Payette Trail 3/2019

A month prior, I had hiked the Payette Trail to familiarize myself with the route and thereby imbue myself with a certain air of infallibility that comes with knowing where you are going. But then again, my comrades know me already and their opinions of my leadership, good, bad, or indifferent had been cemented into their minds long ago. At any rate, this was the day to actually lead a group on the hike. 

Good weather to start with

The weather gods were not kind to me. A pretty good rainstorm was forecast and accordingly, only three hikers (regulars Diane, Brad, and Lindsay) decided to go on a Richard Hike. Well, at least that made carpooling a whole easier. However, when we arrived at the trailhead, patches of blue sky appeared here and there in the cloud cover and the air was decidedly dry. Would our good fortune hold out?

It's a beautiful day, for the time being

Well, for the lakeside contour portion of the hike, yes it would. We had a rather enjoyable hike in dry weather and I daresay, we even enjoyed that wonderfully warm sensation of sunlight on skin here and there. Unfortunately, the weather forecast came to fruition just as we sat down for lunch at the intersection of the Payette and Osprey Trails.

Here comes the rain!

As we ate, the blue sky disappeared, overtaken by a fast-moving wall of ominous looking clouds. A gusty breeze announced the presence of the rainstorm and we'd have a steady rain falling on us for the rest of the hike. Accordingly, we all opted for a shorter route back by grabbing the Osprey Trail and now I was back in unfamiliar territory. So much for preparing the route ahead of time!

Totem in the middle of the forest

The Osprey Trail basically climbs up and over the peninsula lying between the French Gulch and Squaw Creek arms of Applegate Lake. Accordingly, the trail headed uphill at a moderate grade, which warmed us up sufficiently enough to ward off any cold from the inclement weather. After a mile or two, we arrived at Dagelma Trailhead, the parking lot empty because apparently, we were the only people in all of Oregon out for a hike on this wet day.

Lindsay hops over a trail obstacle

At least all the bad uphill stopped at the Dagelma Trailhead and it was all downhill from there. Our only travail (besides the steady rain) were a couple of large trees lying across the trail and we got to practice our clambering skills getting over them. At least no trees fell nearby, like in my previous outing on the Payette Trail. We unanimously agreed it had been a fine walk and we pitied all our friends who didn't go hiking out in the rain on this day.

Spiders from Mars

For more photos of this hike, please visit the Flickr album.

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