Day 45 – Bend Redux

At the Days Inn I stay up late watching John Wick movies. Those things are a hoot, with all the cartoonish orchestrated violence. I eat an entire large three-topping pizza during the movies. As the movie plays, I wash my clothes. I run back and forth to the laundry room to make sure they are not stolen.

My motel is not in the greatest section of town, but in my current condition, I certainly look like I belong here. I wear my wind pants and shirt which are not much more than tinted ziploc bags with a zipper and drawstring. With nothing on underneath, I am probably illegal and definitely obscene as I dash between my room and the laundry room, hoping no one sees me. When an eighty-year-old couple unexpectedly come out their door, the husband looks disapprovingly at me. The wife does not bring her gaze above my waist. Hoo boy. Such are the indignities of hiker trash like myself.

In the morning I walk up the street to the Black Bear Diner. It’s kind of a destination in Bend. I order their big breakfast bowl, but can only eat half. I will eat the rest tomorrow.

I review all the food I had bought and left here at the motel for use on my next segment. It looks like I have just the right amount, except that I have way too many Oreos. Can you ever have too many, though?

Skipping

I have mentioned that I need to skip a part of the trail here in Oregon. That will happen tomorrow when Stan and his girlfriend take me up to the Mount Hood area. To recap, a massive fire last year destroy thousands of acres in central Oregon last year. In fact more land burned last year in Oregon than in the 50 previous years combined. The fire that affected the trail was called the Lionshead fire. The trail is closed from just North of Pamelia Lake for about 40 miles.

The only place you can easily enter the trail again is Timothy Lake, 46 miles north of the burn. I am going to enter the trail 18 miles north of that (at Hwy 35) for two reasons: 1) I only have three days worth of food in my pack, and 2) this is the most convenient place for Stan to drop me off. This means that I am skipping 64 miles of the PCT.

The other factor in this decision is the incredible “wind event” they had last year on Labor Day. Not only did it accelerate the fires, but it blew down thousands of trees across the state. The PCT has not been completely cleared of hundreds of these trees. While trail crews have made some progress, there are still areas that are not clear. I have no desire to spend my day climbing over big trees on the trail. However, I am going to hike through anyway with hopes that it is not too terrible and much has been cleared.

Having said all that, I will spend three nights on the trail before I reach Cascade Locks on Tuesday afternoon in time to retrieve a box from their post office. Then… Then… I will cross the bridge into WASHINGTON! That will be so great!

I regret skipping, but I have to move forward in the best way for me. I am going to count the skipped miles in my “Total PCT miles” count because I want the count to keep matching the mile markers. The count is a gage for how much of the PCT I have completed as I work toward the final number of 2650.

• July 16
• Starting mile: 2028
• Ending mile: 2028
• Daily PCT miles: 0
• Total PCT miles: 656