November 2025

November tends to be a month of transitions. We have to say goodbye to Fall and often see the start of Winter weather. The trails become laden in snow and the leaves have fallen off the trees. The temperatures drop dramatically and all my clothing layers come out. I bring out the spikes, gaiters, lined snow pants, heated vests, hats and gloves. My attention has to be mindful of hypothermia now. But the beauty that you can find in November is also outstanding. The sky is often stormy and dramatic. The sun comes as brief glimpses between the clouds. Sunset comes early. The humans are gone. It is fantastic. Especially for someone who adores sunsets.

This hike was a mixture of many feelings. I was going to a place I had only done once before and it had been a number of years. The rough gravel and mud forest service road getting there had not improved in that time I can tell you that! There were multiple fresh mud slides across the road where it clung to the sides of cliffs. I needed 4wd just to keep churning uphill through the slick, thick mud. Moments came where a part of me questioned if it was safe to keep driving on the cliff edges clearly slipping away a little more each moment. But I quickly shoved those thoughts aside. The crazy, take no prisoners, never stop parts of me on the trail clearly start on the drive to a hike. Once I have a plan in mind, I do not deviate from that commitment. I was sweating and my mouth was dry before I made it to the snowy trailhead. Not surprisingly, I was the only vehicle there.

Since there was icy snow starting right at the truck, I decided to go ahead and strap my crampons onto my boots and wear them for the entire hike. It is immensely satisfying to hike with giant spikes on my feet and I smiled as we hit the trail. There would be a lot of climbing to do to get to the peak we were heading for today. Luckily the snow was not deep enough to hide the trail from us. The initial climb started in the midst of an old forest fire which felt particularly somber with the dusting of slick snow.

We were climbing fast until we ran into a mile of extreme blowdown. The dead trees clearly could not withstand the storms of the last few years. They were fallen all around us, haphazardly crisscrossing on top of one another with their branches poking out in all directions. Moving through those conditions, all three tied together, is like working through a puzzle and feels a bit like a dance. If one of us climbs over, then we all do. If one of us climbs under, then we all do. We were weaving in and around stumps and roots, trying not to trip and fall. It dawned on me that this is as close to art as I get. The dance in nature is the only artistic bone I have in my body.

Josie Mae, the Arctic Wolf Hybrid, was doing an altogether different dance. She was in tracking mode. When she is on the trail of something, she hikes with her nose right to the ground which causes her entire body to sashay along, with her tail swinging back and forth behind her with each loping, slow, methodical step. She will often do this for a short period of time on a trail as she catches a brief scent of some critter, but then she moves on. Not today. Today, she was obsessed with the scent and then started to stop suddenly and intently look all around us. She started to make me pretty jumpy when she kept jerking to look back behind Nova and I. Each time, I jumped around to see what was there. Each time, I saw nothing. But the hair on the back of my neck started to stand up and I could feel something unnamed. Nova started to become jumpy and all of us were on edge.

I kept remembering the one and only time I had been on this trail before and how I had felt something then too. I had tried to ignore that memory and pretend it was nothing, but with the way Josie was responding today, I knew it wasn't nothing. Something lives here. Something foreboding in a way I can hardly describe. We are very comfortable with mountain lion and bear. We know deer and elk, chipmunks and rabbits. This was something that felt dark and sinister. The last time, I felt chased and when we got to the truck to leave, I threw everything in as quickly as I could. I was almost seeing a large dark demon flying toward us through the burned trees as I jumped in without changing my clothes or boots. I turned on the truck and expected to see a wall of black demons blocking my way when I turned on the headlights. I remember stomping on the gas peddle and flying down the road out of that forest.

I was doing everything I could to push these memories aside for today's hike. I had told myself that it was just one weird day and wouldn't repeat itself. There was nothing to be afraid of now. But Josie's behavior today told me everything I was selling myself to believe may not be true. True to Mustard Seed form, I laced up my boot straps tighter and pushed onward and upward. I refused to let fear take hold of me. I refused to be turned back from my goal. Pretty soon, I was distracted by the Bear grass. Now, I love Bear grass in all seasons, but there is just something about seeing it in snow that is especially lovely.

We kept pushing up the dark trail moving through deep forest, up and down ravines, heading toward the peak. From the small glimpses I was getting of the sky above us through the thick canopy, all I could see were clouds. I suspected that when we arrived at the peak, we would not be able to see anything but the inside of one large cloud. But it didn't matter to me, as long as we made it. I needed to stand on that peak today. As we made the final ascent, I gasped as I saw the clouds parting and what looked like a view to come! I wanted to should out loud with joy. Praise the Lord!!!

This peak is the site of an old lookout tower. There are still a couple of old cement blocks, but otherwise you would never know. I made myself a seat on some of the foundational blocks to wait for the sky to give me her best show. It didn't take long to start to shiver as we were holding still and no longer climbing. Nova came to tell me she was cold and it was time for her snood. It was then that I remembered I had forgotten her head covering. So I took the heated scarf out of my pack that I had for a hypothermic emergency for myself, and wrapped it around her head. As I turned it on, and it filled with warmth, Nova's eyes widened in surprise, then joy.

The longer we sat, the colder it became. The wind started to kick up. I was shivering. But I didn't want to leave as I felt the sky had more to show us. That is when I saw the sun start to break through the layer of dark clouds around us and light up hill tops all around us. We started to pray that the sun would grace our peak soon too. "Come this way" I shouted to the giant orb in the sky.

Then it happened. As if it was there all along. The sun moved over our peak and we could bask in sudden warmth. It was magical. I am pretty sure we all closed our eyes and just rested in the moment. Rested in God and nature. We watched the storm clouds around us, surely jealous of our sun spot. The ridge line next to us lit up like fire as the sun moved across it. It felt like God moving and that we were in the safest place on the planet in that moment. Even Josie wanted to watch God moving.

I made the mistake of looking behind us in this moment. Ahead of us was beauty, joy and peace. Ahead of us, I felt God. But behind us was the way we had to hike back out through the dark and eerie forest full of evil. Behind us lived fear and worry. It was dark and foreboding even now when I looked in that direction.

But instead of worrying about what was to come, we settled in and snacked and enjoyed the show before us. The clouds lifted more and it was just enough that we could see Mt. Jefferson and Mt. Hood to our South. We all smiled as the sun started to set and lit up the sky for our enjoyment. It felt as if we were the only ones left on the planet.

When we couldn't procrastinate any further, we strapped on all our gear again and headed back the way we had come. I could feel the dread in each one of us as to what was to come. This time we would be doing it in the black of night. I wasn't sure if that would be better or worse as I knew the time would come for us to feel full fear and want to run from demons.

Just as we got to the bottom of the peak's short approach trail and needed to make a left turn to head for the ravines between us and our trusty trail truck, a big branch snapped to our left. Now as night hikers, we always hear branches snapping in the dark. Usually it is just deer or elk moving away and we don't think anything of it. But this time, something happened that I had never seen before. My first thought, if I am being honest, was "Oh shit, we are going to die". The reason I had this feeling was that the moment the branch snapped, Josie jumped straight into the air and then turned to look at me....like I was going to save us. The ONLY time I have EVER seen that Wolf show fear is when we have been on high exposed peaks in hurricane force winds. Nothing but ferocious winds has ever startled her or made her show fear. So for her to jump at something we always experience filled every cell in my body with dread. For the big, tough, Wolf to look to me to protect her, somehow made it worse. I placed my hand on the gun in my holster, but then turned on all three flashlights strapped to me. I aimed them into the forest to our left, but once again, saw nothing. We stood perfectly still just looking intently and listening. Nothing. But the fear I had been pushing off of us, and pretending did not exist, started to fill me, despite all my best efforts to push it down.

"Okay, let's go to the truck Ladies." I whispered as quietly as I could. Josie was still jumpy and looking from right to left and behind us as she led the way. I tried to make the miles pass quickly and filled my mind with anything and everything except fear inducing images of demons and monsters in the dark. It mostly worked. But then Josie jumped again and looked hard into the darkness to our right on a steep embankment. I shone my brightest light down that embankment and caught two reflections aiming up at us. "It's nothing." I said quietly. Then those two reflections started to blink in unison. I took a deep breath and watched them closely. While they kept blinking, they were not moving toward us. "We're fine. Probably just Bambi guys" I whispered again and gently pushed Josie to keep moving forward.

In the section where she did most of her intent tracking earlier in the hike, Josie suddenly wanted to run and then stop suddenly while looking right, left and behind us every little bit. It was surely not a boring hike out, I can tell you that. My heart was racing from the wild ride and I was not sure if I was loving it or hating it. But it wasn't like we had any other alternative, so we faced our fears and kept moving. At times it felt as if my lungs were in my throat and my heart was the only thing left inside my hollow chest. "This is true fear." I said to myself. "Something lives here and does not want us here". I could feel it to my very core. But I didn't have too much time to ponder this as we had arrived at the mile stretch of downed trees and this time we were descending amongst them in darkness. Of course, this took the technicality up quite a notch.

Just as we got to one of the biggest log obstacles, and the plan was that we each hop onto one log, then navigate to the next before jumping down, Josie made a last minute change to that idea without consulting us. She apparently decided it would be a better idea for her to jump over both giant logs in one huge leap. Well the problem with this plan was that we were still tied together. When she did her giant leap it jerked me from where I was standing and slammed me into the tree, her weight dangling off the other side. Of course, the section of tree she slammed me into happened to have a short and very sharp branch pointing directly out toward my groin. Yup, the Wolf tried to impale my groin. How does someone explain such a thing I thought. The branch had deeply scratched and gouged along my upper right thigh and pressed right into flesh....flesh just inside my underwear. I cursed, I yelled, I whimpered as I pulled back off the branch and instantly could feel blood running. I could not tell if the blood was pooling inside my skin in just a bruise or pouring outside and down my leg. (Turned out it was some of each in both spots.) But since I had 2 pairs of pants on and we were in the heart of darkness with something hunting us, I decided to suck it up and keep moving without looking at the damage in that moment. My only hope was that my sudden cursing and screaming made whatever was tracking us realize they didn't want this kind of crazy.

(Now on a very inappropriate side note, I have to point out what 2025 has created. So a month or so ago, Mt. Adams left me with a scar low down on my left thigh. Now, this peak was surely leaving me with a scar on my upper right thigh and groin. It dawned on me that hiking this year has created a bit of a scar landing strip effect leading to my crotch. Funny....but not funny.)

We moved quickly once through the maze of downed logs and almost ran for the truck. I was so cold that I was super excited to check my temperature as I was sure I had finally made my goal of dropping below 90 degrees on trail. (Sadly I was only at 94 degrees!! What the heck!!!!) But once we made it to the truck, I made a point of moving slowly, with purpose. I refused to let the demons here make me rush like last time. I slowly took off all my gear and changed my clothes. I slowly got the girls set up. I stopped to urinate. (Okay, I did hold a flashlight the whole time). I brushed my hair when I took off my stocking cap. I took a long, slow drink. I changed my boots. Now, was my heart racing the whole time and were images of monsters filling my head. You bet ya!! But I was going to win this one. I walked slowly around my truck to get in the driver's seat only slightly nervous to turn on my headlights. Nothing was there. I turned on my bright lights. Nothing. I laughed as I reached for some M&M's for our traditional post hike reward.

Today's hike was a reminder to me to never let fear take hold for long. To never let up on my goals. I set my eyes on the sunsets and ignore the darkness behind me. This is a reminder for me in my day to day life. It is so very easy to get sucked into negative thinking. To go down those rabbit holes of despair that things will never get better, that we are trapped, that we will always live in darkness. But that is not true. We have to just hold on a little tighter and a little longer. We have to look up and focus on God and His plans for us. We have to trust His timing will be perfect and that there is a reason for the seasons of darkness. They are not to be feared, they make us who we are. Dare I say, the darkness makes us bad asses. I can embrace that.

"Fear not, for I am with you;

Be not dismayed, for I am your God;

I will strengthen you, I will help you,

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."

Isaiah 40:10