Month: August 2016

I woke up to a rain fly and quilt that were soaked with condensation. The lake had not been kind to me. It did make for a scenic morning, though.

The mosquitoes remained aggressive, biting me through my gloves, and getting inside my head net unless I cinched it really tight. I’m going to be itchy for quite some time.

The terrain this morning took me through a lot of Oregon’s standard environments, and then began to introduce dry, volcanic scenery.

Later, the trail entered the Obsidian Limited Entry Area, a picturesque part of the forest that had piles of obsidian sitting around.

As it got late, I had to decide between a nearer and a father campsite. I chose the later, and was frustrated to find difficult lava rock flows made up the majority of the trail on the way there. They were starkly scenic with the sunset, though.

There was a brief valley with soil instead of lava rock, and a small spring winding through it. Something about the environment made the trees grow with wavy trunks, like in a children’s story book. Altogether, surrounded by the dead lava rock, it was like an oasis on Mars.  I set up there and went to sleep.

I woke up a bit late today, and wasn’t moving down the trail until after 8. My plan was to have breakfast while my phone charged at the hut yesterday’s hiker has recommended, so I set out with no breakfast.

The hut was quite nice. Clean, well-built and maintained, and was an octagon.

After a thorough search of the hut, I determined the adapter he’d mentioned had, indeed, been stolen. I dejectedly ate my breakfast with an under-charged phone.

I packed up my backpack, tightened the straps, put it on, and heard the sound of a strap breaking. One of the straps that held the lid on my pack had broken. I repositioned some other straps to hold the lid in place, albeit crooked. I could carry the pack this way just fine, but I’d look silly. Maybe I could get it fixed in Bend. This side-trip to the hut had gone badly.

My dad had just finished a hike in the Swiss Alps, where he went from hiker hut to hiker hut each night. There, the government keeps the huts stocked with food — they even helicopter in beer — and you pay on the honor system by leaving money in the cabinet. I was jealous.

All things done, I wasn’t out of that hut until 10. I was going to have to speed up an awful lot if I was going to do 30 miles today. I’d only done 3.

And speed up I did. The rest of the day was uneventful, just a lot of walking, really. A song was stuck in my head, which helped (“Home”, by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes). I’d whistle or hum, and vary the tempo to match my hiking speed.

Lunch was by one of the many lakes in this area. I was in a hurry, but it was right on-trail.

After lunch, I picked up the pace, and, for some reason, the high pace stuck. Maybe I should eat a brick of cheese with every lunch.

Late in the day, I came across two tiny, quivering chipmunks. They were standing in the trail, apparently unafraid of me.

One approached my shoe, and started to rub against it. I think they must’ve been young, fallen out of a nest, looking for their mother.

But, having been warned about catching plague from these things, I moved my shoe away and continued down the trail.

As it got later, I sped up, and the mosquitoes came out in force. I wore my head net and kept my hands on my pockets. One flew into my pocket and bit my palm.

I hiked until it was just about dark, then set up by a lake, and ate trail mix in my tent for dinner, so I wouldn’t have to expose my head to mosquitoes. I’d gone about 32 miles today.

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.