Author: Marcus

I woke up a bit late. I’d taken Benadryl the night before, hoping it would help me ignore the mosquito bites and get to sleep. And sleep I did.

I began the Oregon Skyline Trail with a short road walk, and then a week-maintained, nicely graded trail through light forest. On the flip side, “nicely-graded” means flat, meaning that I was following no skyline at all. The trail looked more or less like this most of the day:

It turns out, the Oregon Skyline Trail was a long trail that predated the PCT, and was mostly absorbed into the PCT when the PCT was formed. Most of the original OST is now either part of the PCT, or unmaintained. The part that I hiked today is only a 20-mile section of what used to be a 400-mile plus trail.

So, despite the name no skylines were promised on this particular section of the OST.

There was much more water on the trail than there had been on the actual PCT lately, which was nice, but it was usually from large ponds. These are hard to get water from without scoping up dirt, because it’s too shallow within arm’s reach of the bank. On two separate occasions, I teetered and nearly fell off a log trying to get to deeper water. One of the logs rolled — when I flailed my way to the shore safely, I felt like a fully-qualified log-rolling lumberjack.

The OST also introduced me to a new, more obscure way of referring to the PCT. It’s apparently also called the P.C.N.S.T.

After the creek, the forest got a lot denser and sun-dappled.

I passed several southbound groups of horseback riders today, making this by far the most equestrian section of the trail. The whole PCT is graded and maintained for horses, but they only seem to exist up here in this part of Oregon.

And, for some reason, every group of riders contained at least one person (often more) who thought my bug net was just about the most novel and handy thing in the world.

Later in the day, I stepped out of the way of a group of riders.

“You!” Said their leader. “Step out from behind that tree!”
I did. There were trees about every five feet here, so anywhere off the trail was behind a tree.
“Hiding behind a tree is verrrry scaaaary!” He said.
The trees’ branches were extremely sparse. You could see right through them.

Later, I saw where all the horseback riders were coming from. The Halfmile PCT app omitted many waypoints from this area. I was afraid I’d gotten lost when I found myself in a campsite that wasn’t listed.

Or at a water source that wasn’t listed.

By the afternoon, I was getting to a resupply point called Shelter Cove, which is a small lakeside resort with a little store.

The resupply choices weren’t good, but I only needed a day of food. I also had dinner there, at the crowded PCT hiker picnic tables.

A hiker across from me at the table did backcountry ski patrol in the area, and new ask the trails well. He recommended a hut just off the PCT, a bit north of here. He said it had a nice big wood stove, lots of sleeping space interesting architecture, solar lighting, and even a place to charge your phone. “So long as nobody’s stolen the adapter”, he said. It sounded interesting to me, I planned to take a look at it.

After spending too much time eating and chatting, I packed up and headed out into the wilderness.

Around when it was getting dark, I was near the Rosary Lakes, so I found a flat spot and set up camp.

I think I got more mosquito bites yesterday than on the entire rest of the trip. I was up half the night trying not to scratch. Oregon mosquitoes are all business — no swarming around you, they just fly in for the bite, get it, and fly off.

Other than that, today was all about miles. I hiked, hiked, and hiked.

I’d heard from a southbound hiker that there was trail magic at Forest Road 60, where I was planning on camping. But alas, when I got there (Sunday evening), they were gone.

I’ll be taking the Oregon Skyline Trail alternate instead of the official PCT starting tomorrow morning. It’s got more water, gentler slopes, and fewer miles, and I need to go on it part way anyway to get to a resupply point in Shelter Cove. We’ll see how it goes.

I had a lot to do this morning. Break camp, shower, sort my food resupply, get breakfast, research water and resupplies… And that’s all before I even got around to hiking.

The next resupply seemed like it might be a problem. I’d been planning on hitching into Crescent Lake, which has a supermarket, but apparently nobody does that. I don’t know why. Shelter Cove was an alternative, but its store was supposed to be mostly candy, and it was too late to ship a resupply there. I decided to overpack at Mazama, so that I’d have leftovers at Shelter Cove, so my resupply wouldn’t be all candy (just mostly candy).

And, after figuring that out, I realized I had 180 miles to Highway 20, where I’d take my next zero. I’d planned on doing that on the 18th or 19th. That could require five 30-mile days in a row. I’d only done three 30-mile days on the whole hike so far, none in a row, and they’d all been hard. I’m not sure I’ll be able to do that.

Breakfast today, at least, was nice. I had all the basics — eggs, pancake, cut fruit, yogurt, and coffee. The coffee was so good, I had 4 cups — I’d need it for the kind of mileage I’d need to be covering.

With everything in order, I had one last orange soda at the store, and set out.

I’d be taking the Rim Trail alternate, which follows the rim of crater lake, and has great views. The official route is in the valley to the west, and is rather drab, but it can be used by horses, while the Rim Trail can’t. Most hikers take the Rim Trail.

It turns out, most hikers are right.

I came to a spot where the Rim Trail got separated from the lake for a bit, and the pleasant smell of a wood fire wafted up to me from the valley to the west. The Bybee Fire was still smoldering.

The trail rejoined the rim after going around a large rock pile, with a watchtower on top.

At the point it rejoined the rim, there was a developed vista point with a parking lot. This being a Saturday in the summer, there were many tourists there, taking pictures, parking, going to the port-a-potties, whatever it is they do.

On the way through the crowd, I was stopped by no less than 4 different people who wanted to talk to a real, live PCT hiker.

A man in his 60s wearing a shirt for The Who said it was an honor to meet me. A man my age in technical hiking clothes said he was thinking of hiking the PCT himself some day. And, unexpectedly, I saw Legend and Raven, a trail angel and section hiker (respectively) who I hadn’t seen for around 1500 miles. Legend ate my pizza crusts at Ziggy and the Bear’s. Raven pointed out that a pump I was fiddling with in the desert was known to be dry.

Soon after, the trail broke off from the rim for good, and rejoined the PCT. A long, dry stretch through flat, thin forests followed.

In the flat, sparse forest, nearly anywhere can be a tentsite, so I set up my tent at last, and went to sleep.