Our initial goal was simply to hike to Obsidian Falls, eat our small snack, and then hike back to our car below and be at Dale's house in Redmond by dark. However - being that I live in Michigan and Brian lived in Chicago, Illinois at the time ... this most likely would be a one-time opportunity to climb to the top of the Middle Sister for him and me. Thus at mid-afternoon, we struck out for the top of the Middle Sister -- NOT having a flashlight nor any food for energy. Climbing back down the mountain, Dale was like a mountain goat as was Brian, and they were flying down the side of the mountain much too quickly for me (Norm). I tried to keep up with them but slipped and wrenched my right knee. (Tore my meniscus I found out some days later). This really held us up from making time, and we did NOT find our trail at the base of the Sister until AFTER dark. There was no moon out that evening and it took longer than what we wanted to find the trail. Interestingly - we stumbled upon a group of hikers spending the night to hike up to the top of the Middle Sister the next day, and they told us where to find the trail, thank goodness. Yet we were STARVING! We had burned up so much reserve energy power-climbing the mountain that we were experiencing low-blood sugar issues, yet you think these campers would give us ANYTHING to eat? No way! One guy said, "If you are that stupid to power-climb the mountain in that short of time without water, food and a light, you can learn a lesson the hard way!" Nice folks. Once we found the trail, we had to walk through the dark, dark woods. You couldn't even see your hand in front of your face it was so dark. We contemplated spending the night up there and wait until daybreak to hike on down, but I needed to be in Boise, Idaho the next day to fly back to Michigan, so we decided to tip-toe through the blackness down the trail, holding onto each other's back shirt tails. I got stuck leading us down the trail; only way I could keep on the trail was to take a long branch and hold it out in front of me and keep praying a LOT - letting it hit branches and trees to tell us when we were getting off the trail. We lucked out without poking out our eyes in the black darkness or walking off a cliff, and reached our truck around 2 a.m. In driving back to civilization, a part in the motor broke and we got stranded. We were shivering (gets near freezing at night up there though it gets near 100 degrees in the lower valley during the day at that time!) and built a fire on the edge of the shoulder of the highway to keep warm - we had no extra clothes (me tank top and shorts only) coats or blankets - we had no food or water and was so dehydrated. Two bow hunters about an hour before daybreak were the first car we saw since breaking down; we flagged them down and they gave us a can of Pepsi to share. That's all they could spare. About half an hour later they returned; said they felt sorry for us and would drive us back to Redmond. We had PRAYED earlier God would move them to do that! Brother Dale had a friend who had a motor he could rob the part from; we drove back up as fast as we could to replace their broken part; then drove the repaired truck to John Day, Oregon to pick up my wife Kathleen, and off to Boise we drove like fleeing bank-robber bandits and made our flight back to Michigan just in the nick of time! What an experience (and precious memory) the whole thing WAS!

• published: 13 Feb 2015
• views: 238