As we have spent nearly a month this season at Piper Creek, it is only fitting that I devote this article to our crew’s favorite place.
The first excursion started innocently and harm free with a hitch at Piper Lake, a six mile hike in to the Mission Mountain Wilderness. The crew, for the most part, was excited at the prospect of a four day hitch in the backcountry. Monday, however, could not have changed us more if we had asked. Pulling up to the trailhead, it begins to rain. It wasn’t just drizzle. It wasn’t sporadic. It rained constantly for the next twenty-four hours. To top that off, the temperature did not crack forty.
It was cold. It was wet. It was, without saying, miserable. Everyone went to bed that night without dinner, probably the first and only time in the season that anyone purposely skipped a meal. No one could warm up. Phil most likely threw his back out from shivering. I am surprised that no one else did the same. It is safe to say that that Monday at Piper Lake was most likely the coldest that I have ever been.
As ominously as the hitch started, however, the next 2½ days could not have been nicer. There were no clouds in the sky and it was probably in the eighties. All of a sudden working in the sun wasn’t such a bad idea. Of course, our camp looked like a modern-day Hooverville with everyone’s clothes hanging out to dry.
Oh, yeah. Did I mention that our bear spray leaked while we were hiking in? It did and we all got a nice dose of it.
Late August rolled around and with it, the heat of late summer. Back at Piper Creek now after a cold hitch at Many Glacier, no one was too excited. Our task had been laid out. Eight days of brushing with loppers and bow saws. The bow saws were pretty useless.
After about two days of brushing, morale was very low. Luckily for us, we could go to Swan Lake and swim, which always brings our crew morale up, if not for a while. This was the case until we were made to pay a four dollar day use fee for the same organization that for whom we were working. Trips to Swan Lake quickly ended after we managed to gather four dollars in quarters, dimes, nickels, and probably a few pennies.
We soon found another place to swim, this time at Cold Creek, much nicer (in my opinion) than Swan Lake. Being free probably added to my happiness. A diving board also boosted our morale as a daily no-talent show of diving was put on. My “flips” (more jumping barrel rolls) were a highlight.
Leaving brushing behind was not sad. We, despite our best wishes, were back last week. The colors had changed, but the location had not. The weather had also changed, by almost forty degrees in fact. The sunny ninety degree days were gone and fifty degrees was as warm as it would get. While it was cool and not the heat of early August to work in, it made for a couple of very cold mornings.
We did experience one of the coolest things about this year. Wednesday had been overcast and small ice crystals would periodically fall from the sky. These small ice crystals though quickly became snow and it made for one of the prettiest sights of the entire season. The trees quickly became covered and the trail soon followed. Unfortunately, my camera needed to be charged and no one else had theirs, so I guess that will just be a sight for the seven of us.
So what has this month of Piper Lake/Creek taught us? It has taught us that we just need to be patient and to persevere. We could have easily given up when it was cold that day at Piper Creek or thrown down the loppers while working in the heat (and don’t think that these thoughts did not cross our minds). Instead, we did persevere, did not get on each other’s nerves (or tried not to), and remained patient. After all, if we did not stay patient, that month could have been much longer.
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