Wildfire smoke blew into our valley on Monday, August 3rd, and would not go away. The AQI hovered in the red zone, between 150-190, for four days. Even though this has happened in the past, worse, and for longer, it is never fun, and it messed up our outdoor plans (running and yardwork). I took Tuesday off from running, and it felt nice to have a recovery day. By Wednesday, though, Jeff and I were both ready for a real run. So we hauled Jay, Rose, and Amber up to the highest mountains that are the closest to Sunnyside: Chinook Pass. Rose drove us the entire 100 miles (1 hour and 50 minutes) to the parking lot by the Pacific Crest Trail in Chinook Pass.
We ran north on the PCT towards Sheep Lake and Sourdough Gap, a beloved segment I have traversed several times. Jeff and Jay quickly faded into the distance down the trail while Rose, Amber, and I started a bit more cautiously. It was both Rose and Amber's first real trail run, so I ran in front to show them the ropes. I explained that on trails, you run when you can and walk when you can't run. It's simple, but the stop and go nature of trail running can feel a bit foreign at first. Some people (agile, mountain goat-type people like Jeff) can handle the quick fancy footwork required to run over rough, root-y, rocky sections of trail. I choose a more cautious method, walking any time the trail gets too rough. It's how I preserve my ankles! Rose and Amber were ok with it.
The three of us stayed together for the first mile. Then Amber tripped and fell, somehow only scraping the side of her 4th finger? We stopped and I used my baggie first aid kit to put a bandaid on her finger. After that, Amber's morale and motivation were shot and she kept falling behind and grumbling about how her legs hurt and her finger really hurt. I did my best to convince Amber that she didn't need her finger to run, and that she had hiked this trail last year and loved it, so she could look around and enjoy the scenery rather than focus on her finger pain. It didn't help.
Rose and I ran back to Amber a few times before we finally reached Sheep Lake 2 miles from the parking lot. Jay ran past us on his return to the car. We paused briefly at the lake, then kept run-hiking along. Amber fell behind immediately, so when Jeff came back towards us on his way to the parking lot, he had her turn around too. I told him to whoop if Amber decided to turn back. A few seconds later, Rose and I heard a whoop. Rose whooped back because my whoop was too quiet. Now Rose and I were free to move forward without worrying about Amber behind us. We decided to hike up one more mile to Sourdough Gap (3 miles from the parking lot) before turning around. We jogged some of it and hiked lots of it. We took silly pictures at the top of the gap with the gorgeous views, then headed back down. It was a pleasant 6 mile activity. We ran about 4 miles of it and hiked the other 2 miles. I love trail time with my Rose!
Jay also tripped and fell on the trail, poor guy. His knees were a bit banged up, but he said it wasn't too painful.
Jeff drove on the way back. We stopped at Costco for hot dogs (them) and ice cream (all of us) plus a modest cart of groceries (I shopped while they ate, then swallowed two lactase pills so I could enjoy my strawberry sundae). We made it home around 3pm, back where we started in the thick smoky 179 AQI of Sunnyside. Jeff looked at me when we got home and said "right when my smoke headache had finally gone away..."
Other events from the week:
Thursday morning, Jay left at 4:45am for a stake youth ages 16+ 3 day 58 mile river rafting trip on the Salmon River through central Idaho, dipping briefly into Oregon, and finishing in Washington. Here's what Wikipedia says about the Salmon River:
"Salmon River (Idaho), also called the "River of No Return", flows 425 miles across central Idaho. It starts in the Sawtooth Mountains, carves the second-deepest gorge in North America, and empties into the Snake River. It is one of the longest free-flowing rivers in the United States."
28 boys and 18 girls went on this epic rafting adventure. Jay had a great time rafting and camping and cliff jumping (he said he did one cliff jump--off the highest cliff--quality over quantity, haha). He said the air was smoky, but it got clearer over time. We have some very intrepid stake youth leaders, who planned and executed this whole trip--maps, navigation, food, and all--on rented rafts. Jay said his favorite part of the trip was seeing all of the scenery from the raft: they started in the trees on the Salmon River and moved past brown cliffs when they connected to the Snake River. He didn't have his phone so he didn't take any pictures. Maybe the leaders took some to share? Unknown at this point. [this site has some cool pictures of the Salmon River: https://whitewaterexpeditions.com/historic-stops-along-idaho-salmon-river-of-no-return/ ]
Back home, we exercised inside the barn on Thursday, which isn't exactly sealed from the outside air, so my lungs felt heavy. Friday the air quality dipped below 100, into yellow zone for the first time, so we ran outside. But whew, I could still feel the smoke in my throat and lungs. I spent Friday afternoon at my friend's house. She invited a group of us over to play games and eat lunch, but we ended up just eating and then talking for 4 hours. As busy moms of teenagers, we don't get together often enough, so when we do, we make the most of it!
On Friday night, Rose and Amber slept over at their cousins' house 20 minutes away in Grandview. Rose sent me pictures of the awesome blanket fort they built over top of the trampoline. Jeff and I were home in our house alone together for 17 hours. It was so quiet. So. Quiet. We enjoyed the quiet empty house, but it also felt like something was missing! This will be our life in 7 years when all of our kids have graduated high school. Too bad pregnancy was so deadly--having our 3 kids in 5.5 years made our time with kids at home short! I was very happy to see my kids when they got home.
When I looked outside on Saturday morning, I felt a jolt of excitement similar to what I feel when fresh snow appears overnight during winter: the air was clear and the sky was blue!!! I could see the hills to the north AND the hills to the south! I could even see the tip of Mt. Adams on the horizon, slightly fuzzy through a light haze. I celebrated with a 6 mile run with Kennedy (on of our beloved high school runners).
Then I donned my dirt-crusted stiff overalls and attempted to do a week's worth of yardwork in a day. I finished trimming and weeding around the driveway trees and mowed all along the front of our driveway out to the mailbox. I mowed all around the fruit trees. I even mowed a massive patch of 5 foot tall weeds that popped up where the old shed used to be on the front lot. When I went inside nearly 3 hours later, I opened our blinds in the front of the house so I could enjoy the view of the well-trimmed, finally-not-shaggy front lot. Jeff changed the mower blades after my rough bumpy thick weed-hacking mow (we have two sets of blades to alternate between, so Jeff only has to sharpen both sets every other time he changes the blades--it helps because the blades need to be changed at least once a month with all the mowing we do, preferably every 2 weeks). Once the fresh sharp blades were installed, Amber mowed the entire almost 3 acre lawn. Our mower shows that we have mowed for over 2,500 hours in the past 3 years!
Jay got home around 8:30pm on Saturday night, tired, slightly sunburned, and bursting with nature--literally. He said the only toilets were buckets that they had to transport with them, sooooo basically nobody wanted to poop on the 3 day rafting trip. HAH. He made use of our indoor plumbing immediately.
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