One of our fondest backpacking memory/mistakes was also our first trip. My husband and I have always been outdoors people. We own a boat, live in the Pacific Northwest and have gone “camping” for years. My husband had recently had a heart attack and so I wanted to keep our first trip “easy”. I planned our trip, did a lot of research and began to prepare. Not wanting him to carry a heavy load I decided that I could muster a 65 pound pack. It was, after all, only five miles to the cliff and then down the cliff to the ocean. I had checked local tide tables and selected a weekend with a full moon and therefore minus tides during the daytime. Everything seemed great so off we went.

The five miles of terrain was mostly flat. Flat, swampland. The cliff – yep a cliff. I dumped my pack over and picked it up at the bottom. Being new to the backpacking thing, we didn’t know what signs looked like. We saw a red sign with some black on it and just figured it must mean “stay away” or “trouble” what else would they use red for. We set up camp, hung our food, toiletries and anything that might have a scent and went to bed. In the middle of the night I woke up to something very large sniffing my head outside the tent. My night in shining armor, who had decided to sleep on the side of the tent away from the door, arms himself with a hatchet. Just in case the bear wasn’t really irritated, my husband could help. The bear left and we stayed up all night stoking the fire. We also hiked two miles down the sandy beach to collect water from a stream, each day. On our way home we decided to check out a little area back in the woods about 25 feet from where we had pitched our tent. Yep – stream.

Things I’ve learned:
Trails marked “moderate” in Washington State are often not.
“No bank waterfront” can mean “200 foot cliff at end of trail”.
Red and black signs are trail markers.
The sound of running water may not only be the ocean, check around, that stream could be closer than you think.
Bears will often leave if you make enough noise.
My husband screams like a girl.

Believe it or not we enjoyed our trip very much. If you are early in the season you can have miles and miles of coastline all to yourself. It’s become our little paradise get away and I can’t imagine a summer without going.