#spottheape2016 and Floating Mayfield Lake

It was going to be hot this week and it would continue to through Friday so earlier that week I took our inner tubes and had them filled at grandma’s house with her air compressor, it would save us a lot of time and energy if we would have had to do them without it.  I wasn’t sure which lake to go float in but I assumed something local.  WSGA, since the end of June, have been putting out 100 ape tags for the upcoming Going Ape event in August.  Groups of about 2-6 were placed by various volunteers all over Washington State.  Once it began they stayed pretty much in the Spokane, TriCities, Yakima, Vancouver, Seattle and north of Seattle areas.  I checked every day to see if any of them came closer to the Olympia area.  Almost the end of July some of them started appearing in Lewis County near Chehalis and south near Hwy 12.  I saw they were “published” on the WSGA Facebook site late Monday and decided to go get them on Wednesday if no one had gone for them.  

After work I had this itch to go get those ape tags down in Lewis county since no one had claimed them yet.  Ben was on his day off and he knew we were going to go enjoy a lake somewhere.  I got home and told him we were going to the Mayfield Lake area to float and to get the two ape tags along the way.  He said okay.  I got our tubes and towels ready and whatever else we needed and headed out around 1ish. 

Our first stop was Matilda Jackson State Park off of the Jackson Hwy.  We got off at the Napavine/Onalaska exit and followed the road south towards Hwy 12.  Of course we got stuck behind a really slow construction truck.  Ugh!  A part of me was feeling the competitive part and the anxiety…what if someone picked it up today and we’re just going all this way for nothing?  We finally arrived and I looked at the picture one more time, we barely got internet where we were, and told Ben where to look.  We found the opening on the fence and a rock that was pretty obvious and he picked it up and I was stoked!  We logged that we found it on the WSGA Facebook page.

We plugged the next set of hint coordinates into the Nuvi and turned onto Hwy 12 and headed towards Mossyrock.  Our turn off came pretty quickly and we got onto Hwy 122 just outside Mossyrock.  I haven’t been this way in over a year, when Lacey and I came out this way for some exploring, and before that when my mom and I did the state park cache inside of Ike Kinswa summer of 2013.  When we got closer I was really hoping no one had picked this one up today either.  We followed the directions to a parking lot.  I got the Oregon out and we put the coords into that just to give us some reference because I forgot to write down the hint before we went out of cell range.  The coords were off but we checked the sign pretty good before we started searching elsewhere.  After about 10 minutes of searching I went back to the sign and looked at it again.  I saw the tiny chain just barely.  Ben!  It’s right here!  He reached up and grabbed it for me.  We took the necessary pictures and decided to go to the boat launch to do our floating.

Now we each have one!

I drove us a half a mile down the road to the boat launch.  We found a good spot down below, unloaded the tubes, towels and Ben and parked the car in the lot above.  I walked back down and we started getting ready to get in.  I’ve always remembered Mayfield Lake to be really cold since it is fed by the Cowlitz River which comes from tributaries off of the glaciers of Mount Rainier.  Really cold glacier water.  Brrr.  I planned on not getting in all the way.  I just wanted to mostly sit on my inner tube, float and do some relaxing.  Ben would probably get all the way in at some point.

We found a pretty good spot and made our way down the steep hill, trying not to trip and fall on our butts or into the water.  We both made it down safely and got ready to go into the water.  Ben had to be at a union meeting at 7 and wanted to be home by 5:30 to get cleaned up and have some dinner before he went.  It was 3:15ish and we set an alarm for 4:30.  We pushed off the shore and we went where the current and the boat waves took us.  It felt so nice just to do nothing and chill at the lake.  A boat went by and moored over by a rock face.  Then we heard people jumping off of the rock into the water below.  Ben wanted to do that.  I told him when we were done out here we could walk over to the cliff and he could jump off.  We continued floating and it was amazing.  We floated out pretty far and had to paddle our way back.  We were guessing we’ve been out there a while and needed to head ashore.  Once we got back we dried off, grabbed everything and headed back up the dirt hill.  We took everything back to the Escape and Ben got the nerve to walk over to the cliff.

It took him four times to get the courage to jump off.  I recorded all four sessions on the GoPro.  Eventually I gave him an ultimatum and he finally jumped off screaming the entire way down.  I asked him if he was okay as he swam towards the shoreline.  I started my walk back to the beach area with his towel.  It took him over five minutes to get to me so he can dry off and we can head back home.  I had to get him back before his union meeting that started at 7 in Olympia.  We left around 4:30.

Traffic wasn't horrible yet as we drove through Chehalis and Centralia.  We got off at 93rd and went the backway home to avoid all of the traffic going through Tumwater, Olympia and Lacey.  I got him back at 5:30, he showered, ate a quick dinner and left.  I fell asleep on the bed because these late nights and early mornings were killing me.  I sure hope the late nights ended soon with all of the morning and getting stuff done so late.

We probably will keep our tags and not trade them in for the Ape coins.  At this point we are not planning on going to the event since I've been going for four years now.  There was so much to finish at our new place. 

Next Adventure:  Poker Run and Family BBQ