Friday, June, 17     Miles today: 22.8 + a LOT of “being lost miles”      Total so far: 624.7

When I woke up this morning, I looked out from the tarp at–falling SNOW!  It melted as soon as it hit the ground, but the temperature on our little thermometer said 32 degrees.  Brrrr! It was hard to get up, but we knew we had to hit the trail–or more accurately, the road shoulder–to get to Lake of the Woods.  We put on our warmest clothes, AND raingear and headed out, thinking about breakfast at the Lake. 

 But after an hour, we were both so hungry that we just HAD to eat, but WHERE?  We were walking through a mixture of freezing rain and snow.  Then we saw a perfectly dry, protected place under a tree–aha!  Now the trick was while we were still warm from hiking, to manage to gobble down some granola before we “friz”.  And we managed it.  Hiking is a lot more fun when you’re not starving hungry!  And we needed a bit of fortification, because as we were walking along, we were being passed by log trucks, and boy, do they FLY! Hang on to your hat when their “bow wave” hits!

Finally we reached Lake of the Woods resort, complete with snowmobile trails, only there wasn’t any snow–just rain now, and the temperature was 40 degrees.  We headed straight for the grill at the dock–I’m sure I could smell the pancakes from half a mile away!  The wind was whipping the cold gray lake into whitecaps.  Last time we were there, it was August, the air was warm, the lake was blue, and we were swimming!  This time, we were bundled up and headed staight into the warm, cozy grill.  It’s very homey there with couch, rug, fireplace and tables. We tucked our packs in a corner and launched into a “second breakfast” in true hobbit fashion. 

Well-stuffed, the next thing to do was shop at the store, where I bought more food to supplement what we’d mailed to ourselves at Hyatt Lake.  (The Hyatt Lake store doesn’t have much).  A man at the store (the resort owner/manager, maybe??) warned us of the danger of hiking on into such cold, stormy weather, and urged us to rent a cabin–“Only $95 a night”–till things improved.  We knew the resort was probably really hurting for customers (they had a big fishing tournament scheduled for tomorrow, and probably hardly anyone will come), but we declined politely, and headed out into the rain. 

I was looking forward to seeing the Great Meadow north of the lake, and was not disappointed.  First you come to a pretty marsh complete with yellow waterlilies, then the Great Meadow itself was COVERED with wildflowers.  Awesome!

START OF OREGON SECTION C

By crossing Highway 140, we entered “Section C” of the Oregon PCT guidebook.  We did have some trouble finding the trail on the other side, then we REALLY HAD trouble following the trail once we found it.  We were literally going in circles on various other trails in the area, and getting more and more frustrated, till finally we figured out that all the trail signs here are tiny strips of board nailed WAY up high on the trees, and the trails themselves are not always obvious or easy to follow.  We probably wasted a good 2 or 3 miles of hiking up wrong trails before we finally got solidly on track with the PCT. 

But wow!  After a longish climb uphill, the PCT rewarded us with amazing views.  We could see most of huge Klamath Lake, and many beautiful mountains.  Up top where we were, it was all rocks and cliffs, AND it was about time for lunch AND the sun decided to come out!  It was the perfect place to dry our damp gear on all those nice rocks, plus cook up a pot of food.  And just as we were loading up to go on, back came the clouds and the cold.  We had to stop a second and thank God for the gift of such a great lunch break!  That is one of the things I really like about being a thru-hiker.  Nothing can be taken for granted; you really are depending on God for things as basic as water to drink, a dry place to sleep, and He not only takes care of those things, but also gives much more–like a bit of sun just when we needed it, and awesome beauty to admire.  I guess if we were atheists or agnostics, we’d just call it “serendipity” or “luck”, but in view of the obviousness that God is real, we rejoice that when these things happen, we can say, “Thankyou, Father!” and give the credit where credit is due.  I used to be an atheist, for the simple reason that to recognize the evidence that God is there, would also involve having to acknowledge Him as the Creator and King of the universe.  I liked running my own life my own way, and since “my way” was quite successful (outwardly), I could conveniently ignore the core of selfishness that was the source of everything I did.  When I finally did have the guts to meet God,  He showed me how over and over again He had reached out to me, to show me He was real and He was there, but I had equally determinedly pushed Him away.   So now, it is a wonderful thing to be able to turn to Him when we’re frustrated and lost on the trail, AND to be able to thank Him for the many joys of this trail!

We hiked on to Four Mile Lake, where again we had trouble finding the right trail, and wasted a bunch of time hunting for it.  But it wasn’t all in vain.  We got great views of Mt. McLoughlin and a chance to cross a very interesting dam spillway.  Bill was impressed with the simple but clever engineering on the spillway for controlling water output.  (Basically, it involved stout planks dropped into slots.)  After finally figuring out where we were for sure, and which trail would get us back to the PCT, we passed several very pretty lakes that reminded me of the ones in Lassen National Park, one of our favorite backpacking destinations. 

 And oh, the wildflowers!  Sometimes the trail was actually lined with tiny little yellow and white lilies.  And there were lots of mushrooms, too–all kinds, sizes and colors.  Snow patches became more and more numerous, but never enough to be a problem.  It was a cold afternoon–45 degrees,–when we found a dry patch under a tree near Long Lake to eat our supper of crackers and cheese and dried fruit. 

A little bit more hiking, and finally we reached the PCT again!  It was time to celebrate!  We did a couple more PCT miles before hunting for a campsite–not easy to find!  But before it really got dark, we found a somewhat flat place on some nice soft duff under a tree.  It was VERY cold, which meant NO mosquitoes, hooray!  And just after we’d finished setting up the tarp and getting our gear sheltered, it began to rain again.  Wow, talk about perfect timing!  We made sure to thank the Lord for such a gracious gift of “weather timing”, both tonight and at midday.