Day 29 – Devil’s Peak

My alarm idea worked today. I randomly woke at 3:50, took my earplugs out and then heard the alarm go off by my head 25 minutes later. Before even turning off the alarm, I open the valve of my air mattress and all the air escapes. As several PCT hikers have pointed out, the sound of air escaping from a mattress is the saddest sound on the PCT!

Terminator in his tent hears my mattress and deflates his, too. We spend the next 45 minutes breaking down camp and eating. At 5:00 we are both ready. It is still dark. He says good bye, and something about the mosquitoes and heads down the trail with his headlamp on. I wait forlornly for the light to increase so I can see to hike. As I sit there patiently, I ponder his words. This section of the trail is known as “mosquito hell”. Last night wasn’t terrible, but maybe it gets worse.

Move along, sir. You can’t sleep in that doorway

It’s Wednesday, and that means it’s my selfie day. I have been on the trail 4 weeks, and I am not getting better looking. I had hoped I would have that rugged Hollywood leading man look, but I just look more like a bum.

Skeeters

The trail is beautiful this morning as the sun breaks through onto the trail. As I stop for my first break, the parting words of Terminator come true. I am blanketed with mosquitoes. It is actually kind of panic-inducing. I go for the bug head net. I have been wondering if I would ever use this. I hope it works. It takes a few minutes to figure it out, but finally:

It covers my hat and head, while also managing to look quite stylish. I learn that if you walk fast enough, only the most dedicatedly mosquitoes can land on you. However, when you stop, the head net is your only salvation. Eating is tricky, though. More than once I crammed the net into my mouth with a breakfast bar. I have no net for my legs, so I lather them with DEET. That stuff really works. I had maybe two bites on my legs all day.

Hiking

The plan for the day is to hike 8 miles to Christie Spring for water. Then to hike 10 miles to Snow Lake for enough water to camp. Then hike 4 miles to camp near a lake where I can get water in the morning.

The first part goes great. The hike is mostly downhill and the Spring is easy to find.

I run into a guy named Tortuga doing trail maintenance. He has hiked all over the world, and thru-hiked the PCT. He thinks he has one more long hike in him. He asks me if I am “one of those white-blazing purists”, meaning someone who stays on the PCT exclusively and does not take alternate routes. I am surprised by the remark, so I don’t answer. He suggests an alternate route that goes by a really cool waterfall. I decide to try it but later chicken out when I learn that some hikers have had a hard time following that trail. I don’t want to be lost again, so I guess for now I am in the purist category.

After the spring, the trail opens up and becomes more exposed. There are a lot of trees that seem to have died for no reason. It’s puzzling. And it makes hiking hot. We are still in this heat wave, and even up here at 6000ft it will still get above 90 degrees today.

As I climb out of the dark forest, the flowers appear again. I don’t think I have seen these before:

Hell to pay

As I ascend towards Devil’s peak, the trees almost completely disappear. It would be depressing, except that the variety of rocks is remarkable. It must be some kind of glacial deposit.

I am in the middle of a 1200 ft climb, but the heat makes it harder. When I look into the valley, you can see that this area has been deeply affected by fires.

This section of trail consists entirely of the rocks that sound like broken plates when you walk on them.

Devil time

But where is the devil? And which one of these rocks overhead is his peak? This buff I am walking under is super imposing. As I round the trail to pass beneath this buff, I couldn’t help but think about that big rock on the trail below the Marble Mountain bluffs. The one that had fallen there recently.

At that moment I hear a noise above me in the boulder field. A rock is tumbling down the mountain at me. I scramble back to the edge of the field thinking, is this the start of an avalanche? Nope. That rock, that was about the size of a softball, bounded down by itself and landed (plop) on the trail in front of me. Why did it come loose? I could not tell. But I think I heard a low snicker from above.

It turns out, the real devil was around the next turn in the trail. See that tall spire in the next photo? That’s the devil. It is not obvious until you hike around to the back side of it. Then you can see why they call it Devil’s Peak. The profile of the laughing devil is hard to miss.

Camp

In the last few miles of today’s hike, there are five places where small streams cross the PCT. I want to camp by one of them. Of course, I would love to choose the last one because it is closest to Mazama Village (my destination for tomorrow).

As I get to the fourth stream, a tiny toad jumps in my path. I stop and another one appears. Then a whole slew of them jumping out of the grass and onto the path. It’s like they want me to take them with me. “No, little ones, you are needed here,” Doolittle says. “Please move aside.” They didn’t. They can’t be toad what to do.

The fifth stream had a perfect spot to camp. But, as I lay here writing this, the skeeters are all around me. Only the DEET on my face and hands are saving me. The quilt is doing the rest. I hope the wind picks up soon, or it’s gonna be a long night. Tomorrow evening I hope to reach Mazama Village. It is part of the natural wonder turned tourist attraction that is Crater Lake. I can hardly wait.

• June 30
• Starting mile: 1777
• Ending mile: 1801
• Daily PCT miles: 24
• Total PCT miles: 429
• Animals: Toad army