what the name of this trail is!

Today’s hike is up the Oh be Joyful River and hopefully back to Blue Lake. We have our trusty gps and lovely cartoon map. Once again our valuable topo map does not cover the area we are about to hike. This will be the hike we traded information for up at West Maroon Bells Pass. To fully understand this hike I want you to walk to your neighbor’s house to the north. Please travel 2 miles by way of back yards, climbing over fences, bushes, and any other obstacles you can find to go over or around. After one and half miles you find a sign, private property…Take out your lovely cartoon map and gps. Stare at the compass and try to gaze at the mushy lines on the cartoon map to try and understand why your river is running north according to the compass and your cartoon map is running to the south west. Something is clearly awry!

Such is the start of out Oh be Joyful day. Our directions were to go to the trailhead just off of Slate River road; park at the top as “they are doing something at the real trail head, so you will need to park at the top”. What ‘they’ were really doing was putting in a culvert and fixing the nice outhouses. When we walked down the road to the trailhead we found a sign that said campground closed. There was a rushing river in front of us. We thought it might be the Oh Be Joyful River. Seems like a good assumption. Our verbal directions include follow the fishermen’s trail up along the river as you get really great views of the waterfalls along the way. There is a 4x4 road that you could also take, but the fishermen‘s trail is a great deal more scenic. Such simple directions, how could anything go askew?

The sky is low and hanging deep into the valley as we begin our fishermen’s trail adventure. Up, under over around branches, trees, rocks, cliffs. We are getting wet pants so we stop and put on our rain pants. Back to the bush whacking and wondering when we might find those waterfalls along the way. We must be going the right way as there does seem to be a road up to our right, just as our trusty cartoon map indicates. Hmmm, wonder when we are going to find those falls. As we move slowly through all of this carnage you just begin to wonder why would any fisherman spend so much time and effort to do all of this bushwhacking. There is little wonder why you never see a fisherman with a fish in their possession! They are spending all of their time making senseless trails over this bramble!

We arrive at a sign and fence: Private Property. What? We see a car sitting on the road, I check the map and compass, I orientate the map and see we are to be headed south west but we are headed north…We bushwhack up to the road and walk to the car. Believe it or not there are two helpful people in the car with a real Gazetteer map! What luck! From looking at the Gazetteer map we can see we need to cross the Slate River, walk to the south west and pick up the Oh Be Joyful River. Oh, well in looking at the cartoon map it looks like one river not two.

Deep sigh, you can say good bye to the neighbor which you have just invested an hour of your day to go bushwhacking through the back yards to see. Take the road back to your beginning point. Try again!

We walked back to the sign that said campground closed. There were some port-a-pit toilets here. Since we have been hiking for a hour and half already, we needed to go. At these pits I met up with some ladies who both recognized us as being up at West Maroon Pass the day before. Come to find out one lady grew up in Plainview, MN and had done her nurses training at St. Mary’s in Rochester. We talked some Minnesotan for a bit and then headed out. These ladies were not up for the taking your shoes off and fording the rushing Slate River. Apparently they had watched a family of four take off their shoes and walk through the rushing river getting in up to their thighs. Then have to sit on the other side, dry off and put their boots back on. This type of crossing was a tad bit more then what they had been planning on, so they were going to go up the road to the next trail head and see what they could find.

Kathi and I use our prior knowledge gathered on our morning reconnaissance mission and went further up the ‘fisherman’s’ trail along the Slate River. There we found two downed pine trees. The trees have fallen across the rushing river in a nice close pattern and we simply did a little penguin walk over to the other side. Nice and dry we walk back towards the closed campground on the 4x4 road toward the Oh Be Joyful River. Going not too much farther we find the rushing OBJ River. There are lots of cascading falls. Ahh, this is what we are suppose to be following! We again find the fishermen’s trail and walk along climbing in elevation while peering down at the wonderful rushing water. All is right with the world. After what seemed like a few minutes of joyfulness the heavy laden clouds have decided it is time to heave ho their fruitful bounty.

For the remainder of this trip report, you should go into your shower and read this while standing in a shower of cold water. Throw a few large rocks in the tub along with some slippery logs. Then you can begin to appreciate the Joyfulness 

Kathi and I put on the rest of our rain gear including covers for the pack, put away cameras and the gps as it looks like it is going to be raining for awhile. We meander through the rain with some nice vistas of the OBJ waterfalls after waterfalls. It was quite pleasant even in the rain. We finally get to the end of the fisherman’s trail and need to join up with the real OBJ trail. Our trail info has led us to believe that we are going to pass an old cabin at 3.6 miles. We have no idea at what point the 3.6 miles starts from. Is it from the closed campground, or from the junction of the Slate and OBJ Rivers, perhaps from the end of the fisherman’s trail? We just keep hiking in the pouring rain. Even the unrelenting rain cannot hide the stunning splendor of the magnificent vistas we are privileged to see. But since we are trudging along with our heads down to keep the rain from hitting our face, all you know is this would really be a great hike if it were not raining.

As we are hiking we have to watch every step and decide where to step to avoid slippery rocks, roots and puddles and less we not forget the horse poo. As we continue we are challenged by some interesting creek crossings. One was 4 skinny pine limbs slicked with water; two of the limbs were visibly cracked; rushing creek water underneath. No worries, it looks doable, I send the light weight Kathi across first. (Sometimes being the lightweight is not ideal!) Kathi makes it with no problem, me too!

More hiking in the rain.

While walking with my head down I am thinking about my decision to only put one coat of water repellency on the boots. Every year I put two coats on the boots, just as the directions suggest. Hmmm, putting the water repellency on the boots is my job. I have time to squeeze it into my summer work day And why is it that I decided one coat was enough? Clearly two would not have been much of a bother. But you see, getting the first coat worked in was so difficult. It just seemed as though the water repellent was still good from last year’s application. I am having some serious thoughts about following the directions as listed on the back of the bottle. I am waiting for the first notion that my boots have reached their saturation limit. I’m also thinking about my tender pinky toes which are getting totally stepped on with every step of my right foot, ohh my heels spurs, are my feet getting wet? Oh geez when you walk with your head down, it truly clouds and limits your thoughts! Keep your head up; look around at the amazingly wet, beautiful scene!

We get to a second interesting creek crossing. This one had a four foot high dirt ledge with willow bushes crowding the edge. The creek came to a nice pool at this junction. So if you were not able to make it across the ledge, you would simply fall in the pool of 4 foot deep water. It looks safe enough and interesting enough. At this point in the reading you should try to get up onto the edge of your tub with wet feet and see if you can balance beam walk to the other side of the tub. Just to get the feeling of the challenge. Taking one for the team so to speak, Kathi volunteers to go first. No problem, she advises me to zip up the air vents on my rain gear, as while trying to squeeze past the willows, the water rushed in through her vents. This is helpful information. Zip, zip! I make it with little worry.

As of yet we have not seen any cabin. We keep checking the mileage on the pedometer. Seems as though a cabin should have already appeared or at least in sight. Nothing. I venture to ask Kathi if her feet are dry. Her reply is yes, I breathe a small sigh of relief. I will confess the whole one coat issue later. Why give her anything else to ponder while she stares at the ground.

Kathi looks Oh So Joyful at our turn around point

We get to a third creek crossing. This one we stand and look at. Walk up and down the bank looking for an answer. Crossing that will be a might be more of a challenge. It is running high and fast due to all of the rain. At this point we call it snack time and turnaround time. It is now one o’clock in the afternoon and we have been hiking in the wet since 8:30 am. Are you still standing in the shower? So are we. When we turn for home the puddles have become larger, the trail muddier, rocks & roots slipperier. The stream crossings, well they have become trickier! The water has picked up volume and speed. Our two crossing are taken with a bit more care. But our return speed is much faster. Kathi has found some new warp speed. Every time I venture a look forward, she is an additional few hundred yards away from me. Really, she should be looking at the beautiful scenery more…That might slow her down! I’m not sure if I told her about the water proofing if that would slow her down or speed her up… Well, this is giving me something to think about. Like how am I going to match that warp speed… I think my feet are still dry. Oh geez Kathi is way ahead again! I jog run, slip slide down the trail to catch up.

Up the trail comes a person. Seeing another person on this trail today is a breath of fresh air. We stop to talk. As we are talking I am looking at what this young 20 something lady has on. Low cut leather indoor soccer shoes, running tights with shorts over the top of the tights, hooded soaking wet wind breaker, but with a hood which happens to be slathered on her head. Amazingly enough she had heard there was a hot spring up here somewhere and she was looking for it. Really, you can’t dream this stuff up! All I can think is perhaps a dip in the whirlpool tub would be a better idea than hiking way out here in the cold rain to find something like a hot springs. But call me silly as I was just out looking for a nice walk in the mountain flowers, although clearly Kathi and I were dressed to be out in the rain and on a trail. We told her we did not see any hot springs, any cabin or any lake, but we did find some tricky river crossings. We parted ways and I had something other than wet boots to think about.

Ok, time to turn off the shower, you can get out and dry off. The last half hour of our hike the rain stops, and the sun comes out. We have a chance to try and dry off our rain gear in the nice warm sun while we walk the last mile and half back to the car.

Once we are home we take everything out of the packs, and put the wet things out onto the upper deck of the townhouse in the sun to dry out. Both pair of boots are totally soaked on the leather outers, and only slightly damp inside. I think the water got in next to the sole and worked its way in. The water repellency did hold up! Yeah! Next time for peace of mind I am going to put on two coats!

Now get warmed up and rest up for another adventure.

After supper Kathi and I are going to go to the Store and buy a topo map with the whole area on it. Today’s start could have been avoided with something other than a cartoon map!

Pouring rain 5 1/2 hours, Hiked 6 hours and 47 minutes, 12 miles, 1774 calories burned 51.7 Total miles hiked

Have a Joyful Day!

Final river crossing on our 'recon' logs.  Sun is out and my camera which was in my pack is damp.