There were six of us in total. I flew in from the land stolen by Calvert. CJV and Jules Verne arrived from the Sonoran Desert. Matty B. and Jeppy left Jersey country early to meet Montgomery Scott on a road trip journey from the City of Fallen Angels. The goal was to enjoy ourselves in the mountain villa overlooking Cle Elum Lake, and enjoy ourselves, we did! Graepe group of dudes to do this trip with, and I am definitely looking forward to the next one.
The video below will give you the general idea of what went down, but I document a few stories below as I don’t want to forget them.
Oh yeah, and here are some hikes:
First Hike Down the River:
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/11146324990
Then we took a dip into the lake:
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/11146513793
Kayaking the next day:
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/11152565070
Hike with Carlos:
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/11160405097
Seatlle Bike:
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/11168396517
Too Late to Evacuate
I won’t be able to capture how funny this was via text, but I’m going to write it down so that I remember it and can laugh at this years from now. Quote from Jeppy: “I am a man of extremes. I want everything to be totally OK or {stares at camera, uses deep voice typically used to disguise the voice of someone to protect their identity} ‘too late to evacuate’”.
Overprotective Cyclops
There was a local “outfitter” called “Last Resort” that was just a few miles down the road from our cabin. They rented us boats one day, and we told them we would likely be back the next day to rent their electric bikes. They had some pretty sweet looking electric mountain bikes that we were planning to ride on some forest roads. Well, as we were approaching Last Resort to rent these bikes that second day, we ran into the cycloptic mechanic, and boy did he not want us to rent those.
He just went on and on about how we would break them and have a bad time. It sounded like maybe in the past some people went out on them, broke down, and then came back and screamed at everyone. However, we were about to give this establishment like $600 to rent these bikes. The cyclops went on and on, “you guys don’t want to rent these bikes. You will have a bad time. I mean, you can rent them if you want to, but you don’t want them. I told the owner not to get them. Look, here’s a broken one”. He gestured towards a bike that was missing a pedal, and another with a broken derailleur. Sounds like he probably had a point.
The best part was during all these rants, he would occasionally break into a “no is not in our vocabulary”. Like, bro, you are literally telling us no. Anyway, we endured about 5 minutes of this and decided not to rent anything that day. It sort of threw a wrench into our plans, but at least it made for a pretty fun story. Also, probably a good thing we didn’t go get stuck somewhere and break those bikes. Then he would have had to do his job.
Someone Drowning
CJV and I went for a hike on the day when we didn’t rent bikes, and on our way back, we saw cops EVERYWHERE along the road. This road went alongside a river. We finally saw a dude in a wetsuit with “Rescue” printed on it. Apparently someone fell into the water and didn’t come back up. Huge bummer.
Overall Lack of Snow
I’m not an expert in snow, or a local of the area, but it sure looked like there was not nearly enough snow on those mountains. The river raging as hard as it was was definitely indicative of a lot of recent snow melt. My guess is that area is gonna be lit up like a tinderbox in the fall. Huge bummer.