Devil's Punchbowl

Despite fighting a cold, I convinced Kelvin that on Saturday, we wanted to climb Devil's Punchbowl, a 10-mile roundtrip hike in the Siskiyou Wilderness, just south of the Oregon border (we were headed to the Oregon Coast anyway [post forthcoming], so it was "on the way").

It was definitely devilish. And we unintentionally made it about a 12-mile hike.

We started at Doe Flat, fittingly named with a doe that greeted us as we parked.

 

The first three and a half miles was actually very easy (with a slight downgrade, which made our exhausted return trip the more devilish). We all enjoyed this hiking.

nice berries along the way

After about an hour and a half of walking, we noticed that we were starting to go downhill fairly steeply (and were hearing water, indicating an unanticipated creek), whereas my trail guide had noted that, by about 3.5 miles, we should have hit the spur to hit the steep switchbacks up to the top of the Punchbowl. We had the good sense to turn around, where (about a mile back up the trail) we noticed that we obviously missed the wooden sign indicating the right path.

 

Duh. Despite being set back about an hour and slightly tiring legs, Kelvin humored me and agreed to make a run for the top (about another mile and a half).

We had to carry Pep up the first mile of switchbacks who, although was a real trooper, doesn't do really well when it gets steep.

We climbed through some more open parts and rocks which really slowed us down and had us again questioning the route, but luckily had some awesome cairns to mark our path:

 I don't know if it's clear from this picture, but this is a cairn made by an arch of rocks!

 

Before the top, we hit Lower Lake

 

And then, we kept climbing.....

 

 

The view from the top (around 4800 ft) with the "bowl" of alpine lake surrounded by granite was quite stunning.

 

 

(unfortunately, I didn't notice that there was this much glare when we took the pictures...)

... so I stole this more representative pic from summitpost.org

(timer shots)

 

 

 

 

 

Pep enjoyed cooling off in the shade

From the top (after about a 20 min rest), it took us almost 3 more hours to get back to our car, with our tired legs (and slight upgrade on the way back).  I was really dragging, but Kelvin didn't even complain. What a great husband. We luckily had plenty of food and water and not-too-hot temps, but I definitely learned to watch closely for signs so as to not extend your already-devilish hike to an even longer, more devilish one :).