OK; I wasn't going to do a report today. I mean, we don't need one every week, right? But something caught my eye...
Yep. Another mylar balloon. I have a special dislike for them. They are the number one thing I find out in the bush... There I am, in the middle of nowhere, a mile into the bush, and I find a shiny sheet of mylar hanging from a branch. (this one was just off the Pipeline - see photo) Sadly, I have come to expect trash on the trails, but it's particularly jarring when you stumble on it in the middle of nowhere.
I got to thinkin' about all the balloons I've seen in the stores the last few weeks. Thousands of them! All different colors and sizes. Hearts, roses, stars, and the usual birthday wishes...
Now, I know it's fun (tradition even) to turn 'em loose and watch them til they disappear. And they do - out of sight, out of mind. They drift lazily away, eastward, til they hit the foothills. With not enough lift to get them over the mountains, they settle to their grave. Usually in the middle of nowhere...
But, I guess that's alright if nobody's ever gonna see 'em, right? Except maybe me...
Comments
Hikin4fishin on Lord Hill Regional Park
Balloons. Early 80's (West)German protest songs notwithstanding, they're sorta cool, but not cool. I've found mylar balloons much farther out than Lord Hill, but all over the west slopes of the Cascades.
I have a pic of one very deep in a very deep gully, along a trail to my own Shangri-La, a place that took about 6 hours on the 2nd day of sometime painful bushwhacking to get to. Hey, it's not Shagri-La if it's not nigh unto impossible to reach now is it? This place is so remote even the deer say "Nahh, let's not bother. It's too tough to go there. Only the really dumb hoomans would go there..."
The truly impressive part of this balloon was that it landed there, at the bottom of a steep sided, heavily timbered gully, in the middle of the creek-bed. The canopy was almost impenetrable. Mid day August sun barely forced its way through to ground level. It's difficult to even imagine a successful intentional drop of an object from a helo that would make it to the floor.
OT - Solo hiking in this area makes one think of how difficult an extraction in case of injury would be. Does Sno County Rescue have a 300ft long line?
Posted by:
Hikin4fishin on Mar 24, 2018 09:09 PM