Fourth of July with Bonaparte.

July 27, 2018. Bonaparte Lake resort to Stealth camp off trail.

I had reservations in Oroville in two days and planned to take a zero (miles hiked) day there as well. My pack was light and I was in no hurry.

After breakfast at the Resort, they didn’t open until 8:00, I started up Mount Bonaparte. Later, I would need to look up why a tall mountain in central Washington was named for a short French dictator. I was going to go from 3,000 feet above sea level to at least 6,000 feet.

The higher I went, the more I sweated and slowed. At one point, a trail crew had clearly cut and cleared some large logs. Inexplicably, they left a six foot clump of branches in the trail between the cut logs. I thought I should do a good trail deed and move the branches once I got over them. However, halfway across, I felt a sharp pain on my left forearm and looked down to see a hornet stinging me. I smashed it, registered there were a large number of hornets around me, and put Usain Bolt to shame in my sprint away. No wonder the trail crew had not cleared the branches.

On the trail, I am a little bit of a hypochondriac. My first thought was I had not been stung in over 40 years. I wondered how allergic reactions tons to bee stings developed. My backcountry solution was the Nyquil pills (2) I had from my sinus issue had, among much else, anti histamine. After ten minutes, it was clear I was not going to die and u just got on with my day.

The trail offered a choice:split off and take a level contour around the mountain or go up to almost the staffed fire lookout tower and then bomb downhill. I chose the longer 4th of July contour around Mount Bonaparte. I was not in a rush and had no desire to see a lookout.

Although it was still smokey, it was a good choice. On the eastern side of the mountain, the trail was a little scarce, but discernible. However, about halfway around, it was clear a trail crew had just recently cleared blowdowns, but also widened and smoothed the trail. It was impressive. To help you visualize, the trail went from a faint eight inch path through grass to a scraped 24 inch clear trail.

I went past one supposedly “reliable” water source that was non-existent. I was concerned. No need as this 4th of July trail crossed several small, cold beautiful streams. Here’s a video of one of them that seemed almost like a screen saver.

To be honest, there were some sections of zombie forest. Tons of dead trees across the ground and hundreds of standing dead trees. It is hard to maintain a trail in a zombie forest and not much fun to hike on it.

I found what I think was a boundary tree. To my untrained eye, it seemed like an animal about the size of a cougar had scratched a tree about six feet high to mark its territory.

I spooked a large moose. It did not have antlers, was powerful in the shoulders, and moved with strength and grace through blowdowns. Of course, after 100 feet it stopped and turned around and looked at me.

Next I came to an old cabin that was actually serviceable. The roof was whole, the door snug and there was a sturdy bunk and functioning stove inside. It was called the Riggow cabin and it was amazing how it lucked and did not burn in the fires that have swept up this mountain over the years.

I descended down to cattle area. Cows grazed freely and messed up the water sources. Before leaving the national forest, I decided to camp on public land. I crossed a water source and chose a campsite where trees had fallen across the cow trails thinking this was a dead end for them.

I filtered all the water I would need from the source, setup my tent, and ate. Later I walked back to the trail junction to see if the other hiker made it through. He had and must’ve taken the shooter steeper route.

Going back to my tent, I ran in to a cow standing in the water source. She looked me in the eye and just crapped right in the water. Immediately, I vowed to have steak in Oroville.

A small herd of cows kept wanting to walk by my tent. Even into the night I had to get out and shoo them away

A loud group of coyotes announced nightfall and I enjoyed a small steady breeze blowing down the mountain, making for a cool evening of sleeping after a long hot day of hiking.