I made my way up to the Gorge Friday night due to the fact that it is almost a 4hr drive for me. I exchanged some PM's with Ken and there were some work and weather concerns for others that were planning to come to do LOST but I really want to get in some Gorge time. I arrived at Old Conley around 7PM and made the short hike into Lost Dog Camp. I got my hammock set up and built a nice fire to have dinner by. Shortly after dinner, a storm system moved through so I hunkered down under my tarp to ride it out and later fell asleep to the pitter patter of rain on my tarp.
Saturday morning I woke up to a beautiful sunrise over the east rim. I decided I would pack up my gear and head to the Old Conley parking area just to see if anyone showed up with thoughts that if not, I would just go see Hackers, and Blue Jay Points on the Rock Jock.
Shortly after 9AM jlwintz showed up and we decided we would wait to see if any of the others made it. I showed jlwintz the Directions for LOST that Ken sent me (Spot on directions!! Thanks so much Ken), and we quickly decided that we were going to go for it!
We tried to enter LOST a bit too early off the RJ and had a heck of a bushwhack there. Once we found the trail it was really easy to follow. There is still a lot of flagging there from when Ken, Hawk-Eye, and others did it last year. There were great views of the gorge the whole way through and I personally really enjoyed One Bat Cave and the Balcony Area.
jlwintz repaired the wind chimes at the Balcony area before we made the last push out of Zen Canyon. I had a little weird dizzy spell coming out the RJ but I immediately felt better after eating so I'm guessing it was some type of blood sugar thing.
I stopped by Louise's for a good solid meal and find out the weather forecast. I then decided to head on home after a nice chat with Ms. Louise. She was worried about me making the drive home after hiking all day (guess I looked kinda tired) so she fixed me up a big to go coffee. That is one great group of folks there!
I unintentionally left two gifts to the Gorge Gods along the trail. One being a nice bench made knife and also my hat, but not real upset about either.
It was a great hike and another great weekend in the Gorge. I really enjoyed meeting and hiking with jlwintz.
I'll let the video and pictures tell the rest:
Pictures:
http://s294.photobucket.com/albums/m...Gorge-%20LOST/
video:
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