Wandering Mindfully

Information on the PCT is like a seasonal creek. A dry creek bed can turn into a gushing river of water depending on what’s happening in the world around it. Some water is a mucky mix of hearsay that no one should drink, but we do because there is nothing else around to sate our thirst. Other water is a bit more clean, might come from a Garmin message or, cellular signal willing, a text.

Huckleberry Season

The first leg of this trip started with sweet news, huckleberries are in season! A couple of ladies walked by Brianna and I while we were on a break and showed us what huckleberries look like. Neither of us had ever eaten or picked fresh huckleberries before. Suddenly, we were picking huckleberries straight from the bushes!

Huckleberries are more than a widely available PCT fruit, they are the metaphor. Whatever your adventure is, world travel, or local exploration, we are all just making the effort to experience new things or relive old things. For me, huckleberries represent the things I have done and seen on the PCT that I would not otherwise have the opportunity to do or see.

Sometimes the huckleberries are bright red and ready to be picked, sweet as all get out. Other times they are dark red, and tart, giving a nice punch to your mouth. Hitting the trail at the right time is imperative or you might come across berries that aren’t quite ripe for the picking and have to keep marching on. Perspective and experience allow you to see and appreciate the bushes even when there aren’t any berries to be found. 

“I’ll be your huckleberry.” – Doc Holliday

Fire Season

The second river of information that flooded our way was not huckleberry sweet and pertained entirely to wildfires. Brianna and I were taking our lunch/heat break at the South Brown Mtn Shelter, enjoying ice cold water out of the water pump, when northbounders started showing up with all sorts of news. An afternoon storm was brewing, and as much as we love a cool hike on an overcast day, lightning from these storms has the potential to start fires, and perhaps already have.

Owl

A positive break in scary fire talk – our favorite northbound hiker of the day was Owl! Owl is from Germany and about as real of a person as we have met so far. She had no qualms about stripping down to her underwear and bathing with the pipe water. If it had been appropriate, I would have taken a picture of Brianna pumping the water while Owl scrubbed her bits clean. Solidly good time had by all!

(This is not Owl, just a deer drinking the pump water)

We love unapologetically genuine people like Owl. She will tell you exactly how she feels and how she is hiking without thinking twice. If you’re a purist and do not like her approach, she will tell you exactly where to stick it. This is not to be confused with simply unapologetic people who are genuinely mean or rude.

In a matter of days, a large fire has broken out in the north, where we were hiking just days ago, and another to the south, the direction we are heading. As southbound hikers who could not start hiking from the Canadian border as we had originally planned, our intention has always been to flip back up to Washington once we hit Ashland. Oh, but don’t worry, there is a fire near the PCT in Washington now as well.

Whatever the water or news source we are ingesting, it’s always a many-sided die of concerns. How will this affect me if I drink it? Who will come after me to drink it? What is the bigger picture, beyond the next 20 miles of my existence? Is there anything I can do to help?

Trails and Trials

While I normally write a blog entry on the daily, and the past couple of days have been interesting, it’s been difficult to put something together. We have passed a lot of northbound hikers with interesting stories of escaping the fire areas, but those are their stories and I am not a reporter.

Some northbounders are excited about the new challenge and are pressing on northward, fires be damned. Other northbounders have the look of a hiker who has been kicked in the stomach and needed someone to talk to, so we lent them an ear and as much positive reinforcement as we could muster. Even with the fire problems, Brianna and I still passed over 2 dozen hikers on our trek through the smoky air into Ashland. The smoke was never so bad that our eyes stung or our lungs were hurting.

Many displaced hikers are planning to flip north the same as us, tightening the logistical resources available to accomplish a feat that was already difficult to conceptualize. We have a zero-day at Callahan Lodge, just outside of Ashland, to figure everything out. I hope it is better to be lucky than it is to be good because we are going to need a lot of luck to make this next leg happen.

We are safe and pressing on! Callahan Lodge is a beautiful spot to stay for a couple of days and plan.

Posting from Trail

It has been very difficult to post my daily blogs on this PCT trip so far. Signal is spotty at best and many of the trail towns either do not have Wi-Fi or it’s slow and only available near the main offices. Slow data drains the phone battery and forces me to stay in a single spot, neither of which can be tolerated for long.

Imagine you only had 15 minutes of slow access to the internet and calling every 3 or 4 days. What would you prioritize over everything else? Text your friends? Call your family? Post to your blogs? 

Yet another military comparison here… we used to get 15 minutes of call time a week when I was in Pakistan. The British girlfriend was never at home, was usually able to catch up with a best friend or my mum though. We had no idea what was going on in the world and we didn’t have much capacity to care. Whether on military deployment or a long-distance hike, matters of immediate concern are defined by the environment around us. 

If my phone can catch a bar or two of service, I am generally able to get a few texts out and a blog post in about 15 minutes. Blog posts from the PCT have gotten a bit more complex with the two sites I’m writing for and the pictures I want to upload into them. Someday, someday, I’ll have simultaneous access to internet and beer. This will be a good day.

The Physical

It should not come as a surprise to hear Brianna and I slept in this morning. Sleep came easy after our 27-mile day and we both slept as hard as we ever have on trail. The 22 miles we planned for today were mostly flat and water would be available every 10 miles or so, why rush?

Physically, I’m feeling well.

Brianna has been applying CBD lotion to my skin rash and the sores are almost completely gone.

My feet are holding up well, just a few blisters. The bigger foot problem I’m having is bigger feet! It’s funny and it’s true… 😆 Last year, my feet puffed up on the Ice Age Trail, causing me to need a size 11 instead of a 10.5. On the PCT, I started with a size 11 and it now appears I’ll be needing an 11.5. This kind of foot growth is common for long-distance hikers, this should be my last bump up in sizes… Walking downhill for miles in shoes that are too small causes a lot of problems. Toenails turn black, crack, and fall off. Toe skin rubs against the shoe and opens friction wounds. Getting new shoes in a few days!

The Mental

Mentally, I’m not doing so well. The heat wave is crushing. Morning and evening hikes are our only saving graces. Between 12pm-3pm is stupid uncomfortable. Remember that time when you were going to play in the garden but decided to stay inside for some Netflix and Chill instead because it was too hot? That’s what we are doing from 12pm-3pm, “creekside and chill.” It’s tough for me to watch the lots of hikers pass us on our extended breaks like it’s tough for you to watch weeds growing in that garden you aren’t going out to tend. 

You have air conditioning, we have cold creek water. You have Netflix, we have conversations with random hikers. These are actually over glamorizations of the truth… sometimes we have warm lake water that tastes of fish and dead leaves. Sometimes we do not see or have meaningful conversations with other humans for several days.

Hiking is more difficult than it is fun and it’s only fun because the difficult times make normal seem awesome. It’s kind of sad if I think about it. I have never lived in a house without running water or electricity. The only way for me to appreciate these things is to deny myself of them? It’s also amusing to think that I’m ok living without running water, electricity, or a toilet, but this same blog post starts with me bitching about slow-to-no internet access. 

With only 1 more day left of the heatwave, we are going to do fewer miles tomorrow. Only 56 more miles until we flip back up to northern Washington.

Really Big Fish

There were a lot of interesting stories being told as I lay awake in the tent, unsuccessful in my attempts to get some rest before our 2am night hike. Many of these hikers are fishermen/women who traded their fishing poles for hiking sticks. I’m sure most of the stories started with some truth, but the oneupmanship was so incredible that by the end of each story there would be a person carrying 40lbs of camera gear, in addition to all their normal gear, and doing consecutive 40-mile days with no problems. 

HYOH

I am also starting to understand more meanings of the phrase, “hike your own hike.” Many people are not “hiking” the trail as they say they are. Anyone who has read this knows my opinion on hiking how you want to, or “smashing goblins”. What I am finding is that people are hiking their own hikes in a lot of cool and different non-traditional ways, but have a difficult time being honest about the details because they break from the socially accepted norms.

Instead of telling a story about hopping from section to section, I heard a hiker say they hiked something like 700 miles in a short period of time, accepting all of the compliments from their audience. Later this same evening, a friend who they have been hiking with mentions details of skipping over 200 miles for various reasons. People want so badly to be accepted for hiking accolades, that they leave out details? That’s my best guess.

I am a huge proponent of the Lee Lemos school of storytelling – “Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.” Not letting the truth get in the way of a good story is about more than being dishonest, it is an art. 

There is also a microcategory of people hanging out at trail towns without actually hiking much. They get on trail with people, fall behind and catch a hitch up to meet back up with their group. I’m not sure if there is a name for this in the hiking world, and I’m not judging because – have fun however works for you, but it’s also kind of paradoxical in that they are also ashamed to admit it. It might be that some people want very badly to be a part of the trail community but cannot physically, financially, or mentally actually hike the miles. Ironically, these have been some of my favorite people to speak with in the town stops. They have a lot of information and go the extra mile to engage me in conversation.

Night Hiking

Since we were set up in the middle of about a hundred other hikers, the 2am alarm on my phone was set to vibrate only. Even though the phone slept with me in my sleeping bag, the vibration did not wake me until about 2:30am. Last night was a new moon with no natural light, which made breaking down camp in silence even more of a challenge. Some neighbors may have heard some rustling, but I think we did an awesome job – did not speak a word to each other or shine any lights.

Brianna and I’s long day of hiking officially began at 4am. With 20.7 miles between Mazama and our next available water source, our goal was to make all of those miles before 1pm. It wasn’t just the ongoing heatwave that drove us to this extreme plan, there is also a long exposed burn area in the middle of the long water carry. Additionally, making it 20.7 miles to water at Honeymoon Creek by 1pm would also mean we could relax for 4-5 hours and still get another 6 miles done before calling it a day.

The pitch black night/morning portion of our hike went very well. I lead the way with my white light and Brianna followed behind with her red light. My biggest concern over those first 2 hours was trying not to step on toads; no clue how many amphibians were killed in the making of this post.

Our pace for the day was good and everything was going well, for the most part. As the sun got higher and our breaks became more frequent, the lack of sleep and the absence of proper nutrition began to take a toll on us. We skipped breakfast with the intention of making it up on trail and that never happened. We were snacking hard, but it wasn’t enough. By the end of the day, Brianna was falling asleep for most, if not all, of our 20-minute breaks.

Honeymoon Creek

Making it to Honeymoon Creek was a dream come true. It’s just a couple of ponds flowing into a stream with some shady spots, but heaven looks different for everyone I suppose. We had great conversations with a few different hikers passing through, my favorite being Early Riser. She and I spoke to each other from our shaded hiding holes like two squirrels squeaking at one another from different trees. It’s not that she was an Ohio girl with a Colorado backstory and we are a Michigan couple with a Colorado backstory, it’s just hard not to love someone with the positive energy she was putting out into the world.

Devil’s Peak

The last leg of our day was only 6 miles, but it was a doozy of a 6 miles up Devil’s Peak. If any other Southbound hikers are reading this, the climb is significantly harder for us than it is for Northbounders. Hiking Rule #73 – Do not believe trail incline/decline information given to you by someone hiking from the opposite direction. We passed a Northbound hiker who said the hike was “gradual and easy.” Yeah, gradual for you, steep as fuck for us.

It took us a bit longer than we thought, with the terrain full of slippery sheet rocks, but we did eventually make it to the top of the trail. The 7,000+ feet of elevation gave us a perfect view of helicopters we had been hearing all day long. They were grabbing water from a nearby lake to assist with a fire near Eagle Point.

Not long after reaching the south side of Devil’s Peak, Brianna said to me, “I see smoke!” Sure enough, a stream of white smoke was rising out of a crop of trees to the southwest of Devil’s Peak, an area that was 10 miles off trail and a couple thousand feet lower in elevation. Maybe it was nothing? Maybe it was a forest fire? By the grace of luck, my phone found a couple bars of signal when I exited it from airplane mode. I called 911 and told them what I saw. The dispatcher pinged the position of my phone and reported it over to the Fire Departments for investigation. Not sure what happened from this point, might be that we helped save the PCT section? Or maybe it was nothing.

Snow Lake

Reaching our home for the night at Snow Lake was emotional. There was a group of 4 tents taking up the prime camping real estate at the time we arrived, forcing us to find an alternative spot to rest our heads. The 16-hour 27-mile day of heat and steep climbs came to an end just minutes before sunset. 27 miles is not much compared to those doing 30-40 a day, but it’s the best day Brianna and I have had on the PCT so far.

We have a couple bars of cellular service for the first time in days, from inside our tent no less, and zero energy to do anything with it – c’est la randonnée.

(Snow Lake the morning after)

Crater Lake

Have you ever had something you have looked forward to for so long that by the time it actually arrived, you weren’t sure if it could ever live up to what you wanted it to be? For me, Crater Lake is one of those things, and it did live up to the hype.

Brianna and I were up around 4:30am and out of camp by 6ish. The climb out of Grouse Hill had some steep parts that we wanted to knock out before the heat set in. Our only real goals for the day were to take our time to enjoy Crater Lake and make it to Mazama by 1pm. We succeeded in the former, failed in the latter. 

Both the PCT and the Crater Lake parking lots were completely empty when we arrived at 7am. One of the major complaints hikers have about the area is how crowded with tourists it is, and yet, we were the only ones out there early. That’s not a very fair comparison though, we only had 4 miles to Crater Lake from camp, Northbounders have a longer and much steeper climb in from Mazama. In any case, we owned Crater Lake and the PCT for a time, it was personal and amazing.

The Rim Trail is another “alternate” trail, not officially of the PCT, but infinitely better than the path the PCT takes through the area. Not that I have ever seen the PCT side, but how could it be even close to Crater Lake!? We walked a semi-circle around Crater Lake and were treated to all sorts of different angles of view. The water shimmers all shades of blue, depending on where you are and the time of day. I snapped a great photo of the sun coming up and didn’t even have to break park rules to do so.

One of the best views from the day was an unplanned side trip up to Watchman’s Tower. Brianna had the look in her eye like she wanted to go up the steep incline, but knew I would have happily passed it by. I knew that if we didn’t go, we would have been regretting it all afternoon, so I took the lead and charged up the hill. Many day hikers were making the trip up, why not us too?  It cost us time, but so worth it.

True Lies

If you’ve done any Googling on how Crater Lake was originally formed, there is a good chance you’re getting fed a pack of lies. The real event happened millions of years ago when a blue alien spacecraft crashed deep into the earth, creating a crater-like hole. Overtime, snowmelt filled the crater with water, water that now reflects blue spacecraft at the bottom.

The U.S. government built tunnels under the water to do secret tests on the alien technology. Much of the technology we have today was reverse engineered from the Crater Lake Spacecraft, to include software like Windows. Top scientists speculate that a million-year-old version of Windows software may be the reason it crashed in the first place.

Mazama

Mazama… is not what I thought it would be. If I were to rate the 3 trail towns that we have been to so far, it would be 1-Shelter Cove, 2-Elk Lake, 3-Mazama, and let me tell you why.

Mazama has a lot of hiker amenities, but they are not what they seem. There is a charging station outside the General Store for phones and whatnot, but it’s in the sun for a lot of the day and there is nothing else nearby it. The showers are free, but they don’t work well and there are 3 for the entire large campground. Camping is free, but the area is crowded with a shit ton of hikers. It’s the kind of setup where everything is marked as ‘free’, but nothing ever gets fixed and the trash never gets emptied. ‘Free’ is the excuse used to not have to care. I would much rather have paid for a shower that worked.

I know the above sounds ungrateful, I’m just trying to be real. The staff were awesome. Annie Creek Restaurant’s pizza was delicious! The place is an important stop for all PCT hikers, but I would not go back.

Having a lot of hikers camped in the same area is not a bad thing in and of itself. Mazama, more so than Shelter Cover when we were there, could be looked at as a hiker hub or black hole, depending on the perspective. Hikers are there for many days and for all sorts of reasons. Need to wait for your trail family to catch up? Wait in Mazama. Have an injury you need to give time? Wait in Mazama. Need to quit the trail and hitch a ride out? Wait in Mazama. All of these different agendas makes for a different atmosphere, or ‘vibe’ if you will.

I’m sure a lot of people here are loving it, it’s just not for us.

Brianna and I are socially awkward beings by nature. You’d think this peculiar quality would make us fit in very well with other hikers, but that is not so. While people in large trail families are often very helpful, and I do speak with them, it’s not easy for us to make personal connections that way. The tactic that has been most successful for us has been to find a hiker or two that are sitting solo. Today, I send a special “thank you!” to Frosty, who helped show us around the large campground.

Getting stuck in the heat and showing up to Mazama late means we will be staying the night to recover. Our plan is to wake up at 2am and get our first PCT night hike in.

Trail Magical!

The day of our first trail magic! We ran into Stu and Carol on the side of Highway 138, where a table and pop-up had just been assembled. Brianna and I both had a cold Coors Banquet for the drinking and a watermelon for the eating. I went a step further and ate an apple Stu had handpicked this very morning – tart! They are on the road supporting their nephew, Sweeper, and wanted to bring some happiness to the trail. How lucky are we? If we had left our 3-hour lunch/heat break any sooner, we would have missed them entirely.

Sunbrellas for Sun

Today was the day we used our sunbrellas for two different reasons.

It was a hot day straight out of the gate. An excessive heat warning was issued for the area and we were feeling it by 9am. Sweat dripped from my eyelashes down to my cheeks, even with moderate tree shade and my sunbrella fully deployed. We made the 9-mile goal from Diamond Lake to the North Crater trailhead shortly after noon and hunkered down for a planned 3-hour heat break. That’s right, 3 hours.

What could have been a dull time turned pretty lively when a new hiker friend and his dog appeared from the road. Meet, Smiles, and Zero. Smiles is what you might expect Jesus had looked like in his early 20s (the lost years!). Zero is what you might expect Jesus’s dog to have looked like, I’m not sure what the breed was, so use your imagination. As long as in your imagination Zero is about two feet tall, reddish brown color, and looks more like a fox than a dog.

I didn’t ask Smiles how he got his trail name, but he was smiling the entire 3 hours we spent together. As he recounted death-defying mountain climbs in a freezing rainstorm on the 4th of July, he smiled. The only time he didn’t smile was when mentioning that he needed to have his parents come pick Zero up off the trail. Zero was struggling with the heat and mileage, and while Smiles did not want to part ways, it had to be done.

Sunbrellas for Rain

3 O’clock finally rolled around and we made our way back into the sunshine. Brianna and I hadn’t traveled more than half a mile before running into the aforementioned trail magic. If someone offers me a beer, I take it, especially if it’s an excuse to dip out of relentless heat. Or maybe not so relentless? Brianna spotted something in the sky we had not yet seen in Oregon, clouds.

The world quickly cooled as clouds covered the sun and little droplets of water began to pitter-patter onto our heads and gear. “This is a gift!” I said to Brianna with real excitement in my voice. I’d much rather hike in a rainy 70 degrees than hyperthermia causing 90+ degrees. Furthermore, I think the rain came because of me.

Before leaving our lunch break, Smiles, Brianna, and I were chatting about how we all love rain and caffeine. Smiles had heard of Celsius energy drink before but had never seen it in single-serving packages like we got off Amazon. As a show of hiker love, I gave Smiles my last package of Celsius, “a gift from us to you,” I said with my own smile.

Now, stay with me here. If Smiles is a reincarnation of Jesus in his “lost 20s”, then doesn’t it seem plausible that he made it rain for us?

The rain went from slow drops to a somewhat heavy downpour. Sandy dirt turned to mud and the temperatures dropped to a cool 70. Northbound hikers passing us reported hail and sleet, but we never encountered any of that. The sun came back out just long enough to dry our gear and we made it to Grouse Hill Camp with little effort. Grouse Hill is a beautiful and huge site.

Thank you to all the trail angels leaving water caches! The cache in the bear box at the Grouse Hill area parking lot tasted better than beer!

Exhausting days do not always make for restful nights; neither Brianna nor I slept well. There was a half-called tree creaking loudly in the night as a midnight wind blew in at us from across the lake. We lay wide awake for many hours past when the creaking finally settled down.

Howlock Alternate

Our day was one of more alternates, the Howlock Mountain Trail. We had 8 miles to Howlock from camp and another 8 almost entirely downhill miles to Diamond Lake. The Howlock Trail was a doozy! It’s not a well-used path… well enough that I could see where it was without getting lost, not well enough to have much trail maintenance. It couldn’t have been a mile down before we ran into an America Ninja Warrior-style obstacle course of HUGE down trees. The carnage looked more like the product of an avalanche than it did a wind storm.

Brianna and I made our way up, over, around, and under the trees for about a mile. It was fun until it wasn’t, and we were ready to be done with it. We wear a few scrapes and bruises from the trek.

The Thielsen Creek greeted us around lunchtime, leaving plenty of time to chill before pushing through the day’s final 4 miles. My shoes immediately came off, sandals on – feet in cold water for the win! Cold mountain water on hot swollen feet is ecstasy. Taking the time to clean your feet in the middle of a hiking day seems pointless, but damn does it feel good.

Our final 4 miles were nothing special. We walked on sandy horse trails through a burn area. It was a great opportunity to pull out our sunbrella’s for some mobile shade, no regrets about bringing those.

Diamond Lake Resort

Diamond Lake Resort is a pretty cool spot to crash after dirty days on the trail. I’m learning that the word ‘Resort’ means different things to different people. Diamond Lake has about as awesome a location as a resort can get, on the shore of the beautiful Diamond Lake, with mountains in the background, on the doorstep of the Crater Lake National Park. The resort itself is circa the 1990s, particularly the motel room we are staying in tonight. I’m not complaining, I dig it. Hard to beat $133/night at a gem like this.

Temperatures are heating up here for the next couple?/few? weeks. Probably need to start doing some night hiking. Those, however, are future me problems. For today, a hot shower awaits.

Desert Juxtapositions: freezing cold in the morning, scorching hot all day. Dry everywhere, water is life.

Our sleepover in the Whitefish Horse Camp host’s tent made for a restful night’s sleep. The camp hosts had still not come home by the time we collected our things and cleaned up, so Brianna left a ‘thank you’ note and made a quick breakfast before hitting the trail.

Trail Details

I’m not sure why, but the energy of this morning’s hike was very uninspired. Slept well, but didn’t feel rested. Excited to see Crater Lake in a few days, but a few days felt forever away. If you’re on a break next to a beautiful lake and feeling sluggish, there is a problem in need of a remedy. I did the only two things I could think of, mixed us some Celsius energy drinks, and reserved a room at Diamond Lake for the following night. Nothing gets you going like looking forward to hot showers.

The trail out of Whitefish Horse Camp was much like the trail in, steep and sandy. I hiked behind Brianna with my NCT buff over my face to filter some of the dirt clouding behind her every footstep – it worked! Unfortunately, even the gaiters we wear over our shoes to stop dirt from getting in weren’t enough for this kind of trail. It’s great for horses, less so for hikers.

This PCT section is the first time Brianna and I have had to plan water carries strategically. A water cache (where trail angels leave large amounts of water to help hikers in dry stretches) greeted us at Windigo Pass, allowing us to fill up for our last 12-mile march. Water caches are a great treat, but they cannot be relied upon in the same way a steady-flowing stream can, and even some streams are seasonal and dry up. If you get to a spot that has a cache, awesome, fill it up! If you get to a spot you were hoping would have water and there is none… you better have a contingency plan.

Water Bubbles

A lunch break became necessary after the long hike out of the horse camp. Brianna and I took a seat on the south side of the trail, on the far side of a dirt road from the water cache. There were about a dozen northbound hikers encircled next to the cache when we arrived, all hanging out and having a good time. In the hour we took to chill and eat lunch, a dozen more must have showed up and none had left.

Remember those slime ball toys from the 80s & 90s? You could play with them, squeeze them between your fingers, but would eventually pick up too much dirt?  The water cache was the slime ball and it was slurping up dirt-ball hikers at a high rate. We passed more hikers today than any day before.

(This is not meant as an insult, I am also one of these dirt balls.)

Our day ended at Maidu Lake. It was a 21ish-mile day that took 13 hours and zapped all of our energy. With all the hikers we passed today, we were concerned that arriving late to the lake would mean there would not be any campsites for us. Much to our surprise, not a single other tent was down by the lake when we arrived or any time after. Mosquitoes were minimal and we got to watch a family of baby ducks at play while eating a chicken stew dinner as the sun went down.

Insomnia Thoughts

Joy and peace, non-permanent states of being, two things that always are we seeking. 

I have come to the conclusion that for me, joy is akin to taking an epic photograph. The 1-in-1,000 photograph that perfectly captures a moment in time like none of the other 999 managed to do. The feeling of joy is often so overpowering that I do not realize it has happened until it has already gone.

Peace is usually a longer-term state of mind that happens when I feel that I have come to terms with an event. It’s the not forgetting, but it’s not far from it. Some life events can not be resolved nor let go of, that is where I seek peace.

Hiking introduces vulnerabilities into you mental spaces: hunger, thirst, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, I could go on. These  vulnerabilities a hallway with a door at each end. One door leads to moments of pure joy. The other door unearths memories of the past, breaks the peaceful fallacies. These past few weeks have me remembering things I have not thought to think on for years, decades.

Having the time, space, and vulnerabilities to reflect on those which should not be forgotten is good a good thing. Hiking is kind of like a penetration test for the soul (for non-IT people, a penetration test is when company A pays Company B to find network/infrastructure weaknesses). The older we get, the more we have to reflect back on. Whether it’s remembering the people we’ve loved and lost or attempting to better understand the good and bad events that have OR SHOULD HAVE shaped us.

Thoughts from a tired mind.

Only one other person visited the shelter after we tucked ourselves in last night. The man in his 50s wanted to check things out, but not to stay. He had taken a mid-day nap and would be hiking until 2 am to make up for that. He also recommended an alternate trail option we have coming up after Shelter Cove, the Whitefish Creek trail. The alternate leads to a hiker-loving horse campground and cuts 7 miles off the normal PCT route.

Most hiking/ski shelters have mice and the Maiden Peak Shelter is no exception. The trick to dealing with shelter mice is to use common sense: stash your food and trash, don’t cook inside, and hang your bags on bay hooks.  Our sleep was mostly uninterrupted once I accepted mice would be mice and our crap would be just fine.

Alternate Alternate Plans

Brianna was scouring through the National Geographic Oregon PCT map when I walked in the shelter door with our coffees this morning. “I think the Whitefish Creek Trail used to be part of the PCT. This makes it easier for me to justify taking this alternate. Also, it has 7 fewer miles than the normal PCT route does.” 

“Hot damn!” I shouted, slapping my hand down hard on my thigh. “Let’s do it!”

Unlike Brianna, I do not need to justify my reasons for deciding to walk an imaginary line that is different than someone else’s idea of what the imaginary line should be. PCT alternate is just a trail that leaves the PCT at one point and meets back up with it at another point. Some of these alternates are magnitudes more scenic and beautiful than the official route, but even so, some people would say taking an alternate means you did not complete the PCT.

I’m like a barbarian warrior sitting at the bar at the beginning of a Dungeons & Dragons game.

Lefty the Hobbit: “Greetings, adventurer! My party and I are going to attack a goblin’s town to sav…

Wrok the Barbarian: “I’m in.”

Lefty the Hobbit: “But I didn’t even tell you why, yet! Aren’t you the least bit curious?

Wrok the Barbarian: “No. I like to smash goblins.

I don’t care if other people think I hiked the trail correctly or completely. If I was trying to break a speed record, then I’d care. No speed record for me though, I’m just out here to smash some goblins.

Shelter Cove

Shelter Cove is a resort/campground just a mile and a half off the PCT and it’s amazing. Brianna and I put our fast feet on this morning, making the 9.2-mile hike to Shelter Cove in about 3 hours. This place has showers, laundry, a pretty well-stocked camp store, a restaurant, and even a tent area with tables specifically for hikers to organize and hang out.

First items on our checklist to get marked off were showers and laundry. One of the 2 driers was broken, but there wasn’t a line for the washing machines and hiker clothes dry super fast so we were done with those 2 things within an hour.

Next thing we did it find a spot to park our butts under the hiker tent. I picked up our resupply boxes from the store, which contained all the food Brianna and I pre-packed before beginning our adventure. This was my favorite part of our day! Not the sorting food part, the part where we got to socialize with other hikers for a couple of hours. We met Ian the Man, Sandy the dog, Mary, Bubble Wrap, and Echo. This kind of gathering is not something we had experienced before and it filled our souls with joy. People with a common goal all supporting each other, verbally and with supplies. We are hiking faster than we thought now, and eating less, so it was fun donating our extra food to people in need/want.

Whitefish Horse Camp

Our path out of Shelter Cove led down the Whitefish trail to the horse camp. The path was dusty and steep, but we made the 10 miles in about 4 hours. Camp hosts are very cool! So we are told… no one was home when we arrived. A neighboring camper pointed us to a tent for hikers and told us we were more than welcome to stay, so we did. The hosts have a hiker register to sign and a small fridge with cold Shasta pops, which we drank, and a power strip, which we used to charge our Garmin.

All-in-all, one of my favorite trail days of all time. Our social appetite has been sated and we are back to the grind.

Waking up at Stormy Lake made for a particularly difficult morning. With mosquitoes out in force, we ate a quick cold breakfast and skipped coffee. My morning bowel movement made going outside a necessity, an act I paid for with dozens of bites where the sun don’t shine. Appreciate your ability to poop without getting assaulted by bugs, appreciate it.

Another thing long-distance hiking has in common with military deployments – appreciate the little things. I never had to dig catholes when on deployment, but we did have a gang bathroom. Toilets were lined in two rows of 5 or 6, so close that your knees would touch the guy in the adjacent stalls. The end stalls were always taken first and the most disgusting. There is something unsettling about feeling a stranger’s leg muscles tighten as they squeeze one out next to you. Appreciate the little things.

Outpacing the mosquitoes was easy once we got moving and it made for a good motivator to keep moving. Brianna and I made a goal to hike 20 miles and stop at the Maiden Peak shelter for the night. Not having to set up the tent in mosquitoville was a major factor. Shelters are pretty rare on the PCT, being able to stay at one is a pretty cool opportunity if the miles line up right, which they did.

We pushed a hard hiking day and made it to the shelter at exactly 4:00 pm. Plenty of more time left in the hiking day, but this was our goal and here we are, playing rummy and enjoying the lack of mosquitoes. The shelter has benches big enough for sleeping along 3 of the 8 walls and a second floor with enough space to sleep a dozen or so more. No one else is here yet, but it’s early!

Tomorrow we head into Shelter Cove to pick up our first resupply boxes. They have showers and laundry there too! With only 9.2 miles to Shelter Cove, we should be able to get there early, do what we need/want to do, and get back on the trail for more miles.

Hello, Mosquito

When people in the PCT Facebook groups said the mosquitoes were bad from Elk Lake to Shelter Cove, they were right! Nobody likes mosquitoes and these are the swarmy kind that does not care about any of the chemical or physical bug barriers we tried to apply. Not close to the worst mosquitoes we have experienced, but still bad.

There are so many ponds, lakes, and runoffs from the late snow melt, of course, there are going to be a shit ton of mosquitoes in the morning and evening. It’s basically a series of mosquito subdivision areas out here. Their parents grew up here and their kid’s kids will grow up here. My least favorite thing about hanging out in mosquito subdivisions is how they bite my ass when it’s morning poop time. Not fun.

To Oregon, with Love

I need to take a minute and apologize to you, Oregon. When I said those mean things in earlier posts, I was upset because my skin hates you. Now that we have gotten to spend more time together, I am finally seeing you for the national treasure you are. Freshwater lakes with hews of emerald green and tropical island blue, all of the clearest kind. Maybe I could live inside you again someday, if you’d have me.

Today also changed my previously written opinions on hiker interactions. Brianna and I stopped to talk with all sorts of hikers today. Gandolph and Holblet were a cool younger couple we exchanged trail war stories with. We also stopped to try and help a group of lost sections hikers. They weren’t really lost, they just weren’t sure where they were… they were looking for a very specific small lake, not on any of my maps. They were on the PCT though, with plenty of water and food, so hopefully, they found themselves.

One of the major appeals of reading blogs like this, whether you know me well or know nothing about me, has to be observing how my opinions and perspectives change, how I change. Making quick judgments about people and things is an area I do need to improve upon here and in my normal life. If you treat everyone like you’re playing them in a poker game, then each person you meet with always be an opponent.

I’m wrong a lot.

Trial Details

Today was such a beautiful day. We passed by more lakes with excellent camping opportunities than we have in all of our previous 200 miles combined. We don’t have unlimited time or food, so we cannot camp at them all. We stopped at the lovely and quiet Mac Lake for lunch and a fawn walked right up to and by us. It didn’t want anything, it just didn’t particularly care that we were there.

It became of the utmost importance for us to find a beautiful campsite for tonight! Who wants to pass up so many awesome spots just to camp next to a swamp? No one, that’s who. I do not know the name of the lake we are camped next to and it doesn’t matter. To infinity and beyond!

Special thank you to Penny & Curt for helping and hanging, it was an awesome start to our trip! Having family who love the same things and enjoy being around each other as friends has made for some of the best times of our lives. We miss you 😘 😘