Last night as I drifted off to sleep, head net on, I looked to the East and saw that the smoke had returned. I have become numb to this phenomenon. Like news of war casualties, it is beyond my personal control, but I know that it could affect me personally someday.
The new sleeping system worked. Keeping my heavily clothed shoulders out of the quilt kept me cooler. The head net did its job and the bugs ignored my DEET-covered hands. However, my quilt lay under the open sky, so dew had drenched my quilt by morning making my feet cold – a small price to pay. The Wanders and Ditty did not stir until 5. I woke at 4:30 and captured this sunrise.
I get out of camp at 5:45. I quickly shed my fleece and don my head net as the mosquitoes are up early too. I move quickly to outpace them. As I move up the trail, the forest opens to reveal the lake we camped on. You can see the peninsula we occupied on the right. It was a good spot, and hanging the bags kept them safe all night.
The plan
I hike quickly. I am shooting for 18 miles today. The first water source is in 8 miles. But the morning is cool, and 2 liters should be plenty until then.
I enter an interesting section. It is an old burn area. The dead trees are bleached a ghostly white. The new trees spring up between the old, but none are taller than 10 feet. The hillside covered in this way reminds me of Arlington Cemetery. The green trees are the visitors passing among the gravestones, honoring the fallen.
The sun, still low on the horizon throws my shadow on the trees next to the trail. I feel like I have a synchronized companion who is near, then far, then near again.
Two bars are better than none
It is in this section that my phone comes to life. I had forgotten to turn on my phone’s “airplane mode”, so it starts sending me notifications. I check the reception and find that I have two bars of LTE cell service! On a whim I try to upload something. It works! For the next 90 minutes I manage to post Day 27 of this blog. It took me almost two days to do the same thing in Shelter Cove. On the down side, I am now 90 minutes behind schedule and I have used up my phone battery. I can recharge my battery, but the damage to my schedule will take me all day to correct.
The Wanders catch up to me as I am working. Pretty soon we are all acting very unhikerly by staring at our phones. The Wanders shoot a video commemorating their 600th mile. Way to go Women! Ditty and I have a ways to go, but we will be there soon.
After I start hiking again, I run into Nimble. He named himself because he didn’t like the names others had tried to give him. He is hiking this Oregon section and then skipping down to do his last section of the PCT: the Sierras. I mention that I may see him there if I can get through Oregon and Washington quickly.
Today looks a lot like yesterday with dozens of ponds on the trail. While they are beautiful, it seems like they contribute to the high numbers of mosquitoes here, too. Most are green and stagnant with lots of dead material coating the bottoms. Rarely do I see anything alive moving in those waters.
Colors
And now I would like to continue the series I started yesterday: Studies in Green. The series in defense of the beauty of this section, which people say is boringly monotonous.
And it was nice to see this white flower again. The last time I saw it was on the way to Mt. Ashland a couple weeks ago. The purple flowers were in the area where I met Nimble.
Signs
I have been noticing since we left Crater Lake that many trees along the trail are scarred with deep slash marks on their trunks facing the trail.
Most are cuts through the bark to the living wood. These marks appear to be part of the blaze system that was used in the early days of the trail. Occasionally the old metal PCT markers are still in place.
The PCTA no longer marks trees in this way. The new markers are attached to the trees in a less destructive fashion. Also, today in most places the trail is wide and easily found. Fewer markers are required. My only suggestion is to add more “confidence” markers to the trail after a redirection or a crossing with another trail. I am often unsure about which trail I am on.
Among the dynamics of the trail environment, one is obvious – rock vs. trees. Rocks prevent trees from rooting deeply which causes them to tip over in high winds. Trees send roots into the fissures of rocks, splitting them apart. In this photo, this young tree seems to have found a crack in this rock to exploit.
A fellow scribe
About 90 minutes from camp a thru-hiker comes up behind me. I know he is a thru-hiker because no one else walks as fast on these trails. His name is Pony. He is 59 and a writer like me. He spent his life in journalism, and hikes for fun and profit. His last book about the Appalachian Trail is doing very nicely. We chat about the trail and the process of writing on the trail. He is fast, but I manage, somehow, to keep up.
Pony says his main objection to writing on the trail is that he needs a keyboard to write. He doesn’t believe he could express himself properly without one!
By coincidence, Pony has met the Wander Women twice – first on the Colorado Trail in 2015 and second on the AT in 2019. He is very interested in Christie’s plan to get around the fire closure. Pony mentions that he is hiking with Lorax who works for the Forest Service out of Bend, Oregon. We all hope that he can tell us new information about what crews are working, where they are, and how it might improve the trails we want to hike. The best he can do is tell us that the Mount Hood office can give us the latest information. Christie’s mind assimilates this information.
We have a nosey deer in this camp. It comes very close looking for food or equipment to nibble on. I try to scare it off by tossing pebbles at it. One of the other camp members scolds me, “Throwing rocks at animals is very uncool!” I stop, but I wonder, “What is the approved way to retrain the deer.”
The mosquitoes are back, so I am going to wrap this up for the night. Tomorrow is another 18 miles. We are edging toward Sisters, Oregon, where we will all get off trail for at least a day. What happens after that is still in flux.
- July 8
- Starting mile: 1925
- Ending mile: 1943
- Daily PCT miles: 18
- Total PCT miles: 571
- Animal: Hummingbird, Nosey deer