On the drive back from Sweet Home, it started bubbling up. My knee, that is. Eight hours earlier, I was on all fours working to dig snow out from underneath the car I was riding in. Now, I was getting my first real understanding of frostbite.

To be fair, the little blister on my knee was no bigger than a house fly, and didn’t hurt at all, but the work that stuck it there on my leg was somewhat more intense. The whole fiasco started at around 11:00 am as four current and former Oregon Wilders—Jonathan, Chandra, Jeremy, and I—made our way through a maze of BLM roads near the edge of the Willamette National Forest outside of Sweet Home.

We were looking for Crabtree Valley to scout a hike that had originally been scheduled for May but postponed to late July after our more-than-usual dumping of snow in the Cascades this winter. We all thought July would be safe. That is, until we came around a bend in the road and encountered a thirty foot stretch of road covered in two feet of snow. Our first attempts at crossing over the snow were met with initial resistance followed by gentle nudges back onto dry land. After a BLM truck showed us the way, we figured it was our turn to finally charge through on the tire tracks they had left.

It was not to be so.

An hour later (after pushing and jacking and trying to find some sort of traction) the BLM truck reappeared and realized our situation. Thanks to the tools provided by our new BLM friends, we were able to dig our way out from the snow after another 45 minutes, cheering loudly as our car made its way out.

With the first part of our trip over, I took stock of lessons learned:

• Pants are a good idea. Even in July.
• Snow is fun in limited quantities and not when it is underneath cars.
• Old snow is worse for driving than new snow.
• Operation “Let the snow melt” is not a viable strategy when you only are out in the field for a day.

Ultimately, and again thanks to our BLM saviors, we discovered the road we were trying to get down when we got stuck was the wrong way. With new directions in hand, we found our way to an alternate trailhead and began a long descent down an old, rutted out road on our way to Crabtree Lake.

The path down was replete with paintbrush flowers, beargrass and plenty of impressive old growth. Still, we knew that the real prize was down near the lake where 800-900 year old Western redcedars and Douglas firs stood tall.

Our first order of business was to see if we could track down the real giant, King Tut. This mythical Doug fir was discovered by loggers several decades ago and may be the oldest Doug fir in the entire state. It would not reveal itself easily though, and the four of us trudged through dense underbrush as we searched for the ancient tree. After 45 minutes worth of dodging branches and dancing around thorns (and seeing some other really big trees not named King Tut) we decided to bag the search for King Tut for the day.

To our delight, trees named after pharaohs are not the only impressive thing around these parts. On the east side of the lake, we walked through a towering forest that framed the water below. After circumnavigating the lake (and subjecting ourselves to some even hairier bush-wacking) we were ready to make the slog back up to the car. Before we did, we took time to treat ourselves and our sweaty faces to the cool waters of Crabtree Lake.

Frostbit, trapped in the snow, thorn-covered bush-wacking, and gigantic trees. All in a day's work at Oregon Wild.