Mosquito Creek

With nighttime temps forecasted to be a balmy 43F (unconfirmed since I left my thermometer attached to my old Exos) I decided to head out to the coast for a weekend to cure myself of cabin fever as well as test out a bunch of new gear. I’ve backpacked every section of the Olympic Coast except the following three: Kalaloch to Ruby Beach, Oil City to Mosquito Creek, and Cape Alava to Shi Shi. Since I’d already been to Mosquito Creek from the north (via Third Beach and Toleak Point) I decided to try approaching from the south, checking another section off my list.

Trailhead

I was the only car in the Oil City Trailhead parking lot (which includes a restroom), although there were some fishermen parked just a ways back up the road. In fact, aside from a random woman that I startled on the trail as I hiked out of my campsite (note to self: always say “howdy” on the coast since the noise of the ocean means people can’t hear you coming) I didn’t see a single other person at any distance. This is probably because this section is awful.

After following the Hoh River out to the ocean and crossing an impossibly large driftwood wasteland you come to a sandy beach. Turning north the beach becomes gravelly, and then rocky, and then boulder-y, and then headland-y, until you find yourself on a tiny sliver of gravelly beach with the mighty Hoh Head blocking your path:

Lunch before the Hoh Head

This is an absolutely massive headland (followed by a series of slightly smaller headlands) which cannot be rounded and must be ascended via a series of the steepest cable ladders and ropes I’ve ever seen:

Sideways for extra spookiness
Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here

The second one had water running down it, making both the steps and rope slick. These make the rope ladders between Third Beach and Toleak Point (and all the other rope ladders I’ve seen on the coast) look like child’s play as they’re almost completely vertical.

Once past the ladders it’s a three-and-a-half mile mud-filled slog through coastal forest with only fleeting views of the coast. Because the trail is rarely flat or solid you can expect a top speed of around a mile an hour. At the end you reach the Mosquito Creek campground which is followed by a short steep trail down to Mosquito Creek and the actual coast.

Front row seats

Now, since I did have the place all to myself I snagged a spot right at the edge of the bluff and watched the sun set from inside my tent, which was quite nice. It just seems like a ton of effort to eventually reach a halfway-decent beach when you could have started at Third Beach and been up to your eyeballs in beautiful beaches and sea stacks with only the occasional very minor headland crossing.

Gear

Lighterpack: https://lighterpack.com/r/1mlspi

This was my first chance to try out my new Osprey Levity 60 backpack, which I absolutely loved. I made note of some first impressions when I first unboxed it and augmented those with notes from this weekend:

  • The shoulder straps are not substantial enough on their own for my camera and lens combo (Fuji X-T20 body and XF16mmF1.4 R WR lens), which weigh a combined total of 759g. However, it turns out that Peak Design offers a Pro Pad plate which is specifically designed for stabilizing larger cameras on backpack shoulder straps. I’m still fiddling with the positioning but this allowed me to carry my camera in complete comfort for the entire weekend. The product description recommends using the hex bolts that came with the Capture in order to make it more secure so assuming I can locate those I may try them instead (they’re longer which should better accommodate the combined thickness of the strap and plate). Also, I had an issue with the screws on the Capture not wanting to stay put which might also be resolved by switching to the hex bolts (or maybe by adding some Blue Loctite).
  • The profile of the Levity is short and squat vs. narrow and tall for the Exos, which means it’s compatible with wide-brim hats such as my new Sunday Afternoons Charter Escape Hat. In fact, the desire to switch to wide-brim hats for the extra sun protection (as well as a perfect storm of tax refund, REI dividend, and some 20% off coupons) was the initial motivation for ditching the Exos for the Levity (although the 257g of weight savings was nothing to sneeze at). In any case I can look almost straight up and the 2 and 3/4 inch rear brim won’t hit the top of the pack.
  • It can hold a Garcia bear canister sideways (barely) or vertically (easily). This is important since hard-sided bear canisters are required on the coast.
  • The bottle retainer loops on the edges of the forward holster pockets are now made of round cord instead of flat webbing and are much smaller which means it is basically impossible to get them on or off of bottles with one hand. This is a significant regression but I’m looking into adding some elastic shock cord to remedy this (although, I should note that it seems like the pockets are much better at holding in bottles on their own than the Exos).
  • Speaking of cord, the blue compression cord that’s all over the pack was immediately annoying so I untied the ends and removed it, saving 10 grams.
  • The side and rear pockets are very generously sized, noticeably larger than on the Exos. This is probably to make up for the fact that the Exos has stretchy material whereas the material on the Levity has zero stretch. I had read that the side pockets on the Levity were useless when the main compartment was full but after putting 22 pounds of gear in the main compartment (including a bear canister and a quilt and tent which I don’t bother to compress in stuff sacks) I actually found that the Levity’s outside pockets were much more usable than the ones in the Exos under similar conditions. In fact, I’d always felt the Exos had the unusable-when-main-compartment-full problem with the outer pockets so it was nice to see this go away with the Levity.
  • The chest strap is attached to the pack by way of sliders which are held in place by some cord loops. There are three pairs of cord loops, so by pushing the sliders out of one set of loops and into another you’re able to reposition the chest strap, a task which is only slightly annoying once you get the hang of it.
  • I’d read many reports saying that the front holster pockets were impossible to get water bottles in and out of (presumably with one hand) but this is simply not the case, at least not with 700mL SmartWater bottles. Having used the Exos for the past two years it took a bit of adjusting due to the slightly different pocket positions and materials but after an hour or so I didn’t find it the least bit challenging.
  • The Levity does not have a removable brain. At first I thought this would be a pain but I put my ditty bag, Sawyer filter, and Vecto water container in the brain and found the separation from the main compartment very convenient for accessing during the occasional stop. Also, these are all things which I don’t need to worry about getting wet (my ditty bag is a dry bag) so they don’t need the protection of the plastic bag in the main compartment. Also, there’s a key clip – very important! I originally ditched the brain on the Exos to save weight but I think I’m a lot better organized these days and am more able to take advantage of the convenience offered by the brain.
  • The Levity does not have dedicated attachments for an ice axe. However, there is a small loop of cord where the ice axe loop would normally be, so a larger elastic-y loop could be added there. In addition, the shaft of the axe would pass by some gear loops higher up on the pack which would give an opportunity to install some sort of cord lock.

Alright, enough about the pack. I was also using my Big Agnes AXL Air 25×72″ rectangular inflatable pad in the outdoors for the first time. I knew this thing was going to be a hit when I accidentally fell asleep on it while testing it out in my living room and I wasn’t wrong: I once again accidentally fell asleep on it while watching the sunset from inside my tent. It’s also not as slippery as my old Klymit (although, maybe it was just the mostly-flat campsite) but it also doesn’t stay completely put. I’m thinking about picking up a Gossamer Gear Thinlight foam pad to prevent it from moving (I read somewhere that foam pads are good for that) as well as providing some extra/backup insulation since the AXL isn’t as warm as my previous Klymit. Important note: EN ratings for sleeping bags assume a pad with an R-value of 4.0, which is less than the Klymit but presumably more than the AXL, which isn’t as warm as the Klymit by a decent amount.

For some odd reason I decided to try bringing a sleeping bag liner to see if that would increase the quilt’s warmth significantly. It did, to the point where I got so sweaty that I had to take it off. I won’t be bringing it again in these kinds of temperatures.

My inflatable pillow, a Sea to Summit Aeros Ultralight, was sliding all over the place. I’ve already put a few strips of Seam Grip SIL on it but this hasn’t helped (it’s worked wonders with sleeping pads). I’m seriously considering picking up a small memory foam pillow to more closely mimic what I have at home and just eating the weight/volume penalty.

This was also my first time taking out my Element Equipment Carbon 3000 trekking pole (just one). It did great holding up the Lunar Solo tent, which is its main job, as well as breaking up spider webs and helping me up over some logs while bushwhacking to get a photo. I’m going to look into some sort of attachment cord (probably like what is typically used to hold ice axes) to ensure it never falls out of the Levity.

My Prana Stretch Zion pants are too warm to sleep in – my thighs and crotch got all sweaty. On the other hand I know what it’s like to leave your pants outside your sleeping bag and have them be all cold and damp when you go to put them on again in the morning. I’m thinking of looking into an ultralight mesh laundry bag to hold any clothing that I want to keep warm or dry out during the night – this way I’d have all the clothing in one place without having to worry about it getting scattered about. I did try to dry out my socks by squishing them into the hand pockets of the quilt but while appearing clever on the surface my plan did not account for the fact that balled-up clothing doesn’t dry very well.

I love my new Sunday Afternoons Charter Escape hat. It does a great job of keeping the sun off me while not impacting my peripheral vision and the vented top means it can be used during high exertion. Of course, it’s always cooler (temperature-wise) to not wear a hat at all – and there were definitely times when I hiked with it in my hand to cool down – but not once when I was in the direct sun on the beach did I feel that my head was too warm.

I picked up a pair of Tifosi Seek FC sunglasses to replace my old broken Smith Redmonds. They’re photochromatic so the darkness of the lens varies in response to how bright it is, the idea being that I could use them both in the shade of the forest as well as direct sun. I was worried that since their lowest percentage of visible light transmission (% VLT) was higher than my previous pair they wouldn’t be dark enough, but it turns out I just misread the values: the Tifosi’s range for the Smoke Fototec lens is 15.2% to 47.7% whereas the Smiths are fixed at 16% so they’re actually very slightly darker. This matches up with my experience on the beach in full sun, the glasses worked just fine – and they aren’t even polarized.

This was also my first time using the ZPacks ultralight toothbrush and Archtek toothpaste tablets – they both worked great! Wilderness breath is now a solved problem which Person B will appreciate more than anyone.

I couldn’t find my Montbell travel umbrella so I was unable to test its shade-granting qualities, although I don’t think it was hot enough to really know one way or the other.

Photography

I’ll fill this section in tomorrow. In the meantime, here’s a gallery link:

https://turigrinos.smugmug.com/Adventures/2019/Oil-City-to-Mosquito-Creek

And we’re back. So, this is my second trip with my new camera system and I’m noticing a pattern with the background being out of focus. According to the first thing that comes up when you Google “what affects depth of field” (a researcher is me), the wider aperture (f/1.4 vs. f/2.8) and larger sensor (APS-C vs. MFT) are both working against me but the shorter focal length (16mm vs. 28mm) should be offsetting that a bit. The Photopills depth-of-field calculator shows that for a subject 5m away shooting wide open the DoF for the Olympus was 7.6m but the Fuji is… well, it’s 7.87m, so basically a wash.

I’m using manual focus with edge highlighting for every shot but it seems like I’m not getting something right… and oh, here we go: according to the Photopills ultimate depth of field guide I’m not focusing at or past the hyperfocal distance, which will leave the background blurry. Whoops. The X-T20 actually has a little focus distance scale that shows up when you manually adjust the focus so it seems like I just need to start paying attention to that. This is photography 101 stuff so… a bit humbling.