Thinking about my most memorable water experience on public lands reminds me of the time Elizabeth and I woke up at 4:15am knowing the day would test both our fortitude and quite possibly our friendship and donned our headlamps. We loaded our packs and headed down to the creek to fill up on water. After each drinking close to two liters of water and adding 4 liters each to our packs, we started off southbound on the Pacific Crest Trail with the rim of Crater Lake National Park as our destination more than 28 miles away and no water source to be had before we would arrive there.
The sun gradually lit up our views as we went down the ridge towards Diamond Lake from Mt. Thielsen. Off in the distance of where we had come from in the previous days, we could see three billowing lines of smoke from what we assumed were lightning strikes from the night before. Looking down, the trail was different this morning. The footprints of recent hikers had been washed away by the sudden thunderstorm the night before, leaving a blank slate for the new day. It seems like a small thing to notice but mile after mile, those footprints become a reassuring presence and reminder that you are on a journey with other similar minded folks. You miss them when they are not there.
At about 8am, we passed a section hiker who had started at Donner Pass who encouraged us to make the ¼ mile trek into the North Crater trailhead before crossing HWY 138. I only had one question for him…was there a garbage can there??? He answered yes and it was a done deal. Maybe it is just me, but there is a simple beauty in a garbage can, picnic table and vault toilet that can give someone such joy after being on the trail for 4 days. We arrived at the trailhead by 8:15am and made ourselves at home at a picnic table, going through our packs and tossing everything we possibly could. It turned out to be mostly our garbage; I really wasn’t willing to get rid of perfectly good food. The extra weight of even the 4 cigarette butts (amongst other litter I had collected) was satisfying to leave behind.
We ended up being at the trailhead for over an hour, pondering the rest of the day as we attempted to get to water at Lightning Springs on the Rim Trail. Elizabeth was debating hitching a ride from someone in the parking lot but instead she gave in and asked for some of my Canadian Tylenol 1’s to help her get through the day. I gladly obliged and after drinking another liter of water, we once again continued down the trail.
This next stretch as you cross HWY 138 and enter the national park is flat, a good part of it along an old forest road. This made for good time, except for the 1-2 mile section that was littered with a sizeable collection of blowdowns. We did the best we could with our MovNat maneuvers, but at some points we simply had to take the detour around. We were already rationing our water as it was, the added 45 minutes to our hike meant even our mood was drained. We passed a few more thru hikers, one of whom told us that he had camped at Lightning Springs the night before and water was good. Our spirits were lifted as that was where we hoped to camp. If we made it that far.
It was about this time that I started to feel a hot spot on my left thumb from my hiking poles. But worse than that, it put a song in my head and I could not for the life of me remember the name of the band that sung it! I spent my time until I reached the edge of Crater Lake trying to figure out the name of that band. You know the song, the one about the blister on his thumb? “Money for nothing and the chips for free?” (That is the Snuffy the Hiker version, 2015). I could see the MTV video, I knew it started with a “D” but the name eluded me like smoke. I swore that the next person I ran into, I was going to ask them if they could help me with the stupid band. They’d be thinking I needed water but NOOOO, please just help me with my 80’s music trivia.
I got to the junction of the Rim Trail and the PCT at 2:15pm, just in time to see a couple with their teenage son walk in from the nearby parking lot so dad could snap a picture of mom under the PCT sign on the a tree next to the trail. Cute. I tell people when they ask me about the effect that the book “Wild” will have on the trail, that move will be more popular than anyone actually picking up a pack and hitting the trail. They asked me about my hike, and then headed back to their car. Fudge, I forgot to ask them about that band.
I knew I was beat, so figuring Elizabeth was at least 30 minutes behind me; I rested again in the shade at the junction so she could catch up and we could arrive at the Crater Lake Rim together. An older day hiker, Frank, showed up about the same time she did and we chatted with him about his PCT journey while we geared up for our last push of the day. He has been doing day hikes in the area for years and hopes to eventually string them all together with longer overnights. His wife doesn’t hike anymore due to her arthritis pain so he’s out there doing it by himself. He was super sweet and shared the last 2 liters of his water with us before he walked to his car in the parking lot. Not sure how I forgot to ask Frank to help me with Name-That-Tune, maybe some internal, sadistic desire to figure it out myself.
Elizabeth told me to go ahead and I said I would wait at the top for her so we could walk the rim together. It was hot slog to the top; coming out at the first viewpoint you can drive to after you enter the park from the north. Although it is a different experience to be in such a populated area, there is something about the sound of road noise the signals you are arriving at your destination. No road noise? You are not even close yet.
I have driven to Crater Lake twice before but it is an entirely different experience to hike there. Not just because you are all tired, stinky and sweaty and everyone else is all fresh smelling and sparkly coming out of their nearby cars, but you can imagine what it would have been like for the settlers in the late 1900’s to come out of the woods and see this expansive wonder before you. There is nothing like it. I found a shaded rock to sit on next to the railing and spent some time watching young couples with their selfie sticks, dads telling children to not go beyond the rail even after they did it themselves, and parents taking pictures of their children precariously perched on rocks overhanging the rim. It was here that my brain went DING, DING, DING! Dire Straits!
What a relief, I can’t even tell you.
Eventually I could see Elizabeth making her way up the trail towards me and we spent some time at the viewpoint taking in the fact that we had made it this far. Unfortunately, we still had 4-5 miles left to go until water and camp. I say 4-5 because we weren’t entirely sure due to the fact that Half Mile didn’t put mileage on the Rim Trail section of his maps in 2015, the app was confusing and I was too tired to do any subtracting on my maps. We just knew it was the only place with water and that was legal to camp so we had to get there.
It seemed like the longest 4-5 miles we had ever hiked. We delighted in the views of the glistening azure water below us (and SO wished we could jump into its depths), unafraid deer grazing on the trail, as well as the patches of snow that I quickly added to the bandanna around my neck and Elizabeth ate, Giardia be damned. Finally we arrived at the junction for the camp, drained the rest of our water from our bottles, ate a few last bites for the night and headed down to crash at the first site we found.
We made it to camp by 9pm, set up quickly, replenished our water, and popped a few pain relievers to help us sleep. With a much later wake up time in the morning, we spent some time naming things we were thankful for (like running water) and then drifted off to sleep hoping for the strength to make it to make it to my car 6 miles away south of the park in the morning. Between the actual PCT mileage, walking around blowdowns and the two side trails, we put in close to 30 miles that day.
A new record for both of us.
This post was written in an hour for the #NatureWritingChallenge on Twitter. Check it out!
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