The small, gurgling stream nearby had my attention. Should I or shouldn’t I?
I was brushing and logging out Lowder Mountain while working with a sore foot. The affected appendage gave me three good hours, but during the fourth, I started having discomfort, and I still had to hike out. At lunch, near a barely flowing stream, I remembered a few weeks back in the Diamond Peak Wilderness, the same sore foot, but additionally a sore toenail, worsened by wearing an extra sock. During lunch, I took off the boot, hoping it wouldn’t be a mistake. It wasn’t. It felt great. I pulled off the extra sock, the one underneath, and let the foot air out. It felt even better. After 10 minutes, I put the other sock back on and then the boot. My foot still hurt, but I could finish the day.
Remembering, I again removed my boot. Same feeling, same questions. Should I or shouldn’t I? It’s difficult to put a sweaty sock back on a wet foot. So what? I have been on my knees all morning, two of us removing brush on every foot of the trail through the large last meadow, although admittedly we spared the scarlet gilia and the western coneflowers. It’s hot. I can use the top of the sock to wipe my foot dry. We have to wait anyway for two others returning from having gone further up to check out the summit; we had time. I deserve a break, and so does my foot.
I took off boot and sock, let my bare foot get some delightful fresh air, then put the boot back on and hobbled over to the stream to where the trail crossed several flat rocks with perhaps a half inch of water flowing slowly over them. I moved carefully off the trail, under an arch of branches, found a rock I could sit on near a small pool of water maybe 6 inches deep. Perfect. I sat down on the rock, removed my foot from the boot, and stuck it in the water.
Wow. Cold and great. Within 30 seconds, I felt no cold. I should have come over a half hour earlier and eaten my lunch here. The gravel bottom was fine. I could sit here for an hour or all afternoon. I wouldn’t, of course, but I got a chance to look upstream at the steep grade with a narrow chain of rivulets. It was shady and out of the way. I had hiked by this stream at least 10 other times and never knew what was back here. But today I discovered it. Twenty minutes later, it was time to do some work, so I removed my foot which dried in two minutes. I put the sock on, then the boot, stepped back on the trail, and five minutes later the other two showed up. The hike out went fine.
I don’t swim in Oregon because the water is too cold for me, an old man with thin skin and not much insulation. Or I am a chicken. It’s great others can. Last time I swam was 2017 by a campground in the North Cascades. Several of us had just finished a hot hike. There was a lake and a boat ramp. I stripped down to shorts and ran right into the lake, the best way I can deal with cold water. I wasn’t going to swim and didn’t, immediately getting right out. But I was cooled down for the rest of the day. Swims do that.
See you on the trail but probably not in the water.
Boreal B[l]og 
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