Today's miles: 0
Total miles: 1959
I admit that this is our second zero in Bend (almost our third, since our first day we only hiked three miles into town...) but it was well worth it. The weather was looking a little rainy today, too, so we decided waiting out the storm was as good of an excuse as any. Plus, all three of us still had to work on our resupply, something we didn't get a chance to take care of yesterday. Scooter promised us that she had lots of food to spare, and when we saw her garage, we realized she wasn't kidding. She and Boulder had originally planned to do the entire PCT, and had spent months dehydrating meals, collecting snacks and breakfasts, and boxing up everything to mail to themselves. When they left the trail after 1,000 miles, they still had 1,500 miles worth of food waiting at home. We gaped in astonishment as Scooter dragged out box after box full to the brim with everything a hiker could ever need or want: pastas, cous cous, granola bars, instant breakfast packets, Snickers bars, tuna packets, cookies, dehydrated meals, pop tarts, and on and on. We each filled our food bags with seven days worth of food for the next stretch and didn't even make a dent in the amount of food that was still left.
"Please, take as much as you want!" Scooter said.
I already had resupply boxes for the rest of Oregon and Washington made up at home, but Sunshine had been relying on hiker boxes to supply himself with food, and Treekiller had been buying groceries in town. The two of them picked up some USPS boxes from the post office and filled them with food to mail to themselves further down the trail.
While they worked on resupplies and watched a movie in Scooter's living room, I spent the afternoon trying to catch up on my blog. In the beginning of the trail I was vigilant about writing out (by hand) my own journal each night before bed, or during our afternoon siestas in the desert. But lately we have become stronger hikers, and fulfilling more miles each day, so my free time has significantly dwindled. Every moment of my day (often up to 13 hours) is filled with hiking, and when we get to camp each night the sun sets earlier and earlier, so sometimes I barely have time to make myself dinner and crawl into bed before passing out. I haven't been keeping up with my hand-written or my online journals, instead keeping short-hand notes to myself on my phone so I won't forget what happened each day. It was relieving to spend the afternoon catching up on almost a month's worth of hiking and put it in print.
Later in the evening we got a call from Sneaks, who had just arrived into town with Mudd and Dingo at Santiam Pass this morning. It was strange realizing that they had passed the 2,000 mile mark already, and that when we got back on trail we would be 60 miles behind them. They invited us out to a game of bowling and so we joined them downtown. We kept joking that they were "from the future" and asked about our upcoming miles. It was nice to have a semi-normal evening in town, acting like we were part of society again.
Day Ninety Three
Miles today: 0
Total miles: 1959
We were awake at 8:00 and happily lounging for a few hours in our exotically large hotel-condo when we suddenly realized that if we wanted to stay the day, we would need to rebook the room. While Sunshine whipped up a batch of French toast, Treekiller wandered to the office to buy another night. He returned looking disgruntled.
"I have bad news," he said. "First, this room is already booked for tonight, so we can't stay another day. Second, checkout is at eleven."
Sunshine and I shot quick looks to the clock. 10:35 am.
"Shit," we grumbled. We had twenty five minutes to wolf down a plate of French toast, clean up, and vacate.
A quick note for those of you who are unfamiliar with thru-hikers: despite the fact that we spend every single day on trail unpacking and packing up our entire life in a small 50 liter backpack (usually accomplishing this task in record time every morning to get on trail faster), something in the matrix breaks down when we get to town. A tidy, well packed backpack suddenly becomes an exploded mess in the hotel room. There is laundry everywhere. Tents strung out to dry. Resupply food and food packaging in every nook and cranny. Dirty shoes and socks lined up outside the door. Sleeping bags draped over chairs. Chocolate milk and fast food containers littering the bedside tables. And when you cram four to six thru-hikers in one hotel room, the mess is astronomical. It's hard not to laugh when you step back and look at the chaos: how is it we can fit all of this stuff on our backs, but when we unpack it, it looks like twenty years worth of yard sales?
So, back to our hotel-condo. We were just realizing that we had twenty five minutes to clean up, and in the short time we had been living there, we had already taken over every single one of the rooms with our dirty gear and clothes, including an entire kitchen full of leftover bean dip, nachos, ice cream, oreos and French toast. We jumped into cleaning overdrive. I don't remember the exact details, but I do remember that some sort of miracle occurred that morning. Because in exactly twenty five minutes we somehow managed to package up all the leftovers, gather up all our gear and clothing, repack our packs, take showers (all three of us), drive Scooter to work so that we could have the car for the day, and add a half-finished romance novel to our gear for on trail entertainment.
Now we were homeless, but at least we had a car. And you know what's entertaining? Three thru-hikers trying to remember how to drive stick.
"WHY IS EVERYONE GOING SO FAST?!" Sunshine shrieked.
After giving Treekiller the wheel, we took a short road trip to the nearby town of Sisters to pick up a resupply box, and then we drove to downtown Bend to kill some time by seeing the movie World's End. Scooter invited us to her house once she was off work and offered to let us stay the night with her, despite that she and Boulder rented a small basement room of her landlady's home. The house was beautiful, though, filled with fresh lavender and herbs and smelling like newly cut grass and rain. We hung out with Scooter until her second job at a local brewery started, and then Treekiller, Sunshine and I wandered downtown Bend, walking by the river and visiting local pubs. We were quickly falling in love with the town, and even though we knew we should get back on trail tomorrow, it was hard to dismiss how lovely a second zero day would be. Besides, Wocka, Giddyup, Sneaks, Mudd, Dingo and Katie would all be in town tomorrow and we wanted to see them before we got back on trail.
We bantered back and forth about it for some time, and ultimately decided that we would "decide" tomorrow, which meant another zero in Bend!
Day Ninety Two
Today's miles: 3
Total miles: 1959
I woke up this morning with a tickle in my throat. I was nervous about getting sick, but I was thankful we were going into town today so I could get some meds before it got worse. We only had three miles to Elk Lake Resort, and we were there before 8:00 am. Our old trail friend Scooter (she and Boulder live in Bend since getting off trail in Yosemite) arrived at 9:00 to pick up Treekiller, Sunshine and I.
Our first order of business: buffet. As thru hikers we never have more than just one motivating factor when getting into town: FOOD FOOD FOOD. And a good old fashioned buffet was just the way to satisfy the craving. On our way to Izzy's Buffet we stopped by the cheapest hotel we could find and booked a room for the night. We had been talking for days about how delightful it would be to get a small cabin, or time share, or condo so that we could spend a zero cooking in a kitchen and rooming with a bunch of our friends, but this plan fell through. We were unable to find an affordable option in Bend, and most of our friends were still on trail and hiking to either McKenzie or Santiam Pass (another 30 and 60 miles, respectively) before coming into town. For now, Treekiller, Sunshine and I were on our own.
And so we headed to the buffet. Scooter dropped us off and we stood outside the doorway, expectantly waiting for them to open at 11. We spent the next three full hours inside demolishing plates of food. I could only make it through three plates of pizza, salad, soup, fried chicken, fries, and dessert before feeling stuffed, but Treekiller put away a full five plates, and Sunshine easily killed seven. Seven plates!
"Yeah, they made no money off me," he said.
Scooter joined us for our final round of food and we proudly left Izzy's with full bellies.
We drove back to our hotel, and as we were picking up our keys, the small Indian woman who was supervising the desk came running out the door waving another key over her head.
"Wait, wait!" said she. "I'm going to give you a bigger room."
"Oh - okay," we said, a bit surprised. "Thanks!"
We took the new key, and, slightly bemused, headed for the room. We opened the door expecting to see the usual tiny room with two queen beds crammed inside, but instead found ourselves staring at a living room.
A living room!
There were two couches, a coffee table, a TV, and around the corner we could see a full kitchen and dining room, fridge, cabinets, countertops. Whooping and exclaiming, the three of us ran into the room and down the hallway: there were two large bedrooms, one with two queen beds and one with a king. There were bookshelves lined with books, closets, and a large bathroom. We were beside ourselves. We couldn't believe we had scored such an amazing find - and for the cheapest rate in town! We lamented that we had no friends in town to share it with.
"I guess we get to make ourselves dinner after all!" Treekiller said.
Already excited by the prospect, we walked next door to the grocery store and spent $45 on all the fixings for a huge platter of bean dip, nachos, ice cream and oreos. After our usual in-town chores of laundry and showers, the three of us happily plopped ourselves in our living room with our batch of bean dip. watched bad movies and read bad romance novels from the bookshelves. We could tell already that we were going to like Bend.
Day Ninety One
Today's miles: 25
Total miles: 1956
Treekiller, Sunshine and I woke up at 6:00 this morning to a cool, delightful breeze blowing off Charlton Lake and into our tents. The morning was overcast and the sunrise beautiful, and we were packed up and on trail by 7:00, the best time we've had all week.
The trail today was very mellow. We had no steep climbs or descents, so we were in cruise mode. Lately I've been finding my stride, my speed and my strength on trail, and it lets me fly. The boys let me take the lead and I enjoyed being in front for once. It allowed me to have control over break times, and I dutifully stopped every five miles, or two hours, for a short break and let the boys catch up. In this respect the miles for the day went by very quickly. I put in my favorite podcasts, and by the time two of them had run through, it was time for another break. By lunchtime we only had 15 miles total left to Elk Lake to do by tomorrow morning. We were in high spirits about how well we were doing. Our shorter mileage yesterday had done wonders for our aching muscles and we were feeling great.
It was overcast all day, which meant the heat wasn't as brutal, and this, too, made a big difference. By 7:30 we had gone 25 miles and arrived at a small running stream with a flat area for camping. The stream was a treat: for the past few days we had been filtering all of our water from lakes, which sometimes could be quite dirty. (This morning I collected lake water that had tiny, swimming red plankton in it. Thank goodness for water filters....)
We set up camp and hurried inside our tents since the mosquitoes near the water were pretty bad. Treekiller pushed over a few trees before bed and we chatted tent to tent about our excitement for Bend tomorrow.