![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Fellow Travelers on the Falls Trails
Jul. 9th, 2023 06:15 pmIt was interesting doing some people-watching while we were hiking on Monday in the Oregon Cascades. ...Not that were people-watching, per se; it was more like us merely noting whom we shared the trails with. Especially because one pair of hikers, a couple of middle-aged women, were on 3 of the 4 trails we hiked.
I chatted them up as we were ascending the trail to Watson Falls together. "Hey, we've seen you at 3 of the 4 trails we've hiked so far. Where else are you hiking today?"
"Actually we've seen you at all four," one of them kindly corrected me. "We saw you in the parking lot at Toketee Falls."
I guess I was too busy laughing while taking video of the Toketee Car Wash— or taking pictures of the butterfly that Hawk coaxed on her finger— to have noticed them.
It was easy to spot them at the first two falls trails because those trails were so un-busy. Susan Creek Falls we had to ourselves when we started, and they and maybe one other small group arrived after us. At Fall Creek Falls they also started just after us, and then 3-4 more cars of people arrived.
Toketee falls had, like, 10x the number of visitors. That's part of why I didn't spot the two gals in the crowd. Though I did notice right away that Toketee Falls had a very diverse set of visitors. ...Actually it wasn't diverse; it was 80% South Asian. Whereas the first two hikes were almost exclusively White Caucasian, at Toketee Whites were a distinct minority. I wonder if a cultural association had an event at one of the lodges nearby.
At Watson Falls the hiker community skewed White again. That was primarily because there were several truckloads of wilderness firefighters on R&R there. The fire crews were mostly White and mostly male. We thanked them for their service.
The two gals I mentioned above did share some hints on where they were going next. I reconsidered right as soon as I asked them about their plans that I might seem creeper-ish by doing so... though at the same time I figured that given they've seen me on 4 hikes in one day, I'm almost certainly truly about the hikes and not about hitting on women.
Anyway, they mentioned one hike by name that seemed a bit out of our way. At the end of the day they were heading south and we were going north. But they also noted that there were a few drive-to falls nearby that they'd be visiting next because they were about done with hiking. That made me reconsider my plans for the day as I could tell I was getting close to being done with hiking, too. Once back at the car we pulled out Smedley and found two nice-looking falls with minimal hiking required.
I chatted them up as we were ascending the trail to Watson Falls together. "Hey, we've seen you at 3 of the 4 trails we've hiked so far. Where else are you hiking today?"
"Actually we've seen you at all four," one of them kindly corrected me. "We saw you in the parking lot at Toketee Falls."
I guess I was too busy laughing while taking video of the Toketee Car Wash— or taking pictures of the butterfly that Hawk coaxed on her finger— to have noticed them.
It was easy to spot them at the first two falls trails because those trails were so un-busy. Susan Creek Falls we had to ourselves when we started, and they and maybe one other small group arrived after us. At Fall Creek Falls they also started just after us, and then 3-4 more cars of people arrived.
Toketee falls had, like, 10x the number of visitors. That's part of why I didn't spot the two gals in the crowd. Though I did notice right away that Toketee Falls had a very diverse set of visitors. ...Actually it wasn't diverse; it was 80% South Asian. Whereas the first two hikes were almost exclusively White Caucasian, at Toketee Whites were a distinct minority. I wonder if a cultural association had an event at one of the lodges nearby.
At Watson Falls the hiker community skewed White again. That was primarily because there were several truckloads of wilderness firefighters on R&R there. The fire crews were mostly White and mostly male. We thanked them for their service.
The two gals I mentioned above did share some hints on where they were going next. I reconsidered right as soon as I asked them about their plans that I might seem creeper-ish by doing so... though at the same time I figured that given they've seen me on 4 hikes in one day, I'm almost certainly truly about the hikes and not about hitting on women.
Anyway, they mentioned one hike by name that seemed a bit out of our way. At the end of the day they were heading south and we were going north. But they also noted that there were a few drive-to falls nearby that they'd be visiting next because they were about done with hiking. That made me reconsider my plans for the day as I could tell I was getting close to being done with hiking, too. Once back at the car we pulled out Smedley and found two nice-looking falls with minimal hiking required.
