Hiking plans during the COVID crisis

[retired jerry]

The gas station at Seven Feathers casino at mile post 99 on I-5 is self serve so you can maintain social distance

I can get to and from Trinity Alps just stopping there

[jessbee]

The gas station at Seven Feathers casino at mile post 99 on I-5 is self serve so you can maintain social distance

I can get to and from Trinity Alps just stopping there

This is really helpful. The one exception I'm making is a trip to the Trinity Alps later this month. Thanks!

[Nemo]

where do you go in BC?

the last time we were there was Sept 10, 2001. Got across border just before they closed it for a while

That's pretty wild--I visited Victoria, BC over the Labor Day weekend that year, so I was there about a week before you.

[adamschneider]

There are a lot of self-serve gas stations these days. I recently pumped my own gas in John Day, Heppner, and The Dalles.

See: Map of Oregon self-serve gas rules

But yeah, Seven Feathers is an exception on I-5.

[justpeachy]

I cancelled my trip to Glacier national park

We did the same. A busy national park seemed like a bad idea, and while we're hoping to reschedule for next summer I have a feeling it will actually be several years before we're able to safely visit.

[retired jerry]

hopefully, next summer things will have calmed down

we'll be able to hug relatives, shake people's hands, go to public events with 100s of people,... big party to celebrate

maybe we can maintain some of the social distancing so we don't infect each other with other diseases?

[xrp]

No one should be going anywhere to go hiking.

The virus is still out there.

It’s no surprise that cases are spiking with all the hikers/backpackers out.

Your hiking adventures can wait. Stay home, you may not realize the impacts that are possible. Our Oregon scenic sites will be there for you when it is safe to get back to them.



As an alternative, you should set up a treadmill in front of a 1080p or 4K TV and watch youtube videos of other people hiking or backpacking while you are on your treadmill.

That way you will not kill anyone. It will also help bring case load down so we can open.

[Gregory]

@xrp:
You are certainly entitled to your opinion; however, I don't share it. There are plenty of folks able to work and conduct their daily lives in a safe manner during the COVID crisis. I'm one of them. The key is taking certain precautions, such as masking up when in close proximity to other people, washing one's hands frequently with soap and water or at least using hand sanitizer when soap and water are not readily available. Aside from these practices, I still pretty much conduct my daily activities of living as usual. I'm not about to stop road bicycling, mountain biking, hiking or backpacking unless it is made illegal to do so, and we're a long way from that. I see folks wearing masks while driving ALONE in their cars and while walking outside with nobody anywhere near them. That is silly. You do what you want and stay home. That just leaves more wild areas for the rest of us to enjoy.

[Bosterson]

@xrp:
You are certainly entitled to your opinion; however, I don't share it.

XRP is really the only troll on this forum. Rest assured that a big yellow scare sign is not his "opinion." His posts can be safely ignored.

[Charley]

I'm a year-round camper/backpacker/snow-camper. I hadn't spent a night outside since this started, though, and the mental health toll has been large, especially since I'm unemployed and probably unemployable for. . . well, probably until most people are vaccinated (I'm a musician, usually playing for audiences of 1,000+). In one of the great ironies of this event, with my normally frantic performing life completely over for the foreseeable future, I suddenly have more time than ever to travel the mountains, and yet, since staying at home is safer, and I have no clue when I'll make a steady paycheck again, I've been stuck here at home, saving money and trying to save lives. On the other hand, I'm going slowly crazy, and probably driving my wife crazy, too.

When epidemiologists say that one should assess the safety of a certain activity by considering the prevalence of Covid in one's community, I've always wondered if they meant one's geographic community or social community. My geographic community is the hardest hit county in a not-particularly hard hit state. On the other hand, my social community consists of suddenly unemployed middle class musicians who are now mostly sitting at home. I don't even know anyone who has tested positive for Covid, except for Facebook friend in a state on the East coast that didn't shut down quickly enough. I have also been encouraged by hearing from the State that most cases here are due to workplaces, nursing homes and the like, and social gatherings, and by reading numerous articles about the lack of evidence for outdoor spread by people who are not right next to each other.

So. . . I went backpacking in Olympic National Park with a friend for seven days last week. Neither of us is working, and neither of us has a household member working, so we've all been sitting at home a lot or doing smaller trips with our own households. All of our coworkers, unemployed as well, have apparently stayed safe during this time, so we figured that the chance of picking the disease up at the grocery store or through the mail was so remote that the mental health benefit outweighed the risk. It's kind of a compromise to travel together, but since our "covid risk budget" is pretty well-managed, it felt like an acceptable risk. Considering how long and physically stressful the trip was, and the fact that we wouldn't really be interacting with other people during our trip, and so if we were carrying Covid, we must have picked it up at the grocery store, and it's likely one or both of us would get sick before returning home, thus probably preventing transmission to our respective households. Now we are considering combining "Covid households" so that we can do shorter trips without the necessity of spending seven days away from home.

Some specifics:
Buff at hand on trail, seeking less busy spots, not hanging out with other people on trail, etc. The trails were not too crowded, and the NPS is limiting overnight stays even more than normal.

The weird thing is, this seven days of backpacking and non-technical mountain climbing felt like the most normal part of my life in 2020. It's truly the closest thing I have to normalcy at this point, and for the foreseeable future. Considering the mental health challenge that the global pandemic, national social unraveling, and long-term unemployment represent, I would gladly accept the very slightly elevated risk involved with backpacking, and will be doing my best to minimize any risk to anyone else along the way, at least until there's another shelter-in-place order (close readers might notice that, technically, it has never been lifted, even though parts of town look just like normal, and Oregonians are flying all over the country again). Considering how completely un-seriously large segments (*ahem*) of our society are taking the virus, backpackers are not the problem.