I was already out hiking at 7:00, filled with nervous excitement. I had a 3-mile bushwhack ahead of me today, and I wanted to get to it as quickly as I could.

One of my favorite photos from the trip. I remember the sweet scent of lupine colonies, and the warmth of morning light filtered through pine needles.

The Kettle Crest Trail was beautiful and alternated between light forest and open wildflower-covered hillsides. I hiked around the side of Bald Mountain, looking for the Edds Mountain Trail to my right. Before long, I started descending pretty steeply, and felt that something must be wrong. I hiked about a mile out of the way before I finally turned around and double-checked my map.

I backtracked to where I thought the Edds Mountain Trail should haved turned off, but still found nothing. I rounded the entire east side of Bald Mountain, found nothing, then turned back around for another pass, hiking at an extremely slow pace to look for the turn-off.

From this direction, the trail was incredibly faint, but visible – a narrow path in the grass leading up and around the shoulder of Bald Mountain. I had lost a full hour of morning hiking. I hadn’t even started bushwhacking yet, and I was already frustrated. Because of this small mistake, I decided that I didn’t want to take the 3-mile primary route bushwhack, and I would rather take the alternate route, which involved two shorter bushwhacks and a longer roadwalk.

Here’s the trail guide’s alternate route description that I was following (I had copied the necessary notes beforehand, since my phone was dead):

We begin our bushwhack looking for the easiest and safest route down the southern facing slope. Going down we try to stick close to the edge of the regrowth pines on the east. Our next waypoint is crossing an old mining road designated Forest Road 630.

After hiking on the Edds Mountain Trail for a while, I found a place with a pretty clear boot path down the hill. So I stuffed my sleeping pad into my pack, tied down anything that might catch on some vegetation, and dropped off of the ridge into the thick pine regrowth.

It was slow going. I started growing numb to the feeling of pine needles scraping against my skin. Every once in a while, I could catch a little break by following deer trails through the brush. I knew it was mostly a psychological challenge at this point, and if I kept heading south I would eventually hit one of the old forest roads.

After about 45 minutes of this, I started getting a bit nervous. I knew I was hiking at a slow pace, but I should have found a forest road by now. I double-checked my maps, and repeated to myself: If I keep heading south, I will eventually hit one of the forest roads. I found a trickle of water running south down the hillside, and resolved to follow it until I found the road. Since I had lost my compass two days previously, I was navigating using the sun and my intuition.

The trickle of water turned into a tiny stream, which turned into a larger stream. At this point I was alternating between wading in the water and pushing through the brush on the banks. The bushwhack was getting really hard. There were blowdowns everywhere, and I felt like I was doing more climbing and stumbling than walking. I found a large clearing that I could walk through, hopefully saving some time and headache. I gladly started tromping through it, but about 30 seconds in, I felt an almost-electric combination of stinging and itching. Nettles. It was an entire meadow of stinging nettles. The reaction was somewhat delayed, so I was already well into the clearing when I noticed it. I angrily tried to ignore the pain and get back to the “safety” of the stream.

At this point, I was starting to lose it. I couldn’t understand how this was happening – I had been bushwhacking for hour and a half, or maybe two hours? I’d found nothing. No trace of a road. I was totally lost. I sat down on a fallen log and started to cry.

I pulled myself together after a while and made a plan: I would try to find my way back up to the trail. If I had to camp down here, I would be OK: I had water and food. However, if I was still lost by tomorrow afternoon, I would hit the SOS button on my SPOT device.

With an emergency plan in place, I felt like I could make this work. I ate a couple of discount-store Lara bars and started working my way back upstream. Every step felt exhausting. I was tired of scrambling over fallen trees, slipping on rocks, getting stung by nettles. But the terror of being lost kept me hiking at a fast pace. My heart was pounding to keep up.

I started climbing more steeply, which was a good sign. I came to a large clearing with a rock outcropping and a good view of the surrounding mountains, ate another Luna bar, and pulled out my topo maps. I was in a sort of half-bowl with a distinctive bump to the east (or so I assumed; the sun was higher in the sky now and it was difficult to get reliable bearings). I did a double-take, and everything clicked into place.

I had started bushwhacking too early. I was following text directions for the alternate-route bushwhack (black dotted line), but I had started at the drop-off point for the primary-route bushwhack (red dotted line). My actual path (blue line) had taken me deep into the wrong valley, where I had no hope of ever finding a forest road.

The rush of understanding gave me all the energy I needed. I scrambled the last 1000 feet back to the trail, now unfazed by the constant scraping of thorns and pine needles. In one patch of dirt, I saw familiar footprints – my own, from hours before! I was able to follow my original path for the last quarter-mile or so, until I suddenly found the trail beneath my feet. I shouted with joy, elated by the feeling of safety. It didn’t even matter to me that I had lost an entire day; I knew that I would be safe, and that was enough.

On my way back to the cabin, I saw three hikers coming toward me. They asked me if I was an eastbound (hiker), and I told them, no, I’m a westbound who had a really bad day.

Those hikers were Karma, Shepherd, and Teddy, who I would run into again in Oroville, and far later in the Cascades.

It was a beautiful evening. I stopped to eat huckleberries on my way back to the cabin, and took time to enjoy the ease of hiking on a real trail. I filled up water again at the cow trough and retreated into the cabin for the night, stretching out on a cot to eat my macaroni and cheese dinner. Right before nightfall, I heard a knock at the cabin door. I sat straight up, and yelled, “Come in??”

The door creaked open, and a tall, muscular silhouette asked, “Hi, I’m a PNT hiker. could I share the cabin for the night?”

The hiker introduced herself as Jillian. We caught up with each other like long-lost friends, talking for an hour or two about our before we decided to turn in. My legs were still burning and tingling from the nettles, and Jillian gave me the last of her Tiger Balm to help.

The night was long, and the burning came in waves. I woke up every couple of hours and waited for the pain to subside before I could fall asleep again.