Hike Oregon's Spectacular Obsidian Trail
By Ryan Geise
The Beginning
Each of our steps pushed us higher, the air became
crisp, like delicate pieces of ash. Just before my
feet became weary from the weight of my pack we
approached and cornered a bend in the well kept trail
that had, a sharp ascent before, shot us out of the
thick green, silent wilderness, onto an ancient lava
flow, warm a million years ago, but still foreign
looking like the surface of Mars.
This curve in the trail was manned by what was left of
an 8 foot tall pine tree, built like twisted train
tracks, an ancient here who had seen its last season
change, pointing a frozen limb towards the eastern
horizon. As our feet shifted on the rock and we peaked
out, we tried to catch our breath, but it was swept
away once again by the South and Middle sister of the
Three Sisters mountain range. They shot up out of the
earth like snow capped vertebra of Earth's crooked
spine. They bit through the crystal clear day like
vampire teeth and made our souls a little more
immortal.
Welcome to the Obsidian Trail, one of Central Oregon's
most coveted, lengthy, and deeply rewarding hikes.
My girlfriend, Kileen, a Portland yoga instructor, and
I began our journey like any other; packs filled with
zero degree sleeping bags, Thermarests, a tent, food
and water, and plenty of warm clothes. We tossed our
gear into the white Ford Focus, gassed up and begin
our drive south along route 5 to Eugene.
After several hours of driving, searching through our
iPod for the perfect songs for the road; Tears for
Fears, Elton John and Bruce Springstein included; we
met our junction with Highway 126 East(?). The day was
awake, it had had it's cup of coffee and morning
shower, eyes as wide as windshields. And we were
ready, watching the sun in its slow reach for the
crest.
The I-5 had treated us well and if it were gold then
the 126 East was crystal. We met the banks of the
Mckenzie River on this road as well as a plaid picture
of trees, painted with pastels from soft oranges and
unimagined yellows to broken browns and growing
greens. The smell changed from sterile exhaust fumes
from fans leaving a University of Oregon game to the
smell of water rushing over rocks, making them round
after 10,000 years; the smell of letting go, a smell
we sometimes forget after our own re-shaping from the
river of people, traffic and goods in Portland.
The Mckenzie left us off and we headed straight for
the hills, but not before making one last stop for gas
and a bathroom break at Harbick's Country Store, a
parking lot filled with pick-up trucks and salt of the
earth folk. It was a far cry from the Fred Meyers and
Plaid Pantries of the city, but still had every
commodity from potato chips to hatchets and DVD
rentals; a country store for modern man, maybe you
want to eat a snack and watch a movie while you chop
wood, who can say.
We made sure our tank was full in the traditional
Oregonian way, by saying "Fill it", handing the
attendant the piece of plastic controlling our
finances, and walking away to check out a map of the
hot spots around the roads.
Our steed was fed, rested, and ready so we hit the
road once more and found our intersection with the 242
East, a windy worm of a road crawling a few thousand
feet through slightly suffocating foliage. All this
pavement becoming increasingly more remote got me
thinking of how difficult beauty is to find a bridge
to and how this trip was beginning to feel a lot like
a pilgrimage.
We wound our way up and up, losing sight of the
mountains that had peaked there heads through the
trees 30 minutes earlier. We wound, the curves
becoming tighter like a sleeping snake, like natures
intestinal track, and we were driving out from her
stomach and into her heart. We hit the main vein after
a short flat stretch of road that blessed us with a
break from the roller coaster. A dirt side track that
appeared to be nothing more than a farm access road,
pot holes and all; this was the spot, the place where
the car stopped doing the work and our legs and breath
took over.
The parking spaces looked like small camp sites, but
were actually part of a spacious lot with a focus on
more undergrowth and trees rather than pavement and
yellow painted lines. This was a sign of the serenity
to come. We parked and left any park ranger that might
stop this way a note about our lack of a
parking/camping pass which we had failed to aquire at
the ranger station due to it being closed and the
overnight passes all out at the trail head.
Our packs leapt out of the car and onto our backs,
monkeys, hungry for the swinging trees, as gripping as
pieces of metal skillfully soddered together. The doug
fir, western hemlock, and lodge pole pine swayed above
and around us, a dusting of green in the sky, a Bob
Ross painting, happy little trees and we stepped
across the starting line, into the mystery.
The trail appeared heavily used, foot prints from a
hundred people scrambled along the path in all shapes,
sizes, and fitness levels, reminding us that we are
not so alone. The razor grass stuck out of the earth
in a paint splatter formation like a thousand clown
heads buried to just above the forehead; yellow
striped green snakes emerging in the same frozen
moment from a hole too small for them to all escape,
trapped until death.
Mushrooms made their appearance, round domes a weak
fortitude against an unaware, falling foot, giant
gasping breaths from and unseen crowd as something so
simple disappears. We watched our step and after
nearly three miles of going up, up, up through
Sasquatch territory, Ewok village remains, and the
freshest air I'd tasted in months we stepped out of
the woods.
Our heads tilted slightly to the side, as curious as a
dog is to the high pitch mumbo-jumbo of it's master,
berating it for things it will never understand, eyes
pitched in the direction of mercy. The task that now
lay before us was a short scramble upward over
volcanic remains of brick red and grey rock, as nimble
as natural sidewalk chalk. Like a sprinter digging in
their toes for a hand gun start, we gritted our teeth
and went for it, having no idea the pleasure this path
would hold around its first bend.
The Middle
We snapped a few postcard-esque photos of the glory of
these two sisters, perpetually holding hands,
hopefully not arguing any more than necessary, their
mother too far away to interject, and we moved on
through the path winding up, down, and eventually
through the lava flow. This river of rock, spewed from
the earth's boiling core, made for fine hiking and
offered glimpses into caves and holes big enough for
the adventures of a mouse.
The air was becoming thinner, crisp, like the first
signs of snow. We came across a handsome 40 something
man and his wife on our way up who had informed us
that in around a week the spot we were standing would
be covered in snow; that was 2 miles back and we were
4 miles in.
Out from the flow we descended into a small plain,
nestled between the surrounding giants, feeling
comfortable and at ease with so many protectors. This
plain was fairly barren save for several small puffs
of trees and some ground growth, fighting to save the
green, the fine brightest of Earth's skin. It's
inhabitants included a pack of Grey Jays; camp
robbers, whiskey jacks; that the next morning would
eat crumbs out of Kileen's purple gloved hand and
attack my grey beanie capped head looking for more
hand outs, like hobos without forgiving signs, willing
to just take without asking.
Don't feed the wildlife.
We crossed the plain, modern day colonials, and hit a
fork. To the right lay, what appeared to be, and what
our guide book told us, a fairly flat and
unchallenging path, the uncomfortable stare between
strangers, but no words. To the left, where our feet
took us, was the shot to Sunshine Meadows, where we
planned to stay the night, and ultimately small scuffs
of snow, that turned to larger scuffs and an eventual
covering, six inches deep, of the forrest floor, a
slow shift to pale.
The snow crept on us, the shivering in your spine when
you feel that someone is there, someone's watching.
Our awareness that the ground was now frozen and wet
changed our minds as well as our resting place. After
a bit of deliberation we pivoted on our heals like
flag pole flags changing with the wind and headed
straight back down to the meadow we had strolled
across less than 45 minutes before, a troubling
retreat, a battle not even worth fighting before the
white flag is waved. A bare spot, flat and fairly rock
free graced us with a level mat, a place for us to
soak up the dreams of the earth.
Sunshine Meadows had promised us an amazing view in
the direct glare of both Sisters, but I would be
willing to trade their stares for the illumination of
the infinite number of stars that night, more fire
flies than you could count, frozen, like a black and
white photo of snowflakes, lit up and scattered
through the desert of a sky.
We set up camp, pitching the tent and unrolling our
mats, Yogi's laying in savasana, corpse pose; we
warmed up our diner, lighting the camp fire like a
resplendant beacon, refuge for any lost souls. We each
boiled a Nalgene full of water and stuffed the warm
bricks in our sleeping bags to keep our feet snug as a
bug in the rug. Kileen slept with her blonde hair
curled around her head in a mess of wheat colored
fiber optics. Our heads were both firmly stuffed
inside our shells, cocoons for one night.
The End
Old Man's Beard; Usnea Australias, a green waterfall
of fungi, hung above our heads as we lay on our backs
in the next to lowest level of the Terwilliger
(Cougar) Hot Springs at the Cougar Reservoir just off
Highway 19 between Blue River and McKenzie Bridge. The
warm water soaked into my skin, the same way snow
melts into the earth. We floated like rose pedals in
glass vases, the smell was of rotten eggs, shoes worn
too many times without socks, but we got used to the
smell, it reminded me of my home town of Clifton
Springs, NY.
A young man with short brown hair and a short beard,
short dead grass stubble , was in the next pool up. He
was singing songs to himself that were barely English
and were mostly about images or feelings that none of
the other people could see or experience. There were
families there with several children mingling with the
5 terraced pools that were each about 10 feet in
diameter.
We skirted around the reservoir like a finger circling
the mouth of a glass, a deep and empty lake, not made
by god or glaciers, to get to this cheap (a mere $5)
resort for the outlandish and ordinary alike. The day
was misting, the faucet barely turned on and our
windshield collected the wet dust, but we managed to
find our parking space.
We hopped out of the car, ready for the short hike
into the springs, around 1/3 mile through arches of
undergrowth that would make the Yellow Brick Road seem
flighty. At the booth a man whose smile and simplicity
made us smile, a priest in the woods, took our money
and let us know that if we had any problems or
suggestions, to come contact him.
A few twists and turns later, this giant metaphor for
life, let me know that sometimes things can end
uncomfortably, but that it's not discomfort that
defines the journey, it's what we take from it. We
turned a bend and I caught my first glimpse of this
sensational retreat; an umbrella made of textiles only
mother nature could create from cells dividing into
seedlings and then intertwining branches hung above us
and an out door closet, perfect for disguising nothing
waited for our clothing.
According to the hot spring's website clothing is
optional, it's founders coming to this place to shed
all aspects of a constricting society.
This was never more apparent then my next glimpse of a
man, no more than 5'10", bear brown hair to his mid
back, standing there with veins pumping blood organs,
skin pores helping the body breathe. This man had no
shorts on and my eyes averted to the bare rocks below
his feet, a simple shade of grey, anything to numb my
mind.
I did not let this mere distraction affect my goal and
a fine goal it turned out to be. I put my toe in the
first pool to test the water, too hot so I retreated
to the lowest pool, but too cold, like Goldie Locks.
We found our match somewhere close to the middle and
merged in, like a stranger amongst new friends. We
took a deep breath and after a pause at the top of our
inhale to see this whole trip in a glimpse, like a
movie preview, we let ourselves out, riding on the
back of all those carbon dioxide molecules and our
relaxation was complete.
