I am currently sharing journal entries from my section hiking of the Pacific Crest Trail in Oregon, transferring them from Trailjournals.com which has not been a reliable platform lately. In 2016, I finished the section from the highway below Crater Lake National Park to the city of Ashland. For 2016, you can start here, for Oregon in general this page will get you started.
Snuffy’s 2016 Pacific Crest Trail Journal : Day 2
June 25, 2016
Every time I do a section hike, I do a little math game trying to figure out my daily miles and how long to take. This section is roughly 102 miles, adding a few for walking off trail to springs and into resorts or campgrounds along the way and it’s a bit more. Now I have added backtracking!
I told myself that 20 miles a day was 5 days BUT 25 a day was 4. That would put me out Tuesday, on the road Wednesday and home Thursday with 2 days to get ready for my next trip. SO, in my mind yesterday’s miles were “bonus” since it wasn’t a full day yet helping me reach that goal. I was not happy with only 12 miles but what can I do?
I woke up this morning at 5am having slept poorly because it turned out to be colder than I anticipated when going to bed. Not that I didn’t have warm clothing, I just hadn’t put it on and was too stubborn to do it in the middle of the night. And at this point they were my pillow so the rearranging would not have been worth it. Oh well.
I made the decision to not go down to Jack Spring and wait until Ranger Spring to get more water. They are both about 7/10 a mile off the trail but it sounded like Ranger was easier to follow. After a quick bar breakfast, I was hiking at 6am.
This section continued with snow and downed trees, mostly under canopy. The bugs slowly increased as the day warmed up. Not enough for spray but I donned my headnet.
I ran into two solo section hikers around 7:30am up from Ashland, Burl (Kevin) and Scout Leader (Joel) who again warned me about Devil’s Peak and downed trees. I told them there was plenty of that going their way and assured them I had snow experience.
Just before I got to Ranger Spring, I was excited to see a tiny trickle of a steam across the trail. Bonus! It was enough to fill my bottles and meant I didn’t have to go off trail for water. Wahoo!!
I sat down for breakfast at 9am around mile 1800, enjoying some rice pudding I had added water to when I left camp this morning. I was disappointed to see the bag I keep my nori in had leaked oil, basically coating half the things in my food bag. Great. I laid out my tent to dry in the sun, as well. There was condensation from last night.
A thru hiker, Lil Buddha, came by and chatted a bit. He also mentioned Devil’s Pass but said if I had snow experience it would be no problem. He also suggested just heading straight up the snow chute rather than try and switchback it. We noticed we carried the same Gossamer Gear pack and how much we like it. He let me ask him a few more questions about his journey, like his miles after Fish Lake. He brought up the downed trees to come for me but at this point I was sure it couldn’t be nearly as bad as what I had already done because there was NO SNOW after Fish Lake!
I saw a few more section hikers before the pass, including a couple who had fashioned themselves some “ice axes” out of sticks because they had no poles. I asked them how far they were going and by the look the girlfriend gave her boyfriend you could tell it might not be much further. I wished them luck, I knew they had a bunch more snow and trees to go.
I had another decision to make here. There is a creek flowing just before I head up and it is the last water (besides snow) for the next 14 miles or so. I needed to fill up but I also had a pass to go over. Being only my second day, I still had a lot of food weight. I chose to suck it up and filled all my water bottles, in case I had to dry camp tonight. Better safe than sorry.
As I approached the north side of the pass and gained elevation, the ground and trail were completely obscured. There were some tracks to follow but you could tell not everyone who had come down had taken the same path and the snow was melting them quickly. I had to orient myself a few times but not for long because I could soon see the ridge and where folks had glissaded down so I just headed in that general direction.
This is where being a NOBO hiker paid off for those folks, they got to slide down. Me? I had to kick step up most of the way. There were a few rather steep spots as I tried to hit a few patches of bare ground by trees for resting points but eventually it was a matter of just heading straight up. The snow was actually just right as it was a little after noon and it was soft enough to get a purchase but not enough that I would slide back down as can happen when it has begun melting.
I have to admit that the last 20 feet or so to the ridge were emotionally and physically hard. Not that I was worried about getting hurt by sliding back down. The chute opened up into a nice bowl. I had had plenty of these types of hikes this winter as day hikes.
It was more that I was becoming fatigued and the thought of losing ground and having to climb back up was something I did not want to think about. I was SO close.
I made it to the snow free ridge about 12:30. Wow. The views were amazing. I dropped my pack and took time to scramble up to the actual Devil’s Peak for some glorious 360 views of this area. I could see Shasta and McCoughlin, Ashland, Kalamath and the peaks to the north like Thielson. So thankful that I can do things like this. I found I had cell service so I checked in with my loved ones. And Facebook, can’t lie.
I went back down to the saddle for lunch at 1pm and continued to enjoy the views. I was glad I stuck it out and carried on despite the warnings, so worth it. My Hike To A Summit group would be so proud.
From here, it was a beautiful ridge walk with plenty of “sporty” snow patches over the trail, as my hiking friend Elle would say. Their steepness meant kicking in steps, some with soft snow and some hard as ice. So glad I had my poles. The one thing I appreciated was that unlike the similar hiking I had been doing in WA, these patches had NO water running underneath to make snow bridges. Yes, there was a little postholing around boulders but nothing like I had already enjoyed this spring.
Did I mention the bugs were worse today? It was never more evident than when going over a steep snow patch in the shade. I would have to lift my bug net to be able to see the best path to follow and it would signal an invasion of winged blood suckers to cover me. I yelled at them that their aerodynamics were NOT helping keep me from sliding down onto the rocks below.
My ridge walk continued, unfortunately not without a mishap. Or two.
The first one was that after taking a picture that clearly showed the PCT and a junction for the Divide Trail, I took the Divide Trail. I was too excited to be losing elevation to notice I was heading eastward instead of south. It wasn’t until I ran into a few small lakes and pulled out my maps because there shouldn’t be water here that I realized I was not on the PCT. Good grief.
I was in such denial, I spent some time trying to see if I could continue on this trail and end up where I wanted to be anyway. No such luck, back up I must go.
After what must have been an extra mile or so of trail, I was back up on the ridge continuing the battle with the angled snow patches and bent over trees. I think (I know) I left some blood on a few rocks after puncturing my finger on some branch. Sitting down to bandage it before freaking too many folks out with bloody snow handprints, I watched my lidded bowl roll and bounce down the side of the slope after escaping from my open pack. I listened and watched helplessly to see where it ended up. Although I couldn’t see it, I guessed it was about 30ft down in a patch of trees. After debating how important it was and my dedication to LNT, I scrambled the scree and brush to rescue that lovely piece of plastic that would become quite necessary later in my journey.
After bandaging my finger, I walked a bit further and then sat at a view point for dinner at 5pm at mile 1791.6. Mosquitoes weren’t bad but an army of ants was on patrol.
My last 5 miles to where I ended up camping were an obstacle course of trees and thick branches that made it hard to climb over and necessary to go around adding to my actual miles. But the hardest part was that as the sun went down the mosquitoes went up in force. It is pretty hard to maneuver downed trees with a bug net on, not only because you can’t see as well but because it snags on every little thing. Continuing on became more of an emotional battle than a physical one. Every time I had to go around, I had to find the trail again and those winged monsters had no mercy for my pauses. It was their time to call in reinforcements.
I finally conceded to the onslaught at 7:45pm and mile 1786.93, throwing up my tent at a speed that would have won me a gold medal if there was such an event in the Olympics. I opened the screen door just enough it slide the Spot out onto my shoes and hoped it would get a signal out because that was as far as I was willing to go.
Lying in my tent lulled to sleep by the hum of hundreds of bugs above me, I assessed that my knee was still good and feet were sore but nothing I hadn’t experienced before. Before drifting off, I read the info for the trail from here to Fish Lake, noting the comment about “mosquito hell” and “bring a gun to shoot yourself”. How had I missed that important piece of data???
Was it only going to get worse from here? Not sure how it could.
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