I am currently sharing journal entries from my section hiking of the Pacific Crest Trail in Oregon. For this section, you can start here: Snuffy’s 2015 Pacific Crest Trail Journal : Bring on The Bugs.
Snuffy’s 2015 Pacific Crest Trail Journal : Lightning Rod of The Cascades
June 26, 2015
Breaking camp and donning headlamps, we were walking by 3:49am. The trail takes on a different light when all you can see is within the narrow beam you provide. I was doing okay as long as I could see the tiny bob of Elizabeth’s glow behind me, but I had to stop several times to let her catch up so I could feel a little less isolated in the dark.
Neither one of us had a camera that could capture well the layered pink salmon sunrise as it slowly contrasted the black mountains around us and lit up the morning sky, but let’s just says we were both brought to tears at the beauty of it. We stopped at a Miller Lake view point to eat second breakfast and talk about how that sunrises like this are one of the reasons we are doing what we are doing.
I make the OR/WA high point of the trail by 10am, with Elizabeth about 45 minutes behind me due to the climb. It was actually anticlimactic because it doesn’t sit on an incredible view point but rather on the gradual slope of what could have been a scene from Lonesome Dove. I would not have been surprised to see a covered wagon with settlers come over the trail at this point.
I found an elusive shady spot to sit and relax while waiting for Elizabeth to arrive, eating more food and elevating my feet on a slowly degrading log. As I was reclining there, with my abused bare feet hanging in the air, gobbling down a dark chocolate and cherry Clif bar, drinking my electrolyte flavored spring water; I thought to myself that this is a life of my own making. Have you seen the TED talk by Heather “Anish” Anderson, who holds the FKT record for an unsupported hike of the PCT? Go now, look it up and watch it. In it, she asks the question, “What’s Your Fairytale?” Although I imagine there are not a lot of men asking themselves this question, she talks about how we need to stop living someone else’s dream, what someone else has told us is the perfect life, and go out and LIVE YOUR OWN LIFE. Make your own fairytale come true. And it just might not include a white knight, castle or 1980’s prom dress.
I want to mention here that although the mileage says 14.73 for the day, we walked a bit further due to a wrong turn on my part at a trail junction that headed towards Diamond Lake. Someone had laid sticks across the PCT southbound (SWOYC), so I naturally thought to take the other trail. Luckily, I figured it out after about a quarter mile but it was frustrating.
During this time, we stopped to deal with Elizabeth’s feet. She had been having pain on the top of her feet, she thinks it has to do with her shoes and the weight of her pack. However, she could tell she was developing a hotspot at the ball of her right foot. I pulled out my first aid kit, helped her clean it with coconut oil and a cotton ball, tried to drain with a heated needle but there was no fluid yet, then wrapped that baby with duct tape. The Crater Lake ranger would have been so proud.
Passing a few more hikers, we made it to the Thielsen Creek trail junction by 2pm and stopped for lunch. What glorious glacier water goodness can be had here! Mt. Thielsen, an extinct shield volcano, sits gothically above the creek with its sharp spire and red striations of rock. I took time to rinse my shirt and socks out (away from the stream, of course) and drink a few liters of water. We talked about how the next reliable water source was more than 27 miles away on the Rim Trail of Crater Lake and whether or not we wanted to keep going and dry camp close to HWY 138 or stay here, get up early, camel up and make the dry stretch in one haul. I convinced Elizabeth that to stay here tonight was the better option (being able to camel up in the morning, cooler hours for hiking, resting up here before tomorrow) and so we set up our tents.
Well, our decision turned out to be rather fortuitous. I went to take some pictures of the mountain; it had these lovely white fluffy clouds floating over it from the east that made an ethereal scene as they danced with sunbeams overhead. Shortly around 4:30pm, however, the clouds passed from heavenly to hellish and I knew we were in for some fun. There is a reason that Mt. Thielsen is known as the lightening rod of the Cascades!
I walked back to camp and told Elizabeth to put her rainfly on (we hadn’t been using it the first nights), the sky was darkening up. Other hikers who had just arrived were quickly looking for a spot to set up their tents. It wasn’t long before the patter of rain began, the temperature dropped dramatically, the wind blew and crack of thunder created a orchestral backdrop to an evening in our tents. I was praying that all the other hikers making their way down the trail were being safe and thankful that we were in our tents when the storm started. Not that we wouldn’t have been okay, but it would have been emotionally draining to hike the storm out and we were tired as it was.
We reviewed our maps and made plans again to get up early and head south for our longest day yet. The storm abated but took up again around midnight, mostly thunder and lightning this time. I worried for the tinderbox of forest that is the Pacific Northwest right now; it looks like Mother Nature intends to keep things interesting yet another year.
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