I know, I never followed up on the Whereabouts Unknown saga. You must be looking for some kind of closure. I understand. I will continue this tale when there are updates. Life got hot, and I'm still nursing a chronic case of decrepitude.
In the interim I want to share some tales of exploration from my earlier years. Particularly, I want to share snippets of adventures from what I call Star Gap Ridge. It's the big ridge on the west side of Tunnel Ridge with an old road through an old campground and passes by several (formerly) scenic overlooks and lots of exposed rock. It's always been one of my favorite areas in the Gorge.
In the '90s, my cousin Dustin and I checked out any bare chunk of rock we could find. And I have a pinnacle fetish. We scouted out the Three Pinnacles and climbed First Pinnacle which I remember as being a fun adventure.
After visiting the pinnacles, we explored further out the ridge. We called this one formation "Nada Dome" partly for its shape and partly in honor of the perpetual basketball game that seemed to be going on at the time down in the community of Nada at a ball goal that overhung the main road. Nada Dome was the next most attractive thing out there, so we scrambled down the exposed slab to the saddle between the main ridge and the rock and found a 4th class scramble up on the dome proper. We dropped a top rope on a few lines and moved on. I also did a top rope solo line out on the end of the ridge on the formation we always called Titanic Rock.
Fast forward maybe five years and I’m hiking out that ridge with my dog Roger. Roger was a seventy-five-pound lab/Newfoundland mix, and he was a big baby. Wouldn’t let me out of his sight.
Anyway, I decided I was going to scope out Nada Dome again and scooted down the exposed slab and kept telling him to stay. I hopped off the slab onto the narrow part of the saddle and as I started walking toward the dome hear my big dumb dog scooting down the slab too. And before I could stop him, he hopped down onto the saddle.
I hadn’t had a cell phone very long, but I had one and was shocked to discover I had service. I called my then wife and told her the dog and I might be late getting home.
There was no way to get Roger back up the slab. It was too sketchy, and he was too big.
I went Touching the Void mode and started looking for a way down off the formation. The best spot I found was a steep gully down to a six-foot cliff at the bottom and onto the forest floor.
I put a short lead on Roger and held onto the end as I scrambled down. The big oaf stayed close to the edge because he didn’t want me to get away, but when I got to the ground, I started reeling him in and he started backpedaling and fighting me, but I had the advantage of gravity and pulled him off on top of me and somehow caught his fluffy ass. It’s no wonder I have back problems now.
I assumed we’d end up having to hike down to Nada Tunnel Road and then have to hike up the far side of the tunnel to get back on the ridge, but fortunately there’s a walk up not far from the base of Nada Dome so what might have ended up being an hours long detour ended up being maybe only an hour.
Maybe this place has bad juju for me. Another time I was by myself hiking and at the top of the slab down to the saddle and the loop of my bootlace snagged on the opposite quick lace hook and I almost launched headfirst off the Nada Dome overlook. I truly don’t know how I didn’t die that day.
I could also tell of the time I got rained on while hiking in the area and had to strip naked to dry out all my clothes after the sun came out and after a few minutes realized I could see the road below from where I lay in the sun. Another time I hiked out to Titanic Rock and picked up a bad case of turkey mites.
Anyway, maybe it's time to head back out there.
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