Day Ninety

Today's miles: 18
Total miles: 1931

We woke up this morning to see the sunrise come up over the lake. Shelter Cove was a beautiful resort and I lamented that we couldn't spend more time here. We relaxed until 10 am and then decided to push on. Katie wanted to do 25 miles today, but since we got such a late start, it was going to be a long day to do so many miles. Treekiller, Sunshine and I were less enthusiastic about the prospect.

This morning we passed by a string of beautiful blue-green lakes, and it was difficult not to take a break at each one. We paused beside one of the Rosary Lakes to dip our feet in and watch the crawfish swimming through the rocks. We teased Treekiller about his recent text conversations with MK, the woman we had met at Crater Lake. They had been conversing quite often in the past few days. Sunshine offered his advice about what Treekiller should write to her, and his suggestions were usually hilarious.
"She asked me how many miles we did yesterday," Treekiller read aloud.
"Here's what you say," Sunshine said in a deadpan voice, "'due to my charisma and outstanding leadership skills, I motivated my group to hike 26 miles yesterday with morale at an all-time high for the day. By the way, did you know that some say age 36 is the peak of sexual prowess?"
We were cracking up and telling Treekiller that he should let Sunshine write all his texts.

When we took a lunch break at 2:00 we had only covered eight miles for the day. We sat quietly eating food, contemplating the rest of our day. Our next destination was the town of Bend, which was accessible from several different points. Elk Lake Resort was in another 40-ish miles, or you could walk to McKenzie Pass (HWY 242) in 60-ish miles, or Santiam Pass (HWY 20) in 80-ish miles to catch a hitch into town. Our old hiking friends Boulder and Scooter, who left the trail in Yosemite and now lived in Bend, had offered to give Sunshine a ride into town from Elk Lake. Katie wanted to hike to one of the highways to get a ride into town, and Treekiller and I were undecided about which would be best. All we knew was that we were tired of these long days and late nights and needed a reprieve.

Katie hiked on ahead while Sunshine, Treekiller and I stopped at Bobby Lake two miles later to fill up our water. None of us was interested in hiking out quickly. We swam in the lake, ate a snack, and sat on tree logs enjoying the view while we looked over maps again. It was 4pm and we had only gone 10 miles. Katie wanted to do another 14, but we discussed our options.
"It makes no sense to push ourselves really hard today," Treekiller pointed out. "Elk Lake isn't that far away. We could either do difficult 24 miles today, do another hard day tomorrow and get there really late, or we could do 18 miles today, camp at Charlton Lake, hike an easy day tomorrow and only have a few miles in to the resort on the following morning."
That made sense to Sunshine and me, mostly because we had no intention of doing another 14 miles today when our feet were so tired.
"I'm sick of hiking after 7:00," Sunshine said.
"If we camp at Charlton we only have to do eight more miles," Treekiller said.

That sealed it. We sent a note to Katie telling her our plans (she wasn't planning on going to Bend from Elk Lake, anyway) and hiked on. Even though we were doing a short day today, by the time we got to Charlton Lake at 7:00 it felt as though we had pulled a 30 mile day. We were aching and exhausted. We needed this short day, for sure. It was the first time we had arrived at camp before 9:30 in days, and the first time we had time to eat dinner, as well.

Charlton Lake was beautiful. We were all delighted by our decision to stay there. The campsite was right along the water's edge and after setting up our tents we enjoyed a gorgeous sunset over the lake and a beautiful full moon rise. It was peaceful and I realized how much stress flowed out of me this afternoon when I didn't have to hike 14 miles after 4pm. I needed this.

We were in bed before 9:00pm and it felt wonderful.

Day Eighty Nine

Today's miles: 26
Total miles: 1913

Today was one of those magical days where we hiked 26 miles but actually traveled 36 PCT miles.

Katie took off early this morning but Treekiller, Sunshine and I stayed behind to talk to the south bounder Jason and to tell him all the places he should eat and visit in his upcoming towns in California. When we finally left camp it was 8:00 and we had a long day ahead of us. We hiked six miles to a highway where there was a PCT detour called the Oregon Skyline Trail. There were four distinct reasons for us to hike the Skyline Trail instead of the PCT:

1. The OST was 10 miles shorter than the PCT
2. The OST saved 500 feet of elevation over the PCT
3. The OST had more frequent water sources
4. If we took the OST, we would be at Shelter Cove Resort by the end of the day
So, in the end, it was an easy choice.

The Skyline Trail turned out to be a very hot and dusty trail, and unfortunately the frequent water sources were small ponds that took a lot of effort to get drinkable water. We stopped for lunch at noon near a small lake, feeling very lethargic and overheated. Katie had a box at Shelter Cove that she needed to pick up before they closed at 7pm, so she estimated that she'd need to hike at 3mph all day without breaks in order to make it in time. So she took off early while Sunshine, Treekiller and I lagged behind, going slower.

I hiked ahead of Treekiller and Sunshine for a while, enjoying the quietness of the trail on my own. I stopped for a break at 3:00 and was soon joined by the boys. While checking our maps we discovered that there was a "swimmable lake" nearby, and all of us were eager to go in the water. There was a family camping on the beach of the lake, and after asking permission to use their beach, the three of us ran into the water and soaked ourselves free of trail dirt and sweat. The water was pleasantly warm and perfect, and it was a great way to spend an afternoon. We lazily paddled around the water, telling trail stories to the family and trying not to smile at the questions their teenage daughters asked us:
"So how many outfits do you carry with you?"
We gestured to the clothes we were wearing. "This is it!"
They gaped. "What! I wouldn't last two days on the PCT!"

It was late afternoon then and we knew we had to move on. But feeling refreshed, we walked with a spring in our step and along a horse trail for the remainder of the day. We still had ten miles to go. The boys pushed over more trees as we trekked and a few miles in we stopped for a long dinner break. When I packed up and asked, "shall we keep hiking?" they both said, "no!!"

I laughed, enjoying this mentality. I often hiked with people who were insistent that we go, go, go, and it was nice to just sit and enjoy the moment for a little while longer.

As the evening set in, we walked along a beautiful river and through a lush forest that reminded me very closely of the beautiful trails of the Columbia River Gorge. As it got darker, we grew tired and wished we were finished hiking. We at last arrived at Shelter Cove at 9:30 and discovered that Sneaks, Mudd, Dingo, Coincidence and Katie were all there waiting for us. We joined their campsite and went quickly to bed; these long days of hiking can be very exhausting. Tonight my feet hurt so badly that I had to take a handful of painkillers in order to sleep.

Day Eighty Eight

Today's miles: 25
Total miles: 1877

Still tired from last night's late hiking, we woke up late at 8:00am. It was a surprisingly cold forty degrees this morning, and very difficult to get out of a warm sleeping bag. I finally dressed and stuck my head out of my tent, shivering with cold. Next to me, Treekiller was lying in his tent with his sleeping bag pulled up to his nose, only a small part of his face exposed. I saw him put his cell phone to his ear and heard him say on his parent's voice mail: "Hey dad. I'm going to need you to mail me back my hat and gloves...."
We laughed as we packed up for the day.

We cruised through the morning as it warmed up. The views of Mt Thielson in the distance were lovely, as well as the lakes that dotted the landscape. All morning Treekiller and Sunshine were pushing over trees, yelling their running total after each one: "NINE!!"

We stopped for a long snack break after six miles and then again at a large river where we soaked our feet in the freezing glacial melt and filled up our water bottles. We went a little further before stopping for lunch; by then it was 3:00pm and we still had 14 miles to do. We knew we had to go quickly to make it to our next water source by dark. Katie and Sunshine took off but my feet were beginning to ache from so many long mileage days. I was hoping they'd stop for another break somewhere in the next 14 miles, but no such luck. I was too stubborn to stop on my own, since every time I considered it, my head said, they've probably stopped just ahead, and if you go a little further you'll join them...

 but no matter how far I walked, they weren't stopped. And so it happened that I hiked for five hours and fourteen miles straight without any breaks. When I reached the campsite at 7:30 I was irritated at myself for being so hard headed, and extremely tired and hungry. The campsite near the water source was filled with our hiking friends: Leaky, Moonshine, Sagi, Birddog, Horny Toad, Lullaby, and a south bounder named Jason who was beyond ecstatic to be camping with other people for a change (I imagine being a south bounder is quite lonely.) I ate dinner, felt much better, and we were all asleep by 9:30.

Day Eighty Seven

Today's miles: 23
Total miles: 1852

After yesterday's late night festivities, the four of us had a hard time waking up this morning. We slept in until 8, bid goodbye and thank you to MK, and went to hang out at the Crater Lake store for a bit before finally deciding to hike out. It was a five mile trek to the lake rim, and it was almost completely uphill. I was feeling very poorly this morning, for some reason, despite not drinking last night. I lagged behind, felt very nauseated and shook with cold sweats through the first two miles. After going to the bathroom and taking some medicine, I felt a little better and was able to finish the hike to the rim in better spirits.

The four of us got lunch and sat on the rim enjoying the beautiful view of Crater Lake. We felt like part of the attraction, almost, for we were sitting in the dirt behind the stone wall surrounded by our dirty packs, and all around us tourists were swarming to take photos of the lake. Meanwhile we munched on our sandwiches and soaked in the view, content with the knowledge that we had hiked over 1800 miles to be at that very spot.

Treekiller and Sunshine

After finishing our food we followed the PCT around the western rim of Crater Lake, stopping at each overlook to enjoy the view and (since boys will be boys) try to chuck rocks into the water. We made crass jokes and laughed so hard that some of the tourists smiled and told us that we were "having entirely too much fun." We laughed even harder, for if they knew what kind of jokes we were telling, they might be indecently horrified. Sometimes it's delightfully fun to be outside the scope of society.

We finally left Crater Lake around 4pm, still with 13 miles to go for the day. It had been a wonderful morning enjoying the views, but now we had to really put in some miles. Fortunately the terrain was incredibly flat, so we flew. We ran into a bunch of weekend hikers along the way, all of them setting up tents and pulling out their coolers at 5pm. We stared at them incredulously.
"Do you think they know they still have three hours of daylight left?" I wondered aloud. "Think how many more miles they could be putting in..."
"Or how nice it would be if we could set up camp at 5pm every night..." Treekiller said.
Sunshine, as he was wont to do, stopped to talk to many of the hikers and told them about the PCT. One of them asked him how much further he was planning to go today.
"Oh..." Sunshine thought for a moment. "I think about ten more."
The man's eyes grew very wide. "
Miles?!" he shrieked. "Ten more miles?!"
It wasn't strange to us anymore to do 25-28 mile days, but we forget sometimes that this not the norm. How novel it must be to go on a weekend backpack and only hike 10 miles a day!

As we walked, we passed through a very dry section with a lot of deadfall on the trail. We had to stop often to climb over trees and branches in our way. Treekiller lived up to his name and began one of his favorite activities in the woods: pushing over dead trees. He kept finding forty foot tall snags and would push against them over and over until they cracked and crashed onto the forest floor. This delighted Sunshine, and soon the two of them were pushing over every dead tree they came across, jumping up and down and whooping like little boys every time they hit the ground.

We didn't quite make ten miles before dark. When the sun set we donned our headlamps ("Don't worry girls," Treekiller said, "after chasing you all week, we're pros at hiking after dark!") and hiked in a tight, single file line all the way to the highway, where we found trail magic of water and cookies and soda. We set up camp by headlamp and passed out at 10:30, thoroughly exhausted.