Angels Rest, January 1, 2000

Where was I when the century rolled over?

Camping out at the the top of the Angels Rest trail in the Gorge, of course! I have been doing this 4.4 mile round trip as my first hike of the year for ten years now. It seemed the appropriate place to welcome the new century.

Somehow, I didn't make it out of town until 4:30pm, so I had the spooky experience of doing the hike with a flashlight. If you have never done a hike in the pitch black, with a cold rain drizzling down on your head, I can assure you that it is the sort of think you can skip without regrets. But if you do elect to pursue this sort of torture, a D cell Maglight is your best friend. They may be heavy, but man, can they throw out a pool of light.

When I got to the top, I set the tent up a few yards back from the cliff on the only flat space without mud, rock, brush or trees. Remarkably, for Angels Rest the air was dead calm. Very strange. Once this was done, I went to visit my neighbors. Yes, I wasn't the only idiot spending the night on the top. Two other guys had set up a rainfly right out near the viewpoint rocks. Brrrrr!

I hung out and read until midnight, then went over to the viewpoint and yelled in the new year. The rest of the night was cold and boring.

The wind had come up sometime during the night and by 5:30am on the first day of 2000, I was holding my tent down. I had enough. In the dark and rain, I packed up and started back. The trip back was more interesting than the trip up. In addition to being dark and raining, there was now a strong wind blowing and it was cold. It is quite remarkable how fast an 18 inch long, 1 inch in diameter aluminum flashlight can suck the heat out of your hands, even thru gloves.

All in all, I suppose it was a more memorable event than just spending the evening in a bar somewhere.

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Angels Rest, January 1, 2000