Reaching a Ghost Town — At Night

**From September 2015**

The wind howled that night even more than the people howled at the moon. As I attempted to sleepily chug some granola with coconut milk powder, I knew I’d have trouble getting out of the tent that morning. Gusts of wind hit my tent and all I just wanted was to pull my sleeping bag over my head. Eventually, my mind won and I put on almost all of my layers, packed up quickly, and started hiking. Impervious to the weather, Memphis headed off first as usual. E.D. poked her head out of her tent as I shivered stuffing my tent into my backpack.

9:30am – puffy still on.

New in the past few years, this stretch of trail stayed above treeline on a beautiful ridge for about 14 miles. I kept my puffy on as I hiked uphill, higher on the ridge. This ridge was by no means flat. They almost never are. This particular ridge had quite a few ups and downs. The trail shifted sides of the ridge a few times and did not duck far enough down to water for at least seven miles. I did not remove my puffy until 11am and never removed my trusty Melanzana.

The alternative to this ridgeline went over Tincup Pass on a dirt road and remained a route option for bad weather. With the amount of ATVs out and lack of thunderstorms in the foreseeable future, we had opted for the ridge.

CDT ridge walking.

Eventually, later in the day, we finally began descending in an epic plunge through trees and switchbacks. At the bottom, the dirt road from Tincup Pass linked back to the trail. Guthook showed some PUDs coming up which did not sound very exciting. However, Ley had mentioned a ghost town called St. Elmo down the dirt road the opposite way of Tincup Pass. About the same mileage without the PUDs, E.D. and I decided to explore.

Sometimes, walking down the dirt roads is a refreshing break because it requires less mental effort in navigation if the body or mind is tired. Plus, there’s a ghost town. That we’d hit at night. Perfect!

About four miles of wandering down the dirt road, we hit St. Elmo and it was, indeed, creepy. We had passed plenty of campsites on the way in with fires burning and cars pulled off to the side of the road, but no one in the “town” itself. The buildings had a stock, old feel to them and when we peered inside with headlamps, the wallpaper which was on only half on the walls moved in the breeze.

The town hosted several large signs dictating the illegality of camping within the “town” limits—not that anyone would sleep well there. We found an old sign that had lots of pictures of previous residents and a little information on who kept up the “town’s” current appearance.

It was too dark to take pictures of St. Elmo, but this was nearby at dawn.

We had to switch dirt roads in town and we had slight difficulties with this at night while simultaneously trying to not get freaked out. This road hosted some interesting cliffs and not nearly the camping opportunities that the previous road had. We ended up finding a side road toward a broken bridge to camp on. We went around the large stone blockades figuring that was for cars and not people on foot and camped. We did not notice the RV on the other side of the broken bridge until it’s generator came on mysteriously later.

We skedaddled just before dawn to try and catch Memphis, who would doubtless be confused. We jumped back on trail at the Hancock trailhead and went around a beautiful lake on the way to Chalk Creek Pass. We still hadn’t seen Memphis. We didn’t find him on the long descent down either where we’d usually catch him.

Right as we were about to head up to another ridge toward Monarch Pass, we thought we might pull a fast one on Memphis if we took a dirt road over to the main road and walked that up to Monarch Pass and beat him to town.

It worked. Right as we got to Monarch Pass, immediately after taking our headphones out a Subaru of two ultra runners playing Eddie Vedder pulled over and asked if we needed a ride into Salida. Why yes, yes please!

We found the hostel and a pizza place while we texted Memphis the plan. Halfway through a pizza, Inspector Gadget and Last on the Bus messaged us asking where we were and how long we’d be in town. They said they’d meet us tomorrow for breakfast. Memphis got to the hostel right as we had finished a pizza each and we began the laundry process.

Gadget and LB did find us in the morning as we found Axel, who we’d been following about a day or two behind for almost two thousand miles. In my resupply box, my Mom’s friend Kathy had included an amazing array of temporary tattoos. While we decided on a breakfast location, I convinced everyone in the immediate vicinity that they needed to put on a temporary tattoo. Then, we set a few aside with Gadget and LB to get Mellow Yellow one at their next stop. With thru-hikers, hostel guests, and hostel staff fully equipped with at least one temporary tattoo each, we created a breakfast plan.

Axel had contacted Karla, an amazing trail angel in South Fork, Colorado who was passing through the area. They had planned on breakfast at a specific restaurant, which I later learned was the only good breakfast place in town. While she drove in, LB, Gadget, E.D., Memphis, and I hopped in LB’s car and got on the table wait list, so they could roll right into a table, which turned into a fantastic time.

After breakfast, we went back to the hostel to pack up slowly. So slowly, in fact, we decided we needed lunch before heading to the trail. LB suggested we go to Midnight Pizza and Brewery, so we enjoyed two pizza locations in Salida. That was an awesome suggestion.

We did finally get back up to Monarch Pass that afternoon where we dallied more at the small store there because we searched the register to see how far ahead others had gotten from us in the meantime. Finally, we said goodbye to LB and Gadget and tried to get a few miles in before dark.

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The PCT: Stanley Kubrick Style

Thoroughly debating the state of Cookie Monster’s burned foot, we decided to press on right after a brief chat with Splinter.

“Where have you been?” Hop-a-long asked since he should have been only a few miles behind us.

“Ya know,” he sighed, “I was trying to get way further than I was but then I hit Russel Creek and I heard the water rushing quite quickly underneath all that snow and ice at night and I didn’t feel safe crossing it, so I set up camp right then and there.”

“Safe decision,” I said thinking about how glad I was we hit that in the daytime and properly assessed it.

We trotted onward and upward and away from the very expensive Ollalie Lake Resort.

Then we ran into a worried woman and her teenage daughter both complete with large weekend packs that went over their heads.

“You guys know it’s hunting season, right?” she stammered.

“Oh, no. Huh.” Cookie said unconcerned.

“Well you’ll be fine once you hit the Indian Reservation because there’s no hunting over there,” she mentioned.

After she left we thought about what she said and how worried she was.  “Then why is she hiking south, away from the reservation?” Cookie asked me.

“She also had no blaze orange on either,” I pondered.  It was one of those “Huh.” moments where that’s all you can say without acting like a rude smart mouth.

We pushed on, into the night contouring up the side of one hill, then another, and then another.  Eventually, we camped in Pinhead Saddle where Hop-a-long had found a fantastically flat campsite.  Cookie crashed out immediately, Hop-a-long sewed up her skirt, and I read some Game of Thrones on my phone.

Timothy Lake

In the morning, we got moving early and pushed for a long day.  Cookie’s foot wasn’t any better and he was simply trying not to think about it.  He kept it wrapped to avoid infection and pulled an amazing feat of mind-over-matter and ignored it for the 30 mile day we logged.  The terrain did not present too many challenges, so the walking seemed pleasant and flowing.  We had a hearty lunch and a little whiskey near Timothy Lake which looked like it would have great swimming if the weather had been warmer.  I almost lamented the utter hot obnoxious weather of California which pushed me to swim every chance I got just to get the sweat off of me, then I remembered my eyeballs sweating and that thought shot straight out of my mind.

The trail followed the lake for several miles of beauty until it dipped over to begin contouring up another hill and we found ourselves back in the Doctor Seuss trees with their glow in the dark looking moss.  Unfortunately, it did not glow in the dark, but I did imagine a million different Halloween wig styles that one could create with the moss.

We had a slight water gap where we had to find a seeping spring for which Yogi gave several paragraphs of information on how to find it.  In actuality, a wood plant with “water” written on it and an arrow pointed almost directly to it.  We just had to climb over one blowdown to get there.  Out of exhaustion, we almost camped there that night since it was only a few minutes until dark and our bodies were going on the “screw you, I’m tired” mode while the mind told it “only a few more miles…”

Plugging on, we walked into the darkness and contoured a large ridge going up, then cruising around it until we hit hwy 26/35 which could take us directly to Portland.  We signed a register, then noticed a note that said there was a picnic table and a privy right across the street.  Done and done.  Hop-a-long, Cookie Monster and I took over that picnic table and camped right there after enjoying tasty whiskey beverages.

Right before bed, Splinter and Inspector Gadget passed by.  They wanted to make sure to get buffet breakfast at Timberline Lodge.  Admirable goal considering we have all heard about the breakfast and lunch buffets at Timberline Lodge for hundreds of miles.  Not to mention you can stare at the beautiful Mt. Hood in the process.

I woke up to a light rain on my tent.  Just enough that it would drive me nuts and just enough that I had to have a jacket on due to the wind and colder temperature.  I packed up as quickly as possible noticing that Hop-a-long had mysteriously already got up and left, probably in food desperation as she was down to a cliff bar or two for the last ten miles and I knew she was still hungry going to bed.  Eventually, I found where Cookie Monster had ensconced himself in trees and made sure he woke up, then I began heading up Mt. Hood toward Timberline.

There was one large hill to go up and over, then a sharp 2,000 ft climb up to the Timberline Trail that the PCT followed for a ways around treeline.  The weather was miserable.  As long as I stayed moving, I stayed decently warm and ok, but I, too, was running incredibly low on food and had gotten particularly hungry through this stretch.  I think some of it had to do with the fact that I had no extra body fat stored on me to kick into gear.  I took about a 10 minute break to guzzle some water and stuff a cliff bar to the face before I became wicked cold and had to almost jog up the first half of the 2,000ft climb to warm up.  It was the first time I had been able to keep my shell on while climbing and not end up drenched in sweat.  Of course by the time I reached the Timberline Trail, I had already burned though the 240 calories of the cliff bar and my stomach made its hungry state known by growling loudly at me.  To make matters worse, the last mile up was all sand!  With every step up, I slid back down a bit.  My stomach certainly was not pleased then.

Timberline Lodge

Once I made it to Timberline Lodge, I beelined for it thinking only of how hungry I was when I ran into Dead Animal who had driven up to hang out and do some more slackpacking for us.  We went inside to find Hop-a-long, Splinter, Inspector Gadget, Tickled Pink, Last on the Bus, Blood Bank, Panorama and Xana.  Cookie rolled in not too much longer than that and thus began our waiting out of the weather.  We got to wait it out in the best spot possible: Timberline Lodge, location of filming of the movie The Shining.

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Adventures with the Cookie Monster

2,000 Miles Down!

We collected Cookie Monster at Santiam Pass, where my Mom dropped Hop-a-long and I off around 1pm.  He managed to get away from his real job for five days in order to hike 100 miles with us to Timberline Lodge.  We were both super excited to see him.  He brought his usual large pack full of goodies and his constant supply of Swedish fish (except they weren’t exactly Swedish, they came from a gas station on the route).

After we drank a few remaining beers that my Mom had gotten and my Dad so graciously paid for, we set off in the surprisingly hot afternoon weather.  The burned terrain offered little to no shade and the threat of having to walk through the lava rocks loomed over us for miles.  Due to so many volcanoes in the vicinity, this did not surprise us, but our feet told us they did not wish more torture.  I had just switched sandals again, which seemed to instantly make my feet feel better as well as my knees.  I believe the foam had decreased so much that I had no padding in the second pair of best-sandals-ever, Tevas.  They lasted 1000 miles, just like the first pair, but the time had come to retire them.

This section, unlike the last, had far more elevation change, albeit nice grades.  We climbed for almost 8 miles and above 6,000 feet on the west side of Three Fingered Jack.  Upon getting a clear view of Three Fingered Jack, it did appear as though some guy, presumably named Jack, had raised his hand in the air and had somehow lost his ring finger leaving the pointer, middle, and pinky fingers.  Contouring the side of the mountain gave us all kinds of views of Jack’s hand and missing finger.

At the north end of our contour, we looked out at the taller Mt. Jefferson from Porcupine Rock.  By now, the sun had seeped all extra moisture from our bodies as if wringing out a sponge, while our livers began demanding the extra liquid to process the beer we had drunk at the trailhead.  Result: headache.  Not horrible though.

In true PCT fashion, we went down around 1,000 feet, only to climb back up 1,000 feet.  The downhills always seem way shorter even if the distance is, in fact, longer–all much to my chagrin.  Our final ascent back above 6,000 feet we did at dusk.  We reached Rockpile Lake with headlamps and it took us a few extra minutes to sort out our surroundings.  We first came across a small, gross, unmarked pond with a marshy area around it which did not provide great camping.  However, upon further investigation, we stumbled upon the actual lake, which was less gross and actually had a spur trail around it leading to various great, flat, cleared campsites.  We were thrilled!

Hop-a-long and I set up our tents in the biggest flat spot while Cookie Monster set up his hammock in some nearby trees.  We all cooked dinner together and listened to the luxury of the speakers Cookie had packed out.  His iPod on shuffle changed genres and generations more often than Lady Gaga changes her fashion statements.

In the morning, we had the most relaxed on trail start that I remembered.  We did not leave until 8:30 am after sleeping in until just past 7am.  Crazy!  We bounced around on contours and ridge lines for quite some time, chatting, snacking, and laughing before plunging down to around 4,000 feet to cross Milk Creek, which was indeed Milky and one of many milk creeks to come.  It meant we would begin to climb up the side of Mt. Jefferson to contour around with fantastic views like the other volcanoes.

The climb, however, was about 3,000 feet of elevation gain over about 8 miles and was separated into three sections of roughly

Left: Old Sandals, Right: New Sandals

1,000 feet.  We managed the first two sections, then stopped to eat dinner at what looked like the last water source on the map. We sat in what the map called “Jefferson Park” and it definitely seemed like a park; a wide, lake filled plateau stretched out around us with small streams feeding various lakes and quaint tree clumps.

After dinner, we had the final 1,000 foot push up and over the last ridge we would climb and then enter Mt. Hood Wilderness.  It was also the steepest and took us a bit of extra time since we were tired at the end of the day.  A man, base camped somewhere in Jefferson Park, had gone off on a day hike with his two misbehaved dogs who growled and barked and ran at us.  Really dude?

We reached the top of the ridge right at dark and had to turn on our headlamps, only to see the biggest snow field we had seen yet on the PCT in 2012.  It stretched on well past where our headlamps could reach, so we examined the map and regrouped.  We had to make a sharp right angle turn, which we found without snow, but then the trail plunged downhill into the snow abyss.  Dirty footprints marked the way for a wee bit until they started contouring when we knew we were not supposed to contour, but rather, go uncharacteristically straight down the slope.  We found a cairn and then the dirty footprints disappeared.  Despite knowing we did not want to contour more, we did just that to get onto rocks and layer up to figure out a way down.  The warmth had gone away with the sun and we had just our headlamps and the stars to guide our way.  We went back to the cairn and broke apart there.  I stood at the cairn so we would have the last point of trail, Cookie went down slowly, and Hop went back over the footprints a bit.  We did not go far apart so we could all still communicate.

“It’s down here!” Cookie yelled when he hit rocks again and found a cairn where we suspected the trail hid underneath the snow.  Hop-a-long and I made our way down to him and we repeated the process two more times before reaching a marked campsite near some ponds which was really not a campsite, but it worked.  Unfortunately, there were no trees, so Cookie had to bivy instead of setting up his hammock.

We jammed out to Cookie’s iPod with speakers while eating dinner, gazing at the very star-filled sky and staying warm.  I went to lay down and try to sleep earlier, but all of a sudden I heard,

“Oh hey look!” Cookie said, “a headlamp coming down.”

“I bet it’s Splinter!” Hop-a-long said excitedly.  She began using her headlamp to signal the single headlamp down to the trail.

“I bet it’s Inspector Gadget,” I said from inside my cozy tent and warm sleeping bag.

About 10 minutes later, the headlamp came close and it was indeed Inspector Gadget who thanked her for the headlamp signal since he did not have hardly any tread left on his shoes or hiking poles to steady himself in the snow.  He went a few more miles to get to Olallie Lake Resort for lunch.

We got a little bit better start the next morning, but still not early.  We continued downward a bit, then the trail undulated in a general downward trend until we hit Olallie Lake.  The “resort” was a handful of small cabins without electricity or running water, a collection of picnic tables, and an exorbitantly expensive “store.”  I broke down and bought a $6 bag of chips since I had run out of chips and craved the salt as well as a coke for the caffeine factor.

Hop-a-long, Cookie Monster and I commandeered a picnic table and cooked ourselves lunch so we did not have to cook dinner.  Cookie’s iPod and speakers came out blasting Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” among other crazy selections.  Then, the unexpected happened.

A large fly bug thing landed on Cookie’s hand, startling him into spilling freshly boiled water out of his jetboil right down into his right sock.  He instantly took the shoe and sock off and hobbled to the lake to cool off the burn while I cleaned up the spilled pasta and dug through my med kit for the burn dressing I had.  Hop-a-long went back into the store to find more burn cream so we could make a larger dressing with a large gaze pad.  When Cookie got back from the soaking, the top part of his foot oozed clear fluid.  Luckily, the wool sock he had on, protected his foot somewhat by absorbing the liquid, but it was still a bad burn.  We dressed it all up and assessed our options.

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Lava in the Sisters Wilderness

Madison Ski Hut

Madison Ski Hut kept us warmer for the night and surprisingly, we had no trouble with mice!  Hop-a-long, Inspector Gadget, and I had a great time reading random entries out loud from the trail register and sipping on some brew packed out from Willamette Ski Area.  We got a late start the next morning due to cold temperatures.

The terrain between the Ski Hut and all the way to McKenzie Pass was pretty mellow filled with lake after lake after lake.  So many that we had to keep a watchful eye on the map to make sure we knew our location.  Not to mention, we had to watch for water that we could get to easily that wasn’t nasty.  Lots of times, the lake water we could get to had nasty pond scum and a funny color while the nice, pristine looking ones had marshy areas leading up to it.  The best hope was always a large blow-down that we could walk out on, grab water, and go back to filter it.

This region, being so close to several major roads, had more visitors than we expected.  Lots of weekenders had gone out to enjoy the wilderness.  Should be great yogi-ing opportunities, right?  Wrong!  They all brought just enough food with them.  Bummer.

Not only were there a billion lakes, but there were also a billion side trails going of to more lakes.  A good few of them were labeled differently from the maps which threw us for a loop.  Most of the time, we could figure it out by examining the map closer, but sometimes Halfmile’s maps were too zoomed in to tell.

Hop-a-long and I decided to push that evening for a 30 mile day, so we hiked into the night, surprisingly keeping a better pace than most parts of the day.  We chatted, hiked, and seemed to have to pee constantly.  I found it more tolerable to hike later in the day instead of earlier in the morning when the temperatures hovered around freezing in the morning.  The body, being already warmed up from hiking all day, did not seem to mind the same temperatures hiking at night as it did straight out of the sleeping bag.

It just so happened that Hop and I planned on camping at a marked campsite on the map near Desane Lake which three tents had already claimed, complete with barking dog.  No one else had camped in the past 7 miles, but then, just in the spot we wanted, someone already had it.  Damn.  We went about a third of a mile later and found a suitable flat spot to call home for the night after we cleared the pine needles.

With a decent start in the morning, we got off and found some relatively clear-looking lake water and the weekenders with the dog came by and talked to us for a while.  They seemed nice, but asked all the usual questions, including the favorite, “Do you carry a gun?”  Ummm no.  Not necessary, and quite heavy really.

Me hiking toward Middle Sister

By late afternoon, the terrain changed from lake filled rolling hills to glacial melt streams flowing down from Middle Sister in the Sisters Wilderness.  Hop-a-long and I toyed with the light and our cameras to take pictures of the beautiful views.  It had large areas of red rock scree on the south side.  After a quick dinner, near a non-milky glacial stream, we set off again into the dusk to hike around a good portion of the large volcano.  We did get slightly confused as to which stream we were at because some of the ones that Yogi said should be flowing were and some were not.  At night, it was a bit harder to use other aspects to figure it out; the clearings helped us quite a bit, because we could see their rough shape, even with a headlamp and match them to a map.

Around 10:30pm, we reached an area near some shrubby trees and went off trail to find some flat spots.  The trees proved significantly warmer than the clearings, yet the clearings offered plenty more flat spots, so it took us awhile to find a good one.

The next morning, we only had about 15 miles to get to McKenzie Pass where my Mom was going to meet us and bring us trail magic.  Most of it was in the downhill direction as well, with a few exceptions of course.  The biggest exception was a short climb over lava which moved and twisted with every step making it harder than it should have been.  A little ways after the top, we came across one of the tastiest springs on the trail: Minnie Scott Spring.  We could see its source bubbling straight out of the sandy bottom.  I sat there and watched it for a bit, it was that amazing.

Through the Lava to McKenzie Pass

From there, we had a mere 7 miles to McKenzie Pass and stunning views of Mt. Washington, Three-Finger Jack, and Mt Hood in a line in front of us.  The going was good until the last miserable mile of lava rock that had not been smoothed out and seemed to reflect heat back up at our faces.  We then found my wonderful trail magic filled mother after a bit of worrying and went in to explore Bend.  The story of the trail magic is here: Mom Trail Magic.

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Bed Bug Death Mix

After all the beauty of Crater Lake, the PCT through Oregon followed a line of volcanoes and the tall mountains which

Crater Lake

conveniently went in a northward line.  We could see the first one ahead from the rim, Mt. Thielson.  A trend emerged as the PCT methodologically traveled northward; we would climb to a certain point on the westward side of each mountain, just enough to get a few good views, then contour around it until we went steadily down, back into the trees.

Surprisingly, I did not want to walk locked into a green tunnel, despite the exposed and super hot California because Oregon had turned cold and my body had not yet adapted to near freezing temperatures at night yet.

I caught Hop-a-long and Inspector Gadget warming in the sun where a side trail split off to go to the top of Thielson.  None of us were convinced the summit wasn’t technical, but we could only see part of the trail up.  What we could see was mostly scree, which is fine going down, but going up is a bitch and a half.  We opted to continue down the PCT toward Thielson Creek to eat lunch.  My motivation had not yet recuperated from the cold by lunch which had begun to worry me.

Right as we left, the three of us ran into a guy hugging a tree and taking a MySpace photo of himself in a spot that didn’t seem unique to any of us.  As soon as he told his story, we understood.  His name was Scarecrow from Long Island.  He had almost completed his thru-hike last year, in 2011, but the snow slowed him down and he had to miss a chunk of trail from the spot where we found him until Bend, and then from Skykomish, WA to the Canadian border.  He told us about his restless nights and inability to sleep well at night because he hadn’t finished.  He had completed the stretch sobo from Bend to Thielson Creek and was about to head up to Skykomish to finish.

He helped my motivation significantly, not only from his excitement, but because he confidently said we were going to make it to the border and I was getting sick of people asking us if we’d make it since so many other hikers had already gone through.

We passed through a section of trail that had recently opened four days earlier after the Butte Fire damaged the area significantly and crossed the trail for about a quarter mile.

We passed the Oregon/Washington high point afterwards and continued until we camped for the night in a saddle that offered comfortable pine needles to sleep on.  By that time, Hop-a-long was getting seriously worried about itchy bites that were beginning to cover both of her arms, hands and neck.  I gave her some anti-itch cream, but that only goes so far when a person has so many bites.

By late morning, we reached Windigo Pass which offered an alternate trail which would bypass about 9 miles of PCT and rejoin at Willamette Pass near a ski resort.  A note posted at the trailhead gave information for a local trail angel based out of Bend named Lloyd Gust.  Hop-a-long called him and asked if he knew anything about bed bug, chigger, or flea bites since we couldn’t quite determine which ones were biting her.

“Do you have bites in threes?” Lloyd asked her on the phone.

“Yes.”

“They’re bed bugs.  We don’t have many, if any at all, chiggers around here,” he replied.

Seeing an RV park and a road close on the alternate route, she went that way to find a hot shower and laundry to blast the bed bugs out of her clothes and sleeping bag on high heat.  She even found spray rubbing alcohol to add to the bed bug death mix.  Inspector Gadget and I kept going on the main PCT and expected to meet her at Willamette Pass.

The next morning,the temperature went down to about 27 degrees and frost covered our tents.  Trying to simultaneously ignore my alarm and convince myself I needed to get up and hike somewhere, I laid in my sleeping bag staring at the frost above.

THUNK

I bolted into sitting position, still in my sleeping bag thinking a damn bear was right outside my tent.  Then I saw a headlamp.  It was 6am.  Who the hell is walking already packed up at 6am in this cold?

“Who is it?” I asked.

“WHAAAAAA!!!!” the person startled, “oh shit, I didn’t see you guys there!  It’s Splinter.”

“Shit man, it’s Gadget and Veg!” Inspector laughed.

“Hey guys!” Splinter gasped seemingly delirious, “I’ve already done 48 miles! 12 to go until Shelter Cove Resort and I’ll have 60 miles in 24 hours!”

“You’re fucking crazy,” I muttered still waking up.  “Why did you want to do that?”

“I needed to catch up!  And I wanted to see what I could do for a long day.  When I had 30 miles done in the first 12 hours and I wasn’t tired, I figured I’d go for it,” Splinter laughed.

“Dude,” Gadget started, obviously shivering, “come hang out with us at Willamette Pass after you pick up your resupply and eat pizza.”

“It’s only open on the weekends though, it’s Friday,” Splinter said.

“It’s Saturday,” I said.  “It was Friday when you started hiking this crazy mileage.”

We went up near Diamond Peak, contoured around, then headed down through a throng of day hikers who did not seem to understand headphones blasting as a don’t-talk-to-me sign.

“How far up is the lake,” one asked in a whiny voice.

“Which lake?” I asked in return.

“Uhhhh…the lake…” he responded looking confused.

“Dude, I passed at least twenty damn lakes this morning, I don’t know which lake you want,” and I continued on while he looked perplexed.  I had decided not to eat trail lunch since fresh salad, pizza, and beer would be at the ski resort in about four miles.  This, however, increased my annoyance with day hikers who wanted to ask the usual mess of questions.  Sorry, I’m not trying to be a bitch, but I’m starving and there is food that is not in my pack right ahead, probably where you parked your car.

The ski resort was not busy in the slightest, so we took over a table and several outlets to charge all of our electronics while we ate several rounds of food and drank some beer.  Hop-a-long had just gotten there and regaled us about blasting the bed bugs out of her stuff and the bites seeming to stall, or at least not get worse.  Splinter caught up with us and decided just to start drinking instead of taking a nap to not mess up his sleep schedule.  Always a great plan.  He had managed 60 miles in 24 hours and then started drinking beer.  Props.

That evening, we hiked out a few miles to the Madison Ski Hut which was a ski shelter shaped like an octagon for backcountry skiers.  We spent the night reading the register and figuring out how to booby trap our food from the scurrying mice that also inhabited the shelter.

The Oregon Hiker Highway with the super cool moss.

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“Don’t be a Dumbass like Us”

Delirious from 36 miles and tipsy from the beer, I stumbled down the road to a user trail spawned by Yogi down into the Mazama Village of Crater Lake.  According to the Yogi guidebook, if you walked the road into the Village, you would have to pay at the entry booth and the proper side trail was extra miles.  She claimed that you could bushwhack down when you see a guard rail on the curve of the road straight down to Mazama.

When I got there, I found Scooter in the store buying beer.  He took me over to campsite E17 where Dead Animal had set up camp complete with Coleman stove and grill.  He had just gone to see if I was at the trailhead, but Hop-a-long, Scooter, and Tahoe showed me where everything was.  I barely managed to sit down when a beer maneuvered its way into my hand and Hop-a-long filled a plate with soy chorizo, peppers, and onions.  We sat around a fire talking, cooking, and having a few brews.  Dead Animal filled me another plate of potato product fried and covered in ketchup.  Apparently, I need to eat.  It’s actually true.

Everything went grand until some gun totting park rangers came by with their flashlights up by their heads looking all serious and such rolled up.

“We got a few noise complaints for over here, you guys need to keep it down,” one said in his best cop-like voice.

I looked at my watch…it wasn’t even 10pm yet!  Quite hours were from 10pm-7am.  We had no music playing and we weren’t even talking loudly or drinking outrageously.

“What’s in the bag?!” one said with his flashlight beaming over on the picnic table which was covered with food, stoves, bags of all sorts.

I was closest, so I answered, “which bag?”

“The bag by the phone.”

“What phone?”  There was no phone on the table, probably because there was no cell service to speak of down there.

“The bag by the phone,” the guy started to sound more irritated.

“Oh, the MP3 player?” I asked and picked up the bag that had a garlic clove in it before we used it all.  “It had garlic in it.”  I picked it up and smelled it.  It smelled strongly of fresh garlic.  “Here, you smell it,” and I shoved it in the woman’s face.

Sniff sniff.  “hmm, yeah, garlic.”

Damn rangers.  Get out of here.  Go find some teenagers to bust for underage drinking or maybe the people who couldn’t stand 35 degree nighttime temperatures across from us who sat in their car with the heat on from 4 am on…thats between quite hours and a car engine running is not exactly quite.

Gadget rolled up around 11pm, right as I was going to bed and chilled out.

None of us got up early in the morning, besides Gadget who went to get a long early breakfast at the restaurant near the store.  Eventually, we made some breakfast, got our packages and formulated a plan which turned out to be somewhat of a cluster fuck.  For starters, the PCT split so an equestrian PCT separated from a hiker PCT for about 13 miles.

Scooter and Tahoe decided to slack pack 14 miles to where the trail came back together.  While Dead Animal shuttled them to the trailhead, Hop-a-long, Inspector Gadget, and I bummed the camp showers and walked to the store to do laundry.  In the meantime, Indiana Toad and Chocolate Chipmunk showed up and joined our plan to slack pack a whopping 5 miles up to Crater Lake Rim.  After stuffing our faces full of food from the store, we grabbed some beer and got shuttled by Dead up to the trailhead.

Indiana Toad and Chocolate Chipmunk took off first and stayed ahead of us the whole time.  Inspector Gadget, Hop-a-long, and I started chatting and drinking beer on the first two miles since it was flat.  We knew we were moving slowly since each of us had a beer in hand, but we also knew we were supposed to shoot upward when the trail split.  Almost an hour and a half in, we knew something was wrong because the trail was still flat.  We definitely weren’t going 3mph, but we weren’t going a mile and a half per hour either.  Gadget checked the GPS which showed us on the trail, but upon second glance, we realized that the GPS only had the equestrian trail marked and we had gone about two miles past the junction.

We hurried back moving faster than 3mph until we saw the junction.  Looking at the sign, the top had “Dutton Creek Trail” underlined and only on the third line down said “Crater lake Rim Trail – PCT.”  None of us looked past the top line and dismissed it as a side trail.  Underneath the sign, a piece of paper taped up said, “Horseys <–, Hikers –> Don’t be a Dumbass like Us.”  Great.  Didn’t even manage to see that.

Scurrying as fast as we could, we tried to race to the rim.  The trail, however, had other plans for us.  It shot straight up, pulling an AT number and we soon realized why the equestrians went around and not up.  Eventually, we hit the road that ran around the rim for all the yuppies and we walked to the cafe since the sky threatened rain and Dead Animal had gone to drop off Scooter and Tahoe’s stuff further on.  We warmed up there since the wind was fierce out near the lake until Dead Animal came and we formulated a plan of where to stealth camp so we didn’t have to pay for a pricy campsite again.

Right as we were going to bed, some music came bombing out of the woods, in the form of Magellan.  We gave him some chips, salsa, and beer since the store had already closed and he stealthed there with us.

The cold morning gave us a late start and we slack packed the 9 miles to where the hiker PCT and the equestrian PCT rejoined.  We took our time as the trail shot up and down to every viewpoint imaginable.  We dodged tourists, took pictures, and drank some beer while we hiked.  Dead Animal cooked us a good large meal of epic portions and we drank as much beer as we could fit into our ever shrinking stomachs.  The extra beers we left by the trail with a note to pack a can out for the other thru-hikers who we knew were not more than a day behind.

Hop-a-long and Inspector Gadget got a head start on me and landed about a mile ahead of me that night, but I caught them in the morning.  I would have caught them sooner, but we had one of the coldest nights on trail up until that point and it zapped my motivation to move apart from my sleeping bag.

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Slap the Bag!

The Standing Stone Brewery, where we ended up at in Ashland, was excellent and I ate copious amounts of food with good beer.  When we realized that the hostel was full, we had to hitch three miles back to the interstate, where all the cheap places to stay were located.  In the process, we encountered the local squatter population which seemed to want to take us in as their own since we were dirty, had backpacks, and therefore must not have any money to stay anywhere or buy our own food.

“Hey! You look like me!” one guy said walking by with a non hiking backpack.  Hmmm….how do I say this…no.

“Hey!  You know, the best squatting is down by the bridge!” Another one said.

“Thanks, but we’ll take a cheap motel instead,” Hop-a-long said.

We ended up having to call a taxi since everyone kept confusing us for the squatters begging for food near us, one of which had a sign that read, “Divorced Bigfoot…anything helps.”

Once we got there, Hop-a-long, Trooper and I split a room in the cheapest motel, the Relax Inn where we were put in the very end room, right smack next to the interstate.  The room reminded me of my freshman dorm room at college complete with concrete blocks and the owner dude watering the same flower bed for 30 minutes to watch us air our sleeping bags and put sink laundry out to dry.

After resupplying the next day, we somehow managed to spend most of the day eating, sleeping, and sending food places.  All in all, it turned into an inadvertent zero day.  We did not realize that until we found ourselves wanting food and noticed it was dinner time. Handily, a decently priced Mexican restaurant was located behind the motel, so we went there and ended up finding Splinter and Scooter who had hitched back to Shasta to climb it, then hitched back to Ashland, then Spins and Baboon.

Hop-a-long and I managed to get back on trail by noon the next day while Trooper waited for Funk to show up, who had gotten a day behind.  We also saw Tahoe and Taka at the trailhead and we leapfrogged them for the rest of the day.
At that point, Oregon did not seem too different from California: smokey from the nearby fire, dry, some sand, and a big fat rattlesnake.  Hop-a-long had boogied right by and it slithered out of the way to my right without rattling, but still managed to make me jump back, then ease closer to get a better look and see if I could get a good picture of it.  The thing must have been three and a half feet long!  Crazy!  I hadn’t seen a rattler in a while, just lame little garter snakes.

All four of us took a break by a spring that had a spigot.  Distrustful of random spigots in the middle of absolutely nowhere, we all treated it, and why not…the sawyer squeeze filter is so easy!

That night, Hop and I made it a little past a small highway and set up our tents in the most flat patch we could find, which wasn’t that great, but I slept fantastically anyway because the extra warmth of the tent blocked the breeze.  I reveled in having the extra two or two and a half pounds that my MSR Hubba offered.  I could definitely notice the weight change though.  Bye bye tarp!

I saw Tahoe in the morning as he packed up and we chatted for a wee bit as we took the newly rerouted PCT which seemed to add half a mile to go around the west side of a large hill instead of the east side.  Hop-a-long decided to cut off two miles by walking the dirt road instead, so I did not see her until lunch, where we also found Indiana Toad and Chocolate Chipmunk.

At the next water, I sat down to filter it when none other than Little Brown walked up heading sobo.  I had met him at the 501 shelter in Pennsylvania on the Appalachian Trail.  He had major knee surgery and the doctor told him not to thru-hike this year, so he decided to section hike.  Good spirit!  His knees seemed to hold up well and he told Tahoe and I a few stories with emphatic gestures.  He also gave us the important information that the last spring on the way into Crater Lake Mazama Village was dry.

We passed many small roads the whole day until we came upon Dead Animal with his blue Neon, a cooler of beer, and a five gallon bag of box wine.  We promptly sat down, drank a beer, and complained about how our feet hurt.  All three of us checked out the map and realized that the Brown Mountain Shelter (super weird to have a shelter on the PCT) was less than three trail miles away and .2 from another paved side/back road.  At the end of 26 miles, we hoped in the car and went the 2.8 miles up to the next road, then walked south to the shelter with arms full of food, beer and boxed wine.

The only person there was Little Steps, who had given us rides to and from the trail at the Anderson’s Casa de Luna (mile 478).  She was super excited to camp with other thru-hikers since she hadn’t in a bit.

Hop-a-long and I annihilated a large box of lettuce, some cookies, and any other food we could find, while entertaining ourselves with a trail register.  Her, Dead Animal, Tahoe, Little Steps and I began a game of “Slap the Bag” in which one person holds the five gallon wine bag for someone to slap and drink from above them.  Little Steps even joined in our little shenanigans…and she’s 60!

After dark, Scooter rolled in and before he could even get his pack off, we made him chug some delicious box wine, then stuck a beer in his hand.  He had a grin from ear to ear.  A wee bit later, Inspector Gadget rolled in and got the same treatment.  This went on until the five gallons was gone and we blew the bag back up with air to use as a pillow.

The morning was a little rough, but we managed to make it back to Dead Animal’s car where he cooked us all breakfast while we hovered in the little sunlight that poked through the trees.  It seemed as though fall had begun to set in since the nights became significantly colder and the days got significantly shorter.  Dead took all our stuff up to the road 10 miles later to Fish Lake so we could slackpack across the lava.

Despite the lava, the trail actually had such amazing construction that a great amount of dirt had been brought it so as not to roll your ankles with every step over sharp lava rocks.  The miles whizzed 0n by and we were back at Dead’s car before we knew it.  There,  we cooked lunch and Hop-a-long whipped up an amazing sautéed vegetable, soy chorizo mix to cram into a tortilla for easy mass calorie intake.  The boys cooked bratwurst.

Unfortunately, no roads crossed the trail in the next 51 miles to Crater Lake, so we had to take all our stuff there where Dead Animal said he’d be the following day.  Inspector Gadget set off first on the challenge at 2pm, then Splinter at 3pm, and finally I left at 3:30pm.  Hop-a-long was battling a giant brain crushing headache combined with an obnoxious back rash from her pack, so she hopped up to Crater.

Twelve miles up trail, after scaring some day walkers, I found Gadget at the first water where we cooked dinner.  I had surprised myself flying up that first climb when I was so un-motivated.  We only managed two more miles or so after that and crashed out on a  side trail thinking no one else would hike that.

I was pretty determined the following day to make it to Crater Lake despite it being 36.3 miles away.  I went for it.  Up by 4:30am, hiking by 5:15am, and in almost all my layers because I walked all over a windy ridge.  The morning miles flew by pretty well, until I hit the 1800 mile mark and plopped down in the sun to grab a snack.
The only notable feature of the day was Devil’s something or other which had these sweet rock features going all over the place.  Why is anything crazy awesome have “devil” in the name?

On the way down, about 15 miles in, I ran into Scooter right after he finished digging a cat hole.  That was the only time I saw him that day until Crater.  From there, I went in six mile-ish segments all the way to Crater Lake.  I had begun to get tired, so I chugged some Crystal Light Energy (aka crack).  My feet had also begun to hurt for no apparent reason, so I took my socks off and that seemed to help significantly.

I hit the road at 7:50pm, found a tall boy beer Dead Animal had left, chugged it and walked deliriously into “town,”  ready for an entertaining evening.

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California, We’re Breaking Up. Oh…Hey Oregon!

I’m not dead, I swear!  Just haven’t had time to update, so here it comes!

Near Seiad Valley, three fires had sprouted.  Only one affected the PCT: the Fort Complex Fire (formerly the Goff Fire).  It burned on the steep 5,000 ft climb out of “town”, closing some fifteen miles of trail or so.  While we sorted food after waiting for the post office to open, super thick smoke settled down in the valley, irritating my eyes so much, I went and bought eye drops.

Bruce said the afternoon heat would bring the smoke back up high around 2pm or so and we’d have an easier time waiting until then to leave, so we stalled.  This fire still had a walkable detour option: walk down Seiad Creek Road (paved, for 3 or 4 miles) which turns into Forest Service rd 48N20 (maintained dirt road) until Cook and Green Pass where the PCT crosses it.  The detour was about 13 miles of shade, blackberries, and a creek running next to it.  It still climbed almost the same amount, however seemed easier than the trail would have been.

I decided to walk it, but most got a ride up that they yogi’ed from the store.  It wasn’t too bad and I got some great views of the smoke blocking out the sun.  At the pass, I camped with Sea Hag, Robo Knee, and Heisenberg.  Hop-a-long, Trooper, Inspector Gadget, Extra Credit, Cactus, Doe Eyes, and Scrub Rat found rides and passed me.  One guy driving up the road offered me a ride, but when I declined, he gave me a bottle of ice water.

Robo Knee and Sea Hag woke up at 5am and I got up too, scrambling around in the dark since I failed to locate my headlamp that I thought I had forgotten in Seiad Valley.  I caught up to Hop-a-long and Inspector Gadget at the first water source after passing Doe Eyes and Scrub Rat.  No one seemed to make it very far after the detour, probably because it shot up another 1400 feet immediately.

We cruised along the ridge, trying not to choke on the smoke wafting over the adjacent ridge.  The heat from it had kept me warm the previous night, but Hop-a-long said she could see the flames from on top of the climb when it got dark.

Eleven miles later, we hit the next water source which was a beautiful large flowing spring and I stopped for a quick lunch.  I had just missed Trooper, but caught Hop there again.  The trail just made lots of small bumps up and down in order to mostly stay on top of the ridge.

Then finally, the climb we’d all been waiting for came – the climb to Oregon.  Halfway up was the border, where I found Hop-a-long, Trooper, and Inspector Gadget.  The four of us celebrated at the border with wine, whiskey, and food.  We spent quite a long time there, ironically on the California side since it had the trail register and a log that sat somewhat in the shade.  I took various pictures attempting to get my amazing Teva sandals in the photos but ended up rolling over by accident because the border was on a slant.

After our long break, we passed mile 1700 and headed on to Sheep Camp Spring which had a great pipe coming out full of water.  The “campsite” came complete with a resident deer which did not stop eating despite me setting up camp and getting water.  Soon, Gadget, Hop-a-long, and Trooper rolled in.

Promptly, Trooper did a few more miles while we stayed there only to see Trip roll in right before we went to bed.  He had hitched up to Ashland to get a wisdom tooth removed that had suddenly caused him great amounts of unnecessary pain.
“Yeah, I went into the dentist and he said it was one of the easiest ones to pull out,” Trip said as he rolled a cigarette.
“Ya know,” Hop-a-long started, “you really shouldn’t be smoking after a wisdom tooth gets pulled, have you heard of dry sockets??”

“Eh, it’s fine.”
That night, I froze.  Luckily, I had a tent in Ashland, my next town stop.  I had no problem waking up at 5 am and leaving by 5:30, saving breakfast for an on-the-move slamming a bar.  The 23 miles into Ashland was actually pretty easy.  Annnnd, on the plus side, I could charge my iPod in town, so I jammed out to music the whole way.  12 miles out, I saw a trail runner heading toward me and I realized it was Ben who had given me, Creep and Twister a ride into Etna.  He asked when I would reach Callahan’s, and I said 2:30.  He said he would meet me there and give me a ride into town instead of hitching on the on ramp of the interstate.

The trail down to Callahan’s cruised right on down.  Callahan’s even made a side trail down to them where they had a carved wood sign advertizing one free beer.  I wanted beer super bad, so I followed the obnoxious green spray paint.  Scared by the horses which came out of no where, I found a way to get to the side of the trail while they passed, leaving fresh shit in the middle of the trail on the way.

Callahan’s had absolutely nothing going on, but I got a free Deschutes Porter anyway and bought Ben the trail runner a beer in order to see if Hop or Gadget would make it in for a ride.  They  didn’t, so I got a ride into the Post Office where I loaded all my food and tent into my pack and mailed back my tarp and other unnecessary items.

I waited until Hop-a-long, Gadget, and Trooper got there, and then we made moves toward the brewery in order to decide what to do.

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Hiker Trash Meets River Rats

I got dropped off at the Etna Brewery with the trail runners Ben and Mark where Harry and Allie found me.  We had some food and beer, then Harry drove Allie, Inspector Gadget, and me up to Happy Camp, CA.  Yes, it is an actual town…not a children’s camp.  It was filled with an odd mix of old hippies, tweekers, and forest service types, the last of which had expanded greatly due to the fires.

We got showers, then drove to a spot to camp near-ish to where we had to be in the morning.  Harry had managed to swing us into a volunteer trip for the forest service in which we go rafting and then do a wee bit of work for them: in this case, we tarped over a chunk of an invasive species.  Not hard.

I had an inflatable kayak to go down the river in which turned incredibly fast and self-drained.  We went down the Klamath River for the day, relaxing, picking up trash, floating, and enjoying the coolness of the river instead of the 100 degree plus heat of the valley.  We picked huge blackberries and attempted to stay out of the fire bucket that helicopters were dipping into the river next to us to get water to dump on the fire.  They were literally right there, no more than 100 feet from us making a three helicopter loop, dumping the water on the burning ridge above us, which happened to be the PCT.

They got us back to Etna where we got dropped off at the hiker hut.  The town of Etna had become something of a small vortex and hikers seemed to gather and stay.  It seemed to have everything within a short distance: a cheap place to stay, a grocery store, the post office, a bar, a brewery, and a thrift store.  When we got there, we found Hop-a-long, Trooper, Navi, Extra Credit, Cactus, Trip, Hollywood, Zepher, E.D., Scrub Rat, Doe Eyes, Spins, and Baboon.

Way later than planned, Hop-a-long, Trooper, and I got a ride up with Still Phil, one of the Indiana Boys who had gotten off trail to go back to school.  Doe Eyes and Scrub Rat got a ride at the same time in a 1977 RV with a couple who does a Scott Valley podcast of local news.

We all went up trail for varying distances just to not camp right next to the road.  Hop-a-long and I stopped first at a small campsite because both of us wanted to cook dinner with a wee bit of daylight left.  Chances of thunderstorms were high that night and the crazy cloud patterns clearly suggested an entertaining night.  A warning had flashed across my phone before we left town to watch carefully for lightening fires.  Great.  More fires.  The whole damn west coast is burning!

A woman came up right after dark with no lights and two horses who freaked me out for a moment.  I just heard the big animal noise coming toward us, turned my bright light on and she identified herself.  At least it wasn’t a bear, I thought.

That night wasn’t actually bad.  I saw one bolt of lightning quite far away and it rained for a maximum of 10 minutes, or just enough to wake me up to make sure the tarp would keep me dry and not blow away.

In the morning, we started at a decent time and passed Doe Eyes and Scrub Rat’s tent in an amazingly small spot about half an hour later. Of course, there were much better spots about a tenth of a mile later, but that’s how the trail works.

About seven miles of that section was this really annoying rocky stretch with sharp ups and downs, the rest was pretty cruise-able.  Right at the top of the last sharp bump, Hop-a-long and I took a break and up walked Trooper who we thought was ahead of us.  He had a very entertaining story.  It went along the lines of this:

“So, I camp up at the first water and right as I’m going to bed, I heard a large animal in the bushes.  I picked up a rock and threw it over there and a mother fuckin’ bear barreled downhill.  Sounded like a 300 pound boulder rolling downhill.  Then, I wake up to noises, I pick up a rock and shine my bright light and it’s three mother fuckin’ deer.  Not long after, the mother fuckin’ rain started, so I got up and set up my mother fuckin’ tent, got in, then it stopped!  Like someone just flipped a mother fuckin’ switch!  I fell back to sleep only to wake up to more mother fuckin’ noises.  I pick up a rock and the same mother fuckin’ bear is over there!”  Trooper recounted with full arm gestures.

“That’s an impressive amount of ‘fucks’ you got in that story,” I laughed.

“I was fuckin’ pissed!” Trooper said, not laughing.  “I got up at 7:30am, but ended up falling back to sleep until 11:40am and left at noon.”

We hiked awhile longer and ate dinner by a locked old forest service cabin.  While we ate, we saw kids out of no where and we asked where the road was because that many kids that young did not come in that far.  After asking several times, we discovered a road 4.5 miles away by an easy side trail.  Two forest service types came over to chat as well for a bit.

When we finished dinner, we set out to climb up and over another ridge to camp near Paradise Lake.  The trail became fairly overgrown for that stretch and I cursed Yogi’s guidebook which told me the overgrown trail would be over after section o.  The only other notable thing we saw were the goat people the forest service people told us about camped right on top of the ridge.  With the wind raging, they seemed to need a fairly large campfire, for what, I’m not sure.  Let’s think about this a minute.  Windy ridge.  No near water source.  Extra dry conditions. Large fire.  Not smart dude.

We found decent camping and passed out down by the lake outlet after I almost stepped on an extremely large toad.

The trail only had one more climb before it took a slow, long descent into Seiad Valley, filled with poison oak.  It’s hard to watch for it when your body wants to barrel downhill toward beer.  Before I gave into listening to music, I heard a large animal noise only to look over up the hill at the biggest black bear I’ve ever seen about 30 feet away from me.  It quickly ran away, up the hill, fast for what seemed like a 400 pound, musky smelling bear.  It stopped at the top of the hill and looked back at me for a moment before running over the other side.

I put on some music and cruised downhill trying to avoid the poison oak as best as I could.  At the bottom, we hit a dirt road on which we had to walk almost three miles down to the Klamath River, then a paved road around to the bridge and into Seiad Valley.  Hop-a-long and I had a brilliant beyond brilliant plan to cut off the paved section by swimming across the river while floating our packs on our sleeping pads.  Since I had floated down the river already, I knew there were calm spots and super shallow spots, but the terrain shot our plan down.  From the road, a 40 drop through poison oak and blackberry bushes separated us from the river.  We chose not getting poison oak, walked around and complained about the pavement.

When we walked into “town” we discovered everything was right in one spot.  The post office, the store, and the cafe were in one building and the hiker friendly RV park run by Bruce, wearing a Dead shirt, was immediately next to it.  That was town.  We camped at the RV park for $10 and got some tasty beverages at the store before it closed at 9pm.

We decided to leave figuring out the fire detour for the morrow.

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Maxing out the Thermometer

I only made it a mile or less out of town from Dunsmuir when I meant to do six.  The problem all stemmed from Yogi claiming a laundromat was open in Dunsmuir.  I had planned to take lunch from the grocery store as well as my resupply and hang out there, doing my laundry, eating lunch, sorting food, and of course charging the electronics like the all important and essential iPod.  Yet, as this wonderful establishment was closed for business, I ended up eating and sorting food near a kids playground since that was the only public place with shade to do such things.  Of course, everyone walking in the vicinity avoided looking over because I apparently looked homeless.  The only person who stopped was Pacemaker who I enjoyed catching up with.

That being said, I still needed somewhere to sit with a plug, so I went to find a bar and found a brewery.  I quickly glanced at Yogi’s notes and she mentions no brewery!  What a curious thought.  Priorities, Yogi!

I plopped down next to an outlet and began charging electronics while drinking some good, refreshing pale ales.  Not too long after, Splinter and Inspector Gadget showed up to do the same thing, so I caught up with them and several beers later, we somehow managed to yogi a ride from a super awesome old hippie in a mini van.

After drinking another tall boy at the trailhead, we moved out hiking.  It didn’t take long for the recent lack of sleep to kick in and I camped in a super wide part of the trail near some power lines and watched the meteors until I passed out.

The morning didn’t work out so well either since I accidentally fell back to sleep at 4:30am instead of getting up and barely made it out of my sleeping bag an hour later.  Two and a half miles up, I found Splinter next to the first water and Gadget camped on the bridge of the second water a third of a mile later.

The trail just went up and down, up and down in small, rather pointless elevation gain and loss around some foothills catching lots of water.  Several thousand feet above us lay the Castle Crags, these giant rock formations that looked eerily like an old fashioned castle.

At the base of the climb out, where I meant to get, I found Stonewall camped there who I hadn’t seen since Ziggy and the Bear’s house (mile 210).  I totally didn’t recognize him at first through the tent bug netting.  I got water there, checked out the maps, ate a snack, and washed my socks downstream since I did not get laundry in town…I must stink!

The first bit of the climb wasn’t too bad.  I passed over Disappearing Creek which seemed to have disappeared since it was bone dry.  I thought I was taking a little much on the water anyway since I had 2.5 liters for 6 miles, but I was thirsty that morning.

It was a damn good thing I carried that much water since as soon as the steep switchbacks started up the ridge instead of just contouring up, the trees went away with all the shade!  I sucked down so much water it was ridiculous.  For four miles, the trail just shot up, up, up.  As I got further up, I noticed whoever built the trail could have had us contour half a mile further and then follow a creek up a bowl instead of the really exposed, dry, steep ridge I was climbing.  I could see the heat waves and started to feel a wee bit delirious like back in the desert.  My brain felt like it was frying inside my skull and my throat became drier and drier despite drinking lots of water.  I was also sooooaked in sweat.

The second half of the climb, I could pretty much only go half a mile up and then needed to sit in the shade just to cool off; it seemed like I was just overheating pretty badly.  When I finally got to the spring, I sprawled out under the only tree.  The spring was dry on trail, but 25 yards up or so, it trickled well enough.

I ate lunch and dozed for almost three hours since I apparently was not handling the heat that day.  I left a little after 4pm when it was still way too hot, but still considerably better than it had been.  A mile later, I hit the last water for 15 miles and loaded up from a pool 15 feet up since it was just mud going across the trail.  I was glad I had the Sawyer Squeeze since it was barely flowing.

I trucked along, but stopped early because the heat had zapped all my energy.  I only made it 18 miles or so and passed out right after Inspector Gadget came and camped.  I saw only a few meteors before my eyes refused to obey my brain and closed for sleep.

The next day, I woke up early and cranked out a 30 mile day thanks to Crystal Light Energy (i.e. drink mix crack) that has caffeine and B vitamins.  The day just went up and down, up and down.  I ran into Scooter and Green Machine that day, but not many other thru hikers.  I stopped for a nice two hour break at Deadfall Lake where I took a nice dip in my clothes to scrub them off a wee bit since I lacked laundry in Dunsmuir.

I made it to a nice wide saddle to camp that evening and managed to have some 3G, so naturally I used the internet for a bit only to find out that AsABat, the wonderful water report guy had passed away of natural causes while hiking.  That water report made the desert so much more bearable.

As I woke up early and packed up, I heard something, but didn’t know what it was.  Right as I left, I heard, “Hey Veggie!”

Startled, I whirled around to see Inspector Gadget off under a tree who had night hiked in after I had fallen asleep.

I knew I needed to pull miles again since I only managed 18 out of Dunsmuir and that disrupted my plan.  I woke up after stumbling down the trail in the dark when I drank that magical crystal light energy.  A few miles down, I passed Splinter sprawled out right next to the trail and he groggily said someone had super late night hiked past him.  I found out later it was G who pulled back to back 45 mile days in order to hitch back and climb Shasta.

I tried something new that day.  I only hiked about 5 miles, then took a 20-30 minute break instead of hiking more and taking longer breaks.  It worked out pretty well and I stayed hydrated and well fed since I resupplied while I was hungry, I had too much food.  I had a few sit downs and eat-as-much-as-possible sessions to lessen the weight.

Janet hiked on and off with me all day and then I hiked about five miles past her or so that evening.  I managed 32 that night and only stopped because I saw Stonewall and Taka, ended up chatting, then the tiredness set in.

We had a mere 19 miles to town from there which I managed grumpily before 2pm trying to make my friend Allie’s birthday.  I was really only grumpy for the pointless elevation change and the annoying extra rocks in the middle of the trail.  Overall, it was fine though.  I did get to see Snow Turtle and Aggassi at one of the yellow jacket infested water sources.  All of the water sources recently have had an absurd number of bees hanging around it and several people have reported stings in sections o and p.  As I got to the road, I ran into Twisted and Creep who I hadn’t met before.  Some trail runners gave us a ride into town after the three of us waited an hour and had three cars pass us, all of which stopped to make sure we saw how full their cars were and said sorry they couldn’t pick us up.

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