Month: August 2016

There was much to do in Cascade Locks this morning. I needed to ship two large resupply packages to Northern Washington, plus get food for the current leg of the journey, plus do laundry.

The weather forecast showed a high of 95 today.

The laundromat was a peculiar place. It had no change machine, but the owner made change from his pocket instead, slowly separating the quarters from the pocket lint. He only had 7 quarters for my $2, but that was enough to start the washer. He walked slowly around the store, and told me about the town.

Shopping for supplies was tricky. I needed to put together about 14 days of food, without being too repetitive, from a fairly small grocery, and 10 of those days needed to be shipped.

After packaging and shipping my supplies, it was time for one last meal of town food before entering the wilds of Washington. We chose the Cascade Locks Ale House, across the street from the post office. And who should be inside, but Bill the dairy scientist, who we’d first met way back on Mt. San Jacinto.

We chatted about Oregon, and about the trail to come. It turned out, the Bill and Breanna I’d seen on a list at Olallie Lake was not him — he hadn’t seen Breanna since Mammoth, more than 1000 miles ago.

We procrastinated it into a 2 hour lunch, but eventually had to leave. It was time to enter Washington, and to cross the Bridge of the Gods, past Thunder Island.

Once in Washington, the trail quickly rose up into the mountains, along green ferny tree-covered trails.

We only covered about 13 miles today. Our late start, plus the changing seasons, meant we’d have to night-hike to get any further, so we set up our tents, and went to sleep.

I woke up early, and stayed in bed late. It wasn’t a cold morning or anything, I’m just getting used to late starts. There was no hurry to be anywhere.

Soon enough, the trail reminded me that I was making progress, though.

The trail started with conifer-laden views of Mt. Hood, but quickly descended to lush creek valleys.

The valley was part of the Eagle Creek Alternate, which followed a network of narrow creek valleys. These valleys have creeks in the bottom, and many tiny tributaries flow in across the trail.

I was gathering water from one such tributary, when who should appear but Elizabeth.

She’d also made a mistake counting mileage on the alternate, and was nowhere near as far from Cascade Locks as she thought. So we were hiking together again.

As we progressed along the valleys, everything got steeper.

Then, we reached the main attraction: Tunnel Falls.

The rest of the hike took us across several bridges, sometimes over very deep crevices.

The last stretch paralleled the freeway, which was surprisingly pleasant, considering.

As soon as we got into town, we had dinner at Thunder Mountain Brewing, a highly-rated brewpub on the river.

At last, we went over to the motel, and went to sleep. Altogether, I’d highly recommend the Tunnel Falls area to weekend backpackers — the scenery is terrific, there’s plenty of water, and nice campsites.

I had such big plans today. I was going to fuel up at the Timberline’s all-you-can-eat breakfast, then get going and cover 30 miles.

There was a famous alternate up ahead — the Eagle Creek Alternate — that I’d wanted to do since before I started the trail. It added 5 miles, such that a 30 today would leave me 25 tomorrow, when I’d arrive in the town of Cascade Locks. I needed time in town, so 25 miles was all the time I could spare tomorrow.

But, the Timberline was warm, and the trail was cold and windy. And there were many things I needed to check on their Wi-Fi. And then there was the museum.

Nevertheless, I eventually got going. But not until 10:30.

Even though it was a weekday, the lodge was full, and there were many short-distance hikers on the trail. About 7 miles from the lodge, I ran into an exhausted, sweaty one-day backpacker.

“Is there any more uphill?” He panted.

I checked the Halfmile app. It showed 2200 more feet of climbing for him.

“Well, it goes up and down for a while,” I said.

The trail was going up and down the ridges of Mt. Hood. This made for good scenery.

I took a small alternate to Ramona Falls, since it’s popular and doesn’t add any distance.

As I proceeded north, views of the other side of Mt. Hood appeared.

As it got dark, it got more and more obvious that I wouldn’t make 30 miles. The terrain here didn’t lend itself to dispersed camping (there were solid bushes everywhere), so I set up camp in 25 miles rather than 30. I’d have to do 30 miles tomorrow and get into Cascade Locks late.

There was another hiker, Tank, already making camp there. We chatted about the upcoming trail. He didn’t seem concerned about getting to Cascade Locks early. It was only 20 miles, he said.

I looked back at the Eagle Creek Alternate’s distance. It subtracted 5 miles, not added. I’d have no trouble getting to Cascade Locks on time.