I’d been worried about the fact that we weren’t scheduled to pick up the car till 9 am. Usually when we drive back to the San Francisco Bay Area from Portland, we leave at 6 am or even earlier. I thought that we’d end up getting home in the dark, late at night. But it turned out I need not have been concerned. We had a very uneventful drive home and got there at a reasonable hour. Driving between Portland and San Francisco follows sort of a pattern. First you drive through the beautiful Willamette Valley, with the Cascade Mountains (and PCT!) to the east, then Highway 5 climbs up into the mountains and begins to rollercoaster up and down, finally reaching its highest point at Siskiyou Summit (where the PCT crosses!) Then you’re still in mountains all the way into northern California (crossing over the PCT again at Castle Crags) till finally dropping down into the great Central Valley with its rice paddies, fruit trees and olive trees. A couple of hours later, and you’re into the coastal hills, pass the marshes of the north end of San Francisco Bay, and then the final “turn for home”.

It is wonderful to be back, especially since the last few days on the trail were pretty tough. We are amazed and grateful that we made it all the way. Both of us are skin & bones and we’ll have to do some serious eating and resting to get back to normal, and I have to really “hit the ground running” to get the Awana Club started up ASAP.

But it was totally worth it to do the PCT again. Back before Etna, we were sitting around eating supper with Croatian Sensation and Not a Chance. We were talking about how we all were doing the PCT a second time instead of doing some other trail. Croatian commented, “Well, we’re the PCT Retreads, I guess.” I guess we are! We love the PCT, and when we got home, we started talking about “let’s do it again in 2015!” We learned a lot on this hike, and we want to try to apply it, and see if we can do better next time.

SDG

“The 3rd Monty” Chipman

Soon we were aboard one of the Amtrak “commuter” trains that runs between Seattle and Portland, and enjoying the scenery and the beautiful morning.  I still feel so tired, even after a relatively restful day yesterday, that I was looking forward to going to my sister’s house in Portland and just “crashing” till we head home via rental car tomorrow.   Amtrak is certainly a fun way to travel, and on this commuter train run, there’s no problem with schedules–the train is ON TIME!  (Not like the long-run Amtrak trains, which are notoriously many hours late). 

Several business people were in seats nearby, all busy on their laptops and cell phones. One of them was commenting that taking Amtrak to Portland was much more efficient than driving, because you can get work done on the train, whereas if you drive, you can’t do much of anything.

The Portland Amtrak station is old and well-restored. It’s right near the Willamette River and right on the edge of downtown Portland.  We had a short, easy walk over to the Max lightrail line.  Bill decided he wanted to go visit a friend of ours whom he hadn’t seen in some time, but I was so tired that I opted to just go to my sister’s house. So Bill hopped off the Max a few stations before I did.   It’s a nice little walk from the lightrail station to where my sister lives, and soon I was sitting at her kitchen table, eating a nice sandwich and talking in whispers, since my brother-in-law works at night and sleeps in the daytime.

After that, I spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening  just lying down on the couch–I read a few chapters of an excellent book by Dorothy Sayers, then just went to sleep.  At dinnertime, I got to eat my fill of FRESH green beans, just picked from the garden, and lots of fresh tomatoes.  Wonderful!  And since my sister and her husband make their own homebrewed beer, I got to try their latest batch.  It was really good–and it only costs them about 25 cents a bottle to make.   I went back to the couch and had a good night’s sleep.  Bill ended up staying at our other friend’s house, since they got into a lengthy discussion about something or other.   I figured that would probably happen!

It was a wonderful thought to know that tomorrow we will be home!

Last night before we went to sleep, we carefully set the hotel’s digital alarm clock to go off at 5:45 am.  Our plan was to load up, grab some of the free coffee downstairs (which was supposed to be available at 6 am), then head for the  6:35 bus.   When the alarm went off,  we groggily got up, wondering why we were so tired.  Dressed warmly and carrying our packs, we headed downstairs, only to find that the hotel lounge was closed, there was no coffee, and it was VERY dark outside.  Bummer!   Then I had an idea–I looked at my wristwatch and said, “Oh joy–it’s only 3:30 am!  The room clock was wrong!  No wonder we feel so tired!”

So back to bed we went!   Oh man, did it feel good!   I personally really do feel completely exhausted.  I guess on the trail I was running on “gotta finish!” power.   We got up AGAIN at 6:00,  got the coffee (nice and hot!) and headed out into a slightly cloudy early morning.  It took only a couple of minutes to reach the bus stop, and we  expected the bus to arrive soon.  It didn’t.  No bus, no bus, no bus.  I looked again at the bus schedule–oh bother!  We thought the bus left at 6:35, but last night we misread the sign.  It actually left at 6:25!   So we now had to wait an hour for the next one.  Brrrr!  It was cold.  I started thinking about breakfast….hmmm–there was a grocery store just down the street–maybe they would open soon and I could get something.

I studied the Cascade Mountains to the east, and they were totally shrouded in dark clouds.  It was obvious that during the night it had rained heavily in Sumas, and since it was very cold, I figured  “It must have snowed up there.”  Turned out later that I was right–we heard from other hikers later that it did indeed snow!  Wow, I’m glad we finished when we did!  And I was very glad to see the SUNrise in Sumas–I had not been looking forward to going from bus to bus in the rain!

Just then, along came Patrick, an Irish “gentleman of the road.”  We chatted with him for awhile, then I saw the grocery store was open and went over to get us some breakfast.  I figured Patrick might like some, too, and yes indeed–he was very happy to get the big cinnamon roll I brought him.  He insisted on giving us a tomato in return (he’d fished it out of the dumpster in the back of the store).  In view of the fact that he was living on the streets, we suggested he might want to go to the local rescue mission where  there are food, a bed, showers, and help getting a job.   Patrick bristled at the idea–his position was “Rescue mission? No way!”  We urged him to reconsider.  Bill and I have personally helped work with people at rescue missions, and we have seen firsthand the awesome wonder of seeing God transform someone’s life, even when the person seemed too far gone for any help at all. 

Patrick didn’t like this talk about God and missions, so he left, and it wasn’t long till the bus to Bellingham came, with a very friendly, helpful driver and passengers.  As the bus followed its winding rural route through farms and dairies, the folks aboard were giving us advice about getting to Seattle via local buses.  It was a beautiful morning, with sun and clouds, and we enjoyed the ride (which only cost us “senior citizens” a dollar!).   Once we reached Bellingham, we didn’t even have to wait for our next bus–it was right there at the bus plaza, and we hopped aboard after paying another $1 each.  This second bus took us to Mt. Vernon, and from there we had only a short wait till a FREE “connector bus” to Stanwood.  Another 10 minute wait, and we boarded the bus to Smoky Point (which cost us a total of $2.50).  Smoky Point bus stop is by a shopping center, and it was lunchtime, so we found a pizza place and had a good meal. 

After lunch, we went back to the bus stop, and for another total fare of $2.50, we rode another bus to Everett.  Just a 10 minute wait there, and we hopped our final bus of the day which took us to Seattle (the fare for that was $4.50).   If you wonder why I keep mentioning fares, it’s because we couldn’t believe how cheap it was!   The final total fare for our trip from Sumas WA to Seattle was $13.50.  And that’s for TWO of us!  Wow!  And it was kinda fun.  I was so tired that it was very nice to just sit on the bus and watch the scenery go by, and we were really grateful for the friendly, helpful bus drivers.  We never had to wonder, “Now what?”   The bus drivers always told us where to go–in fact one of them even walked us over to the free connector bus at Mt. Vernon.

It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon in Seattle, but a glance to the west told us that the Cascades were still shrouded in dark clouds.  So if we were still on the PCT, we’d still be in the rain (and maybe snow).  It was great to feel the sunshine again!  Some of the bus drivers and passengers we talked to today were telling us that even though it was only September 21, Washington had already received a rainfall total that was equal to the ENTIRE winter’s worth of rain in  a normal year.  They were almost apologetic–several said, “Too bad you weren’t hiking in a normal autumn–you would have had nice weather.”  Well, we made it anyway, and as soon as we got off the last bus, we headed for the Amtrak station to pick up the train tickets Bill reserved online while we were at Snoqualmie Pass. 

Outside the station we met another PCT hiker who’d finished the day before we did.  He was waiting patiently for the next train to Chicago, then from there he’d head home to Minnesota.  After a short chat, we went inside, and while Bill got in the ticket line, I ended up talking to a group of senior citizens who were waiting for a train.  They were fascinated by what we’d just done, especially when they found out how old Bill and I are.  I encouraged them to consider hiking the PCT, too!  And I think that maybe a couple of them might be able to try.

Then Bill and I hiked up 1st Street.  What a change to be back in a city after months of mountains!  We were headed for the Green Tortoise hostel–we knew it was somewhere near the Pike Street Market–and after some hunting around, finally found it.  Yahoo–they had room for us AND tonight the hostel was providing dinner–tacos!   All the other people there were very, very young.  Besides Bill and I, there was only one other couple who were “grayheads.”  After taking a very welcome shower, I spent the time till dinner just lying down.  I still feel totally exhausted.  Bill went off to explore the Market down the street.  We both thoroughly enjoyed the taco dinner and it was fun to rub elbows with people from all over the world (though I’d say the Australians were in the majority). 

We went off to sleep in our very comfortable double bunk.  The hostel was full that night, so we had plenty of company!   We have to be up ‘n at em early tomorrow to catch the Amtrak train to Portland.

It rained off and on all night, and the little bit of trench we made managed to do a good job of keeping  the rainwater from running under the tarp.  I didn’t sleep much–actually that has become “normal” for me, since we have no functioning alarm clock to wake us up in the dark at 5:00 or so. 

It was very cold as we ate up our breakfast granola–I could see my breath under the tarp!  Huddled under the tarp as the rain continued, we packed up our stuff and cheered at the thought, “Who cares if we get wet and cold today?  We’re almost done!”  Once we are all done stowing gear, and have put on our packs and picked up our trek poles, we always pray and give the day to God.  Today we were able to say, “Thankyou, Lord, that we are almost to Canada!  Help us finish well.” 

The PCT was basically headed down toward the Canada border, which was nice–no more big hills to climb!  There was one confusing junction where we temporarily went off on the wrong trail, because the trail SIGN was mounted way up on a tree, and there was a branch hanging down over it so we didn’t see it at first.  It didn’t take long for us to figure out we were no longer on the PCT–when we turned around and went back, we spotted the sign.  Oh well. 

But there were an awful lot of plants hanging over the PCT, and they were soaking wet from the rain.  Pushing through them was like taking a shower with all your clothes on.  Early on, the clouds were very low, so we could see very little, but gradually they lifted (plus we got lower!) and we began to see the mountains up ahead.  Of course that meant we were straining to make out the border!   The trail wandered gradually down, but finally we came to the last 4 switchbacks that take you down to Monument 78.  Once the trail started switchbacking, I was cheering, “Yes!  We are almost there!” 

We arrived at the US-Canada border, still  in the rain, and found somebody had camped right at the monument. He/she had managed to squeeze a tent onto the little bit of flat ground available.  “Hi, there!” I sang out, and it turned out to be The Graduate, who was contentedly reading a book, still in the warmth of his sleeping bag!   “Could you take our picture?”  I asked, thinking he could do it easily without even getting up, but it turned out he was waiting for us to show up so that WE could take pictures of  HIM!  So he put on his shoes and we had a mutual photo session.  It turned out The Graduate had not yet signed the register, because he couldn’t figure out how to get at it.  We were happy to show him how, and we all signed it.  

 Then we headed out for Manning Park. The first part of the PCT right after the monument is not a trail. It is an obstacle course. I’d been warned about it by some of the SOBOs, and they were right.  It was so bad that for a joke, I started a mental check list to see if I’d yet met every conceivable trail obstacle.  Let’s see–there was a broken bridge that had me standing there staring and saying to myself, “How in the world am I supposed to get across THIS?” (I did get across, very gingerly!).  There were large holes that I had to negotiate around, plus stretches of trail that were basically a soaking wet mess of tangled plants to get through.  There were rocks to climb over, and most of all, there was mud, mud, mud, while the rain continued to come down.  Fun!  Bill is very good at zipping through all of the above, and he was soon far ahead of me.

Finally the obstacle course was done.  Hooray!  The PCT went back to being just a nice trail climbing up the side of a mountain canyon.  The fall foliage was gorgeous.  There is one kind of  low-growing bush that turns a brilliant bright yellow color–it looks like sunshine on the ground and a couple of times as I looked up ahead, I’d see it and think for a second, “Look!  A sunpatch!  The sun must be trying to come out!”  But one look at the dense gray sky and continuing rain would give me a reality check–”Oh bother!  It’s that pretty yellow bush again!”  I started calling it “The Sunshine Bush.”

I caught up with Bill at the top of Windy Joe Mountain, where he was waiting for me and exploring the campsites that are located up there.  (His conclusion was, “I’m glad we are not camping here tonight!  Everything is soaking wet and there are no genuinely FLAT places!”), then we started the long roadwalk downhill to Manning Park. I remembered this from 2005, and I’d been looking forward to it, thinking, “Oh, won’t it be nice to stroll down the road, enjoying all the lovely fall colors?” Well, make that hurry along, dodging the evergrowing puddles, in the pouring rain, wet and cold.  The Graduate passed us–he was meeting his parents at the trailhead.  He was rejoicing– ”I get to sleep in my own bed tonight!”  I wondered where WE would be sleeping tonight??  Abbotsford, perhaps, as we did in 2005?

Finally we reached TRAIL’s END!  Hooray!  But after a few pictures, we headed off down the road to Manning Park, as rain continued.

When we arrived at Manning Park Lodge,  we found out that we’d just missed the only bus by an hour (it left at 11:00 am), and there wouldn’t be another till tomorrow morning. We couldn’t wait that long, not with our Amtrak booking already set up for the morning of Sept. 22.  So we two cold PCT SUCCESSFUL THRUHIKERS!!!! headed into the restaurant for big bowls of hot soup, a sandwich each, and hot coffee. I was worried about Bill–his hands were freezing cold and he just could not get them warm.  The food was VERY good!  There were a lot of people in the restaurant, and I very politely inquired of each group whether they were headed in the direction of Abbotsford, in hopes of finding a ride.  No luck.  Everybody was either heading east, or already had a carful of  folks. So  I headed out into the parking lot to try for a ride there. It was tough. It was still raining, and it seemed as if everybody was going east, not west. Bill and I even tried going out to the highway to stick out our thumbs and hitchhike, but all the cars just went roaring by.  It was pretty discouraging. 

 So back to the parking lot we went, and I stayed outside looking for more “ride possibilities” while Bill went back inside to phone up our Chevron/Techron credit card company, since the card was refused when we tried to pay for lunch.  (The Capital One card DID work)  While I waited for people to come out of either the lodge or the restaurant, I entertained myself by reading a large informational sign, and that’s when I discovered the “wonderful” fact that there are now GRIZZLIES in this area!  Apparently since the “grizz” are now protected, they have been making a comeback.  Man, I am glad I didn’t know that!  I don’t mind black bears, and have no problem with chasing them away or bossing them around, but grizz!!!  Yikes!

Finally a nice older couple offered us a ride, and we were on our way, with our packs perched on our laps (not too bad–we only had basic gear in them–no bulging food bags!), down, down out of the mountains, while rain continued to pour down.  I thought about the 3 mile walk back to the US border from Abbotsford, and the thought of doing it in the rain was NOT very appealing.

But once we were down in the Fraser River Valley, the rain stopped, the clouds began to break up, and by the time the kind couple dropped us off at the park ‘n ride by the highway, the SUN was SHINING!  Oh man, did it feel good!  It was 4:30 pm, so we had to do the walk along Highway 11 with rush hour commute traffic roaring by.  It took an hour to do the 3 miles, because we had to wait at traffic lights.  One of the houses along the way was bedecked with Canadian flags.

Once we arrived at the border station, we had a long wait.  There were hardly any “border guys” on duty, and a lot of folks who wanted to go through. I was worried, because I knew Bill and I were fresh from the trail after days of rain, so we didn’t look very reputable or impressive.  We started talking to another guy who was waiting, too, and that helped pass the time.  When it was finally our turn,  the official guy just looked at our passports and waved us through.  No problem!  Whew!  In 2005, we had to explain ourselves a bit.  Not this time!

We stepped out the door into Sumas, Washington.   We dodged huge puddles (I guess it rained in Sumas, too??) and  lost no time finding a place to stay(right across the street, and only $45 for the two of us–not bad!).  We hung our wet gear up in the bathroom to begin the drying process, and then headed down the street looking for a place to eat.  The only place open was a Mexican restaurant called El Nopal, so that’s where we had dinner, and joked about “this is becoming our PCT tradition–we have to finish up with dinner at a Mexican restaurant!”, because that’s exactly what happened to us in 2005 also!  The food was very good, and then we headed back to the motel for showers, more gear-drying and sorting, plus phoning home to say “We did it!  We are back in the USA!”

Then we were very glad to collapse into a soft, dry, warm bed–our plans for tomorrow include taking several local buses to get to Seattle, and the first bus leaves at 6:35 am.   It almost felt unreal that after so many months, we were finally done,  and pretty much safe, too (other than a few scrapes and bruises).   Thanks be to God!

The rain continued off and on for the rest of the day, sometimes heavily and sometimes lightly, but what made it bearable was that the clouds had lifted and we could see mountains and views once again.  Yesterday, though it didn’t officially “rain”, we were in clouds and mist all day and couldn’t see anything.  The scenery on this part of the PCT is so gorgeous that  rain or no rain, it was a blessing to be able to see it.   Temperature-wise, it was very cold, and I wore most of my layers all day.   We changed our snack times and meal times a bit–the governing consideration was “Look, it stopped raining for a little while!  Let’s eat now!”   Then we would gobble down a Snickers or whatever before moving on.  But at lunchtime, the rain finally stopped for an hour and oh joy!  We found some rocks to sit on–much better than the very wet and muddy ground.

All the colors of the landscape around us are definitely in “autumn mode”.  Even the grass is turning a golden-yellow.  I didn’t get many pictures of it, though, because of the rain, and I have to admit that my enjoyment of the autumn beauty was lessened by being so cold and having to deal with so much rain.  

As far as actual hiking went,  the first “landmark” of the day was reaching Hart’s Pass with its cute ranger station house.  I signed the register there, and was surprised to see that even though it was still very early in the morning, two hikers had already signed in.   I also noticed a lot of cars parked in the area, but no people walking around.  Did that mean we’d be meeting lots of folks on the trail?  We were very sad to see that pretty Meadow Campground, which lies just below the PCT, was devastated by a forest fire.  In the rain and cold, nobody was camping there, and it looked very forlorn.

From Hart’s Pass, the PCT takes a big climb up and up till it reaches “cruising altitude” at about 6200 feet, contouring along mountainsides for many miles, and occasionally dropping down or going up a bit to various “passes.”  At Windy Pass, we had a huge thrill–the highlight of the whole day!  We were sitting by the trail taking a Snickers break, when a MOOSE came strolling by in the meadow, not far away.  We both whipped out our cameras and started taking pictures!  Mr. Moose soon spotted us, stopped and stared at us for awhile.  He had a nice set of antlers, so we were a little bit concerned (we’d heard several hiker tales of  bad-tempered moose), but he finally “floated” away, obviously not worried about us.  I was amazed that such a big, heavy critter could move so effortlessly. 

With the clouds high in the sky, even though it was mostly raining all day, we still got awesome views of the huge U-shaped, glacier-carved forested valleys.  Everything in the landscape here seems to be on a “giant” scale.  Fall colors are everywhere.  Every mountainside is painted in yellow and orange–even the dark green forests are embroidered with bright colors.  We met a hiker who FINISHED the PCT yesterday (way to go!) and was hiking back south to get a ride out at Hart’s Pass.  He gave us welcome news of the hikers who have finished in the last few days, and among them were Trash Bucket and Happy Camper!  What a relief!  Now we know they are OK!

We were passed by The Graduate, who is on a tear for the border.  He plans to hike nonstop till he gets there.   Next we met a dad and daughter out backpacking.  The dad is very enthusiastic about the PCT–his son thruhiked successfully two years ago!  It was fun to talk to them, but we didn’t linger too long–it was coooold!  The trail took us to the top of a pass.  The “new” route then goes WAY down into a valley,before climbing  up again to the next pass.  The “old” route just contoured evenly over, but it was pretty much demolished by rockslides, so was abandoned.   Grumping a little bit, we headed down and began the climb back up. The rain at that point decided it was time to do a “cats & dogs” downpour.  Oh fun!   Bill has been having more and more trouble with big uphill climbs, and this was no exception.  I was soon well ahead of him, and planned to wait at the top.  When I got there I was surprised to find that somebody had set up camp (two tents, plus food hung from trees)  but no-one was there.  I waited for a long time, and no Bill.  Brrr!   The wind and rain were freezing, so I decided to hike along a bit farther to get out of the wind, and stop and wait again.   Still no Bill.  I began to get worried.   

As it turned out, he had taken his time climbing up to the pass, and once he got there he messed around for awhile taking pictures, and also trying to walk “back” a bit on the old PCT trail that’s been abandoned.  Meanwhile, whom should I see coming southbound on the PCT but “Balls” and his lovely little daughter (9 or 10 years old).  The last time I saw him was in the Sierras, when we were both glissading down a pass, and he zipped right past me.  Turned out that he had left off thruhiking because of a foot injury, and had only completed the California PCT– but his daughter really wanted to see Monument 78 (so did he!), so he took her on a little backpack adventure.  They’d been to the monument and were returning to their “base camp” at the pass.  Aha–so that explained the two tents!   Bill finally showed up as I was talking to them, and he and I headed on north together.  The afternoon was very cold and getting colder.  

Finding a place to eat some supper was very hard.  The wind was strong and there were few protected spots.  We finally huddled behind some trees and ate as fast as we could.  Brrrrr!   Then we mushed on fast, partly to stay warm, and partly just to get to a campable place before dark.  Those miles after supper included climbing up to the highest point of the PCT in Section L (7,000-plus feet) in rain, with wind so strong I could not use my umbrella.  Bummer!  I really missed the umbrella–it keeps my head and shoulders and the top of my pack dry, plus it breaks the wind so I stay warmer.  But this wind was far too wild and strong–I had to stow the umbrella.

The PCT went up and up into what on a nice day would be a lovely “alpine garden” area, but for us it was in the cloud, freezing cold and windswept.  We reached the top at last and began switchbacking down to near Hopkins Lake.  Side trails led to some campsites, hooray!  But it was still raining and everything was soaking wet, muddy and cold.  We disagreed about where to set up the tarp, but finally went with the spot Bill wanted.   I was sort of bummed because this was our last night on the trail, and I was hoping for a really nice campsite like we had in 2005.  No such luck, this time.   We barely got the tarp up in time before it was dark, as the rain continued.

Today was a tough haul–a challenge to be met, which is a good thing–but not at all fun.  The upside is that we actually got to SEE some scenery at least for awhile. The other thing that helps me to keep going is to “sing” in my head (not out loud–I need all my breath for hiking!) and I am very glad I’ve learned so many gospel songs and hymns.  I pick one with a good ”hiking  rhythm” to it, and “sing” all the verses to myself, then pick another one.  A lot of the thruhikers listen to recordings as they hike–I would find that very distracting.   As the rain pattered on the tarp tonight, we had our last evening Bible reading.   Only 14.9 miles to go, and we are DONE!   I am looking forward to being warm, dry and clean, plus resting my very tired feet.

We ate breakfast at 5:30 am, but it was still so dark when we finished that we waited a bit before packing up.  It rained off and on all night, and was still raining as we loaded our packs under the protection of the tarp, and we set off hiking in the rain, too.  But after less than an hour, the rain stopped, and did not return.  Hooray!  (Though we were “up in the clouds” all day, and did have to deal with a lot of “fog drip”).

The first project of the day was to finish the climb up to Cutthroat Pass.  The drippy clouds at that point were lifted up high enough that we could see more than just trailside plants.  We could see some mountainsides, and the fall foliage was beautiful.  An added plus was that the trail was wide enough that we were not having to push through soaking wet vegetation,  but just walk happily along–the very wet plants could not touch us.  As we climbed higher and closer to the top of the pass, the terrain became more stark and alpine.  Soon we were actually IN the clouds.  The top of the pass was completely barren (except for a PCT sign), and as we began the descent, the clouds were so thick that we could not see a thing.  The trail switchbacks down, with big dropoffs on one side, which had me really nervous in 2005, but were not a problem this time.  The wind was blowing, and the clouds were moving around, so occasionally we’d get a glimpse of the huge, deep valleys below or of the snow-capped peaks up above.  The PCT heads down to Grant’s Pass, then follows a long, contouring climb up to Methow Pass.

From the top of Methow Pass, we headed down again into the Methow River valley, and it was quite a “down”!  Bill joked, “Are we going back to sea level, do you think?”  The long walk down could have been more enjoyable, but we were in clouds and couldn’t see anything but the forest right by the trail.  There were lots of little rockhop creeks to cross before we finally reached the valley floor.  We stopped for lunch at Willis Camp, by Golden Creek.  When I was rummaging in the food bags, I discovered that a mouse had gotten into the cookies in Bill’s food bag.  We ate them anyway, along with hot (!!yum!!) coffee the Manns had given us, and a backpacker version of tuna casserole (Lipton Side of noodles & sauce, plus a packet of tuna, plus freezedried peas.  Love this stuff!!)  It was very cold down in the valley, but not raining, so while we ate, we hung our very wet tarp between two trees to dry off a bit, and managed to dry the ground cloth a little bit, too.

The long climb out of the valley up to Glacier Pass took most of the afternoon.  Basically it involved a lot of contouring and switchbacking, in and out of avalanche paths and forest.  The “avalanche sections” were very overgrown with floppy wet plants, and the PCT there was rocky and muddy–what a mess!  It’s the sort of situation where you just have to grin and say, “Are we having fun yet?   Wheeeee!”  and keep on walking.  Eventually, as the trail climbed higher, there were no more big floppy plants–just very steep grassy hillsides.  We still couldn’t see anything except for one brief moment when the clouds parted and we could see some views.  The wildflowers along the trail are pretty much just faded and dry, but the fall foliage was very colorful.  The little six inch high huckleberry plants had lots of ripe berries–I ate a few, but it’s hard to bend over that low with a backpack on, while continuing to hike!

We reached Glacier Pass (which had a nice campsite) and mushed on for another hour to the final top of the climb.  From there we watched the trail and map carefully, because there was supposed to be a campsite with water up ahead.  In 2005, we couldn’t find the water, and that was hard, because from that point, there is no more water for 15-20 miles (depending on which guidebook you follow).  Complicating our search was the fact that we were IN the clouds.  It was like being in a dense tule fog back home.   We did locate the campsite, and the serious water search began.  First step is simply to stand still and LISTEN–that’s often the best way to locate a small, hidden water source.  But this time, careful listening didn’t help.  A number of different little paths led downhill from the campsite, so I headed off on one, and Bill on another.  I had no luck, but Bill did.  He found the water, a ways down the hill, coming from a small spring located in a little meadow.   We collected water and sat down to eat some supper, enjoying the fact that we were down out of the wind behind some rocks.  The best part of all was that a totally cute little pika came out of the rocks nearby and sat “meeping” at us.  (I have decided that the best way to describe a pika’s voice is that it “meeps”). 

Then it was back up to the trail, continuing on in a very cold wind and thick clouds. Brrrr!  But we were very glad it was not raining–just cloud mist and no more.  Less than a mile along, we met a SOBO hiker who asked if we’d seen “the campsite with water”.  We assured him that we’d just come from there, and told him how to find the water; he was delighted.  After wishing each other well, we went our separate ways, but now it was MY turn to be worried about finding a campsite.  We could not see more than about 20-30 feet in the thick clouds, and the PCT was endlessly contouring along a very steep hillside in a bitter cold wind.  The map showed a saddle up ahead–hopefully we’d find some flat ground there, and soon, because by 7 pm it starts to get dark.

We reached the saddle and were terribly disappointed.  Not only were there no flat places (it was too narrow), but everything was blackened by a relatively recent forest fire.  All we could do was to keep going, and now I was seriously praying for God’s help in spotting something despite all the clouds.  Finally, just before dark, the mountainside widened out a bit, and I saw a slightly sloping, but still reasonably flat little spot just down from the trail. It was all covered with some sort of dwarf heather stuff, but we put down our ground cloth anyway, and got our tarp up just before it became truly dark.  The wind was rushing and roaring all around us, but the heather made a very soft “mattress”.  At around 9 pm came the pitterpatter of rain on the tarp, but we were snug and warm.  I thought about tomorrow–it will be our last “regular hiking day” of this journey.  “Will the sun come out?” I wondered.  Bill commented that the weather forecasts in Washington state shouldn’t ever say “Chance of rain”–they should just be realistic and say “It WILL rain.”  What they should be saying is “Chance of SUN”, because that really IS chancy!  Well, we will see what tomorrow brings!

It sure was nice to be in a warm, comfortable bed last night and listen to the rain pouring down OUTSIDE.  It had turned into just a bit of “drip” when I got up very “late”, at 6:15, to sort food and load the packs before breakfast at 7 am.  It was another awesome Stehekin Valley Ranch meal–eggs & potatoes, tomatoes, biscuits, fruit & yogurt, French toast and plenty of cowboy coffee.  I also made us a great “trail lunch” from the fixings laid out–AND Kerry Courtney (wife of the owner) had even set aside a pound of cheese for me, since I’d asked if I could buy some to supplement our trail food.

Mr. Courtney, the owner of the Ranch, was away campaigning for Congress!  He is one awesome guy, and I told his wife that I sincerely wished I could vote for him instead of the lame candidates we have down in California.  I read his campaign literature and was very impressed.  He said he felt he just could not continue to “hole up” in his little heaven-on-earth in Stehekin Valley and watch his beloved USA “go down the tubes.”   I wish him all success!

At 8:30 am, a bunch of us piled onto the bus to head back to the PCT.  One fellow was a “regular” backpacker, and the rest were dayhikers.  We were very surprised to be the only thruhikers.  Since there were several of “us thruhikers” going into town on the bus yesterday, we figured there would be a whole crowd this morning.  Nope.  It was just us.   At the PCT trailhead, there were some PCT hikers waiting for the bus.  They planned to share some rooms at the motel in town.  We gave them the lowdown on where everything was, and where to get food,  then we shook hands and wished each other well on the last push to Canada.

When you leave the trailhead at the bus stop, you have a choice–either walk the PCT (which, true to form, goes up, up, up and down, down) or you can just walk the dirt road till the PCT comes down to it–much easier and quicker.  We decided, though, to stick with the PCT.   The trail immediately climbs right up a rocky hillside and passes very pretty Coon Lake.   The trailside fall foliage was lovely, and overhead it was cloudy, with an occasional sunbeam momentarily breaking through.  We wore our raingear because the bushes along the trail were dripping wet.   I like the “pattern” of the trail here–it goes up, up, up, then flattens for awhile before heading up again.   So we would huff ‘n puff for a bit, then be able to hike easily and enjoy the views before it was huff ‘n puff time again.  Another great thing was that we could actually SEE where we were going, since it wasn’t raining (yet!) and the mountains are so huge.   I like the feeling that I’m actually making progress!

The PCT basically winds its way up a long forested canyon with very steep sides.  What’s really awesome is that every time you reach a side canyon, you get a glimpse of massive, snowclad mountains up at the head of the side canyon.  There are lots of creek crossings to do–some have bridges, and some are rockhops.  One of the creeks had a suspension bridge, but the trail up to the bridge was so unbelievably rough and rocky that we turned off and just rockhopped across the creek.  We stopped for lunch at one of the bridges, and I took off my wet rainpants and hung them on a rock to dry.  Bill did the same. 

But after lunch, when we were packing up our gear,  I picked up my rainpants and stowed them in my pack, but Bill did not remember to get his pants.  They were gray, and almost perfectly matched the color of the rock they were lying on, so I did not notice them, either, and we took off.  By the time Bill realized he’d forgotten his rainpants, we’d covered a lot of miles, so going back to retrieve them was out of the question.  Major bummer, given the weather (rain immanent) and temperatures (cold).  I was very worried and upset when I realized what had happened. 

We reached the highway near Rainy Pass, and followed the trail as it paralleled the road for quite a ways.  We could hear the cars going by, just out of sight.   The forest was quite a color contrast–very green evergreens with brilliant fall foliage on the deciduous trees.  When we finally reached the highway crossing, there were two backpacker guys who’d just finished a 70 mile hike and were waiting for their wives to come pick them up.  They were very tired!  But they were thrilled to meet two “real thruhikers” and plied us with questions for a little while before we headed on to the trailhead parking area.

In the parking area, a young couple were just taking off their packs and getting ready to stow them in their car.  Unfortunately, they had a dog with them, and he rushed at us, fangs bared, barking fiercely.  We brandished our trek poles and shouted to the couple to get their dog under control.  Their reaction was typical–they became very huffy because we had “threatened their dog!”  Unbelievable!  I will never understand such people!    They finally collared the dog and put him in the car, and left.  We lowered our trek poles and growled to ourselves!   Grrrrr! 

After eating some supper, we put in a couple more miles before looking for a place to camp.  It is getting dark earlier and earlier–our hiking day is a lot shorter than it used to be!  Finding a campsite wasn’t easy, though–the PCT was doing its usual side-of-the-mountain route, and there were no flat places.  Plus, it’s Washington, and there are lots of plants covering the forest floor.  I finally spotted a possibility a bit after Porcupine Creek,  but it looked like rain was immanent, so we did trench the “uphill side” of the tarp.  Then we unpacked, and that’s when Bill discovered he’d left his rainpants far behind, drying on the rock.   He was quite disgusted, and I was very worried and upset.  We are heading into a lot of very exposed,  above-timberline situations, and the forecast was for cold rain all day tomorrow. 

Just as we finished cleaning ourselves up and crawled into our sleeping bags, the rain began.  As I write this, it’s not a heavy rain, just steady.  Maybe it will finish by morning??  At any rate, I am very grateful for a whole day of hiking today with NO rain!   And there are only 3 more days to Manning Park!   But I am very, very worried about Bill, with no rainpants.  I depend heavily on mine, not only in rain, but in any very cold weather.  And that’s what we are heading into.

Bill was still very determined to catch the bus to Stehekin, but I had my doubts.  We had 9.3 miles to go, and less than 3 hours to do it in.  Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem, as long as we kept up a good pace,  but the trail had been so rough and overgrown that it made for  slow going, and I remembered from 2005 that there were some tricky parts up ahead, with lots of rocks, roots, creek crossings, etc.   As we started out, Bill kept urging me to go faster ( a strange situation, because for the last several days, it’s been me out in front, and slowing down for him) but I hesitated because lately every time I hike fast, I end up falling.   So I kept up a good pace, but not fast enough for Bill!   He  finally gave up on me and said, “See you at the Ranch–I’m going to Stehekin!”   He was soon out of sight.

What a relief it was to NOT have to be on a tear along the trail!  I deliberately slowed down and began to relax and enjoy myself.   And there was plenty to enjoy! Mushrooms of all sorts almost “lit up” the ground in the forest.  Every day there have been more of them, and this morning, the display was awesome!  I saw great big huge mushrooms and tiny, fragile little ones.  The PCT alternates between forest and open areas as it travels down the South Fork Agnes Creek canyon.  In the forests, the trail was very nice, and the mushrooms were beautiful, but the open areas were another story!  To get through one of those, I was pushing my way through wet bushes.  Sigh. 

At one of the creek crossings,  I was amazed to find Bill waiting for me on the other side.  He had crossed on a log that was rather steep and slippery, and was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to manage it without help.  Actually, crossing on a steep slippery log was not something I would try even with help!  I just forded the creek–but I was very touched that Bill had stopped there.  And I was worried that this would mean he’d never make it to the bus on time.  He took off again, and I followed him.

As you get farther down toward Stehekin, things do start to dry out.  The trail sort of rollercoasters its way, with more down than up, and an occasional sunbeam managed to break through the clouds.  That was encouraging!  And the trail itself became quite nice and smooth, so I decided to start hiking faster.  Not a good idea!  Again, I didn’t see a little loop of root lurking on the edge of the trail–my toe caught in it, and I was instantly flying, right off the trail and down the hill.   And again, due to my pack and the grace and mercy of God, I landed on my back on some nice soft plants, unhurt.  I just lay there a minute to make sure I was all right, and thanked God for His protection.  After a bit of a struggle to get back on my feet, I climbed back up to the trail, and said to myself, “That does it!  I am NOT going to try to hike fast!  I guess I am too worn down to do it safely anymore.”  And it was true.  I felt very tired, and even my brain felt exhausted.  It’s been a long way since Mexico!

So after that I just walked along quickly, but without “pushing for speed” and finally reached the spectacular Agnes Creek gorge and the amazing bridges that take the PCT over the roaring river (not sure why they call it a “creek”!).   Bill was waiting by the road.  He had not been able to make it to the bus in time, so we strolled over to the bus stop and sat down to eat some Snickers and nuts and other odds ‘n ends from our packs before starting down the road to Stehekin Valley Ranch.   Up ahead were thick gray clouds, lying low.  Bill commented that it must be fog from the lake, but the closer we got, the more we realized “That’s not fog–it’s SMOKE!”

And smoke it was–the USFS people were doing a controlled burn in the forests along the road.   We walked right through the whole thing.  There was very little actual flame–mostly it was a lot of smoldering.  The Forest Service people had looooong canvas hoses snaking down to the river, where pumps kept the firefighters supplied with water.   And they were just strolling casually around spraying a bit of water here and there–no rush, no fuss.  ( They had closed one trail, however.)   I loved watching them with their hoses and special tools,  and kept stopping to look and take pictures.  I had never seen such a sight before!  Poor Bill finally said, “Enough is enough!  Let’s go–we need to get to town!”

Just beyond the blackened, smoky forest lay the bright green pastures of Stehekin Valley Ranch.   We lucked out and got the last available cabin for tonight, and the always-wonderful staff said it didn’t matter that it was still well before lunchtime–we were welcome to start eating anytime!   So we tucked in to chili,  huge sandwiches and cookies, all washed down with cowboy coffee.  We unpacked our gear and spread it on chairs to dry, and I got the laundry ready for a trip to town.  Normally I would have just done it at the Ranch, but the weather looked like rain, and at the Ranch, there is no clothes dryer–just a lot of clotheslines.  (Not to mention the air was very smoky, and we would have ended up with “smoked clothes”). 

On the way to town, of course we stopped at the Bakery and I got one of their huge cinnamon rolls, which Bill and I shared.  There were a couple of other thruhikers on the bus, too, and we had fun talking about our adventures.   Once in town, I did the usual town chores of laundry and shopping and picking up our food box.  The shopping part was disappointing–there wasn’t much I could use at the store, not even peanut butter!   I decided to get some of what we needed from the Ranch when we got back.   And at the Post Office, it was fun to talk to the very friendly postmistress.  But while I was there, I also saw something that worried me.  There was a whole pile of PCT hiker boxes waiting to be picked up, and the top one was for Happy Camper and Trash Bucket.   We thought they were ahead of us.   Had we somehow beat them to town?   That seemed very unlikely.   I stopped to pray for them, concerned that something might have happened.  (We found out later that they were just on a tear to finish.  I guess they decided they didn’t need all the stuff they’d mailed to themselves).  I also went through the hiker box and found a bunch of bandaids (hooray–Bill’s leg needed them!) and a bit of useable food.  The PO lady said that her only problem with the hiker box is that the Stehekin kids know about it, and after school some of them come in and go through the box looking for goodies–till she spots them and chases them out!

Once I got the laundry done, we still had 2 hours till the next bus, so we went to the little park by Lake Chelan and I spent the time mending Bill’s badly torn pants, now that they were clean and not still all bloody!  Bill simply lay down on the grass and took a nap.   There was not a breath of wind, and the lake was like a pond–very lovely with the mountains all around.  It was fun to watch the various watercraft and the seaplanes.   Overhead, the sky was very cloudy, but the air temperature was pleasant.   The little store had posted a printout of the weather report for the next several days, and it was not good.  “Rain, rain, rain” was basically what it said.    I thought to myself, “Boy, we are really going to need ‘rain grace’ and patience to finish this hike!”  I am still feeling very tired, and wished I could join Bill in napping on the grass.

Back at the Ranch, we totally pigged out at their fantastic dinner spread.  There was BBQ salmon and lots of side dishes, plus SIX different kinds of pie!  Wow!  We waddled back to our cabin, took showers and I doctored Bill’s gashed leg.  The swelling has completely gone away, and I don’t think it will bleed anymore.  Last night it did, and got blood all over Bill’s silk longjohns that he sleeps in on cold nights.   I bandaged him up, and then we went to bed.  Just after I turned out the lights, it started to POUR rain–oh, what a lovely sound, when heard from INSIDE a cabin, UNDER a roof!  Back to the PCT tomorrow!

The sunrise was gorgeous as we hiked along the PCT–all colors, and beautiful cloud formations.  We were still surrounded by snowy peaks, and the trail continued to climb gently through a very alpine area before it finally launched into another10 kazillion switchbacks down into the valley below.  Partway down is Dolly Vista camp (and yes, the vistas ARE awesome!) where we met another thruhiker just packing up.  He said he was so thrilled with the beauty of the view and the sunrise that he just sat and watched the sky instead of “hitting the trail” as soon as he woke up.  Then he said, “I may be wrong, but I really think the PCT yesterday was at least 2 or 3 miles longer than the guidebook says, with all those long new switchbacks.  What do you guys think?”   Well, we fervently agreed!

Then we continued down the switchbacks.  Marmot holes were everywhere, sometimes located one right above the other in a hillside, and even right next to the PCT–but there were no marmots in sight anywhere.  Were they all still asleep?  Did they start hibernating already?

Once we got down into the forest, the “fun” began.  The trail was constantly being blockaded by blowdowns of HUMUNGEOUS trees.  Their trunk diameters were enormous.  When I stood next to one of these fallen giants, lying on its side, it was taller than I am.And often when one fell, it took a bunch of other trees down with it, so we were being faced by some really complex obstacle courses.  Sometimes we detoured way out around the blowdown mess, fervently hoping we’d be able to relocate the PCT on the other side.  At one point, I really thought we HAD lost the trail and was trying to figure out what to do.  Sometimes we climbed over the huge fallen monsters.  Sometimes we sort of squiggled through them.  On one in particular, Bill was busy looking for a way to climb over, while I wandered off a bit to the side and discovered a way to squeeze UNDER.   Later on, we met another hiker who said he actually used a rope to climb over that tree, only to discover after all his efforts, that he could have squeezed under it farther “up the line.”  His comment was, “GRRRRRR!”   I was also kind of “grrring” because the bottoms of my pant legs are so beat up after 2,500 miles, that they were catching in everything and getting torn up even worse.  My solution finally was to tuck them into my socks. 

But aside from the blowdowns, the forest was lovely.  It looked like sort of rainforest to me.  The trees were huge, the plants were lush and green, and the creeks were pretty.  We had a couple of creek crossings–Bill logwalked, and I forded.   If I tried to logwalk, it would take too long. 

Eventually we reached a much more open, drier forest and the trail headed straight for the notorious Suiattle River.   We’d been told to follow the rock ducks to where a log provided a safe crossing of the “unfordable” river.  Sure enough,  when we got to the bottom of the valley, there was a vast, wide “moonscape” that was the bed of the river when it’s in full raging torrent.  It was all sand and boulders.  Footprints and ducks led off to the right, upstream, but we could see glimpses of the river.  I thought to myself, “That doesn’t look any worse than some of the Sierra rivers we had to ford.”  and thought about suggesting that we just go for it and ford the Suiattle.  But I decided maybe it would be better to use the log, since everyone seemed so emphatic about that being the ONLY safe way across.

We slogged along through the sand and rocks for quite a ways before the “trail” turned toward the river, and there was The Log, which other hikers had described as “substantial.”  My first reaction was, “Substantial, hah!  That’s one skinny log!  I thought it was going to be a big moose of a thing, like those blowdowns we got through earlier.”   And I would agree that the Suiattle AT THAT POINT was definitely unfordable.  It was roaring and obviously deep, because it was in a narrow place (which is why the log fit all the way across). 

Bill crossed first, just walking carefully, and was soon on the other side.  There was no way I was going to walk that log!  So I got down and crawled across,  making sure of each move so that I would not slip.  Fortunately, the log still had its bark on, so that gave a good secure, non-slippery surface to hold on to.   It was still very scary for me.  I just kept moving along, praying as I went that I would choose the right spots to hold on to and that I would be OK.  And the only problem I had (sigh) was that out in the very middle, where the current below is at its worst, there was the root part of another tree that had caught against The Log I was crossing on.  One of the roots caught my trek poles which were lashed to my pack  and I had to sort of sit down and disentangle the root from my poles before moving on.   To say I was glad to reach the other side would be a huge understatement!    This kind of thing scares me tremendously, and I told God I was VERY grateful for His help, courage-wise!  Bill also gave me a hug, and that helped, too!

Then we followed a sometimes confusing “path” of hiker footprints and occasional rock ducks, back downstream to the PCT.  This side of the river wasn’t just sand and rocks–it also included a lot of logs, so that made the going a bit trickier.  The PCT headed uphill for our last big climb–to the top of Suiattle Pass.  Partway up, at the corner of a switchback, we stopped to cook some lunch, and another hiker caught up with us.  Crossing the Suiattle was the topic of conversation, of course!  We all agreed that it would probably have been easier to just ford the river down where the PCT “officially” crosses, since the river is wider there and no worse than the Sierra rivers.

The trail up to the pass was all in forest at first, with no views, but there was very pretty fall foliage along the trail.  Finally we got up high enough to see mountain views–but we also got a good view of the sky, and sighed when we saw that it had really clouded over.  This morning had been a mix of sun and clouds, but now it looked like the clouds had won, and were planning to rain.  At the top of the pass, we cheered, “Stehekin, here we come!” and began charging down the switchbacks.  The trail was very nice dirt, not all rough and rocky.

However, that nice dirt trail at one point had a little loop of root lurking, and I caught my left toe in it.  I was hiking very fast, and before I realized what had happened, I was flying through the air, off the trail, just barely missing a stump.  I landed on my back, and my pack took the brunt of the fall, so I was not hurt at all.  I was lying there thinking, “Thankyou, Lord–I’m OK!” and Bill, back up on the trail, looked down and said, “Wow, you did a great mid-air turn there, to land on your back!”  Well,  it wasn’t me that organized that mid-air turn.  I think it was just physics–my pack was heavy enough to pull me around.  And hey, I also give God some credit, too.  That could have been a really bad fall, especially if I hit the stump.  I agree with Joe Anderson at Casa de Luna–there is no such thing as “luck”–it was at least to some degree, God at work. 

Bill gave me a hand up from where I’d landed, and I looked myself over–all fine, except for mud all over my pant leg.  I now look very disreputable–one pant leg all torn up from climbing over blowdowns and the other all covered with mud.  

But a short time later, it was Bill’s turn to look disreputable, only in a much more serious way.  We had turned off the PCT to follow the  South Fork Agnes Creek Trail down toward Stehekin.  We took this trail in 2005 and liked it then, because it just simply and steadily heads downhill all the way, whereas if you stick with the PCT, you have a goodly climb first, then the downhill.  We’d gone a good distance on the Agnes Creek trail when we reached a very simple, steppingstone crossing of a creek.  I was ahead, and went happily across, then headed on along the trail, when I heard a yelp and cry from Bill.  I screeched to a halt and hurried back to the creek, to find Bill all bloody-legged and sort of tangled up on the rocks.  It turned out that he had slipped on one of the steppingstones and fell–not into the creek, but into more rocks.  He had badly gashed his shin and had blood everywhere, running down his leg and dripping on the rocks.  It looked bad enough that for a moment I was afraid he might have broken his leg.   But he managed to get to his feet and hobble the rest of the way across the creek, where we assessed the damage. Whew!  It was a nasty gash and a lot of scraping, but didn’t look like a hike-ending injury.  But it was pretty messy.  Bill had blood all over his pants, socks and shoe.  I cleaned up the gash and we put a large bandaid on it.   Then to add to the “fun”, as we were working on Bill’s leg, the clouds that had been threatening to rain decided “It’s rain time!” and there we were trying to fix Bill’s leg while the rain came down.  So we had to scramble to put on rain gear and get our packs into “rain mode”.

Finally all was done, and Bill began to cautiously walk again to see how his leg felt.  He said he could manage to hike OK, so we marched on through the rain, pushing through very wet bushes overhanging the trail. At times the bushes were so thick we could hardly see the trail.   Previous to this section, the trail had actually been very well-maintained, including bush-trimming.  Oh well.

We stopped for supper under a tree where the ground was still dry and decided to push on for as long as we dared, in hopes of minimizing the mileage into Stehekin tomorrow.   Bill wanted to make the 9:00 bus; I figured we’d never make that, but could at least walk into Stehekin Valley Ranch by lunchtime.    The rain continued off and on as we hurried along.  We reached Hemlock Camp, where the PCT and Agnes Creek trail rejoin and pushed on till 7 pm, when it was starting to get dark–we did succeed in reaching the next of the camps.  A light rain was falling as we set up the tarp and got ready for bed, which included me carefully cleaning and bandaging Bill’s very nasty cuts and scrapes.  His leg was a mess, but I think it will be OK, aside from probably a bit of scarring.  I am sure I will have a permanent scar on my knee from when I fell, weeks ago.  It still has not really healed, though it doesn’t hurt and shows no sign of infection.

We are at a much lower elevation here than we have been for several days, and it is noticeably warmer.  Agnes Creek is roaring close by.  I was VERY glad to finally crawl into the sleeping bag and listen to the rain pattering on the tarp.  This has been quite a day!

We knew the trail today would be tough–the guidebook described long “killer uphills”, many creek crossings where bridges had been washed out and were (mostly) now rebuilt, etc.  So we got up very early, ate in the dark, broke camp while it was still pretty dark, and got ontrail when it was still a bit hard to see. 

And down, down, down we went into very dim,damp, green, mossy forest.  Mushrooms were popping up everywhere, in all colors and sizes, from tiny little white mushrooms to huge big ones, and there was a fair amount of what I call “land coral” , a very colorful fungi that looks like coral on a tropical reef.   The forest also did indeed contain many creeks, as the guidebook said.  Some had very nice new bridges, and there were some where we had to stand on the creekbank and figure out how to get across.   The first bridge we came to was a new one but we could see the tangled wreck of the old bridge just upstream.  At another of the new bridges, there were huge log jumbles lying upstream and downstream.  I guess before the bridge went in, each hiker could pick their favorite log to cross on?? Another bridge had its “back broken” so that it sagged down in the middle, but it was still usable, and we crossed with care.

On this whole stretch of the PCT, as you circle Glacier Peak, either you are in deep, dark forest with the mushrooms, or you are out in a boulder field, or you are negotiating a creek crossing.  The boulder fields were particularly impressive–they testify to the terrifying power of avalanches and floods coming down off of Glacier Peak.

The “big climb of the day” was up to Fire Creek Pass.  I wasted probably a mile of hiking at least, because I was not sure we were on the PCT after we crossed Pumice Creek, because I wasn’t sure it WAS actually Pumice Creek!   So after we’d hiked a little while, I got worried and turned back all the way to the creek, looking to see if we’d missed a turnoff and were on the wrong trail.  Nope.  We were on the PCT all the time.  Whew.  So back we went again.  The climb up to Fire Creek Pass was amazing, view-wise, once we got out of the forest and creek crossings.  It was such a relief to be back in open air with rugged snowy peaks in every direction.   For added fun, there was even a military jet, sort of messing around overhead–fun to watch and cheer!  The trail took us up close and personal with Glacier Peak itself–wow!  It is impressive and well-named, with huge glaciers on all sides. 

From the top of Fire Creek Pass, there are jagged snowy mountains all the way to the horizon, in every direction.  We joked about, “Can we see Canada yet?”  and took several pictures before starting on the many switchbacks heading down.  We passed magnificent Mica Lake, which is an extraordinary blue color (I’m guessing it must be very deep?) and even has a beautiful white sand beach.  Bill said it looked like the South Pacific!

As we got down deeper into the valley below, heading for Milk Creek, we encountered a lot of “trail under construction.”  We went happily down what was obviously NEW trail, and every now and then we could see some of the “old” switchbacks.   The new trail had very LOOOOONG, gentle switchbacks, which made us joke again, “This must be the PCT!  It goes UP in order to go DOWN!”   Some parts of the trail were “old” trail, and fairly narrow.  We were zipping right along–maybe too zippy, because Bill fell off the trail.  It was one of those things where he stepped on the outer edge and it gave way under his foot.  The mountainside was almost straight down and very muddy & slippery, so he started to slide and could not stop.  It was scary.  But finally a bush brought him to a halt and he was able with considerable effort to climb back up.   He said, “Man, I thought I was going all the way down to the next switchback!” 

It seemed like it took forever to reach the bridge over Milk Creek.  Not long after the bridge was a sign that said if you were going NORTH on the PCT, to keep on switchbacking DOWN till you reached the Milk Creek trail, and THEN the trail would start back up the other side of the canyon.

I looked at our maps and said, “This is weird!  According to the map, the PCT goes right down to Milk Creek and then right on up the other side.  But we have been going WAY far away from what the map shows.  I guess it’s the new route–they did say the new bridge was in a totally different place.  No kidding!” 

It took us 2 hours to climb the 10 kazillion switchbacks up and out of the canyon.  Bill has been having more and more trouble with big climbs,  and I was worried because it was obvious there would be no flat places to camp till we got to the top.  So I took off and headed right on up with the idea of finding a campsite, so that when Bill got there, we wouldn’t be hunting desperately for something with the sun going down.   Sure enough, I found a really nice spot, and Bill finally arrived at 7:00, which gave us just enough daylight to get settled before dark.   Whew!  I had been getting worried.

When I calculated our “mileage” I was incredulous.  Twenty-one miles?  Impossible! We must have done more than that!  I knew we had been moving right along, and really going fast on the long downhills.   The only thing I could conclude was that the new trail must have been several MILES longer than the old PCT.  I did factor in that there were parts of the trail today which were very muddy (made for slower going) and though a good amount of  “brushing” had been done, there were still sections where we were pushing through plants and climbing over blowdowns (trees) and rolldowns (big rocks & boulders).  And I’d wasted some time dithering by Pumice Creek.   But still–we MUST have done more miles than just 21!

Our opinion so far of the official PCT vs the detour is that the detour is much easier, hiking-wise.  The official PCT is rather tough and strenous.  Scenery-wise, the detour is very pretty, but the official PCT is spectacular.   So our conclusion as to which one to take, well, I would say “It depends.”   If you are in a hurry to reach Canada, take the detour–it’s quicker and easier.  If you feel up to a tough, but magnificent hike, take the official PCT.

To my delight, the sky showed mostly clear–the clouds were almost all gone.  We could see a real sunrise with pretty colors–not just grayness gradually getting lighter.  Eventually the sky cleared completely–for the first time since we went through Goat Rocks.  The PCT took us through a wide variety of scenery–meadows, forests, huge boulder fields and mountains.  The plants were all soaking wet, so we wore our raingear, but wow!  We loved taking Snickers breaks in the SUN at last!    All morning long we were leapfrogging with Happy Camper, Trashbucket and Colter.

A long steep climb that ended at 11:30 am landed us on top of a pass with lots of warm sun and DRY ground and DRY bushes!  Wahoo–garage sale time!  Soon we had all our stuff spread out everywhere, drying in the sun.  We also enjoyed a special treat of really good coffee that the Manns had given to us.  Butterflies were everywhere, landing on us and on our stuff.   But their favorite item was an orange-colored plastic bag that we keep our garbage in.   We wondered whether it was the orange color or the garbage that attracted their attention.

Just as we were packing up to leave, along came Colter, who was very happy to have such a perfect spot to stop and dry HIS gear!  And while we were still eating lunch, HC and TB had come along .  They stopped to ask a number of questions about Stehekin, because they were worried about getting there when the post office was open.  They were also very puzzled as to why the Stehekin bus takes a whole hour to go just 10 miles from the PCT to the town. We explained that it had several stops where the bus waits around for awhile before going on–especially at the famous Stehekin Bakery.

After lunch, the trail did various ups and downs and contours before landing us at the junction with the detour trail.  Happy Camper and Trashbucket were already there, enjoying one of their very healthy snacks (hummus and corn chips this time) so we joined them and ate our Snickers.   They are trying to make lots of miles, in an effort to reach Stehekin well before the weekend.   They took off, and eventually we followed them, now headed into what for us was a totally new part of the PCT.  (We followed the detour route in 2005). 

Up ahead of us lay a whole bunch of snowy mountains, and the trail headed straight towards them, climbing gently at first, then more steeply as we got closer to Red Pass, contouring along very steep mountainsides along deep, deep valleys, wooded on the sides, but with a meadow and meandering little creek in each “bottom land.”   The PCT is up very high, mostly above the woods, on hillsides covered with green grass and various plants.  The plants are turning color–mostly yellow–so the overall effect is very pretty;  the mountainsides have a sort of glowing yellow-green effect.   The actual mountaintops were hidden in clouds, but the sun was still shining on the trail where we were hiking.  

Suppertime found us in nice warm sunshine on a hillside with an AWESOME view in all directions–snowcovered peaks and beautiful meadows.  We agreed that today has been absolutely delightful, even though it was hard work–those 25 miles we did were tough miles.   Not long after supper, we reached Red Pass.  The approach to the pass from our side was green and pretty, but the other side was like instantly being transported to another planet.  It was barren and rocky and had a fair amount of snow, some of which we had to cross in order to get down from the Pass.   At this point it was getting late in the day and we were anxious to get down as low as we could to find a campsite. 

Getting down was not easy.  The trail was muddy and rocky; water from snowmelt was running everywhere.  Every flat spot was a puddle!  I was seriously getting worried about where we could camp, but we made it down to treeline and found a wonderful campsite on a dry knoll.  We could hear a creek roaring in the distance, and in the sunset light, the moon was rising above the mountains, very ethereal and beautiful.   Clouds were moving in from the north, but the evening was warmer than it has been, which was very nice.   I thought about tomorrow’s “killer hiking day” coming up, and hoped for a good night’s sleep.

It was a great relief to finally head downhill to Steven’s Pass ski area.  The resort looked very well-kept, and it had expanded quite a bit since we last saw it in 2005.  Then, hooray!  Down near the road, there was a hiker cache!  It was a cooler with Pepsi and big, juicy carrots.  Great snack!  We strolled over to where we were to meet the Manns, munching carrots and sipping Pepsi.   While we were waiting,  a couple of retired Navy guys came by and stopped for a chat.  They are exploring the USA via Amtrak and rented cars, and are having a great time!  They are planning to head for Canada next.   Hmmmm–so are we!   But most important, they filled us in on the situation in Skykomish, and it didn’t sound very good.   The whole town is a Superfund cleanup site, and everything is a mess right now.   The only place that’s open where you can eat is the tavern, and the deli and the convenience store.    Oh well–we will just have to make the best of it.

Shortly afterwards, the Manns arrived, with their adorable dachshunds and lots of fresh fruit, which we devoured during the ride down to Skykomish.  What was left of the town had a number of thruhikers hanging about.  They said there were a few rooms available at the Cascade Inn, but we wanted to get back to the trail.    It was a cloudy, chilly day, with rain threatening, so we really savored the platefuls of chili dogs ‘n all the fixings we got at the Whistlestop Tavern.  We also went to the gas station convenience store to get more food to add to our packs. I was very happy to find everything I needed, even in such a small store!   We loaded our packs (yum, bulging with good food!) filled our Platypuses at the deli, and the Manns took us back up to the PCT.  I was very encouraged by Lucy Mann’s comments about the Suiattle River crossing.  “It’s a good solid log there,” she said.  “My balance is terrible, so I crawled across, but I made it just fine.” 

We set off under a very gray sky, and enjoyed the mostly level walk where the trail follows an old road.  Pretty soon it was back to uphill, but an uphill that went through forests with huge mossy rocks and occasional meadows. No views, though–the clouds were low, and then it started to rain.  We caught up with Colter, then with Happy Camper & Trashbucket when they stopped for a break, and we met a number of dayhikers scurrying back to their cars because of the rain.  

HC and TB told us about a thruhiker couple who had walked all the way from Campo, then quit at Snoqualmie Pass because the night before they reached the Pass, they’d camped in what they thought was a nice protected spot, and woke up in the night to find themselves in the middle of a large puddle.  All their gear got soaked.  Apparently that “was it”.  They decided they couldn’t take it anymore and were making arrangements to go home.  HC and TB said they tried to persuade them to go on, but the couple would not even discuss it.  “We’ve had enough of cold and rain,” they said.  “We’ll come back next summer and finish.”

HC, TB, Bill and I all agreed that day after day of cold and rain is NOT fun, and we are all counting down the days to when we reach Canada.  Having bad weather for so long is really wearing on our ability to be cheerful and enjoy the hike, but we are trying!  Mostly, though, it’s become an endurance slog and a determination challenge.  BUT–the weather forecast is for slowly improving conditions, and both the Manns and the Dinsmores (who are trail angels near Skykomish) say things always get drier and sunnier as the trail gets nearer to Stehekin, since that’s on the east side of the Cascades, rather than the wet west side.   So maybe things will get better.

Not too far along from there, we had an “Awwwwww!” moment.  A little flock of very wet, bedraggled grouse were huddled in the middle of the trail.  It looked like a mama and three almost-grown chicks.  Instead of the usual protocol of diving into the bushes,  the grouse family began to run down the trail ahead of us.  We kept hiking, and they kept running ahead of us, never veering off the trail, for quite awhile.  I felt sorry for them–it was raining and cold and they looked so miserable and so freaked out by us being there.  Finally they turned off and disappeared into the mists and cloud that surrounded us.

From hiking here in 2005, I knew that the views from the trail were spectacular, but  all we could see was the dead remains of wildflower plants (a few still with flowers, but obviously just about “done”) and the bushes/trees were just beginning to show some fall color.  The trail itself was very wet, but hooray–no deep mud like we had to deal with yesterday!  We also agreed that we are very glad it is not snowing. 

However, given the weather conditions (cold, rainy and windy), and the fact that the trail was continually either contouring on a steep mountainside OR else the only flat spots were mini-lakes in very alpine areas,  we decided to start seriously looking for a campsite at the early hour of 6:30 pm.  I did not want to run the risk of having to frantically hunt for a place with the sun going down.   6:30 came and went, and it was another half hour of hiking before we finally spotted a little flat spot under some trees–and it was already occupied by Colter, setting up his tent.  However, he very hospitably agreed to let us squeeze our tarp in next to him.  “I think we can manage if we’re careful not to trip over each other’s tent cords,” was his comment.  And best of all, there was a little place right by one of the tree trunks where the ground was actually DRY!  We all stowed our packs there.

After we’d gotten set for the night, the rain stopped.  But we are IN the clouds and it was still very wet.  I think we are about a half mile from Grizzly Peak, but I am not sure.    It was nice to have Colter’s company, and tomorrow’s weather report says the rain may stop for a couple of days.  Hope so!

We ate breakfast at 5:30, in the dark and cold and wind. Our camp was IN the clouds, but fortunately not superwet clouds. When it was barely light, we headed off downhill above Hope Lake, toward the “dangerous” crossing of Spade Creek, which the guidebook describes as “impassable to stock animals.” We’d heard from other hikers that they did have a tough time finding a way to get across this year. In 2005, the crossing was a big mess, but do-able. It was only 2 miles to the creek, but it seemed like forever because of some very rocky, rough trail across talus slopes. The clouds still hid the mountaintops, but we were low enough now that we could see the lake and scenery below us.

We reached Spade Creek, and it was just as I remembered–the “creek” comes steeply down a narrow canyon from Mt. Daniel, then spreads out and divides into 3 smaller creeks. Someone had made log bridges out of scraps for the first two crossings–the third one was a boulder hop. Bill gave me a hand at one of the log crossings. I think the “dangerous” crossing was relatively easy overall because it was so early in the morning, and it didn’t rain much yesterday.

Then we pushed on up and over Deception Pass–not a bad climb, and in forest. The next “project” was the highest pass of the day–Pieper Pass (almost 6,000 feet). The trail was a steady but not steep climb up the mountainside, with nice views, since the clouds were lifting and we even had some brief flashes of sun. Partway up, we heard a loud roaring sound coming from below and behind us, and TWO  jets went tearing by, down BELOW us, twisting and turning their way up the canyon.  Wahoo!  At the top there was a stunning view, with two big lakes down below on the other side of the pass.

Many, many switchbacks took us down, at first on nice dirt trail through the forest, then the last half was all in a huge talus field. I was reduced to hiking at a crawl because of the rocks and by the time we got to the meadows at the bottom of the descent, my feet were very painful. Bill and I were both limping. That’s one of the bummers of being older–we have very little “fat padding” left on the bottoms of our feet. We were very glad it was lunchtime so we could take a break!

Lunch was a freezedried lamb fettucine from Australia!–a gift from our daughter who was there last year. Very tasty! Not only that, but the sun came out for a little while and we were able to get our gear aired and dried. “Now for Trap Pass!” we said, and on rested feet we began the sometimes steep climb diagonally up the mountain. Eventually the diagonal turned into switchbacks to the top of the pass, then more switchbacks down. A long and very comfortable contour followed, heading north (the direction we wanted to go!). The wildflowers along the trail, even the fall asters, are really fading, but other plants are showing fall color, so we still had pretty plants to look at. Mushrooms are popping out of the ground, too, in all colors, including a bright golden yellow!

We climbed up and over another “pass”, and followed the PCT past some smaller pretty lakes (with backpackers at each one) before doing a VERY steep, stiff climb up to a ridge above Josephine Lake. Whew! It was some ascent, and to add to the “fun”, the trail is now extremely MUDDY (from previous rains) and we mostly walked/teetered on the SIDES of the trail rather than in the deep mud of the trail itself. Slooooow going!

However, even with the slow trail, we were still farther ahead than we thought we’d be, and wished we had some way to phone the Manns and let them know we’d be at Steven’s Pass sooner than we’d thought. Late in the afternoon, we started meeting a lot of people headed into the mountains, loaded down with big heavy packs. I stopped a group of girls and asked if I could use their cellphone. They were very happy to oblige, but neither of the two cellphones in the group had coverage. Oh well. I was very grateful for their generosity in letting us at least TRY to call. So we decided to “take it easy” for the rest of the day and camped a bit early at Lake Susan Jane. When I calculated our mileage, I was disappointed, though. We worked so hard and tried our best to go as quickly as possible, but still we only made 21.5 miles. I guess all the rocks and mud and long steep climbs really slowed us down. But at least our AVERAGE mileage is still OK, and we are in no danger of running out of food. This afternoon, I had the crazy idea that we could make it all the way to Steven’s Pass TODAY, and hitch a ride down to the Dinsmore’s. No way. I had to give up on that one at around 4 pm.

This whole section is so beautiful and majestic, Bill and I agreed that if it had as much easy road access as Yosemite, there would be tourists here in droves. It is too bad that only a few hardy backpackers ever get to see such beauty–high, dramatic granite cliffs and mountains, meadowed valleys, many lovely lakes…wow!

It was really getting cold as we made camp, and I put on almost all my layers before crawling into the sleeping bag. Actually, in spite of all the uphills, I was wearing a lot of layers during the DAY today, as well. Each night seems colder than the last, and the ground itself is very cold–and often wet or damp, too. But it’s only 9 more days to Canada!

Once we started hiking, we noticed that the clouds looked a bit “looser”–not so dense and dark. We even saw a glimpse of blue sky for a tiny short while. And best of all, the clouds were much higher up, so we could actually see the nearby mountains–wow! They were rugged, granitic, very Sierra-ish, with lots of glaciers. Ribbons of white were running down every mountainside, and sometimes we could hear their faint roar. I speculated mentally as to whether that would add up to “fun” river crossings up ahead.

The trail itself had obviously been recently worked on, and still had ribbon tags that said things like, “Begin retread” or “End brushing.” And soon we did have to ford Lemah Creek. It wasn’t deep–only midcalf–but quite wide and very cold. I didn’t mind–my socks got rinsed as I walked across, and they needed it!

We soon began a climb that took till 10 am to finish, to the top of Escondido Ridge, where we did catch a few mountain views through gaps in the clouds. The nice thing about the climb was that it didn’t rain! But it was cold–50 degrees. On an uphill, that’s no problem, but then came the long downhill to the Waptus River. It’s harder to stay warm on a downhill. We stopped for lunch partway down, and oh joy, there were rocks that were DRY, with a BREEZE blowing (cold, yes, but a breeze!) so while we ate lunch, we could spread out our damp tarp, sleeping bags, etc. so that they dried off nicely. The clouds overhead were very loose and often would break up, leaving holes of blue sky. We could even see sunpatches across the valley from us.

Then came the climb up Cathedral Pass on reasonable trail–not as rough as the downhill had been. And the plants by the trail were nice and dry from the breeze, so we could hike along, pushing through overgrowth, without getting wet. We paused for a moment at beautiful Deep Lake. What a place! It has flat, beautiful meadows there, but we needed more miles, so after a couple of pictures, we climbed on up past Cathedral Peak, a well-named rocky sentinel. We did reach the top of the pass and headed down, now looking for a campsite (it was late!) The map showed a possible flat place not too far down, but when we got there, yikes! It was cramjammed full of backpacker tents! Now way could we have shoehorned ourselves in.

So now, really a bit worried (it was after 7 pm, and the sun had gone down), we hurried on through a very wet (due to low clouds) alpine environment. Every flat place we could see was sodden and exposed, but we finally found a spot in a tree grove that we could JUST barely squeeze into. We were up very high, it was very cold, and we were actually IN the clouds. Brrr!

But on the “way cool” side, the alpine scene here is awesome and unique, and we were were SO glad of very little actual rain today. We even had a a “sun moment’ at around 4 pm, when for an hour we were able to wear just “plain old hiking clothes” instead of layers and layers, trying to stay warm.

We loaded up our packs and headed for the lobby, where Bill spent some time on the computer trying to organize our trip home. He has a somewhat complicated plan in mind. Most all the other hikers are planning to head straight from Manning Park to Vancouver, hop on a plane and go home. Bill’s plan involves walking back into the USA at Sumas, WA, then taking a lot of different local buses to Seattle, then Amtrak to Portland, then rent a car and drive home. While he was working on all that, I was hanging out with other hikers, who were trying to bring themselves to leave the nice warm hotel and and head back into the cold and rain.

Bill finally finished up at 8:30, and off we went. The rain had stopped momentarily, hooray, but it was a cold 44 degrees. The trail is very nice and well-maintained at first and it starts right away to climb up high. In 2005, I loved the views, but we could see nothing this time but the trees by the trail. And eventually the nice smooth trail morphed into rough and rocky, so we were basically hiking on miles of rocks, in the rain. The guidebook had warned of many miles with no reliable water sources–not today! There was water running everywhere, dripping off the mountainside and running down the trail.

But the wildflowers were very nice, especially the “Canterbury Bell” blue ones, plus a lot of very intersting alpine-type plants. Good thing there were plenty of them, because there wasn’t much else to see, with the clouds and rain. I used my umbrella a lot, even for the times when the rain stopped for a bit, because of the very strong, very cold wind. It felt like ice blowing on us, but the umbrella broke its force and made hiking much more comfortable. Put down ANOTHER use for the umbrella–wind shield! And during the few times when I wasn’t using it, I discovered that it tucked very nicely under my left shoulder strap in back, where I could get it easily. (Normally I stow it in a special little pocket on the back of my pack, but then I have to ask Bill to get it for me.)

It was so cold at noon that we ate lunch as fast as we could, and at our “Snickers breaks” we ate standing up, with our packs on, because if we stopped for very long, we were freeeeezing! But in the afternoon, the clouds began to lift a bit, and we started to see the lakes down below. Since this is the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, that was a great sight to see! And around 4 o’clock-ish, the clouds lifted some more and wow! Some views at last! We could see Spectacle Lake down below and the mountains all around us, some with snow patches on them. It was beautiful!

We tramped along the zillion switchbacks down toward the valley, stopped for supper along the trail, crossed the bridge at Delate Falls (wow! amazing and beautiful!) and finally reached the valley floor. The whole area is very alpine and very pretty, but unfortunately also damaged by a fire last fall. We were a bit concerned about finding a campsite outside the fire zone before it got dark, but we did succeed, and were even able to set up our tarp under trees. The biggest challenge was to find bare ground that is not covered with huckleberry bushes! It began to rain again as we set up the tarp, and it got dark fast. I’m writing this by headlamp–it’s very cold and drizzling and tree-drippy, but we are quite comfortable. But I am VERY glad to have hiked through here before, when we could see all the views, and before the fire–so that I KNOW what it looks like!

There were other PCT hikers there, too, so it was fun to talk. Now we have a warm room, clean dry clothes, dry gear and tomorrow we head for Canada. We hope to cross the border on September 20, if all goes well. The weather— well, that’s another story. Unseasonable rain and cold are due to continue. I figure this is a chance to practice, “enjoying the moment no matter what” and also a chance to hear God’s answer to the question, “Lord, what do You want me to learn from this?”

Last, but not least, I’d like to wish a Happy New Year to all our Jewish friends, both Messianic and “non”. May this be a blessed year to you all. The next post you’ll have from us will be after we make it to Canada!

Walk with Aragorn to Minas Tirith: Road begins swinging toward the River Anduin.

Many of the bushes had ripe huckleberries, but when it is 50 degrees and raining, we didn’t feel very inclined to stop and pick huckleberries! Soon the trail itself was one long mud puddle which at times turned into a creek. At noon, we planned for lunch at Stampede Pass weather station. Big disappointment! The cute little house was boarded up, the water shut off, and it was still raining. We ended up eating lunch huddled in a little covered entryway.

Note from Alexa: Sounds like the time in Wales where the only dry area Monty could find to write in was in a castle dungeon!

On we went, and just as I remembered from 2005, the trail got rougher and rockier. But the forest is beautiful, and we found a fine campsite.

Walk with Aragorn to Minas Tirith: Walking parallel with the River Anduin.

Around midday, we headed for the Mike Urich cabin at Government Meadow, with the idea of airing and drying gear inside the cabin. Well, what we found was a wonderful guy named Trail Magic, giving out all-you-can-eat donuts and hot coffee to PCT thruhikers! We stuffed ourselves with our own hot lunch plus his goodies before heading back into the cold, wet forest.

He told us this weather is strange— normally it is really nice this time of year. At days end we were at a gravel road end that was flat, and set up camp there along with another hiker. As soon as we were under our tarp, rain began again.

Walk with Aragorn to Minas Tirith: They arrive in Lebennin to find the area destroyed.

There were a lot of dayhikers there, despite the wet, cold weather. These Washington people are tough! The PCT takes you from the highway at Chinook Pass up to Sourdough Pass, which is one of my favourite places on the trail. It’s like a very narrow, rocky gap with two different “worlds”, one on each side. Very dramatic and very beautiful! But brrr! We didn’t linger long in the wind and cold (the high today was 42 degrees) before heading down to Little Crow Basin where we camped in a grove of trees.

Walk with Aragorn to Minas Tirith: On the road near the River Serni.

I was worried, but needlessly, as it turned out. The clouds blew right past and left a clear sky by noon! Whew! We enjoyed our brief (4 hour) stay at the Kracker Barrel, and as we headed out to the PCT, we met about 7 people coming in along the highway. Beyond White Pass, the trail spends a lot of time in meadowlands surrounded by forests.

A lot of families were out hiking and riding, even though it was a very cold, windy day. While we were eating supper, along came a backpacker who told us a good place to cross (instead of ford) the Bumping River up ahead. He was right— a jumble of broken logs upstream— but it worked even for me, the log-crossing wussie.

Walk with Aragorn to Minas Tirith: Battle with the Corsairs in Lamedon.

It was slow going for us because of the rough trail. Our 70 and 62-year-old feet don’t have much “fat padding” on them anymore! There were snowfields to cross, and Packwood Glacier was tough— hard and icy, even at 10am. Bill helped me a lot by chopping some steps with a sharp rock. The views up there were gloriously glorious, though!

After a tough climb up the hiker route to the Knife Edge (the easy horse route was impassable due to snow) there we were, facing what in 2005 was 1.5 miles of sheer terror for me, since I am/was afraid of heights. Not this time; by God’s grace plus the experience of climbing Mt. Whitney last summer and overcoming that fear, I had a wonderful time on the Knife Edge this time. Hallelujah! We went on down till we were 4 miles from the highway, and we ate everything in our food bags (not much!) Breakfast at the Kracker Barrel tomorrow!

Walk with Aragorn to Minas Tirith: In coastal lowlands near the Gilrain estuary

But at breakfast we found a big rock in full sun and all of me (including the foot) felt much better! Down from Mt. Adams we went, on past Potato Butte, then a long climb up to the top of a ridge where the PCT then circumnavigates a huge valley. Much of this involved pushing through huckleberry bushes hanging over the trail. But the afternoon turned out very warm (ahhh!) and we made it all the way to Walupt Creek and made a nice easy camp on a knoll. Goat Rocks tomorrow!

Walk with Aragorn to Minas Tirith: In a valley near the Anduin and Gilrain rivers

By noon, two wonderful things happened— 1. The best PCT hiker cache I have seen since southern CA (placed by the folks of Trout Lake Abbey) and 2. The sun came out!

Bill had an interesting conversation with another hiker as to whether the “abbey” was Catholic or Buddhist. “I prefer Catholic,” Bill said, “with Buddhists, you get what you deserve. With Catholics, you get what you don’t deserve, because of Jesus. I don’t want to get what I deserve.” “Neither do I!” said the other hiker.

Note from Alexa: Trout Abbey is a Zen meditation centre.

By later afternoon, we’d reached Mt. Adams, with wonderful alpine scenery, wildflowers galore, green meadows, and snowy white Mt. Adams towering above it all. The clouds were disappearing rapidly, we found a nice campsite with a view, and collapsed! That was a lot of uphill today!

Walk with Aragorn to Minas Tirith: In Dor-en-Ernil, the lands of Prince Imrahil

 Soon the PCT reached a very pretty “lava garden” with mossy rocks, “bonzai” plants, and vine maple just barely beginning to show a little color.  I really like this part of the trail!  It’s almost like being in a Japanese garden.  We stopped for a quick, shivering breakfast and got underway again quickly, though we did stop to get some water at a “camp” where the 3 young guys who passed us last night were still snoring in their sleeping bags! 

 But then it began to rain, lightly at first, then rain for real that continued  for the rest of the day, as the temperature slowly dropped till at noon it was 44 degrees.  Blue Lake, right by the trail, was Confederate grey and dimpled with lots of raindrops.  Air temperatures were so cold that the lake was steaming! It was interesting to note, though, that the Douglas Fir trees shed rain beautifully–it was still dry ground under them–but the hemlocks don’t give much rain protection at all.  Unfortunately, the forest here is mostly hemlock, so the trail and ground were getting muddier and muddier.  I was VERY glad that at lunchtime we found a nice big Douglas Fir to sit under and cook a hot stew! 

 We were in Indian Heaven now, and not a huckleberry in sight. Did we miss the picking season, we wondered?  We’d passed some signs saying “NO commercial huckleberry picking.  NO commercial mushroom gathering.”  I looked and looked but saw not one berry nor one mushroom.  Oh well.  We did meet some other “regular” backpackers who commented in amazement, “There are so many of you heading for Canada!  What’s going on?” 

At 4:30pm, we once again caught up with the 3 young guy thruhikers (they passed us when we stopped for lunch).  They had stopped for the day! “We quit!” they said, “Hiking in the rain sucks.” (Heard later that they built a roaring fire and were trying to dry their gear.)   Normally they stop at 8 pm or later, so for them this was highly unusual.

Bill and I usually stop at 5:30 for some supper, then continue hiking for another couple of hours, but today it was so cold that we decided  to also stop early (6pm).  We set up camp and for the first time ate supper under the tarp, warm in our sleeping bags!  Our normal rule is “NEVER EVER eat where you camp!”  but we were so cold that this time we made an exception.   I say we were “warm” in our sleeping bags, but the truth is more like “a bit warmer”.  The poor sleeping bags never got a chance to air and dry today, so they were damp & clammy.  Staying warm tonight will be a challenge.  I’m wearing most of my layers already.

Bill and I both hope the rain will stop tomorrow–we missed seeing some glorious views today.   Well, I’ve been told they’re glorious, anyway–we missed seeing them in 2005 also, because (gasp, choke!) it was raining in Indian Heaven then, too–in July!  I guess the sun shines here some of the time.  Hope it does tomorrow!

Walk with Aragorn to Minas Tirith: Near Mt. Rimmon and the lands of Prince Imrahil

Walking across the Bridge of the Gods along with the cars is “interesting”, to say the least.  Yikes!  Fortunately it was so early that there weren’t very many cars, and they were all going the other way.  Oh man, was I glad to reach the other side!  Then we turned right, away from the PCT, to begin the roadwalk to Stevenson.  The PCT guidebook grumps mightily about the “stupid route” of the PCT after Cascade Locks, and advocates for the alternate, which is what we took. 

Walking along the edge of Hwy. 14 can be a bit scary in places where the shoulder is very narrow and there are BIG trucks that go by on a tear, but there are very nice views of the river and of the trains going by. When we reached Stevenson, we walked the whole length of the town and nothing was open.  Bother!  We’d planned on eating breakfast there.  We decided to turn back to a Subway that had shown a few signs of life, and then I decided to look at a side street near there.  Score!  “Mark’s Cafe” was open for business, and we had a great breakfast before heading out under a cloudy sky that looked like rain, and sure enough, pretty soon the drizzle began. 

On we went, now through drizzly rain, up the Wind River Road, through the cute little town of Carson with its great big huge lumber mill.  I was looking at the forest along the way, searching for any sign of fall colors, but everything was still green.  Some folks along the way in Carson recognized that we were PCT hikers and said, “Headed for Canada?”  “Yup, Canada, here we come!” we cheered.  At noon we stopped along the road for lunch, then only another 15 minutes of hiking took us to Stabler’s Country Store!  Wish I’d known it was so close!  We could have eaten lunch THERE!  Oh, well. 

Stabler’s Store is a fascinating place.  It looks like it’s built of junk and falling down, but looks aren’t everything!  The owners are supernice to PCT hikers, our our resupply box was waiting, and there were plenty of other things to add to our food bags.  Stablers is very well-organized and super-friendly.  So was Charlie Brown, the ancient chocolate Lab who badly wanted to share my ice cream!  (Mean me, I kept all the ice cream for myself!)  According to the hiker register, if you get to Stabler’s on a weekend, there’s biscuits ‘n gravy that are awesome!  But today was Monday, so we missed out.  That’s OK, we ate plenty of other stuff before heading back to the PCT!

 The rain had stopped for awhile, but everything was soaking wet. We cheered when we got back to real PCT TRAIL again, then tackled the “killer climb” out of Panther Creek.  The forest here is very green and the trees are huge. Lots of huge ferns and plants and bushes cover the forest floor.  It’s like walking through a rainforest, and sure enough, it did start to rain again!  So it was back on with the raingear, and “Oh well, welcome to Washington!”  The only bummer about rain here is that there are some places that have awesome views but you can’t see anything in the rain & clouds. 

In Oregon, we constantly pushed ourselves hard, trying to make lots of miles.  Since Bill is not well, and we have no reason to hurry, we enjoyed being able to just walk happily along at a reasonable pace.  As the afternoon progressed, Bill was feeling steadily better.  Very encouraging! 

It was hard to find a place to camp.  We were on a mountainside fully of dripping wet trees & plants.  But I finally spotted a place that would work, and we’d just finished setting up when along came 3 PCT thruhiker guys, walking very fast.  “It’s freeeeezing!” they said.  “Gotta keep moving to stay warm!”  Off they went as the sunset was lighting up the mist around us and darkness was closing in.  “I hope they find a campsite,” I said.  I was a bit worried for them.  But they are young and strong, so I guess they’ll hike amd camp by headlamp if they have to.  Meanwhile, Bill and I were moving, too–into our sleeping bags!

It’s a very cold night–I can see my breath.  I prayed for Bill to be feeling even better tomorrow.  Hope the weather clears up a bit, but I’m not counting on it! 

Walk with Aragorn to Minas Tirith: Near Mt. Halifirien

I “slept in” until 6:45am today, but was so hungry that I got up and went to eat at the restaurant, after making coffee and eating yogurt in our room. Bill was still feeling sick and weak, so he did not join me, but stayed in bed. When I got to the restaurant, there were backpacks everywhere and lots of hikers. Fun! I ended up having a lot of different conversations with different folks. Many of them have skipped large portions (all of Oregon, in one case!) of the PCT to be here.

But one of the hiker ladies I talked to who is my age (62) and I were comparing notes on how thin we had become. She knows about “medical stuff” and told me, “You and I aren’t hormone-protected like the younger women. Their bodies fight to hang on to every ounce of fat, but we’re post-menopausal, so we don’t have that anymore. We’re kind of in the same boat as the men now. You notice how thin they are?” And I realized she was right.The guys are all really skinny.  So I guess I’ll just do the best I can. Only 500 miles to go!

After breakfast, I went back to check on Bill.  He still did not look or feel good, but he still wanted to go to church. I wanted to go, too, and it was only a short walk  to Cascade Locks Community Church. Turns out they have Awana, Good News Club and they are really nice! There was a potluck after the service, which I went to, but Bill did not feel well and went back to bed. He says he is determined to leave tomorrow morning as planned, so once I got back from church, I am loaded up the packs and got everything ready to go.

For dinner I went all by myself (Bill still could not face any food) over to a pizza place that the hikers all seem to like.  The pizza was OK, but I’ve had better ones.  I saved a couple of small pieces for Bill, in case he felt up to eating anything, and when I got back to our room, he did nibble on them.  Poor Bill!  I’ve been running around having fun and eating to my heart’s delight, while he’s been feeling sick and lying in bed.  I am asking God to please help him feel better.  Tomorrow we begin the PCT in Washington!

Walk with Aragorn to Minas Tirith: Following along the River Ciril

Bill himself is not doing well. He looks pale and sick again, his stomach hurts and he’s having “plumbing problems.” He spent most of the day lying down, did not eat much at all, and said he felt very weak. He did take one short walk to look at gear from the Trail Days vendors. 

Trail Days is nowhere near like ADZPCTKO.  No food is available (unless you buy it), and there are more non-thruhikers than there are thruhikers.  We decided that it’s not worth killing yourself to get here!  Oh well.  Taking a couple of zeros here means I can work at  eating all kinds of food, trying to get some fat back on me! I feel strong, but one look in the mirror and I know I need food!

We were in bed way early, and boy, did that mattress feel good.

Walk with Aragorn to Minas Tirith: Following along the River Ciril

Our last day hiking the PCT in Oregon! It was still very dark when we started, so we used our headlamps for a little while.  Clouds were still around us, but slowly cleared back, so we could see pretty well; the deep valleys and steep mountains all around us matched the contours on our maps, so we had a pretty good idea where we were and it was encouraging to chart our progress. The really distant mountains like Adams and St. Helens were hidden in the clouds. Oh well, that’s normal!  We did spot Lost Lake down below.  I have very good memories of going to that lake when I was a kid and we were visiting my aunt & uncle on their dairy farm nearby. 

The PCT really lives up to the “Crest” part of its name throughout this section.  We were way up high pretty much all morning and most of the afternoon.  The result was that we were either IN the clouds or else had clouds just over our heads in the treetops.  At one point this morning, we were hiking in very barren terrain, where the trail junction signs were supported by rock cairns.  The wind was blowing hard, and I can imagine that being up here in a storm would be downright wild.  Many very interesting alpine plants covered the ground.  If I weren’t thruhiking, I’d have sat down to have a good look at them.

By lunchtime we were at Wasco Lake, since we’d  decided to just follow the PCT into Cascade Locks instead of doing the Eagle Creek alternate. NOT A GOOD IDEA! The Eagle Creek trail is a bit scary if you don’t like heights and big dropoffs, and it is almost a mile longer,  but it has one huge benefit— it is all downhill. The PCT has a lot of uphill, some very steep, and it becomes very rocky and rough.

At Wasco Lake, the lake really is very pretty, but it’s very hard to figure out where the PCT goes, since there are trails wandering everywhere and the signage is minimal.  We beat about hunting for the PCT, and wasted a bunch of time, before I finally said, “Phooey on this!  Let’s just walk along Road 670 for a little bit, then bushwhack downhill back to the PCT!”  So that’s what we did.  Then came the long climb up to the Benson Plateau, which is an interesting little world in itself–Oregon Desert again, but this time with the addition of beargrass.  But we were tired, and the climb up to it was not fun.  Glimpses through the trees gave us some idea of how high up were were–very high indeed! 

Finally, at last!!! the trail began the long downhill to Cascade Locks.  We left the Oregon Desert behind and were back into pretty evergreens.  The lower we got, the more we saw maple trees and broadleafed plants, including poison oak starting to turn red.  We cheered when we reached what I call “The Big Viewpoint”.  Below us lay the blue Columbia River–across the river was Mt. Adams!   Washington State in sight! 

But then the trail got really cantankerous.  There were lots of switchbacks (no problem), but the trail tread was very rough and rocky.  The rocks underfoot ranged from talus fields where you have to pick your way across very carefully, trying not to twist an ankle, to simply pointed rocks sticking up out of the trail everywhere.    Our feet were very tired, and those rocks really hurt.  We had to slow down quite a bit, which was frustrating when we were so close to the “finish line”!

I took heart, though, when we entered what I call the “maple zone” where we were walking through a forest intertwined with maples and evergreens, with maple predominating.  It is so pretty there!  We started to meet backpackers who were heading out for the weekend, carrying their huge, heavy packs and wearing hiking boots.  They were all so clean!  The only bummer was that there’s a lot of UPhill in the last 4 miles before Cascade Locks.  UPhill–oh man, that’s just WRONG!  All we could do was sigh and trudge along some more. 

But you know what?  The good ol’ method of “just keep putting one foot in front of the other” does work, and finally we did reach the final turn into Cascade Locks  at around 6:30pm.  We headed straight for the Cascade Locks Inn restaurant so we could EAT, and eat we did–steak and baked potatoes.  Feeling much better, we walked on over to Trail Days at Thunder Island.  As part of the PCT Class of 2011, we got to camp there for free, and we wasted no time in rolling out the ground cloth and setting up a quick cowboy camp near the river.  Then we totally crashed.  There was an evening program at Trail Days, and there were trains going by, and other campers talking, but we ignored them all and just went to sleep.  We are tiiiiiired!  And I think we look like wrecks.  But we met the challenge, and it’s hard to believe that we made it all the way through Oregon in only 15 days.  Wow!  Thankyou, Lord!

Walk with Aragorn to Minas Tirith: Following along the River Ciril

We woke up to a sky much more clear and normal— the smoke seemed to have pretty much blown away, so the fire situation must be better.   Our motto for the morning was “second breakfast at Timberline Lodge!” At Barlow Pass, there was a nice picnic table, so we stopped there for some granola before tackling the big climb up towards Mt. Hood.  The PCT seriously goes up, up, up, till between the trees you start getting glimpses of the deep sandy snowmelt canyons coming off Mt. Hood.  More climbing, and you start to see the ski lifts, and finally you are out of the forest, and out on the sandy shoulders of Mt. Hood itself.

It’s an amazing sight– Mt. Hood  is “right there,” plus wildflowers galore (goldenrod, lupines, paintbrush, many more) and a very strong, cold wind blowing sand and dust in clouds off the sides of the mountain. The wind was strong enough that I was staggering a bit, and it’s like hiking on a sand dune as you slip and slide along the trail. But it wasn’t far to Timberline Lodge, where we headed for the Day Lodge to see about breakfast.  But the cafeteria was CLOSED!  A jolly employee grinned wickedly at us and said, “Oh, but we have some REALLY nice freezedries you might like!” before directing us to the dining room in the main Lodge where they have an all-u-can-eat breakfast buffet.  Oh yes!

We headed for the restrooms at the Day Lodge to clean up and change into “town shirts” before we headed over to the buffet.  To our great relief and delight, at the buffet, there was  Phooey!  We’d been very worried about him–did he make it past the fire?  Well, turned out he was on the shuttle just before ours, so he was OK, and he had asked HIS shuttle driver to wait a bit for US, in case we came along!  So all of us were very glad to see each other.   Awwwwww!  

We then proceeded to eat everything in sight, especially the fresh-squeezed orange juice.  We all could barely walk, we were so full, when we went out into the big lobby to sit on nice, soft, comfortable couches for awhile and just relax.  Along came Dave, who was hiking the Oregon PCT, and we all compared “fire adventure stories.”  Dave and his hiking buddies were behind us, and they’d reached the shoulder of Mt. Jefferson, saw the fire situation, and immediately turned back.  They hiked down to a trailhead, found a ride, and had hitchhiked around the fire zone.

Once we’d sufficiently recovered from breakfast, we got our resupply box and a few more odds ‘n ends, then it was back to the trail again, on a very cold, very windy day.  A film crew with big impressive cameras were setting up their stuff in front of the Lodge, and were having an awful time with the wind.  Some very nastylooking clouds were blowing in along with the wind, and we decided to put everything in “rain prep” mode before seriously starting down the trail.

The PCT around Mt. Hood is a real rollercoaster–down into deep snowmelt canyons, then up the other side of them.  At the bottom of every canyon is a snowmelt creek.  The first one was a rockhop for me, and I was glad to make it safely across.  Another hiker who was trying to cross at about the same time I was, well, he was having a tough time, and a friend of him was sort of “coaching” as the timid hiker went from rock to rock.  I normally do NOT like rockhops–to me it’s a lot safer to just wade–but I was enjoying the sensation of DRY shoes and socks, and hoping it could last just a little while longer!

The wildflowers along the trail were gorgeous, and helped to keep my mind off of thinking about the Sandy River crossing up ahead.  In 2005, that was scaaaaary!  but a Boy Scout leader who was there at the time helped me get across on a log.  “How will I make it across this time?” I wondered.  And then it started to rain.  Oh joy!  Now there was rain to add to the snowmelt. 

When we got down to the bottom of the long downhill into the Sandy River canyon, I looked at the river and said, “Oh!  This isn’t any worse than those High Sierra rivers!  I can do this!”  Way upstream were what looked like 3 skinny, slippery logs across the river,  Bill said, “I’m crossing on the logs” and headed for them.  “I’ll ford this,” I said, and waded in, facing the current, trek poles braced, just like the High Sierras.  The river was never more than a bit over knee deep, with a nice bottom of small rocks and sand.  I ended up with  clean feet and socks!  Then Bill and I got back together again.  He said the skinny logs were lashed together to make a  little bridge.  Oh well!  The important thing is, we both made it across.

At that point, the “trail” was a series of rock ducks that led us off through the sand and boulders of the canyon floor, till we were back into a sort of Oregon Desert-type forest with one new addition: moss!  Every rock was covered with moss.  The rain continued to fall.

We were in and out of forest on the way to Ramona Falls, and then made the long steep climb up to Lolo Pass.  Phooey had already stopped to camp, and was trying to build a fire in the misty rain, so he could get warm.  He said he’d gotten rather wet in the rain and needed to dry out and warm up.  We started looking for a campsite, too, and it was not easy.  Finding a place that wasn’t totally covered with underbrush was almost impossible.  But after some beating around up and down the trail near the road, we finally decided on a spot in a grove of trees. 

As we were setting up our tarp, along came Dave, and he asked if it would be OK for him to camp next to us.  Seeing as there was no place else, we said, “Of course” and he began to set up his tent.  “Look at that sunset!” Dave said.  “It’s showing red.  That means the weather should be better tomorrow.”  I sure do hope he is right!   It’s setting up to be a very cold night (I can see my breath!)  but if all goes well, we should make it into Cascade Locks some time tomorrow.  Sure would be nice to hike without rain!

Walk with Aragorn to Minas Tirith: Reach the River Ciril

Today was smoke all day, beginning with an orange-red sun early in the morning– and a slightly late start  because I didn’t wake up in time.  As we headed out along the PCT,   beams of light coming through the trees were actually red when they hit the forest floor and tree trunks, so it almost looked as if the forest were on fire. It rapidly turned into a hot day— ninety degrees in the shade. Fortunately, there was plenty of shade! The forest was beautiful, with enough openness that you didn’t feel closed in, and broadleafed trees as well as evergreens.

We spent the morning walking through Warm Springs Indian Reservation. The folks there were busy with some logging.  Several spots along the trail were freshly clearcut, and we could hear the sound of chainsaws in other places.  Yesterday on our long drive around the fire,  we’d had a discussion with Mr. Peterson about forest management, including logging.   He said that believe it or not, there actually is a trend towards logging with horses (just like “in the olden days”), the reason being that horses don’t damage the forest like mechanized equipment does, AND they are cheaper than helicopter logging.  Interesting! 

We reached the nice log bridge over the Warm Springs “River” (creek, actually) and stopped to rinse socks and get water.  The light in the forest was incredibly beautiful, because of the smoke haze in the air.  All the trees and rhodies and plants looked as if they had a golden glow to them. 

Finally we reached big, blue and very smoky Timothy Lake.  Only a few people were camped  there (instead of the usual summer crowds), and those few were out in the lake swimming, yelling and splashing. Man, would we have liked to join them, but we needed miles, and there were rumours of a hiker cache at Wapinita Pass (True rumours, as it turned out!)  We had planned to stop for water at Little Crater Lake, but changed our minds when we spotted a really nice spring just below the trail.  It had a wooden sign that said, “Water”, but somebody had marker-penned in an indignant request, “People Stay Out!”  The spring does flow into a pretty little pool, and I guess maybe kids were playing in it??  We took a little rest break in the shade at the spring, and enjoyed the COLD, wonderful water!

All afternoon long, I felt as if I were hiking at sunset, which is my favorite time of day to hike!  I loved the golden light and the beautiful forest, but felt bummed that this loveliness was caused by a forest fire.  The trail is easy walking and we decided to aim for eating supper at Wapinitia Pass, just in case there was a cache there.  The PCT went on a long contour along steep mountainsides covered with rhodies, and most of the rocks were covered with moss.  Finally we reached the mountainsides where normally we’d have awesome views of Mt. Hood just up ahead, but (sigh) because of all the smoke, we could barely see Mt. Hood at all.

As we approached Wapinitia Pass, there was a great big log with (hooray!) a large cooler next to it.  We cheered and yelled, slung off our packs and looked inside to see what we could find.  Oh yes!  Goodies!   It had apples, soda, beer and candy— great additions to our crackers, peanut butter and dried fruit!   We got very comfortable, sitting on the ground with the log as a backrest, and enjoying the food.  It was hard to get up and go on. 

From there we hiked (the PCT was a Nordic ski trail at this point, well marked!)  till a couple of miles before Barlow Pass and managed to organize a cowboy campsite on a forest floor full of plants and fallen tree branches— not easy!  From what we could see up ahead, it looks like there are no more forest fires between us and Cascade Locks, and the smoke from the fires behind us is slowly lifting and blowing away.  I hope they are getting those fires “knocked down”!    Mt. Hood still has lots of snow on it, which will make the river crossings tomorrow rather “interesting”.   Bill and I agreed on “Second breakfast tomorrow at Timberline Lodge!”

Walk with Aragorn to Minas Tirith: In the land of Lamedon, home of Gondorian sturdy hillmen

Today was a day of rocks, fire and God’s perfect timing. It was an experience I will not soon forget!

 Early morning when we started out there was a beautiful “moonset” in the west— a golden round moon, clouds pink from sunrise, and the blue of early morning sky. Very gorgeous!  And only a couple of minutes of walking took us to Shale Lakes, which are a pretty set of little lakes.  The PCT began to climb up and up, headed for Jefferson Park.  Along the way, hooray!  We came to a whole lot of rhododendrons by the trail!  No flowers, of course (wrong time of year) but rhododendrons mean we’re getting closer and closer to Mt. Hood and the OR/WA border!  I cheered when I saw the rhodies! 

The trail was slow going, though.  It was very rocky, and I could not hike fast for fear of tripping and falling.  I managed to avoid doing that, but poor Bill did fall once, right off the trail.  He ended up scratched and bruised, but no worse.  Whew!  I’ve seen people who just bop along a rough rocky trail, moving fast–wish I could do that, but I’d be on my face in no time!  The slow going continued all morning and into the afternoon.  “There’s no way we’re going to get 30 miles today,” I thought to myself, and was a bit bummed.  All I could do was resign myself to doing the best I could.

The scenery on this part of the PCT is great, though!  We had grand views to the west, as well as glimpses of Mt. Jeff towering alongside us.   I wondered how bad the crossings would be of the various snowmelt creeks coming down off Mt. Jeff, but we had no problems.  At Milky Creek, Bill decided to stop and wash socks.  I was wondering how it would be at notorious Russell Creek, but no problem there either–Russell was an easy rockhop.  Several other backpackers (not thruhikers) were hanging out at Russell and they had a dog with them that barked and growled at us ferociously.  Its owner promptly dragged it off the trail and made it sit down while we went by.  Thankyou!  Often we have to remind the owner to get control of their dog.  This guy didn’t need any reminders.

We were looking forward to seeing Jefferson Park— one of the prettiest places on the whole PCT. But two things worried me.

One was a constant parade of helicopters overhead (never bodes well in the wilderness). The second was “Where are the hikers?”  When we were here in 2005, the trail in and near Jefferson Park was a busy place.   Today the only hikers we’d seen so far were the few at Russell Creek. 

Finally we reached the unbelievable beauty of Jefferson Park.  It’s hard to describe.  It’s like you are right at the foot of snowy Mt. Jeff, among intensely green meadows full of wildflowers.  Little sparkling lakes with sandy beaches are scattered here and there; pristine little snowmelt creeks are meandering through the grass.  This is one of the most beautiful sections of the whole PCT, and we strolled along, stopping to admire everything.

But something was weird and different.  I couldn’t figure out what it was at first, then suddenly I realized what it was.  “Bill,” I said, “where is everybody?”  We were the only people in the entire Park.  Usually the place is swarming with dayhikers and backpackers.  And it was a beautiful day, in August, prime hiking season.  Very strange.

Shrugging our shoulders, we hiked on, tackling the big rocky climb up over the shoulder of Mt. Jeff.  Our feet were very sore by the time we reached the top–I guess we older folks just don’t have as much fat padding on the bottoms of our feet!  But the climb and rough trail were SO worth it!  The views are gorgeous.  At the top are a lot of tough little gnarly trees that somehow survive the rigors of life up here, as well as alpine wildflowers barely an inch or two high, but very pretty. 

As we expected, the north side of the Mt. Jeff shoulder had plenty of snow!  Most of the trail was completely covered over, but there are rock cairns to help hikers figure out the general direction to travel.  So we started scrambling down the snowfields-interspersed-with-rocks.  It was sort of High Sierras all over again.   I even glissaded down one of the snowfields.  But we continued to puzzle over “Where are the hikers?”  We could not even see any footprints in the snow!  

And now we had yet another concern.  From up high on the shoulder, we’d had a great view of Mt. Hood  (yeee-ha! ) but also a great view of FOUR separate narrow plumes of smoke in the vast forests down below.  Were they burn piles?  Hardly likely–this is wilderness area.  Were they Forest Service controlled burns?  Maybe. We got out our maps and decided that the PCT went inbetween a couple of the smoke plumes, so hopefully we were OK.   Our stomachs were yelling for lunch, though, and it was very chilly and extremely windy, so we agreed to hike downhill enough to get out of the wind before stopping to eat.

After getting through all the snowfields, we found a nice little sunny, windprotected hollow.  That sun felt good!  We cooked and ate lunch, then rested for a few minutes in the warmth before hoisting packs to finish the descent to Ollallie Lake.  We were planning to get water at Breitenbush Creek, once we reached the road.

But then everything came to a screeching halt.  At the road, a USFS guy in a red pickup truck was waiting. “Sorry folks, your trail is CLOSED.” Oh no! “But we’re running a shuttle for you hikers around the fire zone.  Are there any more thruhikers coming in behind you?”  Bill and I thought of Phooey, but we hadn’t seen him all day and had no idea where he was.  We told the USFS guy, a Mr. Peterson, that we only knew of one, but he might be ahead of us.  Peterson looked at his watch and said, “I’ll wait 45 more minutes, but then I’m taking you guys around the fire.  By the way, would you like something to eat? ”   Well, the fact that we’d eaten lunch not too long ago did not deter us from saying, “Sure!  Whatcha got?” 

Peterson gave us some US Army MRE’s that even heat themselves up.  So we had meatloaf and mashed potatoes and other goodies while waiting the 45 minutes.  Peterson told us that all the access roads and trailheads to Jefferson were closed because of the fires. No wonder nobody was at Jefferson Park!  After the 45 minutes were up, there was no sign of Phooey, so we tossed our packs in the back of the red pickup and off we went, bouncing and jouncing on the very rocky road.  “There is a short way back to the PCT,” Peterson told us.  “But I can’t take you that way anymore–it’s closed by the fires.  So I’ll have to take you the long way.”  “How did the fires start?” we asked.  “Lightning strikes?”   “Yup.  We had a storm a couple of days ago.” 

It turned out that Peterson was basically the “Chief Kahuna” of this whole USFS area, and it was on his authority that the hiker shuttles were running.  THANKYOU, Mr. Peterson!  The longer route we were following took us right close by to one of the fires, and it looked pretty scary–a lot worse than it had looked from up high on Mt. Jeff.  Peterson stopped the truck and got out to have a look at it.  “I don’t like this,” he said.  “I’ve been bugging HQ that they ought to knock this one down instead of just letting it burn like that.”  He started talking on his radio, apparently “bugging HQ” some more.  “The best way I can describe what the fire looked like would be to say that there were a lot of tall trees on fire in such a way that they looked like torches.  There was a lot of smoke, too.  I mentioned this to Peterson, and he said, “Right.  What you’re looking at is a “torch” fire.  It’s nasty, but could be a lot worse.” 

Suddenly, it was like the fire exploded!  It started expanding like crazy, right in front of our eyes.  Peterson leaped into the truck and grabbed his radio.  “Get in!  Quick!” he said.   ”It’s gone to a crown fire!  You guys will be the LAST hikers to get through. Even the road isn’t safe now.”  “But what will the other hikers behind us do, then?”  I asked.  “They will have to turn around and go back,” Peterson said, as he steered the jouncing truck down the rocky road.  Clouds of smoke were billowing behind us, and orangered flames.

Bill and I were riding along and thinking, “Lord, we are in awe of your timing, AGAIN.  If we’d reached Breitenbush Road even an hour after we did, we’d have had to turn back.   Instead, we’re on the LAST hiker shuttle to get through. Thankyou, Lord, thankyou!” 

Very soon, helicopters were flying overhead, carrying water to dump on the fire.  Peterson stopped off every now and then to check on the closed roads, to make sure that not only were they closed, but that there was a USFS person there to enforce the closure.  At one of them, the “guard” asked anxiously, “How long do I have to stay here?  That fire is getting bad!”  Sure enough, ashes were falling all around us.  Peterson gave him some instructions about when to leave, and drove on.  ”I’ll take you as close to the PCT as I can, ” he said, and finally took us up one of the closed roads to a trail crossing near Jude Lake.  We thanked him fervently for his efforts in fighting the bureauocracy and getting the hiker shuttle running, plus driving us all this long way round.  “My pleasure,” he said.  What an awesome guy!

Once we got back to the PCT, we made tracks north as fast as we could!  Behind us was what looked like big gray clouds coming in, but it was SMOKE.  We did not want to be anywhere near it!  Fortunately, the trail was nice smooth dirt through the forest, and we could move fast.   We reached Lemiti Meadows and kept going as quickly as we could till we were past Chinquapin Viewpoint.  At sunset we stopped and cowboy camped on a saddle.  It was a pleasant, breezy evening, with crickets singing.  We were sorry to have missed 10 miles of PCT–10 very pretty miles, with lots of little lakes, plus of course, great big gorgeous Ollalie Lake.  But oh, are we grateful to God for His perfect timing! 

Walk with Aragorn to Minas Tirith: Reach the northeasterly lands of Morthond

We had cowboy camped in the woods of Big Lake Youth Camp last night, and woke up this morning to everything WET— fog was all over the lake and us! Oh well— we headed back (at 6am) to the nice warm laundry room at the camp, where I put our very grubby socks to soak, and explained to Bill how to wash them once they’d soaked awhile.  Then I went off and took a “thorough” shower, trying my best to wash off  the ground-in dirt on ME!  But no matter how hard I scrubbed,  I just could not get the dirt off the bottoms of my feet.  I wondered how far some of that dirt has been travelling with me??  I finally gave up, dried off, bundled up in all my warm clothes (it was a bitter cold morning) and dashed back to the warm laundry room, where I worked on finishing up journal entries. When I went to see if our socks were done, I discovered that they were still just soaking, and Bill hadn’t washed them at all.  Sigh. 

But we managed to finish up the socks, and get our damp sleeping bags dry in time for breakfast– a fabulous all-you-can eat feast, and the friendly cook came out to eat with all us hikers. When we were all just about done with our first round of food and were thinking about going for seconds,  he asked, “Would anyone like some ice cream?” There was a collective gasp of delight followed by a chorus of “Yes, please!” So in addition to everything else, we each got a great big ice cream sandwich!  And then we still went off for seconds on the regular breakfast food, till we were stuffed to the gills.  We enjoyed talking with all the hikers.  One guy was thruhiking SOBO with his dog, but had decided to skip the “lava horror walk” since it would be too hard on his dog’s paws.  He volunteered to join the work party at the Youth Camp today, as he waits for a friend to pick him up, then drop him off at a different point along the PCT.

We went back to the laundry to collect our now clean and hopefully dry gear, and found the BLYC laundress had arrived to work on the Camp laundry items.  She was a very sweet lady, and we had a good time talking to her for awhile about the Lord and about how different people react when they find out that you are serious about following Christ, and when you (gasp!) actually try to tell them about how to know Him.  She said that yesterday there were 10 thruhikers at BLYC, and they all wanted to do laundry, so she just laid aside all the camp laundry and told them, “Go for it!”  She in effect let them take over the laundry.  “It was really strange, though,” she said.  “The hikers stayed in the laundry room and the art room next door ALL DAY.  Usually hikers go out to the lake for a swim, or hang around on the porch.  I guess it was just too cold to do that.”  No kidding–it was still a very cold morning!  Brrrrrr!

We loaded up on water— one of the SOBOs warned of “no decent ontrail water for 30 miles!” and headed out. Just before Santiam Pass, surprise! A cache full of what I guess is the official Oregon thruhiker cache drink— Pepsi. Then on into a burn zone, which was there in 2005.  Regrowth has been very slow.  There were lots of wildflowers, but only a few small pine trees.  Very sad.  The PCT launched into a  big climb up to 3-Fingered Jack mountain with awesome views of the 3 Sisters and Mt. Washington to the south of us.  We met some more very clean backpackers who were heading OUT of the mountains.  I guess they didn’t stay IN the mountains very long, or they’d have been grubbier!

Finally we were up high enough to have views of Mt. Jefferson, and as the day progressed, those views of “Mt. Jeff” got more and more impressive!  One of the fun things about the PCT in Oregon is seeing a magnificent peak on the horizon, then watch as it gets closer and closer.  We were still hiking in “burn zone”, and everything was ashy and charcoal-y.  I was very glad when we reached an unburned, green “island” where we could stop for our Snickers break!  The trail was often very rough, and had a lot of fire zone litter on it–pieces of burned bark, small branches AND even some snow patches!

Finally we were up on the shoulder of 3-Fingered Jack, and from that point on, the trail is absolutely awesome!  The views are fantastic.  Far below us were green meadows at the foot of “Jack”,  the massive “Mt. Jeff” lay just ahead, we were out of the fire zone, and the day had finally warmed up enough that we weren’t shivering!  When we reached Rockpile Lake, we decided to stop and get water, and there was Phooey, taking a break.  “I’m tired,” he said.  He’s been doing 30 mile days, too, trying to get to Cascade Locks in time for Trail Days.  We all agreed that Trail Days had better be good, considering the effort we’ve been putting out to get there!

It was wonderful to be getting closer and closer to Jefferson Park.  I love the “high alpine” feel of this whole area. All the plants, trees, etc and the very dramatic mountains make you feel as if civilization is far away. We ate dinner on a saddle with a great view of Mt. Jeff.  At 7 pm, we were still on a long contour along a steep mountainside, and I began to worry about finding a place to camp before dark, but awhile later, we spotted  a small grassy hollow.  The wind was blowing hard and very cold, but down in the hollow it was rushing overhead instead of blowing right on us.  We put up the tarp (for dew protection) and the net tent so we could sleep in peace, with no mosquitoes.  The sound of the wind in the treetops was very soothing.  Our only concern is that we are both smelling some smokiness in the air–it seems to be coming from the south and west of us, so we should be OK up here on the PCT.  Jefferson Park tomorrow! 

Walk with Aragorn to Minas Tirith: Left Paths of the Dead and reached the Morthond Vale waterfall

Brrr! A cold 38 degree morning! We packed up fast and hit the trail, hoping for a hill to climb! (Hills warm you up!) The clouds of yesterday and last night were mostly gone, so I took a picture of one of the nearby Sisters.  I’ve learned that up here in Sisters Wilderness, the clouds can blow in really fast, so if you can actually SEE the mountain, better take a picture of it quickly, before it’s shrouded in clouds again! 

The PCT wandered all over the place, up and down, and around hillsides.  The farther we went, the more AMAZED we were that we ever made it through here safely in 2005, when we were so lost that all we could do was take a compass heading and try to travel north. 

In the early morning light, the trail took us through several very pretty meadows, full of wildflowers.  Some of the meadows were “lupines only” and some were “mixed bouquets”!  I felt as if I were walking through a flower garden.  Backpacker tents were scattered here and there, usually in the trees at the edges of the meadows.  Nobody was up yet!  We stopped for a quick, very shivery cold breakfast in a cold wind, and as we were just finishing up, along came Phooey, and he hiked with us for awhile.  All of us were in awe of the scenery, and we were running out of superlatives to comment on it!  Eventually we left Phooey behind and were hiking by ourselves again.

I was particularly looking forward to seeing Obsidian Falls and wondered whether there really was that much obsidian in the area.  Well, the falls were very pretty and it’s true— the whole place really does have tons of obsidian!  In 2005 everything was covered with snow, and we couldn’t see the ground at all.  I enjoyed walking the PCT by the falls this time, and seeing the ground all shining with obsidian flakes. 

But finally we were into what I call the “lavalands”— miles and miles of all sorts of lava, from dramatic, twisted red formations to miles of grey boulder piles.  We stopped to get water from a spring at the beginning of the lavalands, and then headed up into what feels like another world.  The few trees up there are “bonsai-ed”–all dwarfed, twisted and gnarly.  I am in awe of the fact that they are able to survive.  The trail is very rocky and often steep, but the views of Sisters are spectacular.  If we were not thruhiking, I would want to go exploring this area or at least just stop often and “soak up” the scenery. 

Eventually we reached a multi-trail junction marked by a big rock cairn.  Paths headed out in all directions–but there was no trail sign!  We stopped and puzzled over our maps, tried going up one of the paths, concluded, “This one is not the PCT” and went back to the junction just in time to meet Phooey and Symbiosis puzzling over THEIR maps.  All of us finally decided which trail was the PCT and Bill & I took off.  By this time, I was starting to think about the possibility of supper at Big Lake Youth Camp.  If we hurried, we might make it!  But I also knew, from 2005, that many miles of what I call “the lava horror trail” lay ahead of us, where we’d be forced to slow way down. So I decided that every place I could, I would run instead of walk.  Bill was feeling very well, and had no trouble keeping up!

Soon we were meeting lots of very clean backpacker groups who were heading IN to Sisters Wilderness.  The difference between them and us grubby thruhikers is quite striking!  We stopped for a quick lunch at South Matthum Lake in a bitter cold wind that was blowing a lot of clouds our way.  Symbiosis caught up with us while we were eating, and stopped to talk.  He really admires Bill for doing the PCT at age 70!

The trail comes down off the mountains, goes through some pretty woods, and then begins the “lava horror trail”.  It extends all the way to the highway, and then miles beyond that.  All around us were acres of lava boulders.  The trail wanders among them, and the trail tread itself is  lava rocks.  No nice pumice or gravel tread here!  It’s ROCKS!  It is unbelievably rough, and our pace slowed to a crawl.  It took us a long, long time before we finally reached dirt trail again, and by the time we got there, even Bill was literally yelping in pain.   My feet hurt so much that I could hardly walk.  We stopped by the dirt trail, sat down and took off our shoes for awhile.  My feet were literally throbbing, and Bill said his hurt something awful.   If anyone asked me, “What are the toughest parts of the PCT?”  I would tell them “The lava walk after Sisters Wilderness!”

  But we could actually see Mt. Washington to the north, and thoughts of  Big Lake Youth Camp dinner were very encouraging, so after a bit we got back on the trail and hurried along as fast as we could on our sore feet.  The PCT takes a very convoluted route to reach Mt. Washington, which includes a very long downhill, then a very long uphill, some more lavawalking and a route that goes way off to the east instead of travelling north.  To add to the fun, it was all a forest fire zone of blackened tree trunks and ashy ground. 

But finally the trail turned north and west again, climbed back up to Mt. Washington, and went back into green forest.  Looking to the west, we could see that the Willamette Valley was clear and sunshiny, and so were the drylands to the east of us, but up in the Cascades, where we were walking, dark clouds were blowing in fast.  Well, we were hiking as fast as we could along the trail, even running again when possible, and that’s what we were doing when we caught up with Phooey.  (He’d passed us during the lavawalk section–the rocks didn’t bother him!)  Phooey was down on hands and knees, collecting pine cones and making a SIGN in the trail that said, “2,000″.  Wowee!   “Are we really at the 2,000 mile mark?”  we asked him, and he said, “Well, according to my GPS, we are!”

We walked on a few more minutes, and there was the turnoff to Big Lake camp.  But at the camp, all appeared deserted.  Nobody was in sight.  Phooey came along, and we all tried to figure out “Where’s everybody?”  Finally we flagged down a camp staff guy, and he said all the camps were done for the summer.  The last camp finished up yesterday!!  But he said we were welcome to use the kitchen (including any food we spotted there), do laundry, etc., and he got our resupply boxes for us.  He told us there’d be a nice big breakfast in the morning, since this week was a “work week” to get the camp ready for winter.

So we got all the hot chocolate we wanted, plus some fruit, and I cooked our trail dinner on a “regular” stove!  I sorted our food and got the packs ready for the run to Timberline Lodge.  At 30 miles per day, we should make it in 3 1/2 days.  Then I got to take a shower!  I was so tired, though, that even though it was nice to be clean, more than anything, I just wanted to lie down!  Once all was done, we headed off along the lake to find a campsite in the woods, and set up camp with the sun already set, and the woods growing dark.  Once I lay down, it hit me how tremendously tired and sore I was, and I felt a bit overwhelmed.  Trying to do 30 miles a day I always feel like I have to hurry, all the time, and it is not fun.   I am very glad to be here at Big Lake, though–it is so beautiful.

Walk with Aragorn to Minas Tirith: In Paths of the Dead, all light fails, the Dead follow

Last night, a lot of clouds moved in, and this morning it really looked like “maybe rain.”  So we put our packs into “rain mode” just in case, before heading out along the trail.  We spent most of today hiking through the Sisters Wilderness “pond and lake” zone, which meant a lot of twisting up and down through rocky knolls in the forest, interspersed with mostly ponds (some with water lilies!!)  and a few real lakes. It’s damp here, and there were whole “lawns” of intensely green moss. The trees have long strands of graygreen lichen hanging from every twig. Finally we started getting glimpses of the Sisters mountains up ahead.

As we walked along, we’d been joking about taking the side trail down to Elk Lake Resort to get a big juicy hamburger, but when we actually got to the junction, it was a sad, sad sight.  There had been a forest fire, and the hillside was blackened and ashy, all the way down to Elk Lake.  Bummer!

But the farther we hiked, the closer we got to the Sisters, and our excitement grew.  “No getting lost up there THIS time!” we cheered.  In 2005, the whole Sisters Wilderness was full of snow, it was raining so hard that we could see no landmarks, and we got quite lost for awhile before relocating the trail. 

This morning, we were doing the climb up into Sisters, when we met a hiker going SOBO and stopped to talk.  Good thing we did!  He was actually a NORTHbound thruhiker, who’d stopped for a rest and then when he started out again, he forgot which way to go and headed SOUTH!  We were able to set him straight, and he hiked with us for a little while, but soon we left him behind.  We were hiking a lot faster than he was.  And by the way, Bill is feeling much better.  I don’t know if it’s the prospect of going through Sisters Wilderness, or what, but he has been able to hike right along today!

The PCT took us up to a green-meadowed crest, then down to the Sisters Mirror Lakes.  A number of people were camped there already.  We found a nice rocky perch by one of the lakes and ate our supper.  The sun even came out for awhile, and it felt good!  Our suppertime entertainment was a mama duck and her ducklings foraging along the shore nearby.  Then we shouldered our packs and kept going, till we reached the “high point” of the day, not in altitude, but in amazing-ness.  It’s called the Wickiup Plain.

In 2005, all we could see of the Plain was a wide pumice field, because we were in rain and clouds.  This time, we saw…wow!  The Plain is huge, and South Sister rises right out of it!   We were standing right next to the South Sister Peak, all snowy and gorgeous and magnificent.   We spent a lot of time oohing and aahing as we went crunching across the pumice.  And not only that, but the pumice was dotted with many tiny, dwarfed wildflower plants in bloom, all colors.   I wish we could have spent more time there, but it was late in the day, there was a very strong, very cold wind blowing, and we had to make more miles.

The PCT route is marked with a series of upright posts across the Plain, and this time, when there was a trail junction, there was actually a SIGN on the post to tell which trail was which!  There were no signs in 2005, and it was tough.  We met another thruhiker named “Symbiosis”, who told us about “Carhop”.  Carhop has a unique plan for thruhiking, which involves two of his own cars, so that every time he needs to go offtrail and resupply, one of his cars is waiting for him. 

We got across the beautiful Wickiup Plain and headed back into the woods.  We reached the creek where we lost the trail in 2005, and I was very curious to see where the PCT actually went!   Well, turns out it switchbacks WAY down the mountainside!  The forests and meadows right now are gorgeous–very green, and full of wildflowers.  Much prettier than our 2005 experience of snow and rain!

Eventually we stopped and camped in a grove of trees and set up the tarp, prepared for a very cold  and possibly rainy night. The clouds (which appeared to threaten rain all day) looked like they might (I hoped) be blowing away in the wind.  And best of all, with the wind and the cold–NO mosquitoes!!   And Bill is so much better–he can’t hike “on a tear” like he was before, but he was able to eat and hike at “normal” speed, all day today.  Tomorrow we get to see MORE awesome Sisters Wilderness! 

Walk with Aragorn to Minas Tirith: Brief rest at Meduseld in Edoras, then south toward Harrowdale

Since we camped last night near the RR tracks, I got to see some trains go by before I went to sleep, and one of them was an Amtrak train— on time, if I remember my Amtrak schedules correctly!  Amazing! I had no idea that Amtrak ran so close to Shelter Cove!  Other trains came by later on, but they were all freight trains.  I enjoyed listening to them–camping near a railroad is great! 

At 5:30, I started writing some journal stuff while still inside my sleeping bag, and at 6:30 we packed up and went to the store for breakfast–burritos, muffins, cheese, coffee and juice.  We ate on the porch of Shelter Cove store with a great view of the lake. Bill is definitely feeling better this morning!  He was able to eat (but nowhere near as much as I did).  I was still eating and organizing our data book papers, guidebook pages, etc. for the PCT coming up, and looking through the resupply box and hiker box to see what I might need to buy at the store, when Bill said he’d go hunt for where the laundry was so we could at least wash our socks. 

If I’d been paying better attention, I would have noticed that he was taking his pack with him, including his food bag.  So when I got to the point of inventory-ing the food bags, Bill’s was gone.  Oh no!  So I went off to hunt for him.  I wandered all over the place amid the cabins at Shelter Cove.  One of the employees there saw me and asked if he could help.  He offered me a ride in his golf cart, and we drove around looking for Bill.  No luck.  It was as if he had totally vanished.  I was very frustrated!  All I could do was go back to the store and make a guess as to what was still left in Bill’s food bag.  Based on that guess, I finished my food “shopping” and was loading up my pack when Bill finally came back.

It turned out that he’d been way off someplace washing HIS socks–he’d forgotten to bring mine!  He was annoyed to find that I was “still not finished” with the resupply, and I was very unhappy about not having clean socks!   Grrrr!  I had to take my socks and wash them in freezing cold water in the bathroom, while Bill waited some more.  It did remind me once again, that if you are thruhiking with someone else, and for some reason you have to split up for awhile, be SURE you are both really clear on who’s doing what and when/where to get back together!  I had been so preoccupied with sorting out the resupply stuff that I didn’t pay attention very well. 

It was still a very chilly morning when we started walking down the road by the lake, headed back to the PCT.  Good thing we are getting out of here today, though! Tomorrow is a big fishing derby, AND the start of the “Where’s Waldo?” footrace on the PCT from here over to Waldo Lake area.  Shelter Cove will be a total zoo, I am sure–glad we don’t have to deal with it!  We met Phooey again as we were doing the roadwalk–he was headed IN to the store, and was amazed to find that we’d beaten him to it.  When we told him we took the alternate, he said, “Oh!  So THAT’s how you made it here so fast!”

Once you get across the highway and back on the trail, the PCT out of Shelter Cove is very pretty— it goes by a gentle grade up tothe Rosary Lakes and on to some really fine views. The trail junction signs could use some help, though— they are very confusing!  There were also people out putting up signs for the race tomorrow.  We passed the pretty viewpoint where we ate breakfast in 2005–it has a great panorama of all the Rosary Lakes, plus Lake Odell and Crescent Lake.

Then the trail started going up and down, with some pretty big “ups”.  Bill was feeling better, but still not himself yet. He lagged behind all day, and I often stopped to let him catch up, even though I was not hiking as fast as usual.  In spite of the slower speed, though, my klutz factor still kicked in–I stubbed my toe on a root, tripped, and went flying down off the trail.  I landed on nice soft forest stuff, though, not rocks!  Thankyou, Lord!

The woods along the trail here are very pretty, but the mosquitoes swarm you the moment you stop, and at one point, we got to a junction and couldn’t figure it out.  We ended up on a quarter mile long trail that led to a lake!  Oh well, Bill needed more water, and he had to empty out his whole pack to get at his platypus, since he doesn’t stow it in the “hydration sleeve”.  While he was doing that, I walked back to the PCT and using sticks, I made a “PCT” sign and arrow pointing to the correct trail.

Awhile later, I was the one who ran out of water, so Bill waited while I ran down a 1/10 mile side trail to Charlston Lake to fill my platypus.  Turned out there were a lot of people at the lake–it is very pretty, and it’s near a road.  Based on the Where’s Waldo? race signs on trees, I gathered that Charlston Lake is on the race route for tomorrow.  A little while later, we stopped for supper, but Bill had lost his appetite again and ate hardly anything, so I ate it all! 

Then we hiked on for a couple more hours, through a forest fire zone that in 2005 was an awful mess to get through. It’s still a fire zone, but this time we didn’t have to climb over blackened trees and search for some sign of the trail.  The tread is now clear and well-maintained.  It was interesting as we walked along, to observe the differing degrees of recovery in the forest, AND the fact that the forest is just barren tree trunks made it so we could SEE two of the Three Sisters up ahead.  Awesome!  We met two guys hiking along with fishing poles, looking for the Lily Lake side trail.  We hadn’t seen it–all we could figure out was that maybe only the PCT tread had been cleared after the fire, and the side trails were still covered with fallen, burned mess.  We hadn’t seen a junction sign for it, either, but back in 2005, all the trail signs were gone–they’d been burned up in the fire–and the PCT route was literally marked with arrows scratched on rocks.  So all we could tell the fisherguys was, “Good luck!”  A short time later, we met their wives?girlfriends? walking along the trail, too.  We felt sorry for them–I don’t think they will be able to find the lake, which is out of sight to the east.

Eventually we made it back into green forest, and stopped to camp near Riffle Lake.  The mosquitoes swarmed us the minute we stopped, so we had to set up camp while wearing our “mossie gear.”  Since the lake was close by, we went over there to wash our very dirty feet and legs–but it was a fast wash!  The mosquitoes pounced the minute we took off shoes and socks!  While we were setting up our net tent, Phooey came by, and also two PCT SOBO’s.  Once the tent was up, we zipped into it and now we are very comfortable listening to the clouds of mossies whining outside.  We have a great view of the lake with the moon shining over it–very pretty!  Once again, I could only pray like crazy that Bill will feel better tomorrow.

Walk with Aragorn to Minas Tirith: In green meadows crossing many streams

We were a little late getting up because  1) The watch alarm didn’t go off  and 2) I was burrowed into my sleeping bag and didn’t see the sky lightening.  It was 5:35–horrors!–when I woke up.  We packed up as fast as we could and hit the trail.  And Bill was totally on a tear–he took off like gangbusters and said, “See you at breakfast–I’ll stop at 7:00.”  He was soon out of sight.  I just can’t hike that fast, because I’m too klutzy–I’d be falling on my face every 5 minutes from tripping over something.  So I said, “Lord, just put me on Your cruise control”  and I hiked along as fast as I felt comfortable with. 

Bill waited for me just past the Tolay Camp junction.  A whole bunch of thruhikers were camped at the junction itself, but nobody had even ventured out of their tent yet!!  I couldn’t wait for breakfast–I was really hungry.  Our cup ‘n a half of granola & nuts just doesn’t cut it anymore.  I’ve been bringing some stuff to add to it.  Yesterday we had a Danish and granola.  This morning it was a bun with peanut butter plus the granola.   After breakfast, Bill took off, and I didn’t see him till “Snickers break” at 10:30. 

The PCT was in the forest again, and there had been some very nice trail engineering work.  One place in particular involved a sharp bend in the trail on a steep hill, and somebody had done a great job with rocks to make a very secure trail tread.  Very nice!  Trail gorillas are awesome!  A little while later, though, I came to a place where a huge tree had fallen down and left a big hole where the trail used to be.  I had to scramble around it.  Memories came back of our first ever backpacking trip in Lassen Nat’l. Park.  The same problem had happened on a trail in the Cluster Lakes area, and guys were working to fix the big hole.  They were using horses with saddlebags full of dirt to bring in enough stuff to fill the huge hole.  No sign of hardworking horses here, though–I guess eventually somebody will get around to filling in the hole. 

The PCT kept contouring around mountainsides to the road at Windigo Pass, where there was a nice water cache, left (according to a note there) by Lloyd Gust of Bend, OR.  The note had a phone number with, “Call me if the cache is running low.”  Well, it WAS running pretty low, but we don’t have a phone.  Bill was waiting for me, since it was Snickers time,  so we just topped up our quart bottles, had our snack, and left the PCT for the alternate route we did before, which goes via Crescent Lake to Shelter Cove.  Why do we like this alternate route?  Well, 1) It is 7 miles shorter    2) It has lots of water    3) It is low enough to be out of snow problems   4) It goes straight to Shelter Cove–no backtracking on the road   5) It actually is the original PCT route, which followed the Oregon Skyline Trail   6) It goes past several very pretty lakes.   Need any more reasons?   I think that’s plenty!

The alternate begins with a short roadwalk to the Oldenberg Lake trail, and we met a carful of guys who stopped to talk and were amazed that we’d walked all the way up from Mexico!  The Oldenberg Lake trail goes nicely up and down through Oregon Desert type forest, and it’s easy going.  When we stopped for lunch, though, Bill just bonked.  He didn’t just sit down and rest–he totally collapsed, and could barely manage to eat.  It took quite awhile before he felt strong enough to go on, and he was no longer on a tear, way out ahead of me, but was falling behind and having a very hard time going up any hills.  I was very worried.

The trail passes several pretty lakes, notably big and beautiful Crescent Lake, where our route led through the horse camp.  We stopped to reload on water and have some bug juice, and Bill collapsed again.  He just lay on the ground and looked very pale.  We sat there for some time before getting underway.  At our afternoon Snickers break, he could not eat, and felt very nauseated.  By now, to put it mildly, I was extremely concerned, and the trail didn’t make it any easier–all uphill.  Bill was only able to plod along. 

Finally we got to Diamond View Lake, where other backpackers were swimming.  It was a very warm afternoon–oh man, did I wish I could jump in the lake, too!    By suppertime, I was starving hungry, but Bill could only drink some Emergen-C and nibble at a little piece of sandwich.  I ended up eating BOTH our sandwiches plus all the other odds ‘n ends in the food bags, since we have a resupply at Shelter Cove.  I am so grateful to be feeling strong again–bring on those uphills!  But I am still skin and bones, and can’t seem to get any weight back on.  And as I walked along the trail, I kept praying and praying for Bill.

He finally said, “Don’t wait for me–just go on as fast as you want, but stop at 7:00 and we’ll make camp there.”   As it turned out, though, the trail was all downhill, and he was able to keep up with me OK.  We were out of the Oregon desert stuff and back into regular green Oregon forest–very shady and pretty.   It got even prettier when we reached Trapper Creek with its lovely cascades and beautiful clear water.  “Maybe we can make it to Shelter Cove after all,”  I said.  “Maybe the store will still be open.”  So we walked as quickly as we could, following the very nice trail that sometimes travels high above the creek and sometimes winds along right next to it.  By 6:50, we were at the railroad tracks, and headed straight for the store…which had just closed.  Oh well.

So we retreated into the woods on the other side of the railroad tracks, to set up our camp.  On the “backtrack”,  I stopped and talked to  a couple of guys with four horses, who were sort of lounging around by the road.  Turned out that they’d just finished a 150 mile RIDE on the PCT, and were waiting to be picked up.  They said that they’d had a great time! 

We found a nice flat campsite with soft duff, and a view of the railroad tracks, because I was hoping very much to see some trains go by.  Bill was looking better, and said he was feeling better, too.  I hope so!   Oh, how I hope it’s not giardia again!  I am so grateful to the Lord for helping us make it to Shelter Cove.

Walk with Aragorn to Minas Tirith: In green meadows crossing many streams

It was cold last night after the storm! But clear skies and a bright sunrise made it easy to pack up and walk back to the PCT from our forest camp.  The wind was still blowing a bit, and it was still cold–brrr!—but so great to see blue sky.  After getting one last photo of beautiful Crater Lake, we were back to heading north, down into an “Oregon desert” zone of pumice-y dirt and trees. No other plants grow there.  Many of the trees have strange lumps and swellings on their trunks.

At the junction with the PCT equestrian trail, we met a sadly limping section hiker who is quitting because of blisters. He said his feet were raw. Bill advised that his shoes are probably too small.  A little while later, we caught up with “Phooey”, who wasn’t even up yet!   And we passed a southbound group of trail workers, all very earnest and wanting very much to be helpful.  They even offered us water!  Wow!  But it still seemed like forever till we reached the highway, since it was basically Oregon desert hiking.  There was more of the same after the highway, too, but that was a good thing–when we stopped for lunch, we could easily spread out all our damp gear for a “garage sale.” 

Shortly after that, the views began–stunning vistas of Diamond Lake and the many volcanic peaks in the area.  All the peaks still had snow on them.  We walked on, eager to reach Mt. Thielsen, a trail section we missed in 2005 because of snow.  (That year, we took a lower-elevation route near Diamond Lake.)   Mt. Thielsen did not disappoint us!  Wow!  The PCT climbs right up next to the peak–in fact the trail to the summit takes off right from the PCT, high on a shoulder of Mt. Thielsen.  We spent a lot of time admiring its multi-colored knarly, twisted strata and extremely pointed top.  It does indeed look like “The Lightning Rod of the Cascades.”  From the summit trail junction, we could see two of the Three Sisters, and they looked pretty snowy.  Hmmmm—we will be there soon.  Hope we don’t get lost in the snow there again, as we did in 2005!

After that, it was down, and down some more to reach cascading Thielsen Creek, the first water in 26 dry miles!   Several other hikers were there, too, and we all were tanking up on the fantastic cold, clear snowmelt water fresh off Mt. Thielsen.  There were lots of nice campsites in the area, but it was far too early to stop for the day, so all of us basically collected water, rested a bit, and then hiked on. 

The PCT took us back into another forest walk on our very tired feet (getting used to new shoes that we got from our box at Mazama) before we once again found ourselves crossing dry meadows, following posts to mark the trail.  At one point (not marked, unfortunately), we went over the highest point of the Oregon/Washington PCT.  All around us were interesting, knarly, multicolored peaks, but none as amazing as Mt. Thielsen.  We stopped for supper near the Maidu/Miller Lake junction, and enjoyed eating with a great view of the lake and boats. 

Three more miles of hiking, and we decided to call it quits for the day.  Our feet were definitely letting us know that they were still getting used to new shoes!  Finding a flat campsite turned out to be impossible, so we had to settle for a sloped one on the mountainside, in the woods,  with our usual buddies, the mosquitoes.  I really enjoyed the hike around Mt. Thielsen today!  Hopefully tomorrow we’ll make it to Shelter Cove.

Walk with Aragorn to Minas Tirith: On Ford of Isen road heading east toward Edoras

We were up early in the dark forest, packing up by headlamp and thinking “second breakfast at Mazama buffet!” But we still had plenty of miles to do— a bit over 10.  The PCT wandered around a bit, and still had a lot of “ups”.  We met a NOBO who is doing the Oregon PCT.  He was a really nice guy, but he’s already having serious blister issues on his feet which are causing him a lot of pain.  The key to avoiding blisters (we have had NONE!) is to do your prehike training carrying WEIGHT.  That’s what toughens up your feet–not just doing miles. 

We stopped for a breakfast of granola plus other leftovers, and charged off through the forest, headed for that buffet at Mazama! At one point the trail had a reroute (marked by temporary signs).  The mosquitoes got worse and worse till I finally gave up and started hiking in my headnet.  Finally we were at the road, and before 10 am,we were at Mazama Village.  A whole bunch of thruhikers were hanging out by the store, including the famous Freebird, who said Billy Goat will not finish the PCT this year and the other 70 year old, Yeahbut, looks iffy.

So Bill may be the guy to set the record of first person over 69 years to finish in one hiking season! Wow!  We pigged at the buffet, did showers, laundry, etc, did the buffet again and around 3:30pm, headed for Crater Lake rim, on a very pretty but very uphill trail.  The mosquitoes were bad, and I continued to wear my headnet.  We met two nice Brit hikers who said they wished they’d brought headnets, too.  “We’re jealous,” they said.  And from talking to them, I have now learned the correct way to pronounce the word, “Mossies.”  It’s “mah-zees”, not “moss-ees.” 

However, black clouds were overhead, thunder was rumbling, and after a little while it began to rain. I put up my umbrella and kept hiking along. At the Rim, we took on full water loads for 26 miles of no water. Since the only water faucets available are in the restrooms, this was a tedious business.  I had to fill my drinking cup, then pour it into my platypus, over and over again.  Bill and I both also put on full raingear, since it was obvious that we were about to head into some ”serious weather.”  Just as we took our first few steps back toward the trail,  a fierce hailstorm began.  Some of the hailstones were 1″ diameter.  Yikes!

We had to retreat quickly— into the bathroom!  From the bathroom door we watched as heavy hail and rain pummelled the road and parking lot.  Man, were we glad we weren’t out in one of the exposed areas along the trail!   When the hail stopped, off we went into pouring rain and howling, very cold wind.  I went over to the rim and tried to take a picture of the lake, but the camera could not “see” anything in the rain.  We started out to follow the trail, and I soon had to stow my umbrella–the wind up on the Rim was way too fierce.  Sometimes it was hard even to walk, and the trail soon became a running creek, because of the pouring rain. 

Finally I said, “I think we’d better walk the road–this is ridiculous,”  and even Bill agreed.  So we began walking in the storm, along the edge of the road.  Since the road is a bit below the Rim, the wind was less horrendous, and that made it easier.  Along came a ranger in his truck.  He offered us a ride to the trail down to Lightning Springs camp.  But we were determined to get in as many miles as we could, and that meant getting well past Lightning Springs, so we thanked the ranger, but turned down his offer.

The rain finally stopped, but the wind did not.  It was still very cold, and blowing very hard.  The amazing thing was that all this wild weather was ONLY on the northwest side of the lake, where we were.  All the rest was clear, and we could see blue sky and sunshine on the south end of the lake!  Over our heads were very black clouds that were still spitting lightning off in the distance.

By 7:45 pm, the sun was almost down, so we walked across the pumice fields  just short of the Rim Drive intersection, and located a place to camp in a grove of trees that were still dripping from the rain.  It was obvious that we were in for a COLD night–what a switch from the warm weather we’ve had for the last few days!  The sunset was very dramatic–it was sort of peeking out from UNDER the clouds to the west.  Today has been the wildest, fiercest weather we have seen yet on the trail this year, but we’ve come through OK. 

Walk with Aragorn to Minas Tirith: Reach the road to the Deeping Coomb & turn south to Helm’s Deep

Well, the crickets sang a great lullaby last night! after a 32 mile day, plus that cricket song, I slept like a log. It was so warm at 5:30 am that we needed no jackets as we began the hike into Sky Lakes Wilderness. The mosquitoes were waiting for us when we came out of our net tent. Last time, we went the lake route– this time we stayed with the PCT. For some time it was just forest and no views. When we stopped for breakfast, we had to eat it under headnets!

Most of the trail this morning was viewless forest, except for some glimpses through the trees of Four Mile Lake.  We turned off to get water at Christi’s Spring, and fended off a horde of mosquitoes to get there.  It was wonderful, cold, delicious Oregon water!  But oh man!  The mosquitoes were terrible!  It’s so pretty at the spring that minus mosquitoes, it would be a wonderful place to just hang out for awhile. 

By lunchtime the forest began to open up and the trail began to climb up, till we were cruising the crest and looking at awesome views of dramatic cliffs, rock formations, etc.  Then the trail seriously took a climb up to 7,300 feet at Devil’s Peak.  The Peak is the highest of several, and they are all in a sort of curved row, with the trail contouring among them.

From up on our lofty perch, there was Klamath Lake to the south, a glorious blue “sea” and to the north, more knarly peaks.  Eventually the peaks blocked our view of Klamath Lake, but we could turn around and see the snowy north side of Mt. McLoughlin.  Amazing how different it was from the dry, gray south side.  The trail was often very rocky. I have noticed that the rocks have their own “music” as you walk over them. Shale goes “clinkety-clinkety.” Pumice goes “crunch, crunch” and regular rocks go “clunk, clunk.”  Just in general, today’s trail was pretty rocky, and it was obvious that at times the trail itself becomes a creek.  Both Bill and I got sore feet, since our shoes are pretty “dead” by now. But feet aside,  I continue to feel stronger and stronger!  Like I said, “Nutella rocks!”  I was able to hike right along and climb all the hills just fine.

Near the high point of the trail today, we met a gang of trail gorillas (some working hard, and some totally slacking).  They were dealing with one of the places where the PCT is basically a scratch across a slippery, slide-y, pumice-y slope.  The crew were positioning large rocks to form a support for the trail tread. As we headed down the north side of Devil’s Peak, well, well, there was snow on the trail again.  (Not bad, though.)   We were headed for a creek down below, because our water supply was low.  As we descended into forest again, the mossies were waiting!  We got the water we needed and took a Snickers break under headnets. 

Much more downhill took us into a barren, blackened, ashy mess of a fire zone. The damaged area was so large that I started being a bit worried about how we’d find a campsite before dark.  But we made it back into green forest near the Stuart Falls trail junction, in time to camp. Enthusiastic mosquitoes were waiting for us, so up went the net tent!  But there was a lovely cricket chorus here, too, so that was compensation!   And we made our 30 miles a day quota, too, even with all the rocks and climbing.

Walk with Aragorn to Minas Tirith:  Pippin uses the Palantir. Turn south.

Well, we had quite a lightning show and thunder concert last night– plus rain! Wow! We haven’t had rain since Campo and the San Felipe hills. There was a gorgeous orange-gold sunrise to admire.  In the morning, all we did was walk through viewless forest, but on very nice trail, “patterned” by the raindrops.  Our footprints left very clear marks!  And of course all the plants along the trail were soaking wet.  Overhead, the sun and the clouds were battling as to which would win out in the sky.  Bits of rain continued to fall.  Oh well–now we KNOW we’re in Oregon! 

 Bill’s math says we have to do 30 miles a day to reach Cascade Locks on time, so we were really chugging along the trail.  After we crossed Dead Indian Road, it was very obvious that the trail had been worked on.  It contoured along very nicely, and was built like a raised bed.  Blue diamonds marked the route for Nordic skiing, and made it very easy for us, too.  There were even blue arrows on the trees to show when the trail took a sudden bend!

Lunchtime was wonderful– we went to the Brown Shelter  (a very cute log cabin) where there is a real old-fashioned hand pump for delicious cold spring water.  We had a fun conversation with a SOBO hiker from Washington state.  He said he wasn’t doing the whole PCT, but wow, he was planning to do all of Oregon, and all of California as far as Walker Pass!   He makes all his own gear and dries all his own trail food.  

 From there, we soon were on the “lava walk” around Brown Mountain, through miles of lava interspersed with forest. The trail through the lava is very well-done and not hard to walk on.

We started getting views of grey Mt. McLoughlin, and reached the Cascade Canal in time for supper.  The canal water didn’t look drinkable, so we didn’t take any for our platypuses, but it was great for washing our very grubby feet and socks.  Then we put in another six miles, and were well up the shoulder of Mt. McLoughlin before making camp, where the mosquitoes and crickets were both “singing.” I prefer the crickets!

Walk with Aragorn to Minas Tirith:  Reach Isengard, continue on highway

Last night an owl hooted for a very long time. Was he/she lonely? It was a warm morning with clear skies, and we didn’t need our jackets for very long as we followed the windy, twisty, weedy PCT on its way around Pilot Rock. Last night Bill did some math and he is thinking about trying to make it to PCT “trail days” in Cascade Locks at the end of August. That means we have to average at least 30 miles day!  I asked the Lord to put me on His “cruise control” to hike along quickly, but not so fast that my very bony body can’t handle it. I am feeling stronger every day– is it the Nutella?  Or the extra food I’m carrying?

I was hoping to get a good pic of  Mt. Shasta, but it was too hazy.  Mt. McLoughlin to the north is completely gray–no snow on it that I can see.  The biggest concern today was finding water– the sources are getting farther and farther apart.  When we reached what the guidebook called “the fenced in spring”, there was water aplenty, and two section hikers who wanted to talk about BEARS!  I’m sure there are bears here in Oregon, but we are not worried about them.  We took on enough water to see us all the way to Hyatt Lake.

The guidebook writer doesn’t seem to like this section, and says that nobody would bother with it unless they were thruhiking.  What a bunch of rot!  The dayhikers sure don’t think so!  This is very pretty trail–it’s like walking through a park.  Sometimes you’re amid grass and trees, and sometimes you’re walking through a very green-carpeted Oregon forest.  There are great views of Ashland and very blue Emigrant Lake, far below. 

We reached Hwy. 66 well before lunch, which meant we were really moving fast this morning!  There was another place along the way where we could have gotten some water, but when we reached it, there was a note warning that there were dead rats in the water collecting tank.  Yikes!  We were glad we’d taken on full water loads earlier! 

Then it was on to Little Hyatt Reservoir, which was very full and overflowing vigorously.  Lots of very friendly people were hanging around.  But we didn’t linger–we figured on lunch at Hyatt Lake!  It wasn’t long before we were walking across the Lake dam and heading for the fisherman store on the other side.    The resort restaurant was open, but all they had was pizza, beer and ice cream.  I don’t know why, but I was just yearning for anything BUT those items.  We asked the store guy if there was any other restaurant, and he said, “Sure, it’s just a quarter mile down the road.  I’ll take you over there.”  We hopped in his little golf cart thing and he gave us a ride.

Well, that was a pretty long quarter mile!  Way longer, actually!  We were flying along the road (the guy drove like a Jehu!) with tiny little Zoe the dachshund in the front seat, and when we arrived at the other restaurant, the store guy showed us where we could even go take showers!  Back to the restaurant then, for great big sandwiches and glass after glass of lemonade.  Once we were wellstuffed, we walked back to the “Bucks & Does” shower building to wash both ourselves and our socks.  Then we sat around in the sun for awhile to give the socks a bit of drying time.  I managed to yogi a ride for us back to Hyatt Lake proper, we picked up our resupply box and I started loading our food bags.

That’s when I discovered that the little store now has only chips, drinks, ice and bait.  It used to have a lot more, which I’d counted on to finish off our food supplies.  I sent Bill on a run for the hiker box to see what he could find.  He came back with peanut butter.  Well…I guess we’ll be on slightly short rations till the next resupply.  We got ice cream cones at the restaurant and talked to some of the other thruhikers there, before strolling back to the PCT with a very nice young couple who were SOBO’s.

The PCT heads off through the forest, with  glimpses of the lake, but meanwhile, the weather had turned a bit ominous.  This morning’s pretty puffy white clouds had turned into thunderclouds, which started booming and muttering.  During the rest of the afternoon, we were occasionally misted with rain, but that was good, because it was cooler, and we saw a double rainbow.  Rainbows are awesome–every time I see one, I think about God’s promise to Noah, and just in general how God keeps His promises. 

When it was time to make camp, the trail was up fairly high, and the clouds were growing darker.  We figured that if there was a lightning storm, we definitely did NOT want to be up high.  The Boy Scout leader we’d talked to when we were heading up into the Desert Divide back in southern California said that the safest place in a thunderstorm is 1) Not up high   2) Not down at the bottom  3) Not near a tree that has been previously hit by lightning, but 4) On the side of a hill, in the forest.  So we headed down the hillside, into the woods, till we found a small flat place.  We rigged the net tent for the mosquitoes and the tarp for rain, then crawled into our sleeping bags.  The funny thing is, in 2005, it also rained on us by Hyatt Lake! 

Walk with Aragorn to Isengard:  On highway to Isengard

It was actually warm at 5:30am, and it did turn into a very warm day. Oregon scenery is beautiful– both close up (dramatic hills, rocks, trees, flowers) and far off (golden hills, Mt. Shasta and other volcanoes of various sizes.) The trail wanders around, but the wanderings are worth it. 

We had breakfast at Sheep Camp Spring, and were entertained by watching the MANY birds flying around and “doing their thing.”  I think they are attracted by the water and the many wildflowers.  I was amazed at the hummingbirds.  They were drinking from water flowing across the trail by simply hovering over it.  They also came around and hovered by us, as if to say “Hello!”    We also saw several deer in the early morning.  In 2005, we were walking through here in hunting season, and met a lot of frustrated hunters who said, “We haven’t even SEEN a deer.”  Well, there seem to be plenty of deer around this time! 

The PCT goes down to various gaps, then climbs up again, but the climbs aren’t too bad, because the hills here are so rounded.  At about 11am we found a wonderful surprise– a Pepsi cache tucked under a white fir tree, with a “Welcome to Oregon, PCT Hikers” sign.  It was a hot day already, so cold Pepsi was indeed a welcome!

As we drew near to Grouse Gap, we started meeting a lot of dayhikers who’d come out to enjoy the unbelievable wildflower display in the springs area near the Gap.    Wow!  There were wild delphiniums taller than me!  And there were quite a few improvements to the trail.  In 2005, we were picking our way through a fair amount of mud (among the beautiful flowers), but this time the tread was a sort of “raised bed” of gravel.  Very nice!  The flower display is so gorgeous that no mere photo can really do it justice. 

From the flowers at Grouse Gap, it’s 10 more miles to Callahan’s, and it’s 10 miles of fairly level trail winding along the mountainside, up above a road.  Unfortunately the policy in this area seems to be “Let the forest turn into a trash pile of fallen dead branches, so that if there’s a lightning strike, we’ll have a ferocious forest fire.”  The mess was so bad that I even took a picture of it.  It would be so easy to take good care of a forest so close to a road.  Sigh. 

At one of the side trails down to the road, we met the Israeli girl Shani.  She told us very sadly that she’d be finishing her hike at Callahan’s.  She’s in such pain with foot problems that she decided  to go home.  “Noga will keep going, though,” she told us.  We wished her well and said a final goodbye.  Bummer.  Finally around 4pm we could hear the sound of traffic on Interstate 5, and soon we spotted a carved wooden sign on a tree.  It said, “Callahan’s Lodge” and had an arrow pointing left.  An informal little trail down the hill from there was marked with orange flags.  We followed it to the railroad tracks (which included a tunnel!) and then down a road to the restaurant.

A number of other hikers were already there, and we all sat outside.  We smell!!!  I don’t think any of the nice clean folks inside would want us anywhere close to them! We feasted on a wonderful spaghetti dinner with the Callahan’s perq of “First beer free.”  Turns out that the Lodge has a “thruhiker special”.  For $40 each, you get showers, laundry, all-U-can-eat dinner and breakfast, and camping on the lawn.  It was a tempting thought, and most of the hikers were planning to go for it, but we decided to continue on.  The Callahan’s staff refilled our platypuses for us, and we waddled back to the trail.  I was totally stuffed! 

The PCT goes winding uphill, circumnavigating various rock formations, heading for the spectacular Pilot Rock, which is a landmark for miles around.  It was a very hot afternoon, and I was so full from dinner that I just could not hike fast.   When it was time to find a campsite, we had quite a problem.  There was a fair amount of private property right by the trail, very few flat places, and the ground was extremely rocky and weedy.  We finally located a grassy hollow not far from the PCT, where the ground was not quite as rocky, and there was a beautiful view of the northern mountains in sunset light. 

Walk with Aragorn to Isengard:  Battle of Helm’s Deep. Near Fords of Isen walking through trees of Huorns.

Last night, after lots of good food in Seiad and a long hot climb up the hill, I was so tired that I think I fell asleep as soon as I put my head down! This morning was clear but chilly and very windy. I wore my raingear till breakfast at 7am. (Raingear makes a GREAT windbreaker!)  Just as I remembered from 2005,  the trail was glittering and shimmering in the early morning light.  Lily Pond Lake was covered with lily pads, but no flowers.

We reached Cook & Green Pass, where a sweet older couple were camped.  Not far from there we also met “Hot Mess” and had a chance to talk a little about really knowing Christ.  We tackled the climb out of the Pass then on to what I call the “rollercoaster hills,” where the PCT makes like a mini-AT, going up and down and up and down. I tried to hike as fast as I could (huff, puff!). Since the hills are often open ground on top of a ridge, the views were great, and now we really truly were SEEING Oregon!  Whenever there was a spring, the hillside would be green grass–elsewhere we were walking across rocky hillsides with rock cairns to mark the location of the PCT.  Wildflowers are getting more scarce, though–summer is starting to “wind down.”

Sometimes the trail went winding around rock formations, and sometimes it would go through a small but dark grove of trees.  We were walking along early in the afternoon when we met another thruhiker stopped by the trail and staring off to the south, looking puzzled.  She had her maps out. 

 ”Hi!” we said.  “Whassup?”  “I can’t figure out where I am,” she sighed.   ”What is that big pointed snowy mountain over there?”When I told her ” That’s Mt. Shasta,” she groaned, “Oh no, still Shasta?” ‘Fraid so!

Around 4 pm, we met a whole gang of folks with their horses–a trailclearing crew!  They said they’d been very busy logging out blowdowns.  THANKYOU!  It is so nice to NOT have to climb over a lot of downed tree trunks!  One of the ladies said that her horse has done the entire Washington PCT.  Not bad! 

By 7pm, we reached the Oregon border– a bunch of jolly hikers were there, including Croatian, etc.,  so we got our picture together, signed the register and took off–the mosquitoes were pretty bad. We put in a couple more miles before making camp on a dry ridge.  There was a very pretty golden-colored sunset.  Our first night in Oregon!

Walk with Aragorn to Isengard: Dark clouds from the East begin to overcast the days

Down in the Grider Creek canyon, it’s really the deep dark woods–so dark that we waited till 5:30 to get up.  We took off along the trail as soon as it was light enough to see– and it is worth seeing. The canyon walls are high and steep.  Often the creek is running along below cliffs, cascading over the rocks.  The creek water looks so clear and pure–and it sort of sings to itself as it goes rushing along.  Overhanging everything are the huge trees, and the ground is covered with greenery of all sorts.

Eventually we reached the campground and passed a couple of bicycle campers just getting up.  We didn’t have to wonder for long where Croatian, Tangent, etc. were–tracks on the dirt road toward town showed that they were just ahead of us.  Bill stopped to use the restroom at the campground, and I just kept going, figuring he would catch up with me.  But the first person to come along from behind wasn’t Bill–it was Ann.  We walked along and talked a bit.  I told her that we’d managed 30 miles yesterday, and she commented, “I did 40 miles.  That was easy trail.”  Turned out that 30 mile days are commonplace for her.  I can well believe it!  She always walks very intensely, as if she were “on a mission.”  Ann soon took off and disappeared around a bend. 

It was shaping up to be a hot day, so I was walking at a leisurely pace, wondering where Bill was.  When I reached the Klamath River, I stopped to take a picture of it,  when Bill came along, and we decided to stop for a Snickers break.  We discussed the puzzle of why there were so many “No Monument!” signs in front of houses along the way.   What “monument”?  When we reached Hwy 96, it was very busy, so we had to be careful as we walked the road shoulder toward town.  When we reached the Klamath River bridge, I had a brief terrifying moment.  Bill was out ahead of me and by the time I was halfway across the bridge, he was almost all the way across.  Along came a great big truck.  The driver saw Bill, swung out a bit to avoid him, then swung back in and was headed straight AT me!  I flattened myself against the railing, and the truck missed me by a space that was way too small for comfort!  Yikes!

It was great to reach the Seiad Cafe at last.  Several packs were outside, leaning against the wall, and the place was full of hungry hikers.  Nobody has won the pancake Challenge yet this year–4 out of the 5 pancakes is the record so far.  Bill and I went for huge omelets and potato pancakes, accompanied by fruit shakes.   I asked the folks at the Cafe what all the “No Monument” signs were about.  Turns out that the Feds want to turn the whole valley into a wildlife national monument and get rid of the people.   We were horrified.  I’d like to get on a soapbox and say what I think about it!

I picked up our resupply box and went to the hiker tables next to the cafe to sort everything out and load our packs.  The two bicycle guys were there hanging out with their pet KITTEN!  All the hikers were having a great time petting it and playing with it.  Ann was there, and she gave me her leftover Nutella.  I also bought more food at the store.  The distances between resupplies in Oregon are relatively short, so I am pushing up the food weight in an effort to get more calories. 

Then we went next door to the RV park, where they have set up a wonderful “hiker zone” which includes a whole area in the shade, covered with soft hay. Ahh! Comfort! You just role out your Ridgerest and take a nap!   There was also a refrigerator, table & chairs, and a DVD player.  I just plain lay down and collapsed for awhile.  Bill went back to the Cafe for lunch, but I just could not face eating any more–I was still stuffed from breakfast.   All the other hikers were also lying around resting.  They planned to push on at 5 pm, when it was cooler.  But around 2:30, a breeze sprang up, and Bill  & I decided to head out. 

It’s an 11 mile climb out of Seiad Valley, and it was a hot afternoon, but the views were incredible, and the trail itself is quite varied, as it winds in and out of  Lower, then Middle, then Upper Devil’s Peak.  The Klamath River at first looks like a scenic blue river, then as you climb higher and higher, it becomes more like a silver ribbon far below, wandering toward the sea.  We were carrying a ton of water, because in 2005 we hadn’t been able to find the spring that’s located partway up the climb.  This time, the side trail to the spring was well marked, so we took a break there and enjoyed drinking plenty of cold “bug juice” (Crystallite mixed with Emergen-C). 

The trail is constantly climbing and traversing on steep mountainsides, but we were not worried about finding a campsite, since we were up here in 2005, and knew that there was a reasonably flat zone up ahead, on a saddle, not too far from the top of the climb.  Sure enough, by just after 7 pm, we made it, and managed to squeeze in between the bushes with a wonderful view out towards the south.  It’s a clear night, with a nice (though chilly) breeze.  Oregon tomorrow!

Walk with Aragorn to Isengard: In green valley with lots of streams. Huorns are sighted.

We tiptoed around, being as quiet as we could while packing up this morning, so we wouldn’t bother Blue Butterfly.  The sky was full of clouds– all kinds of clouds– all very pretty but a bit worrisome to hikers. “Will it rain? Or will it just make today cooler?” (Turned out in the end that the lovely clouds made a great, comfortable hiking day!)   The sunrise was very red,  and lit up Mt. Shasta, which is now very definitely BEHIND us.  

It didn’t take us long to reach the PCT alternate route, which was developed because the “real” PCT crosses the north face of a mountain, and was snowbound for so much of the year that horses could not get through.   We chose the alternate, and stopped for breakfast near the top of the climb.  Far below us was a little encampment of other thruhikers who were just starting to get up.  All around us were mountains in all sorts of shapes–pyramids, blocks, and just plain “pointy.”  As we descended down a brief north face, we did have the “fun” of getting around a nice big snowfield.   I think that when trail routes are being planned, north sides of things should be avoided as much as possible.  In the Sierras, this was true as well.  South sides of mountains and passes were often clear, while north sides were deep in snow.  It was pretty frustrating to be struggling through snow while looking across at nice plain dirt!

The rest of the morning I felt as if we were wading through wildflowers– they were waist high and gorgeous.  We contoured around the bases of mountains of marble and peered into marble “wells” and caves. The old ranger cabin midway had a brand new, shiny stovepipe. Nice!  The trail contours high above some very pretty lakes, but only comes close to one of them, which is called Paradise Lake.  Up behind it is a dramatic rock formation called King’s Castle.  I understand now why rock climbers like to come here to the Marble Mountains! 

We met some SOBO ladies–the same ladies we’d met hiking SOBO north of Silverwood Lake!  One of them was hiking with her little dog which was carrying its own cute little pack.  Awwwww!  They said they’d met Babysteps and Flashback, who told them “White Beard is coming!”  so they were expecting us.  Turns out that we are becoming a bit of a legend on the PCT this year, a part of the “elite” group of hikers who have not flipped or flopped, but went straight through, AND we are in the “Geezer Three” of the oldest thruhikers on the trail.

The trail makes a pretty steady climb up to around 7,000 feet, so we were very glad to finally reach the long traverse–miles and miles of easy going across green meadows and through forests.  We did have to be careful of our water, though.  Rain that falls here in the Marbles just percolates right into the ground.  There are very few springs or creeks.

Finally came the long down-hill to Grider Creek, and we began to “fly”– it was nice easy trail, very green and shady.  At a road crossing we caught up with Croatian, Not a Chance and Tangent again.  They were busy eating, so we joined them!  I have been eating Nutella by the spoonful every chance I get (hey, it’s 100 calories per tablespoon!) and it is really helping.  I was able to chug right on up the climb this morning, and the downhill to Grider has been actually fun!  Croatian, etc. were determined to camp tonight at the campground, even if it meant hiking by headlamp. 

Bill and I were not so ambitious–we figured on making it to the first bridge across Grider Creek before stopping for the day.  But bummer–there were no flat places by the bridge!  The guidebook said there were campsites at the next bridge, 1.3 miles away, so we pushed on.  Well, the guidebook was wrong.  There were no campsites or flat ground of any kind.  By this time, we were both really tired, and the sun was going down.  So I went into what I call “Hike while looking for a campsite” mode, and it worked!  Up above the trail, to the left, I spotted what might, just maybe, be a little “shelf” of land.  I told Bill to wait while I had a look, and hooray!  There was just enough room for a cowboy camp, on ground covered with soft, cushy leaves!

When I figured out our mileage, I cheered.  We did just a bit over 30 miles!  And here we are with a nice camp in a beautiful forest, with the creek rushing along nearby.  And I am feeling so much better.  Being able to rest in Etna and being blessed by the love and prayers of other believers really was a help…and Nutella rocks!

Walk with Aragorn to Isengard: Enter meadows crossed with many streams of the Isen

Last night I read for awhile before turning out the light, and it was a fascinating little book about 2,100 Jewish people who were saved from the Holocaust by escaping through Russia, then China and Japan.  What a story–it added to my “collection” of stories to tell to people who say, “Where was God when the 6 million died?”  Actually, it is becoming more and more obvious that He was very much at work, warning people in time for them to escape before the Nazis came to power.  The problem was, most chose to ignore the warnings. 

Well, I’ve got plenty of people who are on my case right now, not about Nazis, but about “Eat!  Eat!” Yikes!  I eat till I’m stuffed, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to “put back” any fat on my bones! Susan gave us a great breakfast with more awesome conversation.  She’s busy doing what every older person should do–thinning out all her “stuff” so that she doesn’t need a whole house to keep it all in.  I finished writing, mended the knee of my pants, and then Susan  took us to town where we did the usual town chores plus more eating at the famous Etna drugstore fountain.   The place was full of PCT hikers, and we weren’t the only ones getting banana splits!  One girl said, “Wow–this is the BEST banana split I ever had in my whole life!”

There were a few more errands–I got a couple of new pairs of socks at the thrift store to replace ones that were wearing out, and found a jar of Nutella at the grocery store.  Then we went and got pizza!  I was so stuffed that I could hardly waddle, but my stomach gave me no problems, because I’d picked up some digestive enzymes at the drugstore, and they are really helping.  Susan took us all the way back up to Etna Summit–that was really going above and beyond–it’s a long way up to the summit from the town in the valley!  At the trailhead were a couple of motorcyclists who turned out to be from the town of Cotati, just north of where we live!  Wow!  After the usual round of taking pictures, and farewell hugs from Susan, we were back on the PCT, saying “Oregon, here we come!”

As soon as we started walking, I knew that I was feeling WAY better than I did on Saturday!  I can hike right on up any hill, my strength is coming back, and the hike is a joy.  The mountains are dark grey rocks that have amazing shapes, as if they were once molten, then suddenly frozen. We can see Mt. Shasta peeking over the ridgetops, and it’s definitely SOUTH of us now!  Wahoo!  On the horizon, I think I’m beginning to see Pilot Rock and maybe even Mt. McLoughlin.  It’s fun to look ahead and speculate about where Oregon is.  “Can we see it yet?” is a joke for every ridgetop on the trail here. 

The trail winds its way past many jagged, knobby mountain peaks, and traverses long, steep hillsides above deep canyons.  Wildflowers were continuing to be lovely, and the butterflies were everywhere– whole “clouds” of them, flying alongside us. The trail itself is very nice, though a bit rocky.  When we did this section in 2005, everything was covered with snow, so we didn’t even feel the rocks! 

Late in the day we spotted a nice camping spot in a grove of trees down below– we hurried down the switchbacks and lo and behold, there was Blue Butterfly, all set up in her tent.  She had a very nice PCT blog a couple of years ago, but said this time she’s just section hiking.  There was more room for us nearby, so we happily set up a cowboy camp by the pretty creek.

Walk with Aragorn to Isengard: In the foothills near Edoras

Sunrise light was beautiful on the mountains this morning, with glimpses of the Scott Valley far below. We hiked as quickly as we could, thinking “Etna Road ahead!” But the scenery was so gorgeous that I just had to stop and look at it every now and then. Bill was soon way out ahead of me, and then Ann came along and passed us both! Everybody was “on a roll” for Etna.

When we reached the road, we waited and waited, but no cars came along.   Our hope of making it to church was growing dim– till  a big gray SUV appeared from around the bend, going  west.  I said, ”Bummer–there’s a car, but it’s going the wrong way.”  But all of a sudden, the SUV  swung across the road and roared into the parking lot where we were standing, as  the driver side window rolled down and a voice  shouted cheerfully, “Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together!” I shouted back, “Berean Bible Church!” “Hop in!” said the driver.  It was trail angel Thomas!  All of us were thrilled to see him.   He even offered everybody clean shirts to wear if they wanted to go to church with us. 

Turned out Thomas had given Babysteps and Flashback a ride earlier and they told him we hoped to go to church, so he came all the way back up and got us! Wow! On the ride down the mountain, all of us snacked on a strange variety of items that he had in the car.  Thruhikers will eat anything, in any combination!  Ann said she’d come to church with us and see what it was like.  Well, it was definitely “different.”  The regular pastor was away, and the sub had totally redone the seating arrangements.  Instead of the standard rows of chairs, there were tables.  The idea was you sit at a table, and you get to discuss things that were brought up during the sermon.  We loved it!   Before church started, I had boldly gone up to one of the church leaders and asked if there was anyone in the congregation we could stay with tonight.  He said, “Sure–I’ll introduce you after the service.” 

And that’s how it ended up that we were were taken home  by Susan Hoag, a wonderful lady who is a musician and had so much in common with us (she also lived in the San Francisco area) that it was amazing. God has blessed us with trail angels who know and love Him! Susan has fed us and blessed us and she says PCT hikers are very welcome to stay with her, especially fellow musicians (she’s got guitars, etc, available!)

Bill and Susan formed a conspiracy to get me to eat as much as possible.  It sure was nice to be able to have home cooking instead of trail food!  I am feeling so much better just being here.  A shower and clean clothes were a big help, too.  And books to read!   I miss books on the trail.  Some of the younger thruhikers do carry a book to read, but Bill and I hike all day till late, and there is no time for reading. 

Tomorrow we’ll get back to the trail, but tonight, it’s REST and EAT!

Walk with Aragorn to Isengard: Edoras

Oh dear!  I hung my “towel” up to dry last night after washing my feet before bedtime, and this morning discovered it had been chewed up by some critter.  The critter ALSO chewed on the bite valve of my Platypus!  Fortunately the bite valve damage wasn’t too bad, and everything still works fine.  But my poor towel!

We continued to enjoy the beautiful views of the Trinity Alps today– the highest part, where the snow is still deep, even in August! But finally we “turned the corner” and the trail headed north again through Russian Wilderness, which I call “the land of huge light grey boulders.” Right away, the PCT takes you across the face of a cliff, with the trail blasted out of the rock.

I was much braver about this “cliff walk” than I was in 2005! But a really great thing was we met Babysteps and Flashback, who immediately recognized us– “Wow, 3rd Monty and White Beard! We haven’t seen you since Mather Pass! We climbed the pass on those fantastic steps you chopped in the snow!” They asked us where was a good place to eat in Etna, and we told them “Bob’s Ranch House.” They said, “See you there for breakfast!” and we answered “Well, we’re hoping for church first.”   Off they went, and we hiked on until 8pm, hoping to get as close to Etna Road as we could.

We set up our camp near a bend in the trail, and even after dark, we were being passed by hikers with headlamps!  Everybody is doing “Etna or  Bust!” 

Walk with Aragorn to Isengard: Ford the Snowbourne and reach the road to Edoras

We woke up this morning to clear skies and cool temperatures, but things warmed up very quickly!  All day long the trail grade was very gentle (except for the climb up from Hwy. 3), and normally I’d be able to hike really fast.  But the trail was also mostly very rocky, and after my bad fall yesterday, I was kinda spooked about falling again.  My gashed knee is pretty sore but I can walk on it OK.  The bruised ribs hurt every time I take a deep breath, so that’s actually more of a problem.  And my “hiker hunger” has totally vanished.  I make myself eat out of duty.  Weird.  But hooray, another whole day of NO pain in the back of my hip! 

We leapfrogged all day with various other hikers, especially Croatian Sensation, Not a Chance, and Tangent.  We even met Billy Goat, hiking SOBO.  He told us that only 3 hikers over 69 years old are “left standing” on the PCT this year–himself, Bill, and Yeahbut.  I hope all three of them get to finish!  Billy Goat has been talking to the Israeli hikers, and they persuaded him to come do the Israel National Trail next spring! 

Along the PCT, it’s mostly pretty dry except where there is a spring running across the trail and when that happens, the mountainside is intensely deep green with thick grass and wildflowers– very pretty. Since we never know if a spring will be running or dry, we tried to stay stocked up on water all day.  The trees up here are usually not too big–I think it’s pretty tough to be a tree on these high ridges.  We could hear cowbells and mooing down below, but no “sign of cow” up on the PCT.

Finally we came around a ridge and there, right across from us, were the Trinity Alps!  We cheered and were so glad–we feel like the Trinities are “home turf”, since we’ve camped there before among their beautiful rocky peaks and shining lakes.  The PCT never actually GOES to the Trinities, but does have a lot of nice views of them as you hike along.  We could still see SNOW on the peaks!  Very pretty to look at, but I am sure glad we are not hiking in it!

By afternoon, though, I was really having trouble with stomach pain.  It got so bad that I had to ask Bill to stop a couple of times so I could rest.  And uphills just about did me in.  I felt as if I had no reserves of strength left, either physical or emotional.  Whenever I stumbled on a rock (which I did many times) I had to choke back tears and fear.  And Section P is SO BEAUTIFUL–normally I would be enjoying every minute of it, but instead I’m hiking in “survival mode.”  Not fun. The climb out of Hwy. 3 just about did me in, and at the top I plain ‘ol collapsed for awhile before I could eat any supper. 

At camping time, the sky was clear, so we just rigged the net tent (yes, there were mossies!) and before we went to sleep, I asked Bill to please pray for me.  I hope all goes better tomorrow.  And I will say one good thing about my fall on the rocks yesterday–it “fixed” my glasses!  Back in the Sierras, I’d accidentally stepped on them, and they were bent in a way that made them very uncomfortable.  But when they hit the rock yesterday, it bent them back into a much more comfortable line, so now it doesn’t hurt to wear them!  That is one plus!

Walk with Aragorn to Isengard: In the plains of Rohan under the moon

Today was a VERY good day and also a very bad day. On the good side, my hip pain is totally gone! I can now walk freely without limping. And my ability to hike on rough, rocky trail is really improving. It was rocks on trail almost all day, and I still managed 26 miles. Wow!  Another wonderful plus was that much of the time today we were up above timberline, with fabulous views that extended for miles. 

The downside, well, that began late in the afternoon. All day, I’d been  been dealing with what I think is a digestive problem involving sort of stomach cramps and pain– no fun– and suddenly I had a slight “accident” which resulted in having to shed my pack and go offtrail to clean up my underwear.  Frustration!  I so badly wanted to make as many miles as possible, and the cleanup job took awhile.  Then after supper, we started to hike on, and I had only gone a few steps when I stubbed my toe on a rock and fell very hard onto some other rocks. Thank God, I was not seriously hurt, but badly scraped, bruised and gashed.  My left knee had a gash in it that should have had stitches, but we were miles from any help, and of course my poor pant leg got all torn and bloody.  My left arm and hand are all scraped and bruised, as well as my ribs.  The side of my face hit a rock, too, and  my glasses were bent but they did not break.

Bill had to be very patient while I sat by the trail and cried, partly from pain and discouragement, and partly thanking God very fervently that all I had was a collection of bad “owies” but nothing truly serious. Meanwhile overhead, the clouds had moved in and thunder was rumbling and echoing off the mountains. I finally pulled myself together and limped off along the trail again. 

Well, that was pretty bad, but it didn’t happen till the end of the day (probably because I was tired).  The majority of today was wonderful.  We were leapfrogging with several other hikers, and tended to catch up/meet up with them at water sources or at shady places.  We saw Shin again–he looked really good, and was hiking fast, though he said he took a zero yesterday because he was so tired.  And best of all, we met our first REAL SOBO’s!  They weren’t just flipfloppers–they’d hiked all the way down from Canada!  They were a French couple, and very sweet.  We also met a lot of flipflopper SOBO’s–some had come down from Ashland, and some from Trout Lake, WA.  Another couple we met were taking photos of the hikers.

Water is always an issue on this part of the PCT–we have to be very careful and very aware of our water use and where the “next water” is.  We even had to cross a pretty large snowfield–the first in quite a few days.  As I said, the trail is quite rocky most of the time–either lava rocks or granitic rocks, but it has a comfortable mix of flat sections, uphills and downhills.  Down below us in the valleys were many pretty lakes, and we could see there were campers next to them.  The wildflowers were very nice, and yahoo!   We spotted our first beargrass!  That’s always worth a cheer–you KNOW you are getting closer to Oregon when you start spotting beargrass! 

When we stopped to camp for the night (we found a very nice campsite!), the thunder was rumbling, but we never saw any lightning.  We put up the net tent under our tarp, because the mosquitoes were definitely a presence, and I was so sore from all my “owies” that I needed to be able to lie down and sleep in peace.   I thought about all the things that had happened today.  I tend to “debrief” myself and ask, “What can I learn from this?  What could I do to solve____ problem?”  I decided that for the stomach problems, one thing I could do was eat more slowly.  I’ve been sort of gobbling food down so as to get back on the trail ASAP.  And when we get to Etna, I’m going to find some chewable digestive enzymes and see if that helps.  I also decided that maybe I’m having trouble with uphills because I’m so terribly thin and way behind on calories.  I asked some of the other hikers what they do to stay ahead of calorie deficit, and the top two answers were “Nutella” and “Peanut butter.”  So I’ll look for those in Etna, too.

Walk with Aragorn to Isengard: See distant smoke from Isengard

At 5:15am when I tiptoed into the house to use the bathroom,  Martha was already up and the dogs gave me an ecstatic, tailwagging greeting. I guess they figure I’m “family”–that’s a very encouraging thought.  The three cats, however, merely yawned, so I’m not sure what they think!  Martha made coffee for us, and it was interesting to watch her cooking setup.  In summertime, so as not to heat up the kitchen, she uses an electric hotplate.  In winter, it’s the woodstove.  She says her daughter, who is a chef, finds this to be quite a challenge! 

Martha told us stories about the guy who built the addition to her house–how he and his horse-powered (literally!) equipment were able to do everything necessary to felling trees, moving logs, and the actual building process.  It was great to hear all that she had to say–she’s a very gracious, but down-to-earth lady who is a real Christ-follower.  We enjoyed the coffee and a breakfast of tortillas, eggs & cheese before Martha headed out to feed all the animals and then go to work (she is a veterinary’s assistant), while we headed for Ammirati’s Market to pick up our resupply boxes and have a second breakfast!

Following Martha’s directions, we walked out the back of her property, through a horse arena, and off down River Road to the lovely River Trail.  It was a beautiful morning, and walking along by the river was very enjoyable.  When we reached Ammirati’s Market, we were astounded at the number of PCT hikers!  Some of them were people we’d thought were way ahead of us (somehow we’d caught up with them–I’m not sure how) and others were hikers who decided to just skip sections N and O and go straight to Castella. (They said they were afraid they wouldn’t make it to Canada in time, otherwise.) In any case, there were hikers galore at the market and post office and  it was fun to see everybody!

We decided to give our gear a good airing in the sun on the lawn, and Bill lay down to take a nap, while I went into the closed restaurant to write up stuff for this journal.  I couldn’t sit at any of the tables outside–all of them were full of hikers!  At one point,  a sweet but timid lady customer in the market came to me and asked if I would ask the other hikers “Does anyone need a ride to Dunsmuir?” I wondered why she didn’t ask them herself, till I realized that a large group of seasoned thruhikers does look sort of, well, grubby and tough. I went to each table and said, “Hey, hikertrash!  Anybody need a ride to Dunsmuir?”  Turned out everybody was headed back to the trail, but the ride offer was much appreciated!

Hikers slowly began drifting back to the PCT, but Bill and I and several others shifted to hanging out in the shade behind the post office.  I sorted food and loaded packs, then we had lunch, which included a half gallon of ice cream.  It’s hiker etiquette to share with anyone else who’s present, so we offered ice cream to everybody.  On a hot afternoon, it tasted good!  The Israeli girls were happily going through their resupply box, which included a bag of Israeli coffee.  Noga opened it up,  handed it to me and said, “Smell that!  It’s the smell of Israel!”  She and Shani told me about how fanatic Israelis are about the “right way” to make coffee.  From their description, it sounds like they do it sort of “cowboy coffee style”, boiled in a pot. 

By 1 pm, on a hot afternoon (sigh) we put on our heavy packs (4 days of a very generous food allowance) and walked over to the Castle Crags entrance to ask the ranger lady about the best route back to the PCT.  In 2005, we tried to find it on our own, and ended up doing a lot of wandering around.  We didn’t want a repeat of that experience!  Sure enough, she told us a very simple, straightforward path back to the trail.  Part of the route involved walking along an old mining flume, on a very nice trail.  We cheered when we got back to the PCT again, and began the big climb out of Castella– first through lovely oak forest, across several very pretty creeks.  According to our guidebook, the last of the creeks was the last water for 14 miles, so we planned to get water there.  To our great dismay, the creek was dry! 

But just a short way beyond the dry creek, there was a little sign on a tree that pointed off to the right and said, “Water upstream”.  So we followed a use trail, and sure enough!   Water!   Whew!  We took plenty.  At that point, the PCT got serious about climbing UP.  The trail tread was steep and rocky, but the views of Castle Crags were awesome.  The Crags really do look like a castle with walls and turrets, some of light gray and some darker.  The PCT takes you right up to the foot of the “wall.”  We stopped for dinner at a switchback, then continued climbing. 

At 6:40, we’d reached what the guidebook called “a forested saddle”.  There were no more flat places for a long way after that, so even though it was early, we decided to stop.  Bill and I were both very tired, especially me.  I really wanted to go faster on the uphills, but I am just “losing it.”  That’s why I brought extra food, in the hopes that it would help.  When we got out our ground cloth to set up camp, I groaned. It was all wet from the night before, and we hadn’t remembered to dry it in the sun when we were hanging out at Castella.  So I hung it over a bush to dry and just lay down flat on the ground to rest for awhile. 

The “forested saddle” had several nice flat spots, and were were among huge, beautiful trees.  It was very quiet.  Once the ground cloth was dry, we set up a cowboy camp and went gratefully into our sleeping bags.  We’ll finish the climb tomorrow, and it was nice to have an extra half hour to rest!  We needed it!

Walk with Aragorn to Isengard: Still in dangerous bogs around the Entwash

God is amazing! Today was another “miracle day.” For starters, the trail was very nice all day– minimal blowdowns and bushes, and though two of the uphills were looooong–one was 6 miles–all were all easy grades. Not only that, but much of the trail today was in shady forest, which was wonderful, because it was a hot day and water sources were few & far between.  The trees were so pretty, and there were so many elevation changes that the vegetation variety was fascinating.  I really like looking at all the plants along the trail, and elevation changes make for a lot of differences.  

 Having a good trail that was mostly in the shade was wonderful, and at the end of the 6 mile “up” the views were just amazing– a panorama of Mt. Shasta, Cinder Cone, Interstate 5, and Castle Crags, all sort of lined up and saying, “Look at me!”  Wow!  The snow on Mt. Shasta is melting fast–each day there is noticeably less.  My only frustration was that for some reason I’m starting to have a bit of trouble on uphills.  I find myself getting tired easily and slowing down.  I was surprised when ‘the rest of the gang” didn’t catch up with us today.  Bill and I had the trail all to ourselves.

All day I was thinking and praying about “where shall we camp tonight?” Last time we stayed at the PCT camp in Castle Crags state park, but given the number of hikers, I figured the poor little PCT campsite would be very crowded. Not an appealing thought!  But camping somewhere else out in the woods was illegal. I kept mulling over what other options to consider.  But by afternoon, I felt that God was telling me, “Trust Me. When you get down to River Road, just ask.” So I resolved that I would do just that.

Bill and I hiked down the miles and miles of switchbacks of beautiful forest, heading down to the Sacramento River. Suddenly Bill stopped. He said he needed to “dig a hole” (hiker term for go to the bathroom) and that I should not wait, but keep going and  meet him at River Road. “Hmmm,” I thought, “this is interesting.” So I hiked on. Just as I reached the road, along came a car. I stopped and waited for it to pass, but the driver waved me across.  “Maybe I should ask HER,” I thought, so I asked the lady driver if she  knew any place  we could stay the night (it was 6:20pm) and the driver, Martha, said, “Yes– my house!”

Martha’s house was up the road a little way, so I waited till Bill showed up, and we walked till we found the right address– a real, handbuilt, 2-story log cabin (part of which was built in the 1880s!)  It turned out that Martha and family are lovely Christians, and we were so blessed to be able to stay with them.  Martha said that the “new” part of the house was built by a PCT thru-RIDER who’d stayed with them several years ago.  He does oldtime style logging with his horse, and she invited him to come back when he was done with the PCT and build an addition on to the house.  He did all the necessary logging right on the property, and used the horse to bring logs to the building site.  Martha said it was a blast to watch–the guy actually “rode” the logs as the horse brought them in.

Martha fed all her horses and animals, then she fed US a wonderful dinner, which included fresh produce from her garden.  It was so great to be able to hang out with fellow Christ-followers who love to help other people (and animals, too–Martha likes to help sick and abandoned animals).  We were blessed by their fellowship and prayers.  Martha also told us that this last winter was “pretty bad–a lot of wet, heavy snow.”  She said that many trees went down (so that’s why we’ve had to deal with so many blowdowns).  Right on her own property, she lost a number of big trees. 

Tonight, we are camped on Martha’s lawn, with beautiful flowerbeds nearby, and even some peacocks wandering around!  All I can say is “God’s guidance and timing are awesome!”   If I’d been ONE MINUTE earlier or later getting down to the road, I would have missed Martha’s car, and who knows where Bill and I would be camped tonight?

Walk with Aragorn to Isengard: Find Gandalf and enter the boggy Entwash

Today turned out to be a “miracle day” for us, a miracle of God’s guidance, for which we are mega-grateful!  Everything was pretty normal when we got up at 5:15, determined to get to Moosehead Springs for water (our supply was really low!).   The two Israeli girls, Shani and Noga, had the same idea!  We had no trouble finding the place this time–in 2005, the only indication of where the springs/creek was located was a little sign scratched on a rock that was sitting on the ground.  We would have missed it, only Bill was not feeling well at the time, and he sat down right near the sign! 

All early morning long, the PCT was a bit of a slog– the trail was mostly uphill, plus it seriously needed blowdowns cleared and bushes pruned back. We climbed over all sorts of  tree-fallen-across-the-trail obstacles, shoved and bullied our way through bushes, and even had to go around a large snowpatch! Compensation– awesome views of the deep green, forested Northern California mountains!

But around 9:00am, without knowing it, we walked off the PCT and on to an abandoned road. It looked like nice PCT trail, with plenty of  footprints, wildflowers and beautiful views. We hiked merrily along till the trail went back into the forest, and there was a strange, unmarked junction with an obviously well-used trail.  “What could this be?” we wondered.  We couldn’t find anything on our map.  After some puzzling, we gave up and kept on hiking till 9:30, when we stopped for our usual Snickers break.  After that, our nice trail started to be very overgrown, and we were pushing through bushes again.  Not a problem–we’d been doing plenty of that already this morning!

A ways further down, we were met by an indignant dog, who ruffused at us and growled.  Right behind the dog was  a keen-eyed, tanned older guy.  He sized us up.  ”Are you PCT hikers?” he asked.  “Yup!” we grinned.    “Well, you’re not on the PCT.”  We were shocked.  It turned out that the guy was out planning for his deer  hunting trip in October, and had come up this abandoned road to reconnoiter a bit.

 He set us straight as to where to find the PCT (“Up there on that ridge”) and we hurried to turn around and get back on track. Thank you, Lord, for that hunter guy! If we hadn’t met him, we would have wandered who knows how far off our trail!   Eventually we found the PCT again and determined to be a LOT more careful about following it!   A ways along, we met a bunch of hikers we’ve been leapfrogging with.  “Where have you been?”  they all demanded.  “Well, um, actually, we were lost.  Sigh.”  “Bummer,” said the gang.

A short time later, we all reached the “go around/or over Grizzly Peak” part of the trail.  Some of the guys opted for “go over”, up to the fire lookout; we opted for “go around.”  We’d had enough of going offtrail to last us for the rest of the day!  The PCT is an amazing piece of construction here.  There are places where the trail literally crosses the face of a cliff.  The trail engineering is amazing!  I enjoyed lily-watching, too.  I’ve noticed that in the sunshiny stretches, where the trail goes through chaparral, there are white lilies blooming, whereas when you go down into a canyon and are walking by a creek, you see orange lilies.  This is definitely a “lily section” of the PCT!

 At the top of the climb around Grizzly Peak,  we stopped for some hot cooked lunch, then headed down for water at Deer Creek.  The rest of the gang had passed us when we stopped for lunch, but we caught up with them again at the creek.  Everybody was washing socks and as much as they could of themselves, too.  It was a warm afternoon, and we were all sweaty.

From Deer Creek on, for a good while, the trail was VERY nice!  It had recently been groomed by an AmeriCorps team.  Thanks, guys!

Finally at 6 pm, we reached the McCloud River.  We’d thought of maybe camping there, but it was still a bit early, and there were a lot of car campers, so we crossed the bridge over the roaring, bluegreen McCloud, and followed the PCT uphill into the woods and canyons.  Even though it was evening, it was still 90 degrees in the shade,  and mosquitoes zoomed in every time we paused for a moment.

We finally stopped to camp at the road down to Ah Ni Ta.  We were busy setting up our net tent, when 3 dayhiker ladies came along and stopped to talk.  They recognized that we were thruhikers, and regretted that they had nothing to share with us, foodwise! “We ate it all,” they said.  “Wish we had some leftovers.”   They drove away, and we batted aside the clouds of small mosquitoes so we could dive into the net tent for the night!

Walk with Aragorn to Isengard: Enter Fangorn in search of the Hobbits

We had a little bit of trouble locating the PCT this morning.  We packed up at 5:15 and followed a trail that said it went to the “fisherman bridge.”  Some bridge!  It was actually a PIER!  Knowing that the PCT was on the other side of the river, not far away, was frustrating!   So we turned around and walked all the way back to the parking lot, looked at signs, and picked another trail.  Only a few steps along the other trail, and we spotted the BRIDGE!  Whew!

Once on the other side, it was easy to find the PCT.  We didn’t stick to it exactly, but just walked the road down to the  Lake Britton dam. Wow! There was a big construction project on; it looked like they were reinforcing the hillside plus doing other work.  There was a big orange sign that told us to stop and sound the provided air horn so they’d come escort us through.    But it was Sunday, and not a construction worker in sight, so we just strolled right on across. 

 The PCT happily climbed back up and up into a lovely oak forest that’s just like the ones we hike in back home. We stopped off for breakfast in a lovely grove, with soft leaves all over the ground.  Nice!  A bit more up, and then the views begin–of deep canyons, rollicking creeks, and distant jagged mountains with snow still on them.  There are no “burn zones” here– all is very green and the trees are very large.  The trail was mostly so nice and shady that I hardly needed my sunglasses all day.

Eventually we came to more “work zone warning signs” which said to be careful because the rangers were busy thinning and pruning the forest on the theory that it would all grow better and healthier if it were thinned instead of just being allowed to grow any ol’ way it wanted to.  Hmmm!  Maybe somebody went to Switzerland and saw how they take care of their forests, and maybe those “Oh, don’t touch Nature…let Nature run its course..” people are finally beginning to see the light!  In 2005, up in Oregon, we went through two sections of forest that were as different as night and day.  One was green and healthy. It was the one where people could come collect downed wood.  The other was full of dead wood, dead branches, and dying trees.  That was the one with the warning sign about “No wood collecting.”  It’s a no-brainer–forests need to be TAKEN CARE OF, not left to the whims of nature. 

One thing we have to be very mindful of now, however, is water. We have to strategize and plan carefully, just like in Southern CA. Most water sources are springs (we love springs!) or creeks, and are usually 12-15 miles apart. We arrived at Peavine Creek around noon, and took on enough water to last us the whole rest of the day.  Several hikers caught up with us when we stopped to eat. 

Afternoon hiking today was tough.  The trail headed uphill again, and was very overgrown.  We had to do a fair amount of pushing and struggling through bushes.  The trail itself also became very rough, rocky ‘n rooty. It was a hot afternoon, too, and that plus all of the other factors really slowed me down.  But there was compensation–VIEWS!  Wowweeee! Awesome views!  We also met a very nice couple from Simpson College in Redding.

By afternoon Snickers break, I really was wasted from the heat (90s in the shade), all the uphill, bushes and rough trail.  Eventually the trail got ”nice” again (Thankyou, trail gorillas! We appreciate all your hard work!)  and we reached the next spring, which had cold, wonderful water.  The only bummer in the late afternoon was never being quite sure where we were!  There are so few trail junctions and clear landmarks in this section. We finally figured it out when the trail followed along the edge of a BIG dropoff!  And every time we got to the top of yet another climb, there was Mt. Shasta, getting nearer and nearer!

The trail edges today had lots of wildflower borders, and ON the trail, there was a lot of bear scat.  I wondered what the bears eat around here.  The manzanitas are loaded with green berries, but I don’t think bears would eat them till they’re ripe.  Actually, one of the things that was really nice about today was the fact that everything was so green! In 2005, when we passed through here, it was mid-September and everything was in fall colors already.   After looking at all that bear scat, though, we secured our food well before turning in. 

Walk with Aragorn to Isengard: Follow trail east, find dead Orcs shot by arrows

“Breakfast at Cache 22!” was our get-up motto today! It was already warm at 5:30am — a hot day was coming. We passed a bunch of the guys just getting up from their camp at the old fire lookout. Some of them passed us a little while later, hiking on a tear, also eager for the cache! By the time we got there, only 3 beers were left. We each got one. Beer (warm) is actually a nice breakfast drink to have with granola, which is what we did.

Many others soon arrived, both NOBO and SOBO, till there was quite a gathering. One of the SOBO’s said she was originally thruhiking as a NOBO, but got bored and lonely.  Then she thought, “Wait a minute!  If I switch and hike SOBO, I’ll be meeting all kinds of people!”  So that’s what she did, and said she’s having a blast.  All of us took turns reading the register at the Cache, and adding our own entries.

But Bill and I didn’t linger too long– we’re hoping to reach Burney Falls today, and that would be almost 30 miles, so after breakfast we headed  back to the trail.  Hiking in the relatively cool morning is very pleasant, and the views continued to be spectacular–sometimes the trail goes right to the edge of the Rim, and it makes for very dramatic dropoffs! I was pleased to see also that in this section, the wildflowers are still blooming, especially Indian Paintbrush.

Eventually the PCT “comes in for a landing” back down in the lava beds of the valley below. The lava still looks fresh– no lichen on it or signs of wear. Amazing! It had turned into a very warm day, and as I remembered, the trail became rockier and rockier, till it became totally ridiculously rocky.  In 2005, Bill said “Phooey on this!” and went over to walk on the road, which parallels the trail.  Me, I was so worried about missing the spot where the trail crosses the road, that I stayed with the trail, and oh man, did my feet hurt as a result!  And I need not have worried about missing the crossing–it’s well-marked with footprints painted on the pavement!  So THIS TIME, I joined Bill, and walked the road to save my feet from “rock abuse.” 

While we were happily hiking along the road shoulder, a little pickup truck pulled over and the lady driver leaned out the window.  “Hi!” she said.  “Are you hiking the PCT?”  “Yup!”  “Are you picking up a box in Burney?  I’m the postmistress, and I can give you a ride there right now and you can get your box.”  Well, we weren’t going to Burney, but we thought that was really sweet of her to offer to help! 

Near where the PCT finally crossed the road, there was a whole group of very hot, sweaty hikers in the skimpy shade of a small tree.  Everybody had their shoes off and were nursing sore feet.  They were very surprised to see us.  “How’d you get here so fast?”  they demanded.  “We walked the road instead of the trail,” I told them.  “Cheaters!!” they groaned.  “Uh, uh, not cheaters!”  I said.  “We did the whole PCT in 2005, and figured out that it isn’t worth it to kill your feet staying on the trail you just did.”  Then Bill and I walked a bit farther till we could find some more shade, and stopped for lunch.

At this point, the trail is no longer rocky, but nice and flat and dirt, and it goes through meadows and forests, past the “retro” PG & E building, and past the long narrow fish hatchery pools.  We were headed for the hatchery picnic area to get water and take a short break.  The only water available, as it turned out, was in the bathroom, from a faucet, so putting water in the platypuses involved getting one cupful of water at a time from the faucet, then pouring it into the “platy.”  Once that was done, I washed and splashed MYSELF with water, trying to cool off! If we’d been allowed to hop in the tanks with the fish, I think we all would have done it!  A whole bunch of us hikers were sitting in the shade at a picnic table, sharing our snacks and talking about the trail.

Then we walked on around beautiful blue Baum Lake and into the forest again; the PCT did its usual “wander all over the scenery” route instead of going straight for Burney Falls.  It was  just after 7:00pm when we reached the State Park store, which was due to close for the day at 8:00pm.  Yikes!  It was scramble time, to get everything done!  A lot of hikers were sitting around sorting their resupplies.  Some distance away was ANOTHER group of hikers.  It turned out that the store had a “no open alcohol containers near the store” policy.  So the two hiker groups were the alcoholics and the non-alcoholics, sort of!  We stayed with the non-alcoholics, which included the Israelis.

I hurried into the store to get our resupply box, go shopping, and get some ice cream!  Meanwhile, Bill went off to take a shower in the campground.  Back with the hikers on the tables outside, we all started a “who wants this?” trading session.  Other hikers kept arriving, all anxious to get THEIR boxes before the store closed.  The “closest call” (5 minutes before 8 pm) guy literally RAN into the store to get his stuff! 

By the time we’d eaten supper and reloaded our packs, the sun was going down.  I’d hoped for a shower, and asked Bill to guide me to the shower buildings.  He did–sort of.  It took him awhile to find them, and by that time I said, “It’s going to be dark soon.  There’s not enough time to take a shower.”  So I just washed my very dirty feet and we headed out, hoping to have enough light to get back to the trail and find a place to camp.  No such luck!  It got so dark, so fast, that we could not find our way.  So we found a flat piece of ground among some trees and cowboy camped there.

Walk with Aragorn to Isengard: Reach trampled Orc camp in Rohan

This morning I was up a little after 6 am, hoping Georgi would be, too, because I was hoping she’d let me have some thread to mend my pants.  I tiptoed into the house after saying hi to WS Monty, who was already starting breakfast in the “cookshack.”  Sure enough, Georgi was up and just as chipper and lively as ever. My poor pants were in dire need of another patch! Georgi steered me to her sewing stuff, and soon I was busy mending.  I put a nice big patch on the seat of the pants, where the fabric itself was wearing thin. 

Then I went to hunt up some coffee–it was ready, and Bill had just got up, so we took our nice hot cups and went to sit on a garden bench in the sun. Soon came the breakfast call.   Warner Springs Monty and Goodfoot had made a feast!  There were stacks of fresh blueberry pancakes, and huge skillets of fried potatoes with sausage, veges and eggs, with cheese melted all over the top–plus all the watermelon you could eat.  And did we eat!  It was so much fun to just hang out on a beautiful morning and talk to everybody.  After that, many hikers loaded their packs ready to head out.  The Israelis and I volunteered for KP, and spent the next 45 minutes or so scrubbing pots and pans and cooking tools.

Out of curiosity, I asked the Israelis if they’d ever run into Jews for Jesus.  They said, yes, they had, and very much respected them.  I asked what they thought of the extreme Orthodox folks who actually beat up Jews for Jesus volunteers when they’re out on the streets.  Noga said that she was appalled by that sort of behavior.  It turned out that Noga and the others are all secular Jews–they don’t even believe in God, and are not religious at all–but they respect those who are, and strongly believe in freedom of religion.  “I’m not down on religion,” Noga explained.  “But for me personally, it has no relevance.  I don’t need it, and it would just complicate my life.”  We talked some more, and I encouraged them to consider the possibility that Y’shua (Jesus) really was the promised Messiah.

Then I went back to our tent, loaded our packs, and set them ready to head out to the trail.  I thought we were leaving right away.  Nope.  Bill wanted to contact the Polaroid company to find out about getting the camera fixed.  He got on the Heitman’s computer, figured out how to get to the Polaroid website, and got the product support phone number.

I took the phone and dialed the number.  Then I waited on hold forever.  Finally Bill said, “Oh, forget it!  Let’s just send the camera home!”  But just as he said that, voila!  A guy from Polaroid came on the line.  I explained the situation, but he said, “Without a receipt, we will not fix it.”  Well, the receipt was at our house,  and we had no way to dash home and get it!  Finally the Polaroid guy said, “Actually, there is an alternative way to turn the camera on and off.”  He told me what it was, and it WORKED!   Hooray!  Whew!

By now it was after 12 noon, and a warm day, but we were very anxious to be on our way. Some other hikers were also ready to head out, so we all piled into Goodfoot’s little pickup truck (me in the cab with Goodfoot, and the three guys in the back with the packs). I dashed into the store to get us some lunch food and a bottle of Motrin for me.  My back hip is slowly improving, but I still need to take some Motrin, and I didn’t want to run out!

 It didn’t take long to scarf up the lunch, and a bit after 1 pm, on a warm afternoon, we were AT LAST headed back to the trail.  It felt so good to be hiking again, now that we were rested and wellfed.  The miles up to the Hat Creek Rim seemed to just fly by, even though the trail was pretty rough and rocky– soon we were cheering at the sight of Mt. Shasta, all snowy white and grand and impressive.  Mt. Lassen was behind us now, a streaky gray ‘n white.  We’d been told there was a cache near Hwy. 44, and finally we got to it–a collection of gallon water jugs.  We really didn’t need water, but we stopped there for a quart of lemonade and a Snickers.

The rest of the afternoon, we were walking the PCT along the Hat Creek Rim. The Rim trail is indeed very rough and rocky and has lots of weed seed stickers waiting to get into your socks, but the awesome views are worth it.  The trail takes you through various “fire zones.”  In the older ones, little trees are starting to grow back.  In the fire zone from last year’s fire, all is barren except for a few tufts of grass and some determined wild morning glories.  In one part of the “new” fire zone, somebody had REPLANTED the trees!!  Way to go!   We cheered for whoever it was.  One of my pet peeves is the idea that after a forest fire, you should “just let nature take its course.”  No way–unless you think it’s “good” to have silt runoff into creeks, and land that stands barren for years.

The wildflowers are all done for the year, except the Indian Paintbrush.  We passed many of its little flaming orangered “torches” held high in the brown grass.  There was also one kind of grass whose seedhead breaks apart into individual silvery-gold “stars” that dance and blow around, sparkling along the trail.  Very pretty!  All the dandelions have gone to seed and their round white seedheads looked like glowing white moons.  The trail itself is both very dusty and very rocky.  I was trying to walk fast, but the scenery was so gorgeous that I kept stubbing my toes on the rocks.  Ow!  My poor toes were really hurting!  I’d try to pay more attention to the trail, but the lure of oohing and aahing over views of Mt. Shasta, Mt. Lassen, and the lovely Hat Creek Valley were just too alluring.  So many hikers talk about “The Hat Creek Rim” as if it were some sort of death march.  No way!  It is so beautiful!

At 7:15, we found a nice campsite off the trail behind some bushes, with a great view to the east of low forested hills and pastures.  A number of local creatures decided to comment on our presence–as we set up camp and got into our sleeping bags, there was a continual chorus of animal & bird noises.  It sounded as if they were talking about us!  Some hummingbirds even flew right up to us as if they were checking us out.  There were no mosquitoes–a good thing, because our legs and feet were the dirtiest they’ve ever been, and it took some doing to wash them clean.  Not only that, but because it was so warm today, the water in our bottles was warm, too, and that meant WARM water to wash feet with!  Nice!

We are glad to be back on the trail–by tomorrow we should be at Burney Falls!

Walk with Aragorn to Isengard: Enter the northern downs of Rohan

We followed the PCT as it headed into what I call “The Lassen Desert” of pumice and pine trees, but were saddened by the still very serious damage done by the 2004 fire.  Finally we were out of the fire zone and back into green forest with lots of wildflowers along the trail.  I stopped to take a picture of them…and that was the last pic for the whole day–from that time on, the camera refused to open.  I tried replacing the battery, and that didn’t help, either.  So I have no pictures for today.  In 2005, our little camera worked faithfully for the whole hike, except for when the batteries died in the heat at San Gorgonio Pass.  This camera has been a hassle ever since Campo!  Sigh.

Once we reached Badger Flat with its beautiful view of Mt. Lassen, we were on very familiar trail, and happily headed downhill for Old Station, stopping off at the tree plantation to enjoy a rest break & Snickers while lying on deep, soft pine duff.  Ahhh!  We were looking forward to “a rest on the duff” for the last several days!   From the plantation, the PCT goes wandering north, first alongside rushing Hat Creek, then over a couple of lava bluffs, and through a forest with huge trees.  Not too far from the side trail to Old Station, we met 3 nice ladies out horseback riding, and we talked to them for awhile. 

A few more minutes and we were at the Old Station “junction.”  Some thruhikers were sitting around there, debating whether to head up to Hat Creek Rim immediately (which would mean hiking in the heat of the day) or whether to wait and hike up when it was cooler.  Bill and I have a policy of “just hike, don’t worry about the weather.”  If it were us, we would have headed for the Rim.  But in actual fact, WE were headed for the post office at Old Station, so that’s where we went!  At the  PO, we had a temporary scare when the postmistress couldn’t find our box.  Fortunately for us, she had another go at the big pile of hiker boxes, and finally found it–whew! 

Bill was anxious to get to the Heitman’s, and we headed to the store to phone Georgi, but just as we walked up to the store, a car pulled in, and it was friends of Georgi’s who help maintain Cache 22 up on the Rim.  They said Georgi and WS Monty were off shopping in Redding, and offered us a ride if we would just wait while they loaded the car with stuff for the Cache.  So I used that time to get us some great hotdogs for lunch, plus some food to supplement what was in the box.  Georgi’s friends told me that only a few days ago, about 3 hikers per day were coming through, but now it’s more like 10 or 15!  So I guess Bill and I are now part of “The Wave” as it moves north. 

It was a good thing I got those hot dogs, because as it turned out, there’s no lunch available at the Heitmans.  Bill and I piled out of the car and walked about to look at everything.  In 2005, we were the only hikers here.  Now there were hikers everywhere!  We met Shin, much thinner than when we last saw him.  He said that the Sierras just about did him in.  Every hiker we talked to was very tired, and suffering from all sorts of aches and pains.  Many said they were staying for several days, just to rest and recuperate.  A number of tents were set up in the yard for the hikers; Bill and I claimed one, and then I collected all our dirty clothes and started on laundry.  While that was going, I did more repairs on Bill’s pack, and added some padding to my fanny pack.  I  wish there were a way to put more padding on ME!  I am still horribly thin.  Once I got the laundry done, I took my Ridgerest out to a shady spot in the lawn and just plain collapsed for awhile.

WS Monty came by–he cheered when he saw me.  “Hey, Monty!” he said.  “Did you know you’re in the UTube video of the kickoff?”  I didn’t know–that was a fun bit of news!  Monty and his helpers made a fantastic dinner–BBQ hamburgers with all the trimmings, potato salad, regular salad, and lots of watermelon.  It was all-you-can-eat, and believe me, we hikers can EAT!  And what’s really cool is that WS Monty and some others have organized a whole outdoor kitchen so that the Heitmans don’t have to have hikers in the house!  We sat around eating and talking for a long time.  Some of the hikers we’d seen before, and others were new, including a Belgian guy who said his tourist visa for the USA had run out. He had applied for an extension, but was refused.  “I guess I’m an illegal now!” he said.  “But I don’t care–I am going to FINISH this trail, and then I’ll go home from Canada!”    The Israeli girls were listening to him a bit anxiously.  Their visas are also “running low” and they are very worried that they won’t reach Canada before their visas run out.

Meanwhile, Georgi Heitman was running around “mothering” everybody.  She told me how frightening it was last fall when a wildfire almost reached their property.  The green meadow that literally saved their house is very green right now,  and very pretty, but beyond it is fireblackened forest.  She and Dennis had to evacuate, and she told me how hard it was to decide on what to take with them, knowing that when they got back, there might be nothing left.

So tonight, Bill and I are sleeping in a huge carcamping tent that we have named “Pharaoh’s Palace”.  We are clean, wellfed, and comfortable–it’s wonderful!  Tomorrow we will tackle the Hat Creek Rim!

Well, all the hikers (including us) had to scramble at around 2am when a light sprinkle of rain blew through, totally unexpected. Bill simply draped our tarp over the net tent we were already in because of the mosquitoes, and  when we got up at 5 am,  all our stuff was dry. The only problem we had was the darkness–it was hard to see the trail when we tried to start hiking.  So we agreed “Looks like the days are getting shorter again–better bump our get-up time to 5:15.” 

By breakfast time we were at Stover Springs, where a number of hikers had camped. Many were planning to reach Drakesbad by afternoon, shower, swim and have dinner there. We had fun talking to Evan, Swipe and Tradeja while we were eating.  Evan said he was going to try to make it to Drakesbad for lunch.  I remembered what I’d thought about last night, but told myself, “Don’t be silly–it’s 15 more tough miles to Drakesbad (lots of steep hills and rough trail).  No way can I do that many miles on that kind of trail by 12 noon today.”  But then I thought,  “But I can at least try my best to hike fast, and see what happens.”

At first, much of the trail was in forest with little to see, but I really enjoyed the glimpses of Mt. Lassen above green meadows. A couple of ridges later, we’d reached the North Fork of the Feather River, where we caught up with several other hikers who were there relaxing. We stopped for a Snickers break, since it’s a very pretty, comfortable spot.  The other guys said they were going to loaf their way to Drakesbad and spend the night there.  We enjoyed the rest, but soon pushed on, and that’s when I said to myself, “Hmmm…if we could reach the park boundary by noon, Bill could “turn on the afterburners” and get to Drakesbad before the end of lunch at 1 pm.  He could get some food for himself and for me.”   

I told Bill about my idea.  He thought it was a bit crazy, but was willing to give it a try, so we both started hiking as fast as we could, and reached Lassen Park boundary by 11:45 am. Bill took off at top speed and was soon out of sight, while I hiked as fast as I could go (huff, puff!) up every hill and RAN on every downhill.  At Boiling Springs Lake, I did stop briefly to talk to a French family, who were already talking to another PCT hiker, Fuzzy Monkey.  The French family were absolutely amazed at the idea of what we were doing; they insisted on taking a picture with Fuzzy Monkey and I. 

Then I started to half-run on down the trail, past the weird blue-y green, steaming lake, and down through the woods towards Drakesbad.  At 1 pm, I was just across from it, on the other side of the meadow, and I trotted and ran as much as I could on the trail through the picnic area and then back up the road towards the resort.  I was absolutely exhausted.  Doing over 18 miles in one morning on rugged terrain was really tough!

I raced on, and just after I’d reached the first group of cabins, along came Ed, who runs the place, riding in his golf cart. “Welcome, wanderer!” he cheered, ”Would you like some lunch?  Hop in!”  So I got a very welcome ride with him, right to the front door of the dining hall.  I found Bill happily chowing down already, and he said he’d only arrived 10 minutes before I did!  Turned out that it was EMPLOYEE lunch time, and there was plenty of food even after the guests had eaten.  I wasted no time in loading a plate and eating to my heart’s content.  Fuzzy Monkey soon arrived, so all three of us were having a great time.  The Drakesbad folks were awesomely nice to us.  The cost for our all-you-can-eat lunch was only $6.50 each.  Wow! 

 Bill and I totally pigged out and waddled back to the trail at 3 pm.  We took our time for the rest of the day.  Up to the top of Flatiron Ridge we went, then strolled along to Grassy Swale, which was as lovely and green as ever, but the mosquitoes were so bad that we had to put on headnets.  We stopped for a snack at Swan Lake, which was so full that it reached all the way to the trail.  Amazing!  We continued the climb to  Lower Twin Lake, where we planned to stop for water, but we were sad to see that the effect of the 2004 forest fire was still there. Not much has regrown.

At the lake, we caught up with the Israelis, who’d stopped to cook dinner before putting in a few more miles.  We got our water, then pushed on ourselves, with the plan of getting away from the lake, and hopefully away from the mosquitoes.  No such luck.  The buzzing little biters were everywhere.  So it was “Net tent tonight!”  I have to say again that I’m SO glad Bill figured out how to rig it with just a couple of trek poles, so we don’t have the bother of the tarp.  I crawled into the sleeping bag after taking a Motrin.  My back hip was hurting again today, but it’s probably my own fault–I was RUNNING down hills instead of just walking.  But oh man, it was worth it to get that awesome lunch!  

It’s 15 miles to Old Station, and I started thinking, “Maybe we can make it to the Heitmans by lunch….”, then I slapped myself and said, “Don’t be an idiot!  You don’t need to do 15 miles before noon again!  Take it easy!”  So I’m going to lay my head down and remember to just enjoy the trail tomorrow!  And thankyou, Lord, that we are “home” in Lassen Park!  This is the place where Bill and I actually learned to backpack, many years ago!

Walk with Aragorn to Isengard: Find Pippin’s brooch, enter Rohan

Today’s hike was what I call “The Big Walk Around Ruffa Ranch.” The ranch is down in a valley below(you can see the buildings and the green pastures), and the trail circles it, following crests and ridges. There was no ontrail water for most of the day, but because we were up high, the views were splendiferous– Mt. Lassen, Lake Almanor, even the Sacramento Valley.  We stopped for breakfast at Cold Spring Campground, which does have a wonderful piped spring, and even a bench to sit on.  Several fat, glossy, contented cows were grazing in a meadow nearby.  Once we finished eating, we really loaded up on water, for the 24 waterless miles ahead.  I must say that though water may be scarce in this section, when you DO come to water, it’s wonderful–very cold, very clear and tastes great!

Wildflowers were abundant on the trail this morning– all growing in rock garden style among the lava boulders and formations.  Overhead were pretty clouds.  A few NOBO  hikers passed us this morning, all going as fast as they could so they could hitch into Chester!  We also met several SOBO section hikers. One was a little old whitehaired lady whose trail name was “Noisemaker”; she was carrying an enormous pack.  It made me ache just looking at it!  She must be pretty tough.  We stopped for lunch at a side trail (supposedly there was water a half mile down, but we had enough, so didn’t bother with it).  A very bold deer came out of the woods and came right up to beg from us!  No way would we give it any of our precious food!  It was getting rather annoying, when all of a sudden, another deer came along and chased the beggar deer away! 

 Then came the big climb of Butt Mountain. When we did this part in 2005, hunting season had started, and the trail hadn’t been brushed in quite a while.  We were pushing through bushes, listening to gunshots in the woods, and hoping and praying most fervently that nobody would think we were deer trying to get away!  This time, the trail was nicely trimmed and a very pleasant walk.  At 3 pm, we reached the post that marks the official HALFWAY POINT of the PCT and stopped to celebrate with bug juice, a Snickers, and signing the trail register!  Yee-hah!  We were amused to see how many hikers had already signed in today.

Then came the long, long, mostly viewless downhill to Highway 36.  By 5 pm, we’d reached Soldier Creek, the first ontrail water since Cold Spring.  We were just about out of water, so it was a welcome sight, and we stopped for supper, plus washing ourselves up a bit in the creek.  We were filthy dirty from dusty trail plus sweat from the heat.  We even rinsed our socks!  Once we were down “on the flat” again, the PCT winds in and out of private property; seemed like every few yards there’d be another sign on a tree that said we were either entering or exiting such-and-so property.  Just before Hwy. 36, there was a sign telling of a hiker cache on the other side of the road. 

When we got there– wow! Hidden behind a huge log was a wonderful hiker cache with cold soda, water, fruit– even bagels!  While we were eating, I noticed that one of the thruhiker gals (last saw her pouring water over herself coming out of Belden) was trying unsuccessfully to hitch a ride into town.  The cars were just flying past her.  Since it was late in the day and we were going to stop and camp soon, anyway,  I went across the road, carrying my Ridgerest, to try to help her out.  (Yogi’s guide to the PCT mentioned that it really helps to write “Pacific Crest Trail Hiker” in large letters on your sleeping pad, to use when trying to hitchhike.  So I’d done that to my Ridgerest.)  Ann, who’d been trying and trying to get a ride, was very discouraged.

She was glad of my company, and we hoped that with two of us plus the sign, maybe she’d get a ride…but no luck.   Car after car just roared on by.  I must say I was surprised.  You would think that folks in the Chester area would be clued in to thruhikers by now!  Ann finally decided to just give up and go camp in the woods, so Bill and I did the same.  We walked a bit further on, away from the highway, then found a nice comfortable spot in the trees.   We set up the net tent, because the mosquitoes were pretty bad, and talked about “Drakesbad tomorrow!”  The Drakesbad people had posted an “ad” by the hiker cache, inviting everybody to stop by.   I started having the crazy thought, “Maybe we could get there for lunch!”   We’ll see! 

Walk with Aragorn to Isengard: East Wall of Rohan

Since we had to wait for the Belden post office to open, I “slept in” till 6:30, then got up to see about making coffee for all the hikers.  When I walked into the kitchen, I discovered that the Braatens had left two big platters of watermelon slices and fresh chocolate zucchini muffins. So I snagged a muffin while hunting for coffee supplies.  Everything was there except filters…so I improvised with toilet paper!  It worked fine, and as various sleepy, tousled hikerheads emerged from their various spots, they were very happy to see hot coffee!  But for thruhikers, a muffin, watermelon and coffee are just an appetizer, not a serious breakfast,  so pretty soon we were all making the 0.25 mile trek down the road to the Caribou Restaurant for big HOT breakfasts.  Before we left, though, I washed all the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen, while Bill talked to Mr. Braaten about gold mining. 

Turns out that the Little Haven property does include a gold mine!!!–BUT there are so many government rules now about how you can mine and all the procedures and equipment, that ordinary folks like Mr. & Mrs. B can’t afford to mine on their own property.  And this is the case for many of the small goldminers along the Feather River.  Their operations are all shut down.  Only the “big guys” who can afford the required equipment are allowed to continue.  Mr. B said that a few “little guys” have banded together and are sharing equipment.  Good for them!  But to add insult to injury, now the US Fish & Game department has decided they will no longer plant fish in the Feather River.  The result is that there are very few fish, and those few are wild, wary and hard to catch.  So the Feather River canyon has gone from being a busy, prosperous place (goldmining and fishing) to a place that’s barely surviving, thanks to government regulations.  Grrrrr!

Once the kitchen was all cleaned up, Bill and I walked the quarter mile down the road to the Caribou Cafe.  We had the “Hiker Special” breakfast–really good!  The place was filled with other hikers, and what was interesting—nobody ordered coffee; instead we were all having fresh fruit milkshakes!  Awesome!  We walked back and went hunting for Mrs. B so that we could get a ride to the post office.  Turned out she was working on building a retaining wall behind her very thriving vegetable garden (so that’s where the yellow summer squash came from that we ate last night!) 

At the post office, which is basically the enclosed front porch of a house, we were greatly relieved to find our box waiting.  It had everything we needed, so all I had to do was divvy up the food and put it in our food bags.  We wasted no time then in heading back to the trail, still disappointed because we’d hoped for an early start in the cool of the morning. It was 10:30 am before we were able to start, the day was already hot, and it’s a 14 mile long 5,000+ foot climb up out of Belden, at first going up the Chips Creek canyon, then on up into the mountains.  There was no shade for some time, because the canyon had a forest fire a few years ago, and there are no trees left in the fire’s path.

The trail at first was in much better shape than 2005–no need to literally fight your way through the bushes while feeling for the trail with your feet!   It was  a hot day (I put up my umbrella for shade to hike under!), but many creeks crossed our path– at one of them a hiker was pouring water over herself!  I didn’t try to hike too fast, because I knew from experience that this is one LOOOOONG climb up.  Chips Creek nearby was very pretty, cascading and roaring down the canyon.  The trail had obviously been worked on, with all blowdowns cleared, and the trail tread very nice.  Finally we came to a sign that said, “This section of the trail was maintained by the California Backcountry Horsemen.”  THANKYOU!! 

But just beyond the sign, oh my! We were once again climbing over and around blowdowns, fording creeks, and even dealing with a bit of snow. Sometimes it was hard to figure out where the trail went.  And some of the creeks were so deeply gullied by snowmelt runoff that it was hard to get across–we had to climb down steep, eroded creekbanks, cross the creek, then climb up the other side.  It was a mess, but we persevered, with a plan of stopping for water at Poison Spring, which is totally misnamed–the water there is wonderful, and it’s actually not too far from the top of the big climb.

By suppertime, we were up at the top. It’s a rocky ridge with amazing views.  Mt. Lassen to the north was surrounded by impressive thunderclouds, and when we looked south, there were more thunderclouds behind us!  Overhead, the sky was a gorgeous blue.  We were sitting near the trail enjoying our food, when  a number of young guys passed us– they were on a tear to be in Chester tomorrow night!   I’m sure they’ll make it–in fact, Bill and I figure we should be at the Chester road by tomorrow night, too.

Today was kind of tough, with the late start, the heat, the uphills, and then the messed up part of the trail.  The mosquitoes got pretty bad by 6 pm, so when we stopped for the day, we set up the net tent, and now they are whining and humming all around us, trying to get in.  We’re up on another rocky ridge, with a very pretty orange sunset.  One nice thing was, I had NO back hip problem today because it was all uphill.  I took one Motrin when we first started, and didn’t need any more after that.  Tomorrow the trail will go up and down, so we’ll see how I do.  Looking forward to heading into Lassen!

Walk to Rauros: West bank near Amon Hen

The Williams family (Nancy & Terry & their nephew who was visiting) were up at 5am to be sure all of us “earlybird hikers” got at least some coffee, cereal and toast  before we hit the trail at 5:45. They are awesome folks! And the trail was awesome, too, pretty much all day, and that was good, because it’s only 24 miles to Belden, and our next resupply.

Back on the PCT, we did the nice comfortable climb up to Buck Summit, stopping for a second breakfast along the way.  There were no blowdowns on the trail–hooray!  I wouldn’t have wanted to hike this section a couple of months ago, though–it was obvious that there had been a lot of trees down, but the trail gorillas had recently (you could tell by the freshlooking woodchips, sawdust and cut logs) cleared them all out of the way, AND fixed the trail tread.  Thankyou, trail gorillas!!

Another great thing about the trail today was that it was so well-marked.  There were silver diamonds on the trees, main points labelled with signs (so you know where you are) and excellent signs at junctions.well-maintained trail tread and no big uphills. We were in forest a lot, but through the treetrunks we could see big canyons, huge dropoffs and dramatic cliffs. The treetrunks in this area are “painted” with fluorescent green lichen down to “snow level”, which looks like it’s about 10 or 12 feet deep.  Whew!  That’s a lot of snow!  Glad we didn’t have to deal with any of it! 

Clouds were building up in the east, and we could see rain falling in the distance, but it was the kind that doesn’t even hit the ground.  Around noon there were a few rumbles of thunder.  It was a very warm afternoon, and I was thinking “A bit of a shower would sure feel good, but I’ll take a pass on the lightning & thunder!”

By early afternoon we were out in the clear with a 360 degree view above timberline! Wow! We could see way down into the Feather River canyon, and we headed into the zillion switchbacks that take you down to Belden. I took a Vicodin and was able to sail down with no pain, only by the time we reached the bottom, my “downhilling muscles” were pretty fried.  What an amazing trail experience that is, though!  You start in what feels and looks like a high alpine zone with dramatic rocks, awesome views, scrubby trees and groundhugging plants, and by the time you’re down, it’s like you are in the green jungle, with (sigh) poison oak hanging over the trail.   The switchbacks at the top of the descent are pretty steep, but the lower you go, the longer and gentler they are.  At one point, the trail goes along a cliff, and it almost looks like you could jump off the trail right into the river, except that wouldn’t be a very good idea–it’s a LONG way down!

Finally we crossed the railroad tracks, and on our VERY tired feet, came walking into Belden Town resort.  Not bad, though–it had taken us from 6 am till 3:30 pm to do 24 miles!  We revived with lots of lemonade (3 tall glasses each!) and burgers at the much improved restaurant.  A kind motorcyclist let us use his cell phone to call the Braatens, and Mrs. B. said she’d come get us at 4:30.   Other hikers began drifting in; first to arrive was Noga, from Israel.  She looked exhausted, and collapsed on a bench in the shade to wait for her friends. 

Mrs. B picked us up, took us to Little Haven, and showed us the ropes…there’s a shower, but no laundry (other than rinsing socks) and no food (except for a bit in the morning, and whatever might be in the refrigerator.)  But when we went to the pile of resupply boxes to get ours, oh no!  Our box was not there!  We asked Mrs. B about it, and she said, “Oh, it’s at the post office.  If you’d called me a couple of days ago, I would have brought it here to the house.”  Megabummer!   The reason we sent it to Little Haven was to AVOID having to wait for the post office to be open.  And how in the world were we supposed to know to call her?  If we’d known, we could have called from Honker Pass.  We were very disappointed.  Our plan was to leave early tomorrow morning, but now we have to wait till at least 9 am, and then I still have to sort the food and put it in the packs.

So Bill and I claimed a couple of beds, I washed our socks and hung them out to dry on the deck, and then I scrounged in the fridge for dinner ideas.  I came up with some salami, yellow summer squash, and cheese, so I made a sort of stirfry concoction out of it.  Bill and I were the first hikers to arrive at Little Haven today, but by 6:30 there were a lot more.  The deck was full of hikers sorting their resupply boxes and trading stuff.  I actually got a couple of items that other hikers decided they didn’t want!  And since the river was just across the road, a group of young guys decided to go swimming.  We thought about going, too, but again, we were just too exhausted.  Bill spent most of his time just collapsed on the bed.

It’s a very warm night, and even with the windows open, almost too sultry to sleep well.  But I love listening to the sound of trains going by on the other side of the river!  I did pray, though, that all will go well with getting our box tomorrow.  Bill and I agreed that when we do the PCT again, we will skip Little Haven and send our resupply box to Belden Town Resort. That way, we don’t have to deal with the post office at all! 

Walk to Rauros: The Argonath

Today was “blowdown day,” I think. We were having to deal with downed trees all morning, and it got pretty tedious!   Some were stepovers, some were climbovers, some were duckunders and some huge ones were even crawl-unders. But the forests are beautiful here– some very dark and solemn, some more open and sunny. The trees pretty much blocked most views, but we did get a few glimpses of Mt. Lassen’s tip peeking over a ridge in the distance.  And there were butterflies everywhere–so pretty!  We also saw a mama quail and her babies running down the trail.

Vicodin is making it possible for me to hike. All I needed to take for the entire day was one Vicodin and one Motrin.  To say that I am grateful for being able to hike with no pain would be a huge understatement!  I could do all sorts of contortions getting through the blowdowns, with no pain problems.  But the real test came when we began the long downhill to the Feather River.  It’s fun to watch the plant communities change as the trail switchbacks down.  We got great water at a nice spring along the trail, near the river.  We splished and splashed ourselves a bit, too–it was a very hot and actually rather humid day.  Both Bill and I were sweating like crazy–I had sweat literally running down my face, which is a rare experience for me.  When we reached the river, there was “Sneezer”, just coming up from a swim!   We thought about doing the same, but worrying about the need for more miles made us decide to pass up the opportunity.

The push up ‘n out of the Feather River canyon is very long.  We stopped partway up, at Bear Creek, and made some lunch.  I decided to rename it “Ladybug Creek”, because there were thousands of the cute little bugs all over the place!  Sneezer came along and joined us for awhile.  He says he’s planning to go to some trail angels at Buck Lake tonight.  We plan to just keep going.  After lunch, we headed up some more, but hallelujah, there’d been a trail gorilla crew at work, and the trail was GREAT–no more blowdowns, nice tread, and bushes all trimmed back.  And then (about midafternoon) we met Yeahbut and Elderly Ellen, heading SOBO!  They said they had stayed at the Buck Lake trail angels, and that it was awesome and we should go there.  We were still determined to push on, however.

Just before the side trail to Lookout Rock, there was an “ad” posted, inviting all PCT thruhikers to come on down to “Honker Pass” once they reached the road.  It described all the amenities there, and sounded great, but we were still determined–”We need miles!”  Finally we were down near the road, and stopped for a supper of crackers and cheese.  Then we hoisted our packs, prepared to get in another 4 miles or so before stopping for the night.  But at the road, to our astonishment, we were greeted by a very friendly guy who knew our names!  “Third Monty and White Beard!” he cheered when he saw us.  “I’ve been waiting for you!”  What???  We didn’t even know this guy!  It turned out that he’d just given Sneezer a ride down to the Honker Pass trail angel, and Sneezer told him we were not far behind.  We hesitated– a little– but finally the lure of food, showers and laundry was too strong.

Note from Alexa: Careful, that’s how Jill & Eustace ended up almost being Giant menu items!

I had been puzzling over my map, trying to find a “Honker Pass” in the area, but it turned out that’s just the name of a summer home owned by the Williams family.  It was a wonderful place–nice house with a HUGE deck full of lounging hikers, food everywhere,  little kids to play with, 6 very friendly dogs and the even more friendly Williams family.  Grandma Williams is keeping a log book of hikers–she sits with each of us and does a little interview and takes a photo.  Awww!  First item of , though was SHOWERS, to wash off the sweat of the day!  

Dinner was a feast, including BBQ ribs, and once you ate all the meat off a rib, you could just toss it to the dogs, and they would devour it–crunch, munch!   And there was a fresh fruit salad of peaches and blackberries, plus loads of other great food.  Once it got dark, there were piles of ”mattresses” and all you had to do was pick one out, lay it on the deck, and bed down for the night.  It looked like a PCT hiker slumber party.  There was a campfire, too, and happy hikers everywhere.  I am very glad we decided to come here–sure, we could have gotten a few more miles, but this is just too awesome to miss.  I am so glad I could have a whole day of hiking with no pain, AND another first– NO SNOW on the trail today!   Hooray!  

Walk to Rauros: Near high Emyn Muil, Orcs catch up and attack at night

Last night in the middle of the night, a whole pack of coyotes went by our camp, ‘talking” to each other in their weird coyote voices.  I grabbed my trek poles ready to “whomp on ‘em” if needed, but they just loped on by.  Coyotes don’t sound anything like dogs.  They almost sound human.  We were up at 5 am, hoping for lots of miles today.

Down below us to the east, there was huge Gold Lake shimmering in the early morning light.  Beautiful!  But as soon as we began hiking again,  the pain in the back of my right hip next to the spine just got worse and worse, till I was reduced to just limping along as fast as I could, yelping a bit when it hurt too much. To say I was miserable and frustrated would be an understatement. By 10:30 am, every time I put my right foot down, I was gasping from the pain and trying very hard not to cry.  I was kicking myself for not having checked my Motrin supply when we were in Sierra City–I was down to only 5 left, and decided to save those for the long, tough downhill to Belden.  So for now, it was pretty awful for me, painwise.

But we reached the wonderful “A Tree” spring with lots of cold, delicious water, and that was a really cheering-up event!  We drank and drank–it was awesome.  But back to hiking we went, and not only was I hurting, but there were snowfields on the trail again.  We actually crossed a little creek on a snow bridge on the north face of Gibraltar Peak!  And there were lots of blowdowns to negotiate, also.  But we cheered again at the top of a climb when at last we spotted the snowy peak of Mt. Lassen on the horizon!  Hooray! 

We also began meeting other hikers, and I tried hard to smile and give them a cheery greeting even though by now every step I took was agonizing, painwise.  Finally I felt like I couldn’t take it anymore, and I literally, out loud, cried out to God,  “PLEASE, please, Father, help me! Either heal my hip or show me what to do!”

A couple of minutes later, I had an idea.  “Maybe I could buy some Motrin from another hiker….”  I resolved to ask the next hiker who came along, and a few minutes later along came a SOBO guy!  I greeted him with, “Hi!  Hey, I have a little problem.  I’m almost out of Motrin, and I need more.  Could I buy some from you?”  “Sure!” he said, and we both took off our packs.  He rummaged about in his and hauled out his medicine kit.  “I’ve got something better than Motrin,” he said.  “How about Vicodin?”  I was shocked.  Vicodin is a prescription painkiller.  “Oh, I wouldn’t want to take from your prescription,” I said.  “Motrin is fine.”  But he insisted that he could get as much Vicodin as he wanted from his girlfriend who was a nurse, and not only that, but he insisted on giving it to me for free, along with more Motrin!    We told him about all the hiker-friendly amenities at the Red Moose in Sierra City, and he said he’d definitely stop there.  (He was hiking from Belden to Kennedy Meadows).  I took one of the Vicodin and we all headed our separate ways.

Within 30 minutes, my hip felt a lot better, and after an hour, I had no pain at all and could hike normally at full speed.  What a joy!  To be able to walk freely and happily along without limping and gasping at every step was a huge blessing.   I know Vicodin is not  a cure for whatever is wrong, but oh man, it feels so good to be able to just HIKE!  I walked along thanking God for His quick help.  I am so grateful!

The SOBO guy had also told us about a good water source up ahead.  When we got there,we followed his directions and were able to replenish our water supplies with more cold, delicious water from another spring.  It’s been a very warm day, with a lot of long uphills, so we needed that water!

And so we walked happily along the viewful ridges, and through forests and along Nelson Creek, before finally stopping for the day near the Bear Wallow trail, up above the Grass Valley Reservoir.  I was disappointed that we’d only done 25 miles–it felt like 30 (we are both very tired).  But it’s my fault–I was going so slowly this morning because of the pain in my hip.  I am totally grateful to God for His help–it never even occurred to me to ask another hiker for Motrin (I guess I was in too much pain to be thinking straight).  I am really looking forward to tomorrow!

Walk to Rauros: In ruins of weathered stone near the Emyn Muil

It was pretty dark in the forest in a creek canyon at 5:15 this morning– no problem– we were headed for breakfast in Sierra City! Oh yes! We passed Mr. Mountain Goat (just getting up) and reached the shortcut turnoff for town. My only disappointment as we headed briskly along on such a beautiful morning was that the back of my right hip is still really hurting anytime I have to walk downhill.  I finally “solved” it temporarily by walking as if  I were balancing something on my head.  I sure wish I knew what the problem is.  But the thought of “Hot breakfast!  Sierra City!” was enough to erase most any concern!

The walk into town is fun–through the campground (where a few people were just beginning to emerge sleepily from their tents) and then the interesting houses (some are log cabins), each with snowmobiles parked outside and covered with tarps for the summer.  Once at the highway, we headed for the Red Moose. Hmm– in the front window was a big “Sorry, we’re CLOSED” sign– but stuck on the window just above it was a little note that said “PCT People– knock or holler– we’re open for YOU!” And when we stuck our heads in the door, the place was full of hikers eating breakfast!

There was a menu, but most hikers were just saying, “give me one of everything!” We ate and ate and enjoyed talking to everybody.  The Red Moose’s new owners are awesome!  They let hikers camp in the backyard, take showers, do laundry, use their cell phone, and sort resupply boxes, all for free.  Wow!  More and more hikers kept arriving from the trail, and as each came in the door, all the rest of us would cheer and welcome them.  It was totally fun!  Eventually I went and got our  PO box, did a shopping run to the store and finally we headed out, walking the shoulder of Highway 49, back to the trail.

First thing, of course, is the big climb (4.5 hours) up and around the Sierra Buttes, on a hot day.  The first few miles are nice shady switchbacks, but eventually, the trail is out in the sun and it’s pretty rocky.  A trail crew was out doing some badly needed brushing work, and we thanked them heartily!  There was a moment of excitement as two jets flew by BELOW us, twisting and weaving their way along the canyon at treetop level. 

Finally we reached the top of the climb, and began meeting dayhikers, who were headed to and from Sierra Buttes.  Obviously they didn’t come in the way we did!  They park their cars at various other nearby access trailheads.  The north side of the Buttes still has snow on it, and there was snow by the trail, but none ON the trail (good!).  Once you are at the top, the route spends awhile as a “crest walk” looking down on all the lakes shimmering blue down below. At one point, we reached a trailhead parking area and it wasn’t clear where to go next.  We were standing around studying our maps, when some guys came along and set us straight–”Just follow the road to the Packer Lake turnoff.” 

So we did, and enjoyed the beautiful views as we walked along.  The mosquitoes were pretty bad,though.  As long as we keep moving we’re fine, but the minute we stop, we get swarmed.  The trail went up and down, and at every “up”, I was scanning the horizon for a sight of Mt. Lassen–no luck on that yet!  The wildflowers along the trail were very nice, but not as numerous as before.  This is rugged, rocky country, crisscrossed by many dirt roads, with dramatic volcanic rock formations along the crest of the ridges.  We’re back to having to be careful about water–the trail stays up high above the many lakes; creeks and springs on the trail are few.  So though we are no longer having to carry heavy bear cans, ice axes, crampons, etc., we do have to carry a pretty heavy water load.

We found what we thought would be a really nice campsite, flat and breezy on top of a ridge.  The sunset was beautiful–all red and gold.  Bill and I were doing our share of oohing and aahing as we watched it, and we weren’t the only ones–a car came by on a dirt road we didn’t even know was there, and a bunch of people got out to watch the sunset, too. 

But after the sun went down, the breeze stopped and the mosquitoes were back.  Bummer.  We are cowboy camped, and the thought of leaving our sleeping bags to put up the net tent (probably getting well chewed up in the process) was just too much.  So we just squiggled down into our bags and draped headnets over us.  I spent some time asking God for wisdom about how to fix my hip pain problem.  Every time I’ve asked before, He always has answered, and I am trusting that will be the case this time, too.   

Walk to Rauros: In ruins of weathered stone near the Emyn Muil

What a great place– staying at the Peter Grubb hut! It turned out we were all early risers (5 am), and everybody was eager to put a dent in the miles to Sierra City.  I asked Mr. Mountain Goat about what he’d been cooking last night that smelled so good, and that’s when I found out that the key ingredients were fresh garlic and “AUSSIE shiraz”.  He was also planning to make himself a really nice breakfast, so when Bill and I and Myra headed out for the trail, he headed for the kitchen!  He told me that by the time he reached Pooh Corner, he’d been just about ready to quit the PCT and go home to Australia, but then he decided, “No way will I let California ‘beat” me!  I am NOT going to let the ‘white demon’ (snow!) make me give up!” 

So off we went into a very chilly morning, through very green, very muddy meadows, with lingering patches of snow.  The trail goes up and down a lot (no “killer ups”, though) and at the top of every “up”, there is an awesome view.   I kept scanning the horizon for the Sierra Buttes, and pretty soon, there they were–a dramatic, jagged profile in the distance.

After that,  every “up” showed the Buttes getting closer. We were still dealing with some “where is the trail?” hunting in the snow on northfacing, shady slopes, but we always managed to find it again.  Everywhere we looked, there were mountains rising up from brilliantly green valleys.  Beautiful!  We also spent many hours crossing mountainsides that were covered with mules’ ears and lupines–very pretty, but after awhile, having to constantly push through them got a bit tedious. 

I cheered when I got to one of my favorite PCT spots, which I call “The Big Lava Dropoff”.  I wish I could think of a more colorful name, but that’s what it is–a very high cliff of lava that goes straight down to a lovely meadow below.  The PCT goes right along the edge of the cliff, which is also studded with huge lava boulders, and the views are great!  We stopped for lunch in the shade of a tree, and just as we finished, along came Mr. Mountain Goat, moving fast!  We followed him soon after, thinking about where to get water, since we were running low. 

Near  Jackson Reservoir, we met a retired couple out for a walk on the PCT and asked them whether the springs up ahead were running (we’d planned to get water there), and they said, “Yes, but why don’t you just go to the campground for water?  It’s less than a quarter mile off the trail.”  So we decided to do that, and were sitting near the water faucet eating Snickers and drinking “bug juice” (Emergen-C mixed with Crystalite) when the couple came along again and invited us to their camp!  It seems they’ve been camping here and watching for PCT hikers so that they can feed them and hear their stories! 

It turned out that they are from Texas, but like to camp here at Jackson Reservoir in their RV, accompanied by their big gray kitty, Chevy.  They gave us huge sandwiches with lots of lettuce & tomato,  lots of chips and drinks, and even some hot beans!  They told us that yesterday they got to hang out with two French-speaking thruhikers (one from France, one from Quebec) who were hiking together.  So we hung out for quite awhile,too, telling them tales of the High Sierra and other adventures we’ve had so far. 

We finally got going again (we really wanted to reach Sierra City for breakfast tomorrow!) and enjoyed following the PCT as it wound through an unbelievably rocky, rugged, scenic, narrow canyon.  A bit more climbing, and from that point on, it’s downhill all the way to Sierra City.  A lot of rocky switchbacks took us down to the bridge over Milton Creek, where there was flat, dirt ground for camping, and a nice pool in the creek!  It had been a long, hot day, and we were both very sweaty, so we stopped there, set up a cowboy camp, and Bill went for a “swim” (he is brave–that water was freeeeezing!) ) and I slooshed off.  

Mr. Mountain Goat came by–we must have passed him somewhere.  He said he was going to camp soon, too.  When we got into our sleeping bags, it felt so good to be clean, and the creek was making a pleasant, quiet sound, not the whitewater roar of the High Sierra creeks.  I am a bit worried about the back of my right hip, though.  It hurts!  Motrin keeps the pain tolerable, but I don’t know why it hasn’t gone away.  Downhills are what gives me a problem–uphills are fine.  Coming down the switchbacks to our nice camp here by the creek, it started to hurt a fair amount.   All I can do is pray about it and keep going.  But what a great thought–”Sierra City for breakfast!” 

Walk to Rauros: Reach lowlands between the Downs and Emyn Muil

No sleeping in at Pooh Corner! At 5:45, Bill Person turned on the lights and started breakfast, while all the bodies that had been sleeping all over the floor began to revive.  At Pooh Corner, if you want to sleep in, you need to camp in the garage or out on the dock!  Otherwise, you HAVE to get up, like it or not.  The breakfast was totally worth getting up for–a feast of gourmet coffee, eggs with cheese, bacon, etc., piles of pancakes, bowls of fruit salad…wow!

The first shuttle run to the PCT was at 6:30, but after I’d stuffed myself with as much food as I could hold, I sat down in a corner and started the major repair on Bill’s pack. The extension collar is just plain trashed (UV damage) and in effect, I had to make and attach a whole new one, all by hand,  plus there were many other rips & tears to fix.  Bill is rough on his pack!!  The sewing job took me all morning, and eventually I was kicked out of my corner because they needed to vacuum, so I moved out on the deck.  Bill was out kayaking on the lake; other hikers went canoeing (we found out later that they went off to the other side of the lake,  where they could get their “alcohol fix” without breaking the Pooh Corner rules).

Shortly after I went to the deck, there was a medical “crisis”.  Bill Person handled it very well–he’s trained in first aid, since he does search & rescue in the Donner Lake area.  One of the hikers was cleaning his contact lenses, and apparently he didn’t dilute the cleaning solution properly, because when he went to put the lens in his eye, it immediately created a disastrous reaction.  Bill rushed him outside, sat him in a chair, had him lean his head back and literally began pouring water over the affected eye.  He did this for quite some time before finally putting some drops into the eye.  Then he gave the hiker a very fervent, short lecture on, “If your eye starts hurting again, you need to get to a doctor ASAP.”  The hiker responded with “But I don’t have medical insurance.”  Bill Person’s response was very blunt.  “It is better to spend $300 to see a doctor than to spend the rest of your life with one eye blind!!”

It took several hours to finish fixing Bill’s pack.  Then I turned to mending my pants–they needed it!  By the time I was done, I’d used up just about all my thread.  Whenever I could, I tried to snack on high calorie food.  I look like I’m anorexic.  It is scary.  The other thing that worried me a little was that every time I have to walk DOWN anything (there are a lot of stairs here at Pooh Corner, so lots of opportunities to walk down!), the back of my right hip hurts.  Not sure what it is.  I loaded up our packs with food from our resupply box, plus the hiker box and I even scavenged a few things from the house (items that were about to be tossed).

Bill and I had decided to return to the trail today, and Bill Person has a thing about being READY to roll when he does a run to the trail, so I got our packs all loaded up and set by the garage door.  Then we ate a big lunch.  The next trail run was due for 3:00, so while we waited,  Bill took a nap and I found a cozy sunpatch where I read a book.  Three o’clock came and went, with no sign of Bill Person.  But a bit before 4:00pm, he came back just as some hikers called from the trailhead.  “Trail shuttle leaving NOW!” was the call, and we hopped in the car along with the Aussie, Mr. Mountain Goat, who was in such a hurry that he didn’t even have time to tie his shoes.

It felt so good to be back on the trail!  The PCT in Southern CA was tough, the Sierras were pretty brutal, but now we feel like we’re free to just “sail”!  It is a good feeling!  The trail tread after Hwy. 40 goes winding and twisting among rocks and pondlets and wildflowers, till it reaches the tunnel under Hwy 80 and begins a nice easy climb through the forest up to Castle Pass.  At the top, we were faced with a typical dilemma…trails going in every direction and no clear indication which one was the PCT.  A compass and the map soon settled that question!   

 As we headed down the pass, I started thinking, “Maybe we could stay at the Peter Grubb Hut tonight”.  By 7:00 we weren’t far away from it, and just a bit farther took us to the Hut side trail.  It is an awesome place with comfortable sleeping loft  upstairs (Mattresses!  Hooks to hang your food bags!  Fun photos of folks staying there when the snow is so deep you can just step out the upstairs window!) and a rustic kitchen downstairs, complete with pots ‘n pans, firewood, and even spices & seasonings. 

We’d just finished laying out our sleeping bags and hanging our packs, when along came Mr. Mountain Goat.  He headed for the kitchen and began cooking up something that smelled incredibly good.  Along came grandma-age Myra, also, and so there were 4 of us to spend the night, very comfortably.  I had to laugh at the outhouse–it has two levels, one at the ground level (which we used) and the other at secondstory level (for when it’s deep winter snow).  What a fun place!  That makes TWO nights in a hut for us–Muir Hut and Peter Grubb Hut.  I definitely like huts!  

Walk to Rauros: In the Downs and Hills of the Wold

Up, up we went this morning, up to the backside of Tinker’s Knob, and fabulous views. We stopped for breakfast with another fabulous view, and the three Israeli hikers came by. “Are you going to Pooh Corner?” they asked. “Yes!” So we hatched a plan of all going together, since one of them had a cell phone and could call Bill & Molly Person.  We all hiked along quickly, running on “town moto”, but I knew that up ahead when the trail headed down to Highway 40, it would be slow going for me, with a very rocky tread.

I remembered how frustrated I got in 2005, doing my best to hurry down to the highway, but having to go slowly because of all the rocks.  So when we got to the rocky downhill, I told Bill and the Israelis, “Don’t wait for me.  I’ll catch up with you eventually.”  They took off, zipping right down the rocks, and I figured that while they were waiting around for a ride to Pooh Corner, I’d make it down OK.  And I did, but getting down to Hwy 40 involved climbing around a huge icy snowfield in addition to negotiating the very rocky trail.  I met lots of dayhikers and their dogs heading up the trail and enjoying the awesome views and flowers. Even though I was picking my way down, I loved hearing train whistles below as the engines chugged over Donner Pass.

Down at the trailhead, the rest of the gang were waiting for Molly Person from Pooh Corner to  come to get us, and checking out a cache that consisted of a cooler with a couple of bottles of wine!  There was a note inside that said Pooh Corner does not allow any alcohol, but if you call this OTHER trail angel who lives on the other side of Donner Lake, you can stay at her place and have wine and beer if you want.  We didn’t care–we heard the food at Pooh is awesome (and indeed it was!)  When Molly arrived, she only had room to take 4 of us, and Evan (the guy Israeli) gallantly volunteered to wait at the trail so that Bill and I and the two girls could go first.

So pretty soon we were at the famous Pooh Corner by Donner Lake.   I walked in and just loved it. The house is right by the lake, and is multilevel, with a rockclimbing wall and fun circular stairs.  But I was totally exhausted, and when I took a shower I had a good look at myself and was horrified.  I was literally down to skin and bones, to the point where I was scared.  I resolved to eat and eat as much as I could, and that was no problem!   There was food everywhere!

  So I started our laundry and  collapsed in a cozy corner under the stairs.  I wasn’t the only one–every couch had a sleeping thruhiker on it, and more were out by the dock.  Once I lay down I realized how completely tired out I was, and when Bill Person returned home and started recruiting volunteers to help make dinner, I didn’t move.  (For me, that was totally weird–my family says I need a T-shirt that says, “Stop me before I volunteer again”!)  Dinner turned out to be over-the-top-awesome!  Some of the hikers began to grump to each other about the  “no alcohol” rule and that Bill Person was too bossy and loud.  I was too tired to care. Bill and I discussed whether we dare take a zero tomorrow or should we keep hiking?  I know that we need to stay at least till I can repair Bill’s pack.  It is a mess.  I went up to the garage to the hiker boxes and found some silnylonish fabric I could use.

Our daughter and son-in-law who live in Reno came over for a visit this evening, and the four of us went and sat out on the dock to enjoy the sunset and the lovely view of the lake.  The Person’s nephew, who is the official “Brownie Master” (he keeps fresh hot brownies coming all day long) was swimming with one of the hikers–splash, splash, yell, yell!  Bill was disappointed because he’d hoped to go sailing, but the Pooh Corner sailboat centerboard is having issues, so the boat is not available.  Oh well…there were plenty of other watercraft available. 

At 9 pm, the rule at Pooh Corner is “lights out!” unless you go down to the dock or up to the garage.  Bill and I claimed a spot of rug and crashed.  The house was full of hikers, and the Persons are very strict not just about no alcohol, but also no noise or lights after 9 pm.  Again, there was quiet grumping about this, but Bill and I were glad!  It meant we could sleep in peace, and boy, did we need that sleep!  We both feel profoundly tired.

Walk to Rauros:  Downs on both sides of the river

I LOVE our net tent!  Crowds of mossies were hovering over us all night long.  Yesterday Bill was talking to the Israelis, and they were joking about, “I wonder if the mosquitoes do shift work??!!”  It is wonderful to have a little tent that’s lightweight, quick and easy to set up, that ensures a good night’s sleep without being eaten alive!

But we had to plan carefully getting underway this morning, since hordes of mosquitoes were waiting for us outside the net tent! We stowed our sleeping bags and gear, put on “full mosquito garb” (headnets and raingear), and then opened the tent door and ventured out into the humming hordes.  A couple of minutes walk took us to Richardson Lake, where we met one of the Israeli girls.  She said “I hear the mosquitoes are not so bad after Barker Pass.”  We all fervently hope so!  It’s a long climb up to the pass, on a muddy trail that goes through very damp forest.

 But there were compensations– intensely green new bracken fronds, wildflowers, and a sighting of a tiny little furry baby creature trying to run across the trail.  It had started to cross just as we arrived, but the minute it spotted us, it began to cry the most piteous tiny cries, and ran frantically around, obviously in total terror.  I got out my camera to try for a picture, and the poor little guy squeezed under a lupine plant by the trail, then literally lay there shivering and shaking.  I didn’t want to scare it too much, so I just pushed a couple of leaves back and took a pic of its back.  Poor little baby!  I’m not too hopeful for it surviving, though, if that’s how it behaves when it’s scared.

On the way up to Barker Pass, there is a road crossing, and when we reached it we encountered a whole contingent of PCT thruhikers, including the Israelis, who’d passed us awhile back, and a whole bunch more, including some Aussies.  Everyone looked tired and trailworn.  What amazed me was that for the whole rest of the day, none of them ever caught up with us, even though they are young and fast, and the trail was often rough, rocky, snowy & steep, which means I am slow.  I guess they really were tired!!

By10 am we reached Barker Pass.  Several cars were parked at the trailhead, and another arrived as we passed through.  We began to meet CLEAN, chipper backpackers!  One very enthusiastic chap told us “There’s a fab view of Tahoe right up ahead!”  No kidding!  The PCT after Barker Pass is one of my absolute favorite parts of the whole trail.  I call it  the “Tahoe Crest Walk.” How can I even begin to describe this fabulous section of the trail? The views are stunning–360 degrees for miles in every direction. You can see the boats on Tahoe, there are fields of wildflowers, huge dramatic rock formations and the wind blowing nice and cool. And it’s fun to look down on all the different ski resorts as you pass by.  The only bummer is that the trail is often rocky and rough, so I had to spend a lot of time looking at the trail so as not to stumble, and had less time to look at the awesome views.

We stopped for lunch in a grove of trees, out of the wind, and just as we finished eating, along came a really nice couple out for a walk with their big dog.  (I thought about asking if the dog would like to lick our cooking pot clean, because he eagerly scarfed up two noodles that fell on the trail!)

Eventually we went down many switchbacks to 5 Lakes Creek (Wow!  You could see the trout there!) The PCT promptly began a killer climb back up again, during which it twice crosses the Tevis Trail.  I have a friend who participates in a horse trail race on Tevis, but we didn’t see any horses on it today.  At the top of the climb was the Squaw Valley ski area, with lifts and trails and buildings.  The gondola was still running–we could see it just across from us while we ate supper.  Then we continued following the PCT as it wound its way through huge boulders, with more snow-on-trail, till we were down to Squaw Creek.  We camped near there in 2005, but this time, there was a large group of backpackers setting up camp already. 

So we kept going (it was too early to stop, anyway) and  began the big climb up to Tinker’s Knob. We made it to about a mile from the top and got a nice campsite on a little bench tucked into the mountainside, in a grove of trees. There was a  little creek nearby, so Bill took a bath, and I slooshed off as best I could.  The mosquitoes were not bad at all, hooray!  And then when I saw we’d done almost 26 miles, I was pleased and amazed. With all the rough trail, long uphills, and yes, still snow traverses, we did not think we’d done so well.

What a great place to camp!  It’s so pretty here, the birds are singing sleepily, and the sunset is a gorgeous orange-gold.  I would recommend this section of the PCT to anybody and everybody!  It is so beautiful!

Walk to Rauros:  Nearing the South Downs, Gollum continues to follow

We passed 1,100 miles today! But wow, it was a tough 24 miles! It felt more like 34 miles! For many miles this morning, the PCT was unbelievably rocky and rough.

We had a good night’s sleep in our net tent with the mossies whining around outside, wishing they could get at us!  Once we got underway, it was a lovely morning.   Echo Lake was very peaceful– no motorboats this early, and the water was all silvery in the early morning light.   We passed the “water taxi” sign on a tree, and I will say this–if you ever think your life is boring and you want a thrill, well come to Echo Lake and ride the water taxi!  We saw it in action yesterday, and whoever it is that “drives” the taxi, well,  he drives like Jehu!  Wild! 

Picking our way along the very rocky trail, we finally reached  Lake Aloha with its many islands, in its very High Sierra-looking setting of snowy granite peaks.  There was enough snow by the lake that we lost the PCT for a few minutes.  The day was rapidly becoming very warm, and some folks were already swimming!  They must be tough–that water was snowmelt!  I wondered how bad the snow was going to be up on Dick’s Pass.

Then we made “the big right turn”, where for awhile we headed down to other lakes, notably Heather Lake and Susie Lake.  We took a Snickers break at Susie Lake with its rugged backdrop of Jack’s Peak, and Bill decided to go swimming!  So our 15 minutes turned into more like half an hour.  I tried going into the water myself a little bit, but backed off.  Coooooold!  Off we went again, starting the big climb  to Dick’s Pass. I figured, “Well, pretty soon I’ll probably be getting out my ice axe!”

On the way up, we met the two littlest, cutest “trail dogs” I have ever seen!  Their names were Poky and Toby–two tiny Yorkies.  Their proud owners said that the tiny pair of dogs have done lots of miles, and commented, “You don’t need one of those big slobbery dogs to hike with!”   As we climbed higher, the trail got wetter and muddier.  At one point we met a ranger lady digging diligently with her shovel, trying to divert some of the water off the trail tread.  We kept on chugging, admiring the gnarly, twisted trees–sort of giant bonsais–that manage to survive in the severe conditions up here. 

Finally, right about noon, we reached the summit of Dick’s Pass, and what a joke!  As it turned out, the snow on the pass wasn’t bad at all, and all sorts of folks were up there, including a whole troop of Girl Scouts making a snowman and throwing snowballs! The trees on top are so dwarfed that it’s like being in a Christmas tree plantation, so with the snow it was Christmas-y. After a nice break, we headed down the other side, which was totally covered with snow, but so many people had tramped on it that the trail was very easy to follow. Downhill we went, past Dick’s Lake and Middle Velma Lake, then it was back to trail-wandering-through-forest, with lots of mosquitoes.  Actually, the trail wandered so much that at one point, I began to worry whether we were still on the PCT, but a hiker we met confirmed that we were still on course.  Whew! 

The farther we went, the worse the mossies got.  Both Bill and I were hiking in headnets.  Along came a small group of backpackers, looking rather unhappy and swatting at the mosquitoes.  The lead guy stopped right in front of me.  “Hi!” he said.  “I sure could use a headnet like that right now.  I’ll give you a thousand bucks for yours…no, make that TWO thousand.  Seriously!”   I just laughed and said, “No way, Jose!”   There is NO way I would ever consider hiking in these conditions without my headnet!  The trail continued on through viewless forest for much of the afternoon.  Sometimes it was dry forest (nice!) and sometimes it was a swamp (muddy trail, clouds of mosquitoes!)  At one point, we heard a tree come crashing down in the forest off to our left.  We’ve been around falling trees before, and the moment we hear that first crackle of breaking branches, we instantly freeze and get ready to leap out of the way.  This time, hooray, it was a decent distance away from us.

At our afternoon Snickers break, Bill constructed a wooden “prosthetic” for his trek pole, since the tip had broken off. He now has BOTH trek poles operating with “wooden legs”, which we find rather funny. We made camp tonight near a dirt road above Richardson Lake with hordes of mosquitoes. We were very tired, and groaned at the thought of having to rig the tarp-net tent combo.( The net tent was constructed to HANG under the tarp, not stand up by itself.)   But then Bill said, “Wait, I think I can rig just the net tent.”  And he did it!  It’s a simple rig, very nifty, using two crossed trek poles.

While we were doing this, along came the three Israelis, Noga, Shani and Evan, all in headnets and moving fast!  They camped not far from us.   So we crawled into our sleeping bags and crashed, serenaded by the indignant whining of hordes of mossies.   Only 38 more miles and we’ll be at Donner Lake and Pooh Corner!  I was very happy to see we’d made good mileage today, and I am so glad Bill figured out a way to easily rig the net tent!

Walk to Rauros:  Reach the edge of the eastern part of South Undeep

The birds started singing really early this morning–it was nice to hear them!  The PCT in the Sierras is up so high most of the time that there really aren’t many birds.  It was great to hear that early morning “choir sing”.  Unfortunately, last night, all night, we were subjected to the “other” choir–mosquito whines.  There were plenty of them, and we’d been too tired to set up the net tent, so I got pretty well chewed up, and didn’t get much sleep.  Oh well–”On to Carson Pass!” we said as we hit the trail this morning, thinking it would be an easy cruise to breakfast at the visitor center.

Nope! The trail had other ideas. It had a lot of uphill (puff! pant!) and a number of icy snowfields to cross. Bill chopped steps for me with the ice axe.  I’d been thinking about getting shed of the ice axe at Echo Lake, but seeing so much snow, I started to be concerned about Dick’s Pass up above Tahoe.  “I think I’ll keep the ice axe awhile longer,”  I decided.  Some of the snowfields we encountered this morning were small enough that we could go around them, slipping and sliding on steep scree.  I’d rather slip ‘n slide on scree than on hard, icy snow!  But there was compensation–wildflowers of every color, glowing in the early morning light.  Beautiful!  I tried to take photos of them, but no camera can do justice to such amazing light.

The closer you get to Carson Pass, the better the trail, and the views are wonderful. When we reached the visitor center it was 7:30  am, but the volunteers were already there.  Last time we arrived here, the volunteers practically fell over themselves offering us fresh fruit, etc.  This pair, an older husband & wife, told us that yes, they did have fruit, etc., but we would have to wait till they finished setting up everything at the center.  No problem–we settled down at the picnic table to eat our usual breakfast of granola & freezedried fruit.

Then another set of volunteers arrived.  They took one look at us and said, “PCT thruhikers!!  Howsit going?  Want some fruit?” and before we knew it, the picnic table was laden with peaches, bananas, cherries and sodas.  Yum, yum!  And just then, a bunch of other thruhikers popped out of the woods, so we were all sitting there feasting, and VERY grateful to the Carson Pass volunteers!  Everybody was on a tear to get to Echo Lake.  Trouble & Dude are determined to make it by 2 pm, and all the rest of us are saying, “Oh, whatever!  All we care is that we’ll get there sometime today.”

One of the volunteers had mentioned that “When you get to the top of the climb out of here, you’ll get your  first view of Lake Tahoe”.  And yes indeed, there it was–blue, blue Tahoe!  Beautiful! Wildflowers were everywhere, and lots of dayhikers with their very happy dogs.  The trail took us down into what I call “Ponderosa Meadows”, complete with rustic ranch buildings and lots of creek crossings.  One of them was the Truckee River, but I’m not sure which one–there were so many!  There was still snow on all the mountains around us, and when the trail climbed back up again, sure enough, we were dealing with snow once more–nothing very bad, but it did slow me down.  It was a very warm day, and I was glad whenever we got to some shade.  There were big piled-up thunderclouds to the east, and after awhile, we began to hear the sound of thunder, but didn’t see any lightning. 

My sore right ankle was feeling much better, which was very encouraging!.  Eventually we began “the big downhill” to Echo Sno-Park. I remembered this from 2005 as horribly rough and rocky– and it still is. For me, that means very slow going. Sigh. But we made it, and did enjoy the views of Lake Tahoe on the way down. Even though the trail is very rocky, it  is very pretty and green.  Finally we were back “on the flat”, walking along near the snow park, and I was just commenting to Bill, “Well, we’re almost to Highway 50, but it’s still a ways to Echo Lake,” when oh no!  I twisted my sore ankle AGAIN on a little rock in the otherwise smooth trail.  It really hurt!  From that point on, I was limping badly and yelping  when the ankle bent even a little bit.  I was really bummed about it.  At the parking lot near the highway, we saw Granite and Terrapin trying to “yogi” a ride from dayhikers.  We told them it was often easier to get a ride down to South Lake Tahoe from Echo Lake Resort, and they said  they might do that if they had no luck at the snow park.  On we went, me limping badly, as the PCT spent quite some time parallelling Highway 50.  Once we’d crossed the highway, it was another 1.5 miles to Echo Lake, and it was obvious that Bill was itching to get there.  So I told him, “Go for it–I’ll get there when I can,” and he soon disappeared into the woods. 

By now it was a very hot afternoon, and I was sweaty, hurting and pretty miserable.  What if the ankle turned out to be serious enough to force me to stop hiking?  Since I was all by myself, I did sniffle a bit and did ask God to please help me be brave and please help the ankle to recover.  By the time I got to Echo Lake, I was more or less a wreck.  I saw Bill–he’d picked up our resupply box–but all I could think was “Cold drinks!”  I mumbled something at Bill about “See you in a minute” and headed straight into the store to buy a pink grapefruit juice and an orange juice.  Then I sort of staggered back outside and collapsed on the picnic bench where a number of hikers were gathered.  I did nothing for awhile but steadily sip the cold juice.  Oh man, did it taste good!!

Finally I felt recovered enough to chat with the other hikers.  Most of them were busy “spiffing” to make themselves presentable enough to hitch rides into town.  All the other hikers are much younger than we are–they were full of vim and vigor, and talking excitedly about the buffets and casinos of South Lake Tahoe.  Bill and I went down there in 2005, and though it was nice to rest in a motel and eat at the buffets, we had agreed it wasn’t worth the bother of getting there and back.  The two Israeli girls, Noga and Shani, hung around for a long time, talking to people.  When they decided to get an ice cream shake, they had a hard time deciding what flavor to choose out of the HUGE menu of possibilities.  They finally went for fresh raspberry, and said it was really good! 

Bill and I got two huge, fantastic sandwiches, and went to sit and eat in the shade at the side of the store.  Leaning on the wall, we ate and discussed what to do next.  The post office was closed, and would not reopen till 11 am tomorrow. We had bear cans to mail home, but Bill did not want to wait around that long. With my very sore ankle, I DID want to wait.  In the end, though, I told Bill I’d talk to the store people and see if there was a way to mail the bear cans today.  It took some doing, but finally I was able to talk to the store manager, who also runs the post office, and she agreed to take the bear cans!  So we loaded the cans with our Microspikes and Yak Trax, and waved them GOODBYE!  Two old ladies were sitting and eating ice cream by the post office window, and I had to explain to them why we were so happy to get rid of those strange black cans!

I made one last try at persuading Bill to camp at Echo Lake (I was thinking about how nice it would be to just camp now and get a good rest before starting early in the morning, but he was very determined to hike on.  So I sat in the shade (it was still hot) sorting food into the food bags.  Then I got one more cold juice drink before we hit the trail again at 6 pm.  I was worried about where on earth we could camp.  There are cabins all along the lake for quite a distance.  But when we started hiking, I was very pleased to discover that my sore ankle felt MUCH better.  I guess the 3+ hours of rest had really helped!  

The walk around Echo Lake is so pretty, and it was especially beautiful in the evening light.  We made it almost all the way past the lake before the sun went down, and at that point, we snuck off the trail into a flat place surrounded by bushes, to set up a stealth camp.  We could hear the boats on the lake and the dogs in the cabins barking, but nobody knew where we were, except the mosquitoes!   We set up the net tent so we could sleep in peace.  I was desperately tired, and the thought of another night with mosquitoes chewing on me was just too much.  Hooray for the net tent!  And there was a beautiful sunset.  I lay in my sleeping bag and listened to the voices of evening hikers going by on the trail, and thought about how great it was that tomorrow, I’ll be able to carry a much lighter pack. 

Walk to Rauros:  High wolds of the Brown Lands, Gollum grows more daring

  Bill and I had a really good night’s sleep last night, and commented as we were packing up this morning, “You know, that’s the first campsite we’ve had in quite awhile where we weren’t within sound of rushing water!”  And we hadn’t gone far this morning, when whom should we meet heading SOBO but Wyoming! We had not seen her for weeks. Turns out that she and some friends had flipped up to Ashland and were headed south. It was great to see her!  Wyoming said that as it turned out, they may not have saved themselves much “snow grief”, because the Siskyous, Marbles and Trinities were full of snow AND lots of blowdowns on the trail, which made for awfully tough going.  We were so relieved to see she was OK!

We reached Ebbett’s Pass just as a sweet old guy came driving by.  He stopped his car to talk to us, and we told him about hiking the PCT.  He was fascinated, and wished us well before heading on.   There was a sign beside the trail at the road which said there was a trail angel 300 yards to the west, so we walked up to check it out, hoping for maybe a nice breakfast??   But no luck.  There was no sign of anybody. 

 So we headed back to the PCT and started out on what I call “The Vulcan Geology Walk.” For miles we walked along the base of a row of amazing volcanic pinnacles and domes. We could see the Carson valley in the distance– the wildflowers were awesome.  Eventually the trail turned left and headed right through the volcanics and into a land of what I can only call “pumice hills”, where there were still some snow traverses to do on northfacing hillsides.  We were leapfrogging with Granite and Terrapin most of the day.

As the morning went on, it became increasingly hot, and we were very glad that the trail sometimes wound through dark groves of huge trees, where the shade was very welcome!  But in the afternoon, the PCT settled into a long uphill winding through big boulders in a forest with no views till finally we were out in the open again, walking through open pumice fields, around a peak called “The Nipple”, with a stiff wind blowing.   My right ankle began to ache very badly from all the rocky trail, so when we stopped for supper in the lee of a single gnarly tree, I took some Motrin to help.

But sore ankle and gusty wind could not take away from the fact that our views of the Blue Lakes down below were awesome. We finally reached the top of the climb, and of course there were more snowfields to cross as we went down, but they weren’t too bad.  Good!  Trying to walk on snow with a sore ankle isn’t fun!  When we were still up fairly high, we met Terrapin filtering water from a creek by the trail.  She said she and Granite had stopped for the day, and that they’d located “marginal” camping in the trees nearby.  She said there was room for us, too, but Bill wanted to keep going and camp lower down.  Despite taking 2 Motrin, my ankle was really bothering me, so I was sort of limping along behind Bill as best I could.   

We kept on going till we found a nice quiet spot in a little grove of trees, with a tolerable mosquito level.  “I think I shall call today ‘Lava Day’, “  I said.  “We sure have been in the lava!  And the best wildflower display yet, too!”  Actually, this section of the trail after Ebbett’s Pass really is very beautiful and interesting, with its gnarly trees, awesome flowers of every color, lava formations and beautiful lakes.  But I was also thinking, ”Echo Lake tomorrow!  No more bear cans!”

Walk to Rauros:  Boromir grows increasingly anxious, Gollum is spotted with a log

No mosquitoes last night! And none till this afternoon! And for a good several hours this morning, the trail just cruised along through gorgeous scenery. It was a total joy to be hiking on such a morning! I was thinking, “Wow! At this rate we might make 27 miles!”

We spent a good while this morning walking along the Carson River canyon.  It’s a very pretty place–very forested, but with occasional open spots where the views were wonderful. And the trail was easy, too.  But alas, all good things do come to an end.  The PCT made a left turn and began to seriously CLIMB!  From that point on, it felt as if we were climbing for the whole rest of the day (not really true–there were some downhills!).  But what makes uphills hard for us is that our packs are so heavy with the bear cans, ice axe, etc.  Bill and I are SO looking forward to getting back to  “regular ol’ base weight”.

But uphill grind or not, there is no denying that the scenery was gorgeous–what a mixture of granitic and volcanic!  You can be walking along a trail that winds through big granite boulders, then suddenly you’re on pumice-y stuff, or looking at what’s obviously a volcano.  Peak 9500 is a prime example, and the PCT gets up close ‘n personal with that extinct volcano cone.  We saw other formations that looked like Devil’s Postpile.  Also amazing was the effect of the orange-colored lichen growing on the gnarly, twisted lava boulders–it made them look as if they were still molten lava!  And the higher we got, the more open the forest was, and there were stunning views of snowclad peaks all along the horizon.  Every meadow we came to was a deep, intense green, and wildflowers were everywhere.

As we were hiking along near Peak 9500, we met a whole group of Boy Scouts and their fearless leaders, taking a break beside the trail.  “Hi!” sang out one of the leaders.  “You guys want some ice cream?”   Ice cream!!??  How on earth could they possibly have ice cream?  But we weren’t about to turn down an ice cream opportunity.  “We sure do want ice cream!” I said.  “Do you have some?”   “Weeeelll, actually not,” said the leader.  “But we know where you can get some.”   “OK, where is it?”  (I had visions of maybe a trail angel up ahead at a road crossing).  “Weeelll, actually we just heard a rumor that there’s a Mc D’s up ahead a couple of miles off the trail.”   

OK, OK, so these Scouts were a bunch of practical jokers.  But that wasn’t all.  It turned out that the group we’d just been talking to was only half the Scout troop.  After we’d walked on for just a couple of minutes, we met the other half of the Scouts, hiking right along, but grinning evilly and carrying big snowballs!  We had no problem figuring out what they planned to do with those snowy missiles when they caught up with the rest of their gang.  It was actually rather tempting to turn around and follow them, just to watch the fun!

As we continued our climb, the trail unfortunately did have some issues. Periodically we went through stretches of deep woods, where snow lingered, plus every northfacing slope had plenty of snow left.  This did slow us down (my fault, as usual).  We stopped for lunch in a clump of determined trees that were clinging way up high on a sagebrushy hillside.  No mosquitoes!  We could eat in peace!  Then we spent the afternoon on a long, tiring climb up to the saddle by Tryon Peak.  There were many remnants of old cow fence–slowly rotting old posts, but no barbed wire.   There were still a few old cow pies, too.  When we reached the top of the saddle and looked down the other side, we groaned–it was northfacing, and full of snow.  The PCT headed off to the right, into a snow-piled white fir forest.  But–we could see Noble Lake down in the valley below.

 So we said “Phooey!” and went straight down, aiming at the lake, where we knew we could find the PCT again.  It worked!  We got to the lakeshore in time to eat supper, and only a few mosquitoes joined us!  Granite and Terrapin passed us while we were eating, and we were soon after them, following the long series of switchbacks down the lava field mountainside with its dramatic volcanic outcrops.

Then– oh my! The outlet creek of Noble Lake (which we had to cross) was a roaring whitewater torrent, charging all over the trail. Yikes! But we knew that Granite and Terrapin had made it through, so surely we could, too.  Bill went first, very carefully, and immediately found that though it LOOKED very roaring and impressive, it actually wasn’t deep at all.  “That wasn’t  too bad,” he said.   So I waded across without a problem.  Whew!  “Next flat place we get to, we camp!” we vowed. We were very tired.  

But after the outlet creek crossing, the trail headed up and up on more steep mountainsides–no flat places available!  I went into what I call “hike ‘n scan” mode, where I am hiking at less than full speed, while simultaneously looking everywhere for someplace with camping potential.  After a little while, I noticed a possibility up ahead and was very happy–but when we got there, oh dear!  Granite and Terrapin had beat us to it, and there was only room for them on the tiny bit of “flat”.  We waved and pushed on for awhile longer before I spotted a tiny bit of a campsite in a grove of trees perched on the rocky mountainside.  The mossies were waiting to welcome us, but Bill said,  “No putting up the net tent.  I am too tired.”  So we just threw down a cowboy camp and crawled into our sleeping bags.  We were totally wiped out.

Walk to Rauros:  Still in Brown Lands, river broadens

Well, I guess you could say today was “snow day”–lots and lots of it, including plenty of  traverses across STEEP snow on mountainsides!  But yahoo!   We made it up and over Sonora Pass, our last big pass.

Last night the mossies stayed up all night, humming around our net tent.  When I had to get up and go to “the bathroom” at 4:45 am,  they swarmed me and I got lots of bites.  Grrrr!  When it was time to pack up this morning, we had to wear full raingear plus headnets to protect ourselves from the mossie squadrons.   Well, we did expect this, having heard from other thruhiker journals that this is typical Sierras-in-July.

The hiking today began with a nice walk through the forest, then the climbing began.  The higher we went, the more the terrain opened up, and the views were increasingly gorgeous.  Not only that, but once we were up above timberline and out in the breeze–no more mosquitoes!  We began to meet other hikers, and began another day of leapfrogging with Barak and Uri, two guys from Israel. It took a bit of hunting for trail in the snow going up, but there were no steep traverses.  Everything on this side of Sonora Pass is very rounded and sort of mellow.  We took the “shortcut trail” , though, which goes straight up, and OK, that was steep, and I had the ice axe out again.  As usual, Bill just headed right up, and I was slow.  But wow, the views from the top were stupendous! Sierra peaks, all snowy, dominated the horizon to the south, and the dramatic volcanics of the Sonora Pass area were everywhere else.  Many hikers say (and I am inclined to agree) that Sonora Pass is the “best” of all the High Sierra passes.

But large snowfields were everywhere (in fact, we walked by the place where we camped in 2005, and it was covered with snow).  All the trail signs were buried.  As we started down the far side of the pass, we caught up with Uri and Barak, who were worried and frustrated.  They desperately wanted to take pictures of the spectacular scenery, but weren’t sure if their camera was working.  It seems that on the last big creek crossing (where even Bill had trouble with the current),  Uri was knocked down by the river and though he managed to swim ashore, his camera got soaked.  Mostly he and Barak were worried about the camera memory card, because it had ALL their pics starting all the way back in Campo!  So we did a test.  They took the memory card out of Uri’s camera and we put it in ours and checked to see if it was working.  Hallelujah!   It worked! Uri and Barak practically did a victory dance right there on the trail.  They were able to take pics of Sonora Pass, and everything was OK. 

Leaving a very happy Israeli duo, Bill and I headed on into the snow.  We immediately saw that  the PCT is routed (of course) to go on the shadiest, snowiest slopes. So much of today was snow traversing on (thank God!) nice snow, perfect for walking.  We met lots of people–a bunch of SOBO’s, who had skipped up to Ashland and headed south from there, to give the Sierras more time to melt.  It was fun to see them all, and an amazing sight to see so many hikers, after days of being “just us.”  Since I am slow on snow, a number of other hikers finally caught up with us–Dude & Trouble, and Granite & Terrapin.

We ate lunch hunkered down behind some stunted trees, and  that was our last meal of the day, because we both agreed that we did not want to stop and camp till we were “below snow and above mosquitoes”, as Bill put it.  By 3:15pm, we reached the road at Sonora Pass, and there was Thomas, a trail angel with carrots, water, snacks, offer of a ride to town, AND a big black plastic garbage bag. “Give me your garbage!” he said, and we were very glad to hand it over!

Many hikers go off the trail here and into town, but we pushed on, headed up our last climb of the day.  The snow was not bad, since it was on the south side of the mountain, and the views were great!  So were the wildflowers–blooming in every crack and cranny.  The rocks are no longer “granitic” but “volcanic”, so we knew we were making progress north!  We climbed past the dramatic “Pinnacles”, then a little while later and we were at the top, cheering because it was our last time at 10,000 feet!   While we were standing around taking pictures and cheering, some other hikers came along and asked why we were celebrating so much.  We explained that this was the last time the PCT goes up to 10,000 feet.  “Oh!” they said, and out came the camera phone.  “Tell us about it–we’ll film you!”  So we did a rerun of cheering and celebrating–”Last time at 10,000! (wave all 10 fingers)  Last time at 10,000!”

But from that point, the PCT route down to the Carson River stayed on the NORTH side of the valley.  The south side was snowfree, but we were back to hunting for trail in the snow (slow and frustrating!) until we finally stopped at about 7:30.  We had succeeded in getting below the snow, and there were only a few mosquitoes.  We were very tired and a bit hungry, since we skipped eating supper in order to reach the “no snow zone”.  It was very cold, so we set up the tarp and enjoyed a beautiful alpenglow sunset view after we were snuggled into our sleeping bags.  All the other hikers have passed us, since I am so slow on snow.  But if we can just get back to “regular trail”, I think we will catch up again!  And I am very grateful that the snow at least was nice to us today–no icy stuff and no postholing!

Walk to Rauros:  North of the Field of Celebrant in the Brown Lands

If yesterday was “big canyon day”, today was lake, pond, mud and mosquito day!  We had to hike in headnets almost all day, and put on full raingear to protect us from the starving hordes of mossies every time we took a break, but yahoo, we passed the 1,000 mile mark, and we made it out of Yosemite!

Getting up was hard– our clothes were still wet from last night’s late ford, and we hadn’t slept well because the mosquitoes didn’t go to bed last night.  Usually they do, and we can sleep in peace even without a net tent.  Not last night!  And as soon as we started to get up, hungry mosquitoes pounced on us as fast as they could. But the long climb up to Macomb Pass took care of any shivers, the wildflowers were lovely, and we were amused by the fact that PCT’s scenic lakeshore route by Wilma Lake was actually underwater, in the lake. (We had to bushwhack another route).

Again, a comment on Yosemite trails.  We early season hikers hardly ever get to use them!  They are either so muddy and wet that we have to make our own trail, or so rough and rocky that it’s slow going–or even (as this morning) completely underwater!  I think that the folks who plan trail routes ought to come up into the mountains this time of year and take a look at the conditions! 

There was a long, viewless uphill-through-forest section of the PCT, enlivened somewhat by the good-size nearby creek that occasionally went into cascades and falls that were quite impressive.  We also started leapfrogging with some other hikers (some of them were slower–we caught up with Uri, Jaybird and Alex–and some were faster–they caught up with us!)  We stopped for lunch in Grace Meadow, and enjoyed the lovely view there. 

Then came a slog up to Dorothy Lake on a rough, steep trail, but hooray!  At the lake, the WIND was blowing.  No mosquitoes! When we finished the walk around the lake and the  final climb to the top of Dorothy Lake Pass  (which is the exit from Yosemite) we were standing in the snow by the almost-buried sign at the Yosemite border, cheering and yelling “Throw the bear cans in the lake!” when Jaybird came along and wondered what was going on.

“We’re so done with Yosemite!” we told him. Then we hiked happily along the nice, smooth dirt trail… till it disappeared into the snow, and we were back to hunting for the trail.  Sigh. But eventually we located it again and made it all the way down to Walker Meadow, where at last we got to put up the net tent and sleep in peace! (We put up the tarp, too–it was getting cloudy)   The alpenglow on the mountains across the way as we were setting up camp amid swarms of mosquitoes was very beautiful, though.  It feels so good to know we’ve reached the 1,000 mile mark, and there’s only one more big pass to go!

Walk to Rauros:  Trees begin thinning on either side of the river

Today was “big canyon” day, and it was pretty brutal. The trail and the terrain threw everything they had at us and by the end of the day, we were pretty “wore out”! We had to deal with finding trail in the snow, crossing steep snow, long uphills so steep that I could only plod along, trail so rough and rocky that sometimes we had a hard time figuring out which was the trail and which was just rocks, trail that was one long mudhole, trail that was a creek, and increasingly difficult creek crossings. And there were the mosquitoes– clouds of them.

OK, to start, we were up at 5 am, with the idea of “Let’s beat the mossies and try to get big miles!”  But the trail wasted no time in showing who was boss–and it wasn’t us!  Just after we left our campsite, we were into snow that hid the trail and reduced us to wandering around trying to figure out where to go.  When we did locate the right path, that final climb to the top of Benson Pass was so steep that all I could do was plod.  On the other side of the pass, the terrain & trail were so rough and rocky that again, I could not walk fast.  GRRRR!  Frustrating!  

To add to the fun, by our best estimate, besides the repeated multi-thousand foot ascents and descents, at least half the time today the PCT was just one long mudhole that we couldn’t even walk on.  Trying to walk along rough terrain on the EDGE of a trail is tricky!  By noon, we had only done 4.5 miles!  Considering we started at 5:30 am, that’s pretty pathetic! 

But finally we were  down into Kerrick Canyon (it took awhile because of having to climb over snow), and finally we could really HIKE along a nice trail with minimal snow issues.  Kerrick Canyon is a lovely forested valley, and we enjoyed the views as much as the trail.  But finally we came to the ford of Kerrick Creek.   Scaaaary! I had to go behind Bill, holding on to his pack.  It was a much more difficult crossing than Return Creek! 

 Then came another huge, steep climb up (I cheered myself by looking at the lovely wildflowers along the way) and another long downhill to Stubblefield Creek.  Partway down into the canyon, a roaring river basically took over the trail and we stood there wondering how to proceed.  It was not a “normal ford”, but a situation where we were on a steep mountainside and the trail itself had become a roaring cascade.  But we tackled it and got through.  Whew! 

At the canyon bottom, though, we faced our worst ford yet–Stubblefield Creek.  The guidebook described it as “wide and placid”. Wide it was, but not very placid.  It was moving right along and deep (waistdeep on me, as it turned out).  When we were standing on the near bank making plans for where and how to cross, though, it didn’t look TOO bad, so Bill and I crossed side by side, with Bill in the lead.  When we were about 3/4 of the way across, Bill shouted, “I’m losing it, Monty!   Don’t count on me for help!”   Sure enough, the creek was starting to push him backwards.  All I could do was say, “Oh Lord, please help me!” and continue to “move one thing at a time” (trek pole or foot), fighting to stay upright and not be knocked over.  What a relief when we made the other side!  By this time, it was 7 pm, and we were exhausted.  We sort of staggered up from the river, soaking wet, and walked to a nearby lovely grove of trees, saying, “That’s it!  We’ll just camp here!  And wow, what a blessing!  There were lots of nice, dry, flat campsites!                                                

 Too cold, wet and tired to set up the net tent, all we could do was get out of our wet things ASAP  (the mosquitoes were swarming us)  throw on dry sleeping clothes, burrow into our sleeping bags with headnets draped over them, and call it a day!  But hallelujah!   Stubblefield was our last big creek crossing, AND tomorrow, hopefully, we will be OUT of Yosemite with its awful trails.  I am so glad that we did the PCT in 2005, because that’s when I discovered that the minute you leave Yosemite National Park, the trails become very nice.  I am SO looking forward to those trails!

Walk to Rauros:  Bare winter trees on both sides of river

I never thought I’d be able to get up at 5am and start hiking, because I was so exhausted from yesterday, but the realization that “I can get rid of the bear can at Echo Lake!” was a HUGE motivator!  The sky was full of little puffy clouds, moving fast.  “I wonder what kind of weather we’re in for today?”  I wondered.  It wasn’t a cold morning–only 50 degrees, which is “warm” for this altitude!

I love walking the PCT around Tuolemne Meadows, because my family used to camp, fish and walk here for a week every August. As we followed the trail through the meadows, across some more creeks, and over the vast sheets of glistening granite, I enjoyed the views of what I call “the Tuolemne Meadows icons” like Lembert Dome, Cathedral Peak, etc.  The farther we got from Tioga Pass, though, the worse the mosquitoes got, till we had to put on our headnets just to hike in peace.

We reached the bridge over the Tuolemne River, where the placid waters start their whitewater plunge steeply down into the Grand Canyon of the Tuolemne.  Several hikers were lounging at the bridge, and as we began the descent into the Canyon, we met quite a few more.  They were all so clean!  I’m afraid at this point on the PCT, our own clothes look pretty grungy, even though we wash them every time we’re at a resupply.  All the hikers were “heading home” from overnight camping at Glen Aulin.

The PCT turned off and began to climb up along Cold Canyon creek.  The trail was actually DRY!  Wowee!  No mud!  We were making good time, but I was dreading the crossing of Return Creek, a notoriously “dangerous” ford up ahead.  Along the way, we caught up with a sweet old guy out backpacking with a TON of photographic equipment.  He was very cheerful about the weight he was carrying.  I was impressed!  We stopped for lunch just before Return Creek.  A little bit more hiking, and we could hear the roar of Return Creek just ahead.  I was praying silently, “Please, Lord, help me get across OK”.  Well, not to worry!  One look at it, and I said, “Bear Creek was a lot worse! I  can cross this, no problem!”  So I crossed Return all by myself, and cheered when I made i to the other side!

 A long uphill climb through slowly increasing patchy snow and several more creek crossings brought us to pretty Miller Lake with a sandy beach. Nice! A bit more up, and we were at the spectacular dropoff of Matterhorn Canyon. To me the Canyon looks like scaled-down Yosemite Valley.  Beautiful!

A lot of switchbacks (and snow travel too) and we were at the canyon bottom. It’s a nice long walk along the valley floor, with plenty of time to savor the spectacular views, and plenty of tributary creek crossings. Oh, for just one day of dry shoes, socks and pants!

After eating supper with a lovely view of Matterhorn Creek and the canyon, we tackled the long climb up to Benson Pass.  The PCT follows a very pretty, cascading creek lined with green grass and wildflowers.   The trail tread crisscrosses the creek several times, and we ended up camping just before the last ford of the creek, where the PCT turns for its final climb up to Benson Pass.  There were plenty of mosquitoes around, but we were too tired to do anything but toss down a groundsheet, our sleeping pads and sleeping bags and then collapse.   I wore my hat and mosquito headnet to bed, hoping that would more or less protect me from those “mossies!”   But what a relief to know that Return Creek is behind us!  I know there are more big creek crossings ahead, but Return is the one I dreaded the most.

Walk to Rauros: Bare winter trees on both sides of river

The 20+ miles we did today were tough miles, but we managed to land up in the end at Tuolumne Meadows! We were up ‘n at em at 5:00am, knowing we had TWO snowy passes to cross. First was Island Pass, with its gorgeous views of Banner Peak and Thousand Island Lake. The snow was definitely a factor, but not too bad compared to what we have been through. We never lost the trail for very long.

Then the PCT took us down into an area with a multibranched creek, and we got totally messed up. Wel missed a turn of the official PCT, and unknowingly headed off on some other trail that eventually just petered out in the woods.  We tried to go back and find the PCT again, which involved a lot of creek crossings, and no luck in locating any trail.  Bill finally said, “Forget this!  Let’s just go for it.  We’ll go straight up and get to Donohue Pass somehow.”  So we just headed off through the woods and uphill.  Eventually we came to a very rocky area, and oh joy!   There was the trail again!   (I think Bill may have been a little disappointed, though.  He sort of likes bushwhacking adventures!) 

The rest of the climb up to Donohue Pass was a rerun of what we’d been through before–watching for bits of trail appearing out of the snow, and heading for them.  When in doubt, oh well–just head for the top of the pass.  One really nice thing was that Donohue is not a steep, scary pass like some of the others, and it isn’t rough and rocky.  Instead, it’s huge sheets of smooth granite–very comfortable to walk on.   When we reached the top, we were very amused by a drop box where people could leave their survey forms (not sure where they got them originally) to give their opinion about their trail experience.

As we started down the other side of Donohue, we began to meet more and more JMT’ers–all sorts of folks, both old and young.  Partway down we stopped to cook a hot lunch, but didn’t linger over it, because we were determined to reach Tuolemne Meadows post office before it closed. So once we were across the last “big ford” of the Tuolumne River, Bill took off. I followed as fast as I could.  The trail was very rocky and rough as it headed down into the Tuolemne River valley–which made for slow going (for me), but the flowers (especially the “heather” ) and the views were so beautiful!   Whenever I am anywhere near Tuolemne, I alwasys feel as if I’m “coming home” because my family camped here several times when I was a kid.

Once I made it down the rocky hill, the PCT goes for many miles through green meadows, forests,  and creek crossings.  I very much wished it were earlier in the day so that I could linger and walk more slowly to enjoy the beauty,  but instead I pushed along as hard as I could.  A couple of miles before I reached the campground, I was so exhausted that I had to slow down, and by the time I reached the “hiker hangout” by the store, I was totally wasted.  All I could do was just collapse on the ground.  It was 6:15 pm, and it turned out that Bill had only beat me by 40 minutes. 

 However, he did have our box, and he had bought some Odwallas,  so I lay on the ground and slowly sipped an Odwalla till I felt revived enough to tackle sorting the box.   Lots of other thruhikers were doing the same thing–it was fun talking with everybody and seeing what they had in their boxes!  The Disraeli Gear had really interesting stuff–they are from Israel, and their food items were not like ours.  I particularly enjoyed talking to “DoubleCheck”–he’s a very enthusiastic, interesting chap.  Meanwhile, Bill had gone off to find us a place to camp.  His final conclusion was “Let’s just go to the backpacker camp.” 

So with heavy packs (7 days of food to get us to Echo Lake), we strolled over to the backpacker zone.  I was concerned about finding a water faucet where we could fill our platypuses.  I asked several people, but nobody knew anything.  All they could say was, “I guess you could get water at the bathroom.”  At this point, I was so tired that all I wanted to do was collapse, but instead I ended up wandering all over the campground, looking for a faucet.  No luck.  I couldn’t believe it!   Finally, almost ready to cry, I dragged myself back to our camp and voila!   Not too far away, near the campfire circle, I found the faucet!  As soon as I filled the platypuses, I crawled into my sleeping bag, completely wasted.  Bill and I are cowboy camped, and surrounded by lots of JMT’ers in big tents.  I couldn’t believe they were planning to drag those big heavy tents with them!  And they were equally astounded that we only carry a tarp, and only set it up if we HAVE to.

The ranger campfire program nearby was a familiar sound, and it was nice to know that our food was safe in a bear box for the night.   All through the Sierras, Bill and I have been keeping only our “smellier” food in the bear cans (things like Snickers and cheese, etc).  The rest of our food just parks in the food bags as usual, and we sleep with the bags right next to us and trek poles at the ready in case a bear comes around.  We’ve never had a problem, since we never camp near water, nor do we camp where other hikers are.  But still….it was a good feeling to have that nice bear box!   And it is so wonderful to have reached Tuolemne!

Walk to Rauros: Leave the border of Lothlórien and are given gifts from Galadriel

The trolley driver directed us to the “bike Bus” up to Mammoth Mountain Resort, and soon we were on our way back up the mountain.  The Bike Bus pulls a long trailer, which was loaded full of all kinds of bikes–everything from kid’s bikes to dad bikes, to crazy mountainbiker bikes.  Two of those “crazy mountainbikers” were sitting right behind us, looking very impressive in their black and silver protective gear.  Never mind the gear–the guys themselves looked pretty fearless!  After some of the video footage I’ve seen of mountainbiker stunts, all I can say is, “I hope they get home in one piece!”

Mammoth Mountain Resort was now totally converted from skiing to mountainbiking, and there were hordes of people everywhere. We had to wait a half hour for the next bus to Red’s Meadow, where we stopped off at the store for one last snack (ice cream and Odwalla) and chatted with thruhikers who’d just come in off the trail, notably Chocolate Bandido.

We met lots of folks hiking, riding and fishing. At Agnew Meadows there were a lot of CCC vehicles, including a couple of trailers full of very antsy mules who were making quite a racket, kicking and fussing.  “Hey, looky that!”  I said.  “Maybe there’s a trail project up ahead–I hope we get to see it!”  

After Agnew Meadows we began the long, gradual climb that took the rest of the day. The “flower gardens” at the springs on the High Trail section were gorgeous, and so were the views of the rugged snowy mountains on the other side of the canyon, where the JMT is.   Butterflies were everywhere.  Along the way, at an awesome overlook just off the trail, we caught up with “Dude” and “Trouble.”  We hadn’t seen them since Guffy Campground, before Mt. Baden-Powell!  All of us were oohing and ahhing over the stunning view of Shadow Lake across the canyon, with its backdrop of jagged, snowy peaks.  Trouble offered to take our picture, and we were glad to accept!

We stopped for supper (bagels & cream cheese!!) at the top of a long set of downhill switchbacks.  An aspen grove nearby was literally shimmering green–very pretty!  The trail itself in this area is mostly pumice–the kind that floats if you put it in water–so it felt (and sounded) as if we were hiking on potato chips.  By 7 pm, we were at Badger Lakes, but didn’t want to camp there–WAY too many mosquitoes!  So we kept on going till the trail climbed up higher again, out of the “mossie zone”.  But finding a dry place to camp was hard.  There were so many snowdrifts and snowmelts.  We finally found a dry spot and could cowboy camp.   Hooray!   We are hoping to reach Tuolemne Meadows by tomorrow, but with TWO snowy passes to cross first, well, we’ll see.

Walk to Lórien: Reach the city of Caras Galadan in Lothlórien

We “slept in” till 6:15 this morning. The sky was clear and blue— nice to see after yesterday afternoon’s dark gray clouds that dripped a bit. Looks like the Sierras are going into their normal summer pattern of clear sky each morning and cloud buildup in the afternoon. We packed up and headed for the Red’s Meadow cafe to have some coffee and wait for the bus to Mammoth. “Just Paul” and Eric were there, too— we enjoyed one last chat.

On the ride to Mammoth, a whole bunch of Boy Scouts and leaders got aboard. They were very excited and interested in what we are doing, and gave us a ride from the bus stop at the ski resort into town. We love Boy Scouts! They do a wonderful job of getting kids into backpacking.

Next on our agenda was breakfast at the Base Camp Cafe, a room at Motel 6, our resupply box and shopping for food. Getting around town in Mammoth is really easy, with a free trolley every 20 minutes. It’s a really pretty place with dramatic Sierra backdrop, tasteful buildings that “blend in” without the usual garishness of tourist towns, and best of all, gardens in bloom. I noticed that most of the garden plants are perennials— I guess they best handle a snowy winter.

Bill and I needed this zero day— we were so tired, and we both have lost an awful lot of weight. I don’t have much “padding” left on me. Hope that good food and a day of rest will help. I was worried about taking a whole day off, since we are only 1/3 done with the PCT, but Bill was very firm— “we need this rest!” he said, and I realized he was right.

Walk to Lórien: The hill of Cerin Amroth

We were up long before the others and walked along Cascade Creek to  beautiful, green Tully Hole. Then it was a long grind of switchbacks and climbing up to Lake Virginia, where we were overjoyed to find an icefree lake and not-too-bad snow.  However (of course!) since the snow was melting nicely,  it meant that the whole area around the lake, including the PCT, was basically a bog.  Muddy, muddy!

We continued slogging on toward  Purple Lake.  The snow was enough to give us problems occasionally, but it wasn’t too bad.  A looong contour around a mountainside took us to a very scary (Slippery rocks!  Big dropoff just below the trail crossing!) ford of Duck Lake’s outlet creek.  I tried to do it and backed out.  “I’m going farther upstream,” I told Bill.  So while he crossed at the official ford, I walked a little way up and crossed there with no problem.  Just beyond that creek was a very pretty meadow with people and horses lounging around, as well as a very unhappy dog, who kept randomly barking and whining.  I’m not sure what his problem was.

The trail then spends many miles contouring through forests near the edge of a dramatic deep canyon with snowclad peaks beyond.  Every time there was a break in the trees, the views were awesome.  We met no other hikers till afternoon, and then there were lots of them.  First was a lost JMT’er (we set him straight and he was very grateful!), then a gang of newbie JMT’ers  (we wondered how they were going to handle the challenges ahead of them) and then, to our great amazement and delight, sitting by the trail was Scott “Buck Larceny”, a fellow thruhiker from the PCT in 2005!  He was doing the JMT with his girlfriend “Tango”.  We had a very joyful reunion, and took pictures of each other before heading our separate ways.

Bill had been figuring we wouldn’t reach Red’s Meadow till late in the day, but before we knew it, we were down into the “burn zone” and Red’s Meadow.  As we turned off the PCT, we could hear the sound of a farrier’s hammer at the corral, and sure enough, he was busy shoeing a horse.  I stopped to watch for a few minutes, but the lure of burgers and milkshakes at the cafe was very strong, so off we went again. 

Fortified with HUGE burgers, we strolled down to the campground and claimed one of the campsites near the famous hotsprings showers.  I wanted a shower, but my only “towel” is a small 9″ square piece of absorbent cloth.  It was late afternoon by now, and getting chilly.  If I’d had a nice big towel, I would have taken a shower, dried off immediately, and been fine.  But my tiny towel wasn’t up to it, and I didn’t want to get cold.  So Bill did take a shower, but I stayed at camp and welcomed other hikers to join us.  We ended up sharing with Michelle (who sewed her own tent–very nice!),”Just Paul” and Eric, and one other couple.  

We all put up our tents & tarps, since it was clouding over and dripping a bit, but sat around swapping stories and talking till 8:30 pm.  We also slapped at mosquitoes a bit–they were definitely a presence!  Tomorrow we’ll take the bus to our resupply in Mammoth!

Walk to Lórien: Arrive at the hill of Cerin Amroth

Tent 4 was full last night (mostly JMT people) but cleared out fast as soon as the cafe opened. Bill and I were more leisurely because we had fresh fruit, and all I had to do was drop by the store to get coffee and some danishes.   So this morning we sat outside and enjoyed the beautiful morning (and fielded a lot of questions from other hikers about “Where’d you get the fruit?”  I didn’t tell them my source–I didn’t want the poor clerk to be inundated with fruit-starved thruhikers.)  I’m glad I can eat, and the Flagl seems to be working already.

We both rode the ferry back across the lake saying “Back to the trail!” The ferry was at MAX capacity–the captain actually had to shuffle us all and our packs around to “balance the load.”  This time there was  a whole gang of us PCT NOBOs, all headed for Silver Pass. But at the ferry landing,  there was a very serious ranger, who stopped us as we got off the boat, and we all had to produce our permits. Grr!

Going up to Silver Pass involved two “very bad” fords, including the famous “waterfall”  crossing.  I did do the “get behind Bill” technique for that one, but it  turned out to be not as bad as I expected.  In fact, just after we got across, along came a whole group of JMT southbounders, with a dog.  The brave dog unhesitatingly followed its master as he rockhopped and leaped across the roaring, foaming water at the foot of the waterfall.  Wow!

We leapfrogged with other PCT NOBO’s all day, which actually did help a bit with  the usual route-finding in snow going up and down the pass. At the top of each pass is a whole new view of a whole new set of snowy peaks, and Silver Pass was no exception. Wow!  Coming down off Silver Pass, I glissaded twice, and on one of the glissades, my purple bandana came off.   By the time I noticed, it was too late to go back.  But no problema!  One of the other thruhikers spotted it,  knew it was mine, and when Bill and I had stopped for a Snickers break, he came by and said, “Lost something?”  Hooray!   My bandana was back!  I’d carried it for the whole PCT in 2005.  That cheered me up–I had been feeling very discouraged again about being slow over snow and rocks.

All of us ended up tonight camped near the bridge over Cascade Creek.  The mosquitoes were around, but we cowboy camped anyway.  We may ??? make it to Red’s Meadow tomorrow if snow does not give us a lot of problems.  Or to be more accurate, does not give ME a lot of problems.  Bill zips right along, snow or no snow.   He wasn’t very happy today about having to wait for me so often.  All I can say is, “I will do my best.”   But it sure would be nice to make Red’s Meadow!!

Walk to Lórien: In woods near the edge of Lothlórien

It was very cold last night, but nice and clear, with lots of stars. I should mention how grateful I am for the glorious weather we’ve had in the Sierras so far. Today was no exception— beautiful! We walked down the famous “53 Switchbacks” and I was just plain enjoying myself.  In 2005 I was all worried about missing the ferry to VVR.  This time I said, “Oh, whatever!  If we miss the ferry I’ll just walk on in.”  Bill was planning to walk into VVR anyway, instead of taking the ferry.  I am feeling much better–in fact, I’m hungry, and thinking about all that great food at VVR!  I guess the GSE is working!  And last night I finally figured out the lower leg rash problem we’ve been having.   Duh–it’s “diaper rash”–the result of having constantly wet pant legs rubbing on the skin.   A day at VVR with dry pants and sunshine should be a big help! 

About halfway down the hill, the PCT goes through a lovely aspen forest.  Many of the whitebarked trees have names and dates carved on them.  Some of  the dates go back a LONG way!  But I didn’t spend too long looking at them, because in that damp greenness, the mosquitoes were pretty bad.  We had to ford two creeks, also–ow!  Our rashy legs are pretty sore!  We reached the bridge over Mono Creek, which was a whitewater roar.  I stood looking at it and thinking, “Tomorrow we have to ford that.  Yikes!”  Since the morning was starting to warm up, I stopped to take off a layer of jacket, and got instantly swarmed by the mossies.  I guess that as long as you keep moving here, you’re OK, but if you stop, they get you!

The one & 1/2 mile trail to the ferry seemed longer than it was.  It goes uphill and downhill, and one whole section of it was just plain turned into a swamp.  We had no choice but to slog through the mud.   But finally we reached the ferry turnoff and Bill headed on, following the 4.5 mile trail to VVR.   (He didn’t want to wait 1.5 hours for the ferry). I went to the lakeshore and tried to figure out where the ferry landing was.  Everything looked different from 2005, since the lake level now is much higher.  I saw two fishermen across the way, so I went over to ask them where the ferry came in.

Neither of the guys  knew where the landing was, but one of them looked at me very kindly and asked, “Have you had any breakfast?  Would you like something to eat?”  Wow!  Trail magic!  I guess I looked sort of starving??  It turned out that the guys were basically living on tortillas and meat, so that’s what they gave me–a great big tortilla stuffed with a couple of different kinds of meat. Oh yes!  I thanked them very fervently and went back to where there was a big rock with a lake view,  lay down, using my backpack as a pillow, and slowly ate the wonderful tortilla.  Then I just closed my eyes and rested.  I was so tired!   Little groups of hikers were gathering around me, chatting and talking as they waited for the ferry.  They were all JMT southbounders.  I listened carefully to their discussions of what they’d been through so far, because that’s where Bill and I will be next.  

By the time the ferry arrived, there was quite a crowd of JMT’ers, fishermen, and me, the lone PCT hiker.  The VVR dog was also along for the ride.  Apparently he loves going on the ferry, and leaps eagerly aboard whenever the ”captain” heads out.   It turned out that  Bill had beat me to VVR.  The first thing we did was to claim two bunks in Tent 4, and leave our packs there.   My appetite is back, and we enjoyed a great breakfast, then chores (showers, laundry, etc).

Once Bill and I were clean, we put salve on our very sore legs, and set our wet shoes out in the sun to dry.  So did all the other hikers!  The Tent 4 deck had rows of drying shoes!  There are a couple of picnic tables by the tent, and those tables are like the hiker trash social center.  Hilarious and interesting conversations are the order of the day!   But I was so totally exhausted that I spent every spare minute collapsed on my bunk and listening in on what was said, rather than joining in, as I would have loved to have done.

At around 2 pm,  Bill and I took a “pie break” and each got a huge, delicious slice of pie a la mode from the famous VVR pie menu.  I was feeling a little more rested, so I dived into the hiker barrel to see what I could find, foodwise, to get us to Red’s Meadow.  Bummer–there wasn’t much.  I guess it’s just too early in the season.  So I had to buy some stuff at the store.  I was hoping to find some fruit (even canned would be OK) but no luck, so I asked the clerk, and voila!  More trail magic!  She told me SHE had some fruit, and to come back later and she’d give it to me!  Wow!

 But then, sigh, I was sick again— it seemed like everything I had eaten  just went straight through. I was hungry, though— no nausea. Bother! Just when I thought I was well again. I hated to take any Flagl, because I figured it was more important for Bill to be well.  If we hit nasty stream crossings or snowcovered passes, I really do need his help, and if he were sick because we ran out of Flagl, that would be very bad.  But we counted our Flagls and decided we had enough to share and still make it to Mammoth. I ate the 4th of July BBQ dinner (wonderful!) and we enjoyed the conversation of other hikers.  Ialso reconnected with the kind clerk lady, who gave me canteloupe and grapes!

After that, the other hikers sat up till late around the campfire, laughing and talking and playing guitars,  but we went to bed.  That’s one bummer about being old.  We just don’t have the energy to hike all day and then sit up late.  But it was fun, before I fell asleep, to hear the happy hiker noise!  I am very grateful we’ve made it here safely.  In two days, we’ll be at our resupply in Mammoth!

Walk to Lórien: In meadows near the edge of Lothlórien

Bill and I both totally zonked last night and slept like logs. “Amazing!” Bill said. “I didn’t even hear the river roaring!” Our long climb up to Selden Pass was enlivened by what I decided to call a “sage hen convention.” We saw several of them on the trail, and heard them drumming in the woods. Bushes in full bloom were hanging over the trail, and smelled very sweet.  Everything was very wet and muddy, though.

We reached lovely Sally Keyes Lakes, where big fat trout swim within easy reach, and several people were camped.  We were amazed at the trout.  “You could catch them with a net!” I said.  “No need for a pole, hook ‘n bait!” 

Heart Lake (higher up) was frozen over, and we fought our way through snow again, with the trail appearing and disappearing, till we finally reached the top at noon. Getting down was tough— lots of snow and hard to find the way, since the trail stays fairly high up for some time, and there was no reliable trail of footprints.   And I had the added dread of knowing that Bear Creek, one of the most horrendous fords of the High Sierra, was just ahead. But we met a hiker who told us the ranger had put up a rope to help hikers get across.   That gave me a bit of hope, and sure enough, when we reached rushing Bear Creek,  just downstream from the trail crossing, there it was–a nice rope tightly strung across the wide, roaring water, for hikers to hold on to.

Note from Alexa: The great irony of this is that, as you see below, the Walk Middle-earth mileage for this day was using ropes to get across a scary creek crossing in Lórien! Creepy!

At first Bill said he would just cross with his trek poles, but then he decided to use the rope.  So he went first and I watched.  The water was just below waist deep on him, and obviously, the worst part was on the far side. With my trek poles lashed to the top of my pack, and everything else secured for a nasty crossing, I ventured in.  The water was moving fast, and was waist deep on me.  Using the rope was quite different from using trek poles. With trek poles you are always leaning INTO the current.  With a rope, you need to keep the rope taut so that it can steady you, and that means you are sort of pulling BACK from the current instead of stepping forward and leaning into it.  After all my trek pole crossing practice, this felt sort of counterintuitive, but I managed OK till I got to the far side where I’d noticed even Bill was having difficulty.  It was baaaaaaad!  I yelled for some help, Bill came back into the river to steady me  a bit and I made it. I LOVE ropes!   And I sure am glad Bill is here, too!

 Then we tried to hike on as fast as we could, to be able to reach Vermilion Valley Resort tomorrow. From Bear Creek on, the mosquitoes were just awful–we had to eat our supper under headnets, wearing raingear– and even though we made it almost to the top of Bear Ridge before camping, we still had to rig the net tent. I am feeling better— maybe the GSE is working!  I was actually hungry at suppertime, and could eat with no problems!   VVR, here we come!

Walk to Lórien: Crossing the Silverlode on ropes

We were all warm and comfortable last night in the Muir Hut, even though the outside temperature dropped to below freezing.  The two brothers left at 4:30am.  It was still very early, and I watched out the little window by my “sleeping ledge” as their tiny headlamps departed into the darkness.  Bill and I waited a little longer, before getting up at 5:15, because we figured that everything would be very hard and icy, plus the light was so dim it was hard to see where the footprint trail went. 

Once we were ready to go, Bill put on Yaktrax and I wore my Microspikes. The whole scene looked like Antarctica, and it was 30 degrees. Brrr!  We were very glad of a well-established “footprint trail” to follow, because the snow here has melted into “suncups”, which makes it like trying to walk on a giant eggcarton with 1-2 foot deep “cups”, all hard and icy. Breaking a trail over suncups is very tough— we were glad it wasn’t us!  And in the shadow of the mountains as we were, the snow was VERY icy indeed. 

Down, down, we went, till the trail went around a big bend in the valley and the snow wasn’t quite as all-encompassing.  We began to encounter snowmelt creeks, which we crossed on snow bridges. Eventually we were in the sun again.  Hooray–the snow almost immediately began to soften up.  It is amazing how fast snow changes from hard ’n icy to soft ‘n fluffy!  Of course I put my black headnet back on. 

The scenery all around us was breathtaking.  I kept wanting to stop and just drink it in, but Bill as usual was way out ahead and I had to do my best to keep up.  Whoever made the footprint trail was definitely an “islandhopper” who headed for every bit of bare rock he could find.  I am a bit leery of rocks now, after two bad posthole experiences, so I actually tried to steer clear of the rocks.  This meant I had to break my own trail around them, and sometimes that made for slow going.  I got quite a nice little entertainment at one point, though, which I HAD to stop and watch!  It was a marmot, trying to cross a snowmelt creek.  Marmots look a bit rolypoly and not very athletic, but wow, turns out they are really good jumpers, and very agile!   That furry little guy managed to rockhop all the way across the creek without getting wet.  Some of his leaps were absolutely amazing!  I cheered when he made it across!

We were making pretty good progress through all the snow, steadily heading down the hill.  I just kept plugging along, following Bill, till suddenly he stopped.  I caught up with him, and he said, “Something’s not right. That looks like the trail–on the other side of the lake.”  I hadn’t been paying attention much–just following Bill, and now I realized in horror that yes indeed, in all the snow we missed the turnoff to where we were supposed to cross upper Evolution Creek, followed by walking along the OTHER side of the lake.  

Oh no!  Very sadly, we turned around and headed back UP the hill we’d just come down, looking for the trail crossing.  We could not find it.  (Hikers later told us that the crossing, which is a line of huge steppingstones, was completely buried.  No wonder we didn’t see it!)   Finally Bill said, “We have no choice. We’ll just have to ford the creek.”  I was terrified. The “creek” was roaring and very wide.  The place Bill chose to cross looked deep.  Downstream a little way it looked wider and shallower.  I suggested that we should try to cross there, but Bill was adamant.  I tried my best to summon up all my courage and face that crossing, but I just felt like I couldn’t do it, and to Bill’s disgust, I started to cry.  I cried not just because I was so scared, but ironically, because I was so angry with myself for being scared.  I was also angry with myself for not being cheerful and brave!  Oh man!  The result was tears.  I know, I know, it’s totally illogical…and that made me even more angry at myself.

  But Bill put his foot down and said, “Let’s go, we HAVE to get across this thing. ” So I forced myself, sniffles and all, to put my gear into “nasty streamcrossing mode”, then since it looked pretty bad, I did not try to cross by myself, but sidestepped BEHIND Bill, holding on to his pack.  That way, he took the brunt of the roaring, freezing water. Yikes! But we made it, and not only that, but the snow was rapidly less and less, so it wasn’t long before we were hiking on green grass around Evolution Lake. 

Halfway along the lake, we stopped for lunch, very frustrated that it had taken us all morning to cover just 5 miles.  But the sun was warm, the grass was soft & comfortable, and pretty soon we were laughing at the marmots who literally surrounded us on all sides, obviously scheming on how to steal our food.  Bill and I practically had to sit back to back to protect our stuff, since the marmots were coming in from every direction!

Then we switchbacked way down to the Evolution Creek valley and lovely McClure Meadow.  It was gorgeous.  The blue creek wandered along through lush meadows.  Snowcapped mountains were all around.  Quite a few people were camped in the woods there.  A little way before the trail crossed Evolution Creek (another famously fearsome ford), there was another “ranger note” posted by the trail.  It said, “Evolution Creek is chest deep at the official crossing.  I recommend an alternate place upstream–follow the trail of upright sticks to reach the alternate.”  

Yikes!  Chest deep sounded nasty.   “Whose chest?”  I wondered.  “Was he six feet tall or five feet tall?”  We lost no time in following the stick trail through the woods, till we were standing on the bank of Evolution Creek.  The creek was pretty wide, but it was obvious that the deepest part was right below where we were standing.   I lowered my trek pole into the water to check the depth.  Thigh deep!   No problem!  And it wasn’t rushing and roaring, just moving along nicely!   Bill and I crossed easily, with no problems.

 On we went through the woods, till we were back on the PCT/JMT again.  I found it fascinating how quickly a river can change!   In McClure Meadow,  Evolution Creek just flows peacefully along, but just after the official trail crossing, it begins to plunge down the canyon, and instantly becomes a whitewater foaming ROAR.  Looking at it, you’d never dream that it was easily fordable just upstream.

More switchbacking took us down to the South Fork of the San Joaquin with its nice BRIDGE (I LOVE bridges!) where we stopped and tried to eat some supper.  Neither Bill nor I could eat much.  We both still feel rather sick.  I have been dosing myself with
GSE all day, hoping to cure whatever it is I have.  I tried to tell myself that eating so little and exerting myself so much was bound to create problems, and tried to force myself to eat more, but I just could not do it.  So our supper break was really more of a rest break than anything else!

We pushed on again for another 3 miles or so, before finding a nice place to cowboy camp near the river.  A bit of breeze was blowing, so there were no mosquitoes.  I was very tired, but cheered up when I calculated our mileage.  Despite the slow start in the snow this morning, we still managed to get 16 miles done!  And what a contrast of scene today–starting in Antarctica, and now here, on a warm evening, with green plants and trees everywhere.  The only concern I have left is that I continue to feel so ill and increasingly weak.  On the bright side, we certainly will have no problem of running out of food!   Bill and I have eaten so little that we have plenty left!

Walk to Lórien: At the first leaves of Lothlórien, near the Nimrodel

I summarized today in my journal by writing, “Climbed Muir Pass today. It was like Antarctica.   Miles of snow, rockclimbing and routefinding.”

Well, we headed out at 5:30 am from our nice campsite by Palisade Creek.   Bill and I both slept very well, but we were still tired because it’s just plain been killer hiking for several days, and Bill was still battling some sort of giardiaish bug.  And I have a really bad sunburn from the snow, so I resolved today to wear my black mosquito headnet whenever we are hiking across snowfields! 

 The day’s hiking began with a long and beautiful climb up alongside the Middle Fork of the Kings River, which roared so loudly we had to shout in order to talk. The trail was constantly either wet, muddy, or crossed by little snowmelt creeks.  But oh, wow, the scenery!  Spectacular cliffs, snowy mountains!   Supremely Sierra!  Big Pete Meadow was actually a lake, the river was so high.  I don’t know how the “I wear Crocs for stream crossings” people ever manage here in the Sierras in early season.  The trail itself was a boggy creek.  But the meadows were so pretty!

 It’s a long, determined climb up to Muir Pass and its accompanying lakes.  By noon, Bill and I were both wiped out and spent most of our lunch break just lying down.  Now I was a bit worried about ME–I was starting to feel sick, giardia-style, and could not face eating anything much.  Neither could Bill.  I did not tell Bill I was feeling sick, because I did not want him to worry.  I just told him I was awfully tired, which was true.

Continuing on, we met a young couple sitting by the trail, debating whether to go on, or not.  Since it was now afternoon, they were worried about postholing problems in the miles of snow just up ahead.  We left them still debating, and pushed on.  Soon the snow became more and more of a factor until by treeline, everything was solid snow and we were back to just guessing where the trail went.  However, there was a pretty good “footprint trail” to follow, which did what I call “island-hopping”, because it went from one big rock to the next instead of just going straight up.  I was very pleased because I felt I was getting better at hiking on snow.  But at the same time, I was concerned because I was feeling increasingly ill. 

When we reached Helen Lake, we found it completely frozen over and shortly after that we came to a point where we had to decide which way to go. Tracks led 2 totally different ways. It was after 6:00pm and getting cold— the snow was starting to “ice up”. Bill and I were totally worn out.  Neither of us had been able to eat much all day.  I thought Bill would know exactly where to go, because he has hiked this pass before so many times, but it turned out that he had no clue.  We got out our maps, looked at landmarks, looked at the two radically different footprint trails, and started out again.  Just after we started out, the snow collapsed under me and I ended up in a MAJOR posthole, with BOTH my feet completely iced in.  I was so tired and and so ill that I did cry for a minute before taking off my pack and digging myself out.  It took about 20 or 30 minutes. 

The delay gave Bill time to make a decision about where to go,  which involved another “straightup” climb up a pretty steep face. I was so tired that I sort of cried again as I set out after him, and sort of “snuffled” my way along for awhile as we started up. The wind was blowing and it was very cold.  The snow was really icing up now, but still do-able.  Bill was quickly far ahead and eventually I couldn’t see him anymore. It was just me ‘n my ice axe and much prayer for strength and courage to “make the top”.   Then I heard a faint shout from Bill.  I couldn’t make out what he was saying (Turned out he was yelling, “The Hut!  The Hut!”)  Finally the snow stopped going up— it rounded off, and to my joy and delight, there was Muir Hut, glowing golden in the evening light.

There was no way to go on–miles of uninterrupted snow lay ahead.  When I stepped inside the Hut, I cheered!   It was warm and cozy!  The sun had been shining on it all day, and the stone had soaked up all that nice heat!  Oh man, it felt wonderful!  We laid out our sleeping bags on the stone ledges inside, then went outside to fire up our little alcohol stove to make some hot beef broth to drink.  Neither of us could face eating anything, but we agreed a hot drink would be wonderful.  I was just in the middle of doing the beef broth, when along came  two young men, brothers hiking together. They told us they did Mather Pass this morning, and here they were at Muir already!   Way to go!  They told us they were on a tear to reach Mammoth in time for 4th of July.  So we all slept in Muir Hut tonight, very comfortable and warm,  with a lovely sunset.  I felt so blessed!

Walk to Lórien: Arrive at Balin’s tomb in Moria and are attacked by Orcs and a Cave Troll

Another tough day!  It took us from 5:30 am till 7:30 pm to do only 11.7 miles!  We were climbing over snow most of the day, which makes for slow going.  This morning, a short walk took us to the South Fork of the Kings River. The ranger note yesterday said, “do not cross here— way too dangerous. Walk upstream to where the trail crosses back over.”  Yup, the river was obviously quite deep and was a  roaring torrent all the  way across.   Bill was still determined to cross it, however.  I begged him not to, but PLEASE to just walk up the near side as the ranger had advised. To my great relief, Bill finally agreed to follow the ranger’s suggestion.

Turned out that the “bushwhack” up along the south side of the Kings was very pleasant and easy and pretty, too. It isn’t steep and has a nice open feel to it, so we could admire the magnificent Sierra scenery.  Not only that, but it was not wet or muddy, and there were no big tributaries to ford.  If we had bullied our way across the river down below and determinedly stuck to the PCT, we would have had several more nasty creek crossings.  We could see those tributaries coming in from where we were on the other side, and commented, “I sure am glad I don’t have to ford THAT!” 

It was a good thing that the first part of the hike up to Mather Pass was not very steep.  Bill is still not feeling well at all.   He still has to stop and rest a lot, and can’t eat much.  He decided to start taking Flagl to see if it would help.  Eventually we reached the PCT again, well up toward the pass, and simultaneously were  back into the snow and playing “Where’s the trail?” The snow turned out to be a great benefit in one way, though–we could cross creeks on snow bridges and not get our feet wet!   I love snow bridges!

In retrospect, though, I should have realized sooner that walking on miles of snow without protecting your lower face from sunburn is really dumb!  I was so absorbed in just dealing with being terrified half the time that I didn’t even notice I was developing a pretty bad sunburn.   Bill has a beard, so there’s no problem for him!

 We reached the foot of the pass (again, made very difficult by so much snow) and found quite a few other folks also heading up, more than we have seen on any of the other passes.  I could not believe that we’d caught up with so many of them after our slow going for the last couple of days.  Going up Mather is the steepest of all the passes, and very scary. Bill whizzed halfway up and sat there chatting with another hiker while I painstakingly “chopped in” every step I took with my faithful ice axe. I felt very bad about being so slow, and felt even worse when I got to the point where I could hear Bill and the other guy laughing–at ME!   “It is painful to watch, isn’t it?”  joked Bill, pointing at me, and the two of them thought it was very funny.  I know that guys like to give each other a bad time (it’s a guy thing, and normally I don’t care), but I was so scared and tired that it really hurt and I had to fight not to cry.  As soon as I got to the “breather spot”,  Bill took off again and I sat there feeling very low. 

Then a wonderful thing happened.   A young couple came happily climbing up the steps I had just chopped, with the wife rejoicing at how easy it had been for her “with these nice steps.”  She mentioned how worried she had been about the steep climb up Mather.   I didn’t pipe up with, “Well, you can thank me–I made those steps”,  but I was so blessed and encouraged!   I picked up my ice axe and tackled the next climb, feeling much more cheery! 

Woo-hoo!  I reached the top at last.  Going down the other side of Mather is not as steep or scary.  It involved a mix of scrambling over snow and rocks.  Bill is always way faster than I am on this type of terrain, even when he is not feeling good.  I have to be especially careful when scrambling on rocks.  I don’t have the world’s best sense of balance, plus the challenges of wearing bifocals (makes it hard to judge distance) and I have rather floppy ankles.  So on rocks, I’m very cautious!  

But finally we made it down to Palisade Lakes, which were still semi-frozen.  The ice was breaking up, though,and there were cute little “baby icebergs” floating in the water.  I wish I had a picture of them, but we’d had a very nasty stream crossing just above the lakes that looked dangerous enough that I’d wrapped the camera thoroughly in plastic bags and set it high up in Bill’s pack.  Once we got across (all went OK!), Bill took off and was way ahead of me, so I had no camera available.  Too bad–those really were totally cute little icebergs!

Then it was down the famous “Golden Staircase” with its huge rock steps. I yelped a little at each step down, because my poor knees were already so sore from all the snow and rock scrambling.  I LOVE my trek poles–what a help they are when my knees are tired!  And seeing the green grass and forests in the valley below was also encouraging.  In 2005,  I cried a bit on this stretch out of sheer frustration at being so slow on the huge rock steps and rough trail.   I cried a little bit this time, too, for the same reason.  But those green meadows and trees were getting closer and closer!   I felt like I was “coming in for a landing” on an airplane!

 As soon as we were down in the valley, and back into nice dry forest,  we stopped and camped, completely wiped out.   It was 7:30 pm.  When we were doing our best to clean up before getting into our sleeping bags, Bill and I both discovered that we have a rash on our lower legs.  What could it be?  Sunburn-related?   Just being constantly wet?  At any rate, it does sting a bit.  I also realized, duuuuh! that I had a very bad sunburn on my lower face.   Tomorrow I will wear my black mosquito headnet when we come to snow.  That should help!  

Walk to Lórien: Reach the Guardroom junction in Moria

Had a solid night’s sleep, which really helped me today. I felt 100% better!  Bill was also feeling perky and was talking about “maybe we can get over both Pinchot and Mather passes today!” (I thought, “I’ll settle for just Pinchot!”)   The mosquitoes came to see us off as we packed up and headed for the “little Golden Gate Bridge” over Woods Creek.  The creek was a roaring torrent of white water–I sure am glad for the bridge!  It’s a suspension bridge that will take one person crossing at a time.  I went first.  The bridge sways every time you take a step, and for me, it’s a bit scary.  But I made it almost all the way across (only about 20 feet left to go) when Bill thought I was done, and bounded on to the bridge.  Yikes!   The whole bridge started bucking and heaving up and down.  I was terrified, but too scared to turn around and yell at Bill to stop.  So I kept going, but man, was I glad to reach solid ground!

But the walk up toward Pinchot Pass along the creek was beautiful, and I soon felt very much consoled by the wildflowers along the trail, and the beauty of Woods Creek as it rushed and roared and cascaded and leaped in foaming whitewater torrents over the boulders in its path.  We also met some JMT  SOUTHbounders  Hooray!  That meant people are starting to make it through the snow and over the passes–there will be footprints to follow!

But suddenly, without warning,  Bill just “bonked.” He stopped hiking, took off his pack, lay flat down on the ground, and said, “I feel awful.” From that point on, he would not eat (“I feel sick”) and for the entire rest of the day, he  could only go a little way before stopping again.  I was worried.  Yesterday during the climb out of Vidette, I had to stop and rest a couple of times because I was so awfully tired, but I didn’t feel sick.  It soon became obvious that we would only make it over Pinchot Pass today, not Mather.

Soon the trail completely disappeared under the snow, and we spent at least two hours trying to head in more or less the right direction, based on Bill’s JMT experience.  Pinchot is a tricky pass to locate, and many early season hikers get lost trying to get there.  But Bill was watching for his favorite landmark, a rock formation he calls “Kilroy”, that’s located just to the left of the pass.  He spotted it, and we were headed for it, doing snow traverses and rock scrambles along the way, when we spotted two other hikers headed in the wrong direction.  We shouted and yelled and waved to them, trying to point out the right way to go, but they couldn’t hear us and eventually disappeared from sight.  We never saw them again.

Note from Alexa: Ack that sounds fairly ominous!

By lunchtime we were at the foot of the pass. Bill choked down a few bites, and drank Emer-gen-c with a liberal dose of GSE in it, while he studied the pass and strategized on a way up. Then it was time to put on the Microspikes, take ice axe in hand and climb straight up. This is still “terror time” for me, but I am getting better at it.  Near the top of the pass, amazingly, several switchbacks were snowfree, and we were able to just plain hike instead of climb.  But just short of the very top, it was steep snow again, and I went back to Microspikes and ice axe.  What a relief to finally be standing on top!  It was whoop ‘n holler time for me! 

Bill rested again, and planned a strategy for getting down.  There are several lakes below the north side of the pass (they were mostly frozen over and surrounded by snow) and that made it easier to see where to go.  At first we were able to follow snowfree switchbacks down the pass,  but then the snow took over again, and footprints headed along the snow, roughly following the path of the trail.  We decided to only “sort of” follow them, and shortcut whenever possible.  Our plan worked fine.  The farther down we went, the less snow, and the trail was playing hide ‘n seek, but we always managed to find it again.  We noticed that there was one set of footprints which seemed to be following the same basic strategy we were using, and that did save us a bit of time–at several points, when we were hesitating about which way to go, one of us would spot the footprints and cheer, “Look!  They went thataway!” and off we would go again. 

 When the snow thins, the creek crossings begin, and of course the trail itself (when visible) was a creekbed itself.  The outlet creek of Lake Marjorie was wide and a little deepish, but moving very slowly, so it was an easy crossing.  Whew!  After that came numerous smaller creeks that were rushing and roaring, but only knee deep.  I was able to cross them OK, and I am a lot less scared than I was a couple of days ago.  Practice helps! 

Finally we were happily switchbacking down a snowfree !!! trail into the Kings River Valley, when we came to a sign the rangers had put up.  “Please Read!” it said in large letters.  It warned that the next creek crossing was extremely fastmoving water, and would be much safer to cross on a log 300 yards upstream.  It also said that the next crossing (the Kings River) was very deep and fast and far too dangerous to attempt a crossing.  The rangers recommended that all hikers stay on the near side of the river and follow it up till the trail itelf crosses back over near Mather Pass.  Bill’s reaction was, “Humph!  The rangers are sissies!”

He then took off on a tear down the trail.  I couldn’t keep up with him!  So he arrived at “the next creek crossing”  and was standing there looking at it when I arrived.  It did look nasty–all white water, and yes, moving very fast.  I said, “Wow, we’d better go upstream to the log!”  Bill said, “No way.  This is do-able,”  and in he went.  I thought about going up to the log all by myself, but in the end, I watched Bill very carefully to see where the worst spots were .  I could see that the creek was never more than “just above the knee” deep, but oh man, was it roaring!   Scary!  Once Bill was safely across, I started in, praying like crazy with every step.  Basically what I do is say, “Lord, please guide my foot/trek pole”.  The rule of thumb in these crossings is to move one thing at a time–either one trek pole or one foot. 

About 2/3 of the way across, it started getting really hard for me.  Taller, heavier people have an advantage over us shorter, lighter people on these roaring crossings.  I yelled to Bill for help, and he came back into the creek to help steady me against the current as I finished the crossing.  Whew!  Then he said he was completely exhausted and wanted to camp NOW, even though it was only 6 pm.  I agreed, but asked if we could go just a bit farther on, to get away from the roar of the creek. 

And so we walked for a little while till we found a really nice camping spot between two big logs.  It was clouding over, so we rigged the tarp.  Bill went straight into his sleeping bag, but I did persuade him to drink a cup of Emergen-C with GSE added, and to take an Advil PM to help him sleep, since he said he didn’t sleep well last night, and that was part of his problem.  But he refused to eat anything else, saying “I’m too tired”, and went to sleep.  I was feeling pretty good, so I sat up for awhile eating supper and just enjoying the beauty of the woods.  What a relief to be out of the snow!  And no mosquitoes, either!   When I did go to bed, I took some time catching up on my journal notes.  I’ve only written one sentence a day till now, because I was so tired!

I am concerned about the Kings River crossing tomorrow.  All the hikers I know of always do as the ranger recommended and follow the river far upstream.  But Bill is being very stubborn about river crossings, and he does not feel well.  I decided that if the river looks too scary tomorrow morning, I will not attempt to cross it, but will meet Bill farther up the trail.   I hate doing this, but I am also very worried.

Walk to Lórien: Within Moria and Gollum begins following

It was a cold, cold  night last night, and I should have taken some Motrin,  I think, before collapsing into my sleeping bag, because every bit of me ached from the effort of getting over Forester.  As a result  I didn’t sleep much even though I was so tired.  But we dragged ourselves up at 5:00 am, anyway, because we have  long way to go before Glen Pass.  The PCT was still playing hide ‘n seek in the snow, so it took us awhile to find our way downhill to Vidette Meadows.  I did think it interesting, though, that the plants up here have not even begun to swell their buds yet, and it’s almost the end of June!  They sure don’t get much “growing time”!

Eventually we were down in the lovely forests of Vidette M., hiking along with the river roaring by.  Of course every side creek coming into the river was roaring, too, so I got lots of practice in creek crossings!  Bill and I now live all day in perpetually wet shoes and socks and lower pant legs.  Anybody who wants to obsess about removing shoes and socks for every stream crossing would take FOREVER to get through so much wet stuff.  We just head right in, shoes and all, whether it’s a creek crossing or just plain “PCT Creek”, where the trail itself becomes a waterway! 

After the nice walk through Vidette valley, we began the killer uphill toward  the Kearsarge Pass trail junction.  It was a beautiful day, and very warm.   Due to the heat, plus lack of sleep, I think,  the climb  just about did me in— I had to stop and rest several times, instead of just chugging on up as I usually would have done.  This was really frustrating to me, because I knew we were “under the gun” timewise to make it over Glen Pass before it “iced up”.

When we got to the Kearsarge junction, we got a good laugh, because the “junction”, sign and all, was in the middle of a snowmelt lake, surrounded by snowfields!  But there was a sort of trail of footprints to follow as we headed for Glen Pass.  Bill has done this pass in early season several times, and he said the approach and climb are not bad, but going down is pretty scary.  If he thinks something is scary, I figure it will really be tough.  We climbed up and up through the snow, heading for the foot of the pass.  Yesterday, we actually skipped a meal to save time, and we did it again today.

 The climb up Glen  was a combination of “straight up the snow”, “scramble up rocks” and “walk along a bit of visible trail.”    When I came to those blessed bits of trail, I could stop and look around, and wow!  What magnificence!  There were snowy mountains all around, roofed with a spectacular blue Sierra sky.  The lake below the pass was frozen over with the extraordinary light bluegreen color that frozen lakes seem to have.   Finally, long after Bill, I made it to the top of the Pass, where I began to hoot ‘n holler and yell.  (Again, Bill thought I was nuts to do this.  He just figures, “Hey, I made it!  End of story.”) 

Now for going down the other side, the part that even Bill calls “scary”.  For me, it was back to the “controlled terror” of a descent where if you slip, you are basically done for. I had already committed my personal safety to God’s care, and again just concentrated on “the next step.”  Some hikers glissade down from this pass, but Bill considers that suicidal, even if it is fast.  Even he just plain walks down.

 Fortunately, we were blessed with “perfect” snow to walk on, and were able to follow a footprint trail that slowly made its way down diagonally across the steep snow wall.  I didn’t look down, just  concentrated on the next step, and was VERY glad those steps were there!  Further down the mountainside, there was less snow and more rocks.  I wear Microspikes when on snow, and take them off for rocks.  They are VERY easy to take on and off, which is one of the reasons I chose them.  When I’m not wearing them, I simply hang them from the sternum strap of my backpack.  We didn’t even bother trying to “follow the trail”, just headed right on down.

 And so we finally made it to Rae Lakes, where the lakes were not frozen, big fat trout were hanging out right by the shore, and Dragon Mountain  provided a dramatic backdrop. We scrambled across the “log jumble bridge” between the lakes–it was pretty scary (there were a lot more logs in 2005)– but with some help from Bill, I managed to do it.  Then we headed out, still dealing with hunting for trail-in-snow, and tried to hike faster, to make up for all the time I’d lost creeping over the pass.   On the way, we met another helpful ranger who had tips for us about Pinchot Pass and some of the creeks up ahead.  We also passed a large group of backpackers who’d already stopped for the day.  Turned out they were doing a trip which began at one of the Cedar Grove trailheads, went up over Glen Pass, then back down to a different trailhead at Cedar Grove.  They were camped in a meadow that was absolutely loaded with mosquitoes.  I did not envy them, but they seemed to be having fun, mossies or no mossies!

We were determined to camp at Woods Creek,  remembering it as low (no snow!), flat and dry and pretty.  Our memories were correct!  There it was–dry ground, hardly any mosquitoes, and a LOT of campers!  We went off into the woods and found a wonderful spot to cowboy camp on soft pine needles with the roar of the river not far away.  So by around 7:30 pm, we were comfortable in our sleeping bags.  I decided to take some Advil PM because I was so sore and tired from carrying a heavy pack over so many obstacles.  It worked.  I totally zonked out.

Walk to Lórien: Enter the Doors of Moria after being attacked by the Watcher in the Water

This was a long, tough, amazing day— we made it up and over Forester Pass! After fording Rock Creek (no problem) we made the long uphill/downhill to Crabtree Meadows with deer grazing peacefully in green meadows and Mt. Whitney piercing the sky way up high. I was impressed by the new “trail engineering” –somebody put in rock steps of a decent height for us short-legged people!  And we heard from some other hikers that the snow on the Whitney ascent trail is “not bad.”  That was encouraging to hear as we headed toward Forester Pass.  (The reason we didn’t do a side trip to climb Whitney is that we’ve climbed it several times already!) 

After that came the first of many scary creek crossings, notably Wallace Creek, Wright Creek and Tyndall Creek.  Fortunately for me, they got progressively harder, so by the time we reached Tyndall, I’d had some practice on the other two.  What we did was have  Bill go first while I watched very carefully to see where the worst of the current was.  Then once Bill was across, he yelled back some advice about how to proceed, and I stepped into the cold, roaring current,  leaning into my trek poles, facing the river, and sidestepping across. If I started feeling overwhelmed, I would yell for help and Bill would get back into the creek  to give me a hand. Tyndall Creek was the worst— pretty scary, and thighdeep on me.  But hooray, I made it through all three of them!  And OK, I also prayed every step of the way across.  (Little soapbox here:  praying during scary creek crossings is not a “crutch for cowards”.  It’s a continuation of what I do when I’m just plain ol’ walking the trail, only the topic is different.  I’ve noticed that even hikers who say “There’s no God” have their own ways of coping with scary creek crossings.  Some of them just plain swear their way across!)

Bill was talking excidedly about one of his favorite spots up ahead–the Little Bighorn Plateau, which he said has an awesome 360 view of mountains all around.  He did not exaggerate!  Wow!  And best of all, it was lunchtime, so we had an excuse to stop and enjoy the spectacle for awhile.  Bill said, “Let’s not cook this time. If we just eat quickly, we might be able to make it over Forester TODAY, if we hurry.”  So we just ate some crackers and peanut butter before heading on.  As it turned out, that was the last food we got for the rest of the day.

The PCT went on up to Bighorn Plateau, and when we got there, Bill was amazed at the amount of snow.  The few areas that weren’t covered with snow were snowmelt LAKES!   Bill hikes the JMT every year right around this time, and he said he had never seen so much snow at Bighorn before.  It was a bit of a challenge to find and follow the trail.  As we climbed higher, more and more often the trail disappeared under snow. Finding it again took a lot of time, and usually when we did find it, the trail itself had become a creek.

But we persevered, and got to the point where we could see Forester Pass against the sky, but everything was totally covered in snow.  We did our best to figure out where to go, but grrrr!  Up in Oregon on the PCT around Mt. Jefferson, where the trail is often buried in snow for a long time, they have rock cairns with a stick on top to mark where the trail goes, so there is never any doubt.  I would love to have those here in the Sierras!    As we got closer to the foot of Forester Pass, we met Ranger Alison, a very helpful gal  who had just come over Forester herself.  She told us to follow her footprints, and pointed out the best route (“Straight up!”).  We could see two other hikers up ahead, who were already at the foot of the pass.  “And be careful of postholing,” Ranger Alison warned.  “I just went down all the way up to my waist, with BOTH feet trapped.  I had to dig myself out–right over there.”   Sure enough, we could see a big hole in the snow. 

Bill and I were very glad to know there were hikers just ahead of us and a footprint trail to follow, and we were making very good progress, when whooomph!  Down I went, postholed up to my waist, just like the ranger, and both my feet were instantly caught in what felt like solid concrete.  I could not move them at all.  Bill was pretty disgusted with me, because it happened near a rock (the vicinity of a large rock is much more likely to produce postholing) and he said I should have been more careful.  I felt really bad, knowing what a chore it was going to be to get out of the hole.  It was already late in the afternoon.  And sure enough, it took me a good half hour to dig out of the hole.  I am the only one with an ice axe (which was the most helpful tool), so there wasn’t much Bill could do to help.   Man, I was glad I had that ice axe, though!  If I’d had to dig myself out with only our little plastic trowel, that would have been awful.  By the time I extricated myself, my feet were freezing cold.  It was a wonderful moment when I was able to climb out of the hole, put my pack back on, and head for the pass again. 

At the foot of the pass, we headed straight up, following the “footprint trail”.   Bill breezed right up, climbing up the snow, using just his trek poles, while I followed much more slowly, chopping secure steps with my ice axe.

Note from Alexa: Hmm perhaps Bill needs the new trail name “Legolas”

We were encouraged to hear the whooping and cheering of two hikers who were ahead of us, every time they came to a stretch where the PCT switchbacks were actually visible and they could follow a dirt trail for at least a little way.  We also cheered when we reached those spots!  Finally we could hear a great outburst of hooting, hollering and cheering.  “They must have made it to the top,” we said, and that was a great encouragement, especially to me.  I have to say that for much of the climb up, I was totally terrified.  All I could do was concentrate on “the next step” and not look down. 

Near the top there was a whole stretch of nice trail, heading for the famous “Chute of Death.” I was very surprised and relieved to find that enough hikers had already crossed it so there was a relatively secure “trail” across the Chute. I was actually able to go first, and walk right across.  Amazing!  A few more short switchbacks, and by 6 pm,  we were yelling and screaming at the top, too.  (Well, to be accurate, I was doing the screaming and yelling.  Bill doesn’t go for such behavior!)   

But a couple of quick pics were all we had time for…  then it was a race to get down before dark, over snow that was rapidly becoming icier.  First comes a long traverse across a steep mountainside.  There were pretty good tracks to follow, but still scary, because if you slip here,  you’ll be a very dead duck at the bottom.  I was very tired and scared, and of course, Bill was soon way out ahead, but I kept plugging along the best I could. 

Bit by bit, we came down off the pass, on various other “steep mountainside traverses.”  The footprint trail which had been very clear now began to “disagree” and footprints headed in various directions.  Every bit of bare ground we came to was soaking wet from melting snow, and every bit of PCT trail we managed to spot was not a dry trail, but a snowmelt ”creek.”   By 8 pm, we still had not reached “dry ground” out of the snow, and we were very exhausted.  We’d had nothing to eat, not even a Snickers, since noon.

But hallelujah, shortly after 8:00, we spotted the trail!  And not only that, we were able to follow it down to the first little set of campsites above Vidette Meadows.   These campsites are literally perched on the mountainside near a creek, but oh wonderful, a couple of them had dry snowless spots big enough for our tarp.  The last time we did the PCT, in 2005, this area was warm and sunny and the wildflowers were awesome and a lady was lounging in the sun writing in her journal.  Now, it was 8:30 pm, the sun was down behind Forester Pass, it was very cold, and we were both so tired we could hardly move.  I thought about trying to cook some dinner, but decided that all I wanted to do was crawl into my sleeping bag.   Before I laid my head down, I managed to figure our mileage (23.2 miles–not bad, considering the conditions) and wrote “Up & over Forester” in my journal, before I turned off my headlamp and just crashed.  What a day!  One big pass done!

Walk to Lórien: Attacked by Wargs in a barren country of red stones near the Sirannon

All the dramatic clouds of yesterday evening must have blown away during the night–we woke up to clear skies and a very pleasant morning.   We hoisted our still horribly heavy packs and headed for Diaz Creek— we needed water.  Along the way we got a good laugh out of a “sign” that was written in marker pen on a cow skull by the trail.  But we were so distracted with admiring the scenery and spotting “old friend” landmarks from our day hikes in the Cottonwood Pass area, that we missed the unmarked trail to the creek. Oh well— we decided to ration water and go for Chicken Spring Lake.

It was still quite a few miles to the lake, and the PCT of course wanders all over the place, with lots of uphills.  I am still not back to full strength since my round of giardia/whatever, and that means I did a lot of huffing and puffing on those uphills, and could not hike as fast as usual.  Snow on the trail was never a problem, but we noticed plenty on the mountains around, including a lot of snow cornices.

We reached Cottonwood Pass around noontime, and I was totally wiped out.  A couple of very friendly older guys were there, and they kindly took a picture of Bill and I together.  Then one more mile of climbing took us to Chicken Spring Lake, where both Bill and I just plain collapsed for awhile till I got myself together enough to make us some freezedried beef stew for lunch.  The plants at the lake were just barely starting to show buds, and there were a few snow patches. 

After a good rest, we started off again, saying, “Now we REALLY are going into the HIGH Sierras!”  Sure enough, it wasn’t long till the trail was totally buried under a snow cornice, but we managed to scramble over it without a problem.  The views of course became more and more awesome–high, snowy mountains, meadows far below, big puffy clouds.  The long rest stop for lunch plus having a hot meal had made both Bill and I feel a lot better, so we were really enjoying ourselves.   We marched happily along the miles of downhill toward Rock Creek, and just before we reached it, there was a note tacked to a post, inviting the hikers over to the summer ranger’s house for free food.  Free food?  That is truly a siren call for any hungry thruhiker!

So we followed the faint path off through the woods, across a little creek, and finally came to the totally cute little ranger cabin.  The ranger ( a young woman) was there, with her husband, her little boy and several other friends.  The “free food” turned out to be an almost empty hiker box.  Oh well! I asked if we could see inside the cabin, and the ranger said “Sure!” so I went in and had a look.  It’s very cozy, but I was surprised to see that there was nowhere to sleep.  The ranger explained that they never sleep in the cabin unless it’s raining, but camp outside in a tent.  That seemed odd to me, but I guess they must have their reasons??   Anyway, back we went through the woods to the PCT.

Back ontrail, and headed for Rock Creek, we met another ranger who said the snow line is at 11,500 feet and rising daily!  That was good news–it means we only have to deal with snow when going over the passes.  But shortly afterwards, came a discouraging development— we met a sad young thruhiker couple who were heading south after turning back at Forester Pass. The wife said Forester was totally terrifying and she just could not make it to the top.  So they were turning back, planning to go to Horseshoe Meadows, where the wife could go to town and wait till her husband had finished doing all the scary high passes.  Then she would rejoin him.  This bad new really worried me.   If an obviously young, strong woman could not make it over Forester, what about me?  All I could do was say, “Well, I will do my best.” (And pray a lot!)

At around 7 pm, we had reached Rock Creek, which had a campsite with bearbox.  There were only a few mosquitoes, so we made a nice comfortable cowboy camp with snowy mountains all around.   Tomorrow….we tackle Forester Pass.

Walk to Lórien: Redhorn pass of Caradhras blocked by snow

A lot of clouds came in last night and before we’d finished breaking camp at 5:00 am, they started dripping. ( Nothing serious, as it turned out).  A minute’s walk took us to the edge of the Beck Meadow branch of Monache Meadows.  It’s an awesome sight–a vast green meadow with white Sierra peaks on the horizon.  As we entered it, the “bit of drip” from the clouds turned into hail!  I had my umbrella up, so just stepped under a tree to wait and see if the hail would become a problem (it didn’t), but poor Bill had stuffed his raingear way down at the bottom of his pack (he didn’t consider the bit of drippiness to be worth putting on a rainjacket) and it was a major project for him to rummage everything out, find the raingear and put it on, then repack.  By the time he was done, it had pretty much stopped raining!  

Our first goal was  ”breakfast at the swallow bridge!”  so we chugged right along up and down through the woods, till we were out in the meadow again and could see the Kern River down below.  As I expected, when we got to the bridge, there were lots of thruhiker tents!  Camping by the bridge is not a bad idea, because so many swallows means there are NO mosquitoes!  We could eat our breakfast in peace and watch the swallows feeding their babies who were tucked in nests under the bridge.  Most of the other hikers were just starting to get up. 

The PCT took us out across sagebrushed meadows (no cows this time–we did see plenty of cows in 2005).  Huge yellow primrose-type flowers were blooming  along the trail.  We headed up Cow Canyon, where we got lost in 2005 because the cow trails and the PCT looked so much alike.  No problem this time–the PCT route was very distinct.  It does crisscross Cow Creek several times, and that was part of what confused us in 2005.   The creek was running well and was very pretty.  But oh, man, it’s a long, long climb, all the way up to 10,500 feet.  Our packs are so heavy that we had to stop and rest more often than usual.

Finally we reached the big downhill to Gomez Meadow.  The mountains here are very rocky and have many dramatic cliff formations  that look sort of like a mini-Yosemite.  We’d planned to get water at Gomez Creek, but oh bummer–it wasn’t a creek, it was a marsh, and the water looked gross.  We sighed and pushed on to Death Canyon Creek, which turned out to be a gorgeous place! Not only is the creek clean, but there’s even a “swimming hole” (well, bathtub size, actually) right near the PCT.  If it were a warm day, we would have jumped right in, clothes and all, but today has been cloudy, windy and chilly.   We settled for taking a nice Snickers break instead, and we took on 3 liters of water each–we were worried about dehydrating at this higher altitude.  I groaned when I put my pack back on and faced the killer climb out of Death Canyon, back up to 10,700 feet.

But even though the climb was hard, it was worth the effort!  The rock formations along the trail grow more and more impressive, and the trees look like enormous bonsais with reddish-brown bark.   Views at the top are unbelievable— thousands of feet down to the Owens Valley. We had to hike “overtime”— past 7:00pm— along the steep mountainsides before we could reach a saddle with flat places to camp.

 The mosquitoes were waiting for us, and the clouds looked a bit threatening, so we rigged both tarp and net tent.  It’s a nice quiet forest here, out of the wind, and not too chilly.  It felt great to be inside away from the mosquitoes, but I thought about the snow patches we’d started seeing by the trail and wondered what it would be like in lots of snow.  Tomorrow we also face our first “snowmelt creek” crossing at Rock Creek.  It will be my first High Sierra early season creek crossing, and I am a bit worried about it.  Boy does it feel good to be horizontal!  Bill and I are both totally tired out.

Walk to Lórien: Climbing up base of Redhorn

Well, I guess we’ve switched from being “hiker trash” to being “trailer trash” because we really enjoyed our one night in the cute tiny trailer at Tom’s place. Breakfast time saw more hikers coming in and lots of hikers leaving to tackle the Sierras (once they finished their pancakes and coffee!)  The main conversation topics were 1)”What I plan to do when I reach Canada” and 2)Microspikes vs. instep crampons for the Sierra snow.  One of the hikers, named “Jackalope”, has an ice axe he made himself from a wrecked titanium racing bike.  It was very ingenious, and we told him he should have entered it in the “Homemade Gear” contest at the ADZPCTKO. But he’s a very modest guy, so he said no.

After breakfast, Bill started reading a true spy tale by a Brit named Peter Wright.  I took awhile working on the loads in our packs, trying to make the food bag weights equal.  I’ve noticed that with many guy/gal hiking teams, the the guys end up carrying WAY more weight than the girls.  Bill and I don’t do that.  He does carry a little bit more weight than I do, but not much more.  I also worked on solving the puzzle of why for the last couple of days my right shoulder has been sore.  Could be that it’s protesting having to carry more weight in order to give the sore right hip a rest?  Anyway, I rigged a setup that may help.

Then we went to the store to hang out for awhile till the chuckwagon opened, and I ended up helping a couple who had just come in. (They recognized us from reading our blog.)  I hustled the wife in to sign up for laundry so she wouldn’t have to go through what I went through yesterday.   Then we got a big juicy double burger and cheeseburger and lemonade and sat on the porch figuring, “Well, this is it–our last meal before we head out!”  We enjoyed talking to the other couple–they came all the way from Florida to do the PCT!  And they are loving it!

 After lunch, we headed out for the Kennedy Meadows campground, where the plan was to meet with Miwok and his dad (who were camped there) and visit for awhile before we got back on the trail.  But there was no sign of them anywhere.  We walked through the whole campground, looking for them, and no luck, so we signed the trail register and included a note to let Miwok know we’d tried to find him.  Then we started out. 

I felt very excited and very scared and weirdly enough, very peaceful, all at the same time. All the hikers had been talking about “big snow”, “river crossings”, etc, and I was wondering “Can I do this?”. Bill and I prayed as we began for safety and wisdom all along the trail, and up we went, following the Kern River as it wound its way through banks edged with willows and roses and wildflowers.  It’s really pretty here with the roaring river and the trees, flowers, etc.  We met a very disappointed fisherman, though.  “No luck at all,” he sighed. 

Unfortunately, we eventually found ourselves in ANOTHER burn zone with no regrowth.  Bummer.  We stopped for supper after crossing Crag Creek.  The trail was slowly getting more “Sierra-ish”, with rocks and rock formations, and much more rocky on the trail itself.  After another hour, at around 6:30 pm, we were at the edge of Beck Meadow and decided to stop, even though it was early.  We figured that this was a good camping place because it had  lots of trees, flat ground, and a little creek to rinse dirty socks in. Perfect!  And the mossies, though plentiful, were not outrageous.  So we set up the tarp & net tent, washed ourselves and our dirty socks in the creek and nipped into the tent before the mossies could get us!  (I should mention that when I say we “washed”, that does NOT EVER include soap of any kind.  We never take any soap products with us when we backpack, ever.  We don’t want to mess up any mountain lakes or creeks!)

Since it was still relatively early, we were able to enjoy watching the sunset, and spent quite awhile discussing our water plans for the next day.  I generally do this every night once I’m in my sleeping bag.  I look at water sources, how far apart they are, and make calculations as to where to get water and how much water to take.  We do not like carrying extra water if we can avoid it!)  Then it was time to lay our heads down for a lovely quiet evening in the woods.  I wondered sleepily, “When will we hit our first snow?”

Walk to Lórien: Winding up into hills near Redhorn

We should have rigged the tarp last night, because when we woke up, our sleeping bags and gear were covered with frost, and my drinking tube had frozen. Welcome to the Sierras!  But we were thinking “Hot breakfast!”  and wasted no time heading for Kennedy Meadows.

Not far from the store, a hiker hailed us from a motley collection of trailers down below the road. “Ho! How ’bout some coffee?”  We wasted no time on coming down the little embankment to where he was standing.  And that’s how we arrived at Tom’s Place, which is now an important part of the Kennedy Meadows “vortex.”   It turned out that the Kennedy Meadows “chuckwagon” is closed on Wednesdays, but Tom, who lives just down the road with his collection of trailers, has stepped in to fill the gap, and does a great job of feeding the  hungry hikers. And there were hordes of them— all scarfing up Tom’s great coffee, and later, his equally awesome pancakes.

Tom told us we can sleep in one of his trailers tonight, if we want, so we picked out a really cute little one and left our packs there before going to the store to sign up for laundry and showers so we can get clean. I did learn one thing, though.  When it’s primo thruhiker season at Kennedy Meadows (which it is, right now!), you need to get yourself signed up on the laundry list ASAP!  There were already so many names ahead of us that I almost despaired of whether we’d be able to do our laundry today or not.  As it turned out, we did get our turn, late in the afternoon–whew!

It was a warm, breezy day— we planned to just rest and eat as much as we could. Got a good laugh out finding out the origin of the wild rumour somebody was spreading on the trail about a “fearsome river crossing before Kennedy Meadows!”  It seems that what actually happened is that somebody tried to toss his pack across a creek, missed and the pack got all wet. Somehow that morphed into “scary crossing— a guy’s pack got swept away!” Just shows you can’t believe everything you hear!

For dinner, we went back to Tom’s Place, where Tom had a big batch of spaghetti waiting.  Oh yes!   And of course there was beer.  We only drink one beer each (unlike many hikers who go for a lot more) and we were highly amused to find one labelled “Bill’s”.  Seriously, that is the brand name!  I also loaded up our packs with all the stuff for the High Sierras.  It involved 9 + days of food, Microspike crampons for me, and my ice axe.  And bear cans!  After I’d stuffed my pack, I almost dreaded even trying to pick it up.  I was sure it would be unbearably heavy.  But to my surprise,  though it was heavy, it wasn’t outrageous.  That was very encouraging!

Of course we also got lots of snacks and ice cream at the Kennedy Meadows store, and lounged around there talking to the “locals”, who are a lot of fun…a bunch of old retired guys who look like they are former prospectors.  Actually, they’re not, but they sure look the part.  All of them were bemoaning the fact that there’s no more Saturday Night Movies allowed at Kennedy Meadows.   Some annoying lawyer type person came and said the movie night was illegal and that if they wanted to continue it, they’d have to pay some astronomical fee.  So no more movies.  Bummer.  The only thing that happens now in the movie amphitheatre is a once a month church service.  Well, that’s a good thing, but the movies were like the social gathering for the whole valley, and everybody (including the hikers) is very sad that they are no more.

There was a lovely sunset,  and some of the hikers started a campfire.  Bill and I decided we’d rather just rest, so we headed for the nice soft bunk in the little trailer.  No frost on us tonight!

Walk to Lórien: Being tracked in Hollin

I finally actually slept last night, even with the howling wind. I needed it badly! By morning all was calm and we found a great little sunpatch for breakfast in the pinyon pine forest.  All the trees were loaded with little fat green pinecones–looks like a good crop this year!

Pretty soon we were down in the little valley where we camped in 2005 and went through the worst storm I have ever experienced.  No bad weather today!  Then the PCT turns and heads into the Canebrake Creek Valley. There is one house there— 2 stories with an elegant pillared porch like a Southern mansion— out in the middle of the sagebrush. “Long way to the grocery store from there” was Bill’s comment.

The sign that marked the turnoff for Canebrake Creek campground had a little note pinned to it by a disappointed thruhiker. It said, “I stayed at the campground last night.  There is no water and no camp host. “  We looked at the creek– it had very little water in it.  So we decided to just keep going and get water later.  Up and up we went on  the long, long climb to Trail Summit, with a stop at Fox Mill Spring to take on a full load of water. Some more hikers were there, just leaving. “Are you thruhikers?” they asked.  ”Canada, here we come!” we fired back, and we all cheered.  One of them, a Brit, said, “Watch out–the mosquitoes are dreadful at the spring.”   “Well, that comes with the territory,” we said, while we took off our packs.

Fox Mill Spring has a trough for the horses,  but we wanted to get our water straight from the source, so we pushed aside the willows hanging over the spring itself, where the water was coming out of the hillside.  As we’ve been doing, we put six drops of GSE in each bottle, filled it from the spring, then dumped it into our platypuses.  We each took on a total of 3 1/2 liters of water, which is generally the most we ever carry at a time.  As it turned out, it would have been a good idea to get more.

The climb continued, till we were in another burn zone. We were here in 2005 and expected a lot of regrowth by now. Nope— it’s still “just” wildflowers, especially lupines. They were often waist high on me, and the air smelled like perfume as we walked along. Bumblebees were buzzing around us. It was a very warm, humid day, so we were getting pretty sweaty. When we reached Trail Summit, wow!  Filling the horizon were the snowcapped Sierras!  The snow level looked like it was at timberline, which should be do-able for us (I hope–we will soon know!)  Then came miles of downhill going in and out of gullies as the trail wound its way down to Rockhouse Basin.  However, the wildflowers were awesome, and we had free entertainment overhead–military jets “playing” in the sky.

At around 3 pm, we reached “the first creek in Rockhouse Basin”, where at last there was some shade–full of hot, sweaty hikers!  They were busy filtering water from the creek.  We looked at it and decided, “No, thanks!”–it was all colors of slime. Even with a filter, we wouldn’t have touched the stuff.  But we did get out a very melted Snickers each, and had fun meeting everybody.  That’s how we  met Miwok, who is originally from Petaluma!  A fellow citizen of  The Egg Capital of the World!  We compared notes with Miwok about where we’d done  training hikes for the PCT.  We generally go to Point Reyes Nat’l Seashore–turned out he generally went to Mt. Tamalpais and the Golden Gate headlands.

The Brit hiker we’d met before turned out to be named “Southy” because he’s from the south of England, and it also seems that he has a thing about mosquitoes–he HATES them! He and the others were also discussing (with great concern) a rumor that ”There’s a dangerous stream crossing between here and Kennedy Meadows–a guy lost his pack trying to get across.”  Bill and I told them “No way!  There’s no such thing!  We’ve done this trail before, and there’s nothing but a few small creeks.”  But they were still worried, and were still talking about it as they shouldered packs to head on again.   Bill and I were both feeling very tired from the heat, so we lazed around in the shade for awhile longer.

Back on the PCT, we started on the up ‘n down miles as the trail rollercoastered in and out of the big burn zone.  A very noisy little rattlesnake buzzed at us from his spot under a pinyon pine, and he buzzed even louder when Bill stopped and went back to take his picture!  Then we cheered when the trail finally reached the Kern River, which was roaring and rushing nicely and lined with willow bushes and pink wild roses.  The PCT goes winding along above it, through a narrow, rough, rocky canyon.  We were awfully low on water at this point, but decided to keep going and not worry about it.  Late in the afternoon, we passed a beaver pond AND a very wet, happy thruhiker!  He told us he’d gone for a swim in the pond, and was able to watch the 2 beavers at work, building their dam with willow branches. 

We pushed on into the wide, dry, sagebrushy Kennedy Meadows valley, where for some reason, there are no PCT posts to guide you.  We got a bit lost here in 2005, but this time it was a lot easier–there was a clear trail of footprints to follow.  Why, oh why doesn’t the PCTA or somebody mark this stretch of the trail?  At this point, we were seriously looking for water.  The map showed a creek crossing–but it turned out to be dry.  Then the map showed an ORV road going down to the Kern, so we tried following that, and it was no go, either.  Sigh.  We were very tired at this point, and our tails were dragging. 

So we went back to the PCT and just walked along, eyeing the river off to our left, till we spotted a short stretch of riverbank that was clear of willow thickets. We headed straight for it, crosscountry, and when we got there, Bill took off all his clothes and got right into the river for a bath.  I tried to do the same, but the water was freezing cold.  So I ended up doing more of a “splash bath” than a “swimming bath.”  It felt so good, though, to wash off all the sweat and grime of the trail!  We also got some water, and then I found a nice grassy patch to set up camp just before it got dark.

It’s a bright night–the moon is almost full, and animals are making their “night noises” all around us.  Another couple of hikers have camped nearby, and built a campfire, which has a nice “homey/smoky” smell drifting to us on the breeze.  Tomorrow is Kennedy Meadows day, and man, am I ready for it!

Walk to Lórien: Hollin Ridge

Last night was very warm, and it sure was great to be out of the wind!   While I was getting dressed this morning (and it was wonderful to have such a “warm” morning” so that I wasn’t shivering into my clothes!), I was putting on my shoes and wondering what was going to happen with the foot pain that has bothered me for the last two days.  Suddenly, as I stared at my shoes, I had a thought.  I had them laced in what I call “desert style”, meaning very loose around the toes to allow for foot swelling in the heat, and then tight up higher to support my ankles.  “I wonder if I have my shoes laced too tightly?”  was the idea that occurred to me.  So I loosened up the lacing over the arch/ankle zone of my foot.  And voila!  No more pain in my feet today!  I hiked all day on happy feet!  Answered prayer #1. 

As Bill and I hiked along the 1 mile to Walker Pass Campground, we were joking about the thruhikers who “have to” have their “coffee fix” to start the day, and will freeze and shiver early in the morning so they can make that cuppa java.  When we reached the turnoff to the campground, there was a trail angel sign telling PCT hikers which campsite to go to for all sorts of goodies.  Well, it was 6 am, so we figured any trail angel would probably be asleep.  “We’ll just get water and head on” was our plan.  But there was no water!  All the campground faucets were turned off.  Bummer!  It was pretty obvious where the trail angel was–the only campsite that was occupied–so we went there, hoping there might be some water.  The only other option was a yucky spring down the road.

Yes indeedy, there was water (answered prayer # 2) –AND Trail Angel “Oakie Girl” spotted us.  She climbed out of her car (where she’d been sleeping) and insisted on giving us not just water, but BREAKFAST!   At 6 am!  What a feast–cinnamon rolls, scrambled eggs ‘n cheese in tortillas, coffee….wow!   Oakie Girl told us she’s a mountainclimber/peakbagger, not a thruhiker, but she decided that Walker Pass was in great need of a resident trail angel.  She told us that 15 hikers went through yesterday, and she was able to help them with lots of things–food, water, rides to town, etc.  What a great lady!

Then began the big climb out of Walker Pass, and as I walked, sure enough, my right hip began to hurt again.  I thought and thought about what to do, and as I walked along, I tried different things to help it feel better.  What I discovered was that if I pulled UP on the right shoulder strap of my pack, the pain went away.  Hmmm.  I thought about what I might be able to do–a loadlifter strap, maybe?

Meanwhile, we reached the famous “Rock Gate” on the east side of the mountains and began contouring north, with awesome views of the China Lake basin to the east.  Before noon, the trail began to go downhill and we had to cross many rockslides.  Bill  said, “The way I figure it, we should be at the Joshua Tree Spring trail by noon” and he NAILED it!  That’s exactly when we arrived…and were welcomed by 7 other thruhikers, who were eating lunch in the bit of shade available!  We stopped and cooked our dinner and chatted with them all, before they headed on and Bill headed for the spring while I cut off a spare piece of strap and sewed a “loadlifter” onto my right shoulder strap.  I also tied a spare piece of “bear rope” cord to the waistbelt on the right side, and tied the other end up at the shoulder so that the right side of the waistbelt was being pulled up off my hip. It worked! The hip was immediately pain free, and never gave me any more problems all the way to Canada!   Answered prayer #3.

We made another stop for water at Spanish Needle Creek–a bit tricky because it was just a trickle and there were other hikers who also needed to get water.  All of us had to wait our turn!  After that was a long but not hard uphill till we reached the “2nd broad saddle” where we ate supper in 2005.  It was very windy, but there were no ominous clouds as there were five years ago. 

So at sundown, we were looking for someplace  to camp out of the  howling wind— and we had to be specially careful because there was a 2,000 foot dropoff close by and if a bit of gear got loose— it would be gone forever.  Finally located a place behind a tree!  And it was wonderful to NOT have sore feet and sore hip.  Thankyou, Lord!

Walk to Lórien: Near small stream in valley near Rivendell

This was another very good but hot hiking day. We started off tired, though— the wind howled and roared all night and kept shaking my sleeping bag, so I didn’t sleep much, and neither did Bill.  We had to be really careful as we packed up, that our things didn’t blow away!  It was a 50 degree morning, and as we started down the trail, the wind was slamming us around so much that it was really hard to walk…and hard to see, too–the chilly blast made our eyes water like crazy.  I was staggering along the trail, wiping at my eyes!  For breakfast time, we squeezed between some rocks, while the wind howled around us.

In spite of the wind, though, we enjoyed fantastic views of desert and mountains to the east, and when we reached the crucial water cache at Bird Spring Pass,whew!   There was plenty of water.  The 10 hikers ahead of us had not taken it all.  There was a sign by the cache that begged hikers to PLEASE not leave their trash, but just to take water.  Sadly, there was a fair amount of trash.  I think that the hikers who were thoughtless enough to disregard the sign don’t realize how difficult it is for trail angels to get up to this pass.  We all hate having to carry trash, but that’s part of backpacking.  Deal with it!

Then came the 2 hour climb out of the pass.  We stopped at the top of the steepest part of the climb for a Snickers break, among rocks and pinyon pines.  The wind was slacking off, and the day was becoming very warm.  The trail continued to climb, but much more gently and finally at the top we could see snowy Sierra peaks on the horizon!  I noticed that the snow looked a bit patchy, and cheered, “Lord, keep the sun shining and the snow melting!” 

Then came a long time of hiking through pretty but viewless forest till we reached the “burn zone” and had to hike in hot sun mile after mile with no shade.  The PCT in this stretch is a dusty jeep road (no vehicles this time–we met motorcyclists in 2005).  It winds and twists lazily along, steadily climbing.  The views are very good, but it was so hot, and I was so tired from lack of sleep that  around 2:30pm, I just “bonked” and it was really hard to keep going. Fortunately it wasn’t far to McIver spring and cabin. What a great place! We bypassed it in 2005. That was a dumb thing to do!  It is a wonderful place for tired, hot, thirsty hikers!

Our plan was to just quickly get water and rinse our dirty socks before heading back to the trail, but we ended up washing ourselves, too, and then we sat around for quite a long time on comfortable chairs in the shade, reading the hiker register.  I felt 100% better than I had when I came down the road to the cabin, “with my tail dragging.” 

But best of all, Bill got a miraculous Father’s Day gift— sitting on a table in the cabin, next to the trail register, was his pocketknife that he lost at Casa de Luna. It belonged to his grandfather and was very special to him. Wow!   To say we were encouraged would be an understatement!  Much refreshed, we finally got back on the trail, which contoured very nicely along a large, steep canyon, then slowly headed down toward  Walker Pass .  We decided not to camp in the campground there, and instead turned off the trail, went down to the bottom of the canyon, and found a nice quiet place  out of the wind. It was a warm, lovely night.

What a relief to camp without howling wind–but I had a new concern to pray about before I went to sleep.  For some reason, my feet are horribly sore (after never giving me any problems before), and my right hip especially hurts tremendously.  Again, I don’t know why.  I have had no previous trouble with it, either.  So (as I did when baffled by odd problems in 2005) I asked God to show me what was wrong, and how to fix it.  I’m looking forward to seeing what the answer might be! 

Walk to Lórien: Rolling hills near Rivendell

 Off we went again through a very pretty stretch of PCT— grass and trees like a park, then down through Jawbone Canyon, which is an ugly name for a lovely place— lots of trees for shade, and interesting rocks.  Several ORV trails intersect and cross the PCT route.

 Bill and I were hiking happily along (me especially happy, because I am feeling better today–still a bit weak, but I can do uphills, and I haven’t needed any extra rest breaks ) when we heard a strange loud noise up ahead. Before we’d even finished saying, “What’s that?” we had to LEAP off the trail because roaring around a bend of the PCT came 5 motorbikers in full “armour.” Yikes! Bad, bad! If we wanted to be trail nazis, we could have reported them.  After they passed us by and we kept going, we were very annoyed with the damage they had done to the trail tread.  Grrrr!

Shortly after, we came to a PCT trail register and discovered TEN hikers were a day ahead of us. Now we were worried. What if that meant no water left at 2 key water caches up ahead? And after the register, the trail headed into a forest fire zone of blackened, dead trees.  The day was getting hotter, and it was a bummer to not have shade–but wow!  The ground in the fire zone was carpeted with wildflowers.  Very pretty!  There was also one stretch of trail where the rocks were amazing–white rocks and black sparkly rocks in bands right next to each other.  And eventually we reached one little grove of trees that had survived and were shading the trail.  To our great amusement, one of the hikers up ahead had left a message there in the trail, “written” with twigs.  I will not repeat it, because it was pretty crude, but the essence was that hiking on a hot day is NOT fun!  Amen to that!

Finally we reached Kelso Valley Road, and hooray!  There was still water left in the cache.  The bottles were sitting in the sun, so the water was warm, but we were very grateful to get it!   Soon we were really truly hiking in the desert, with Joshua trees, cactus, sand, flash flood gullies–and gold mines!  Some of the mines looked like maybe they were in use again (not surprising, considering the price of gold!). 

Later in the afternoon, the wind began to blow, which cooled things off, but by 4:30, the gusts were strong enough to shove us around, and we were semi-staggering along the trail.  At suppertime, we huddled behind some big rocks so we could eat, and had a great view of the multi-colored rocks of the desert valley below.  Man, were we tired!   Especially me!  But I was determined to push on, and we made almost another two hours of walking before making camp behind some Joshua trees.  The wind had become a steady roar, and was very cold, so we had to be very careful as we unpacked.  We didn’t want anything to get blown away, and we could see it was going to be a cold night!

So now I am burrowed into my sleeping bag, very tired.   I still can’t hike as fast as usual, but I am happy that I was able to make it through the day without taking any extra rest breaks.  That’s progress!

Walk to Lórien: Crossing small stream near Rivendell

We had a beautiful skyfull of stars last night!  It felt so good to be back on the PCT, even though I was really tired.  We were up at 5:00 am so as to be able to hike “in the cool” as long as possible, and the early morning light was lovely in the east, lighting up the desert. 

Most of the day, the trail was basically easy going (with just a few “killer” uphills).  This was a good thing, because I still felt very weak and shaky, and with so much food and water to carry, my pack was still heeeeavy.  To add to the difficulty,  having spent the last 2 weeks basically at sea level, and then being here at 5,000-6,000 feet with no time to acclimate was hard, too.  Bill was often way out ahead of me and had to stop and wait, which made me feel very frustrated. 

 But the PCT was full of interesting things today— desert views to the east, ridges with windmills, rugged mountains.  We walked by a lot of windmills, actually, all of them perched on top of very steep ridges.  The trees were mostly digger pine, and there were desert plants mixed in with them.  In the earlier part of the morning, we came across bunny rabbits running around and playing right on the trail, which was very cute!

But as the morning progressed, I became more and more discouraged and worried about my slow speed.  Usually I can hike right along, even up hills.  Not today.  I had to keep stopping for a rest, and on hills, there were times I wondered if I would make it to the top.  I had figured out our food based on making at least 23 miles a day, and it didn’t look like that was going to happen.  The giardia/whatever it was wiped me out more than I had realized.

At lunch we were enjoying a spectacular view of Cache Peak when a Navy jet came roaring and twisting up the canyon, below the windmills! Whee!  On we went into the afternoon, and I was surprised to see how many wildflowers were still blooming.  There were plenty of an orange-red poppy-type flower, Indian paintbrush, and even some larkspur and Mariposa lilies.

At Golden Oak spring we took on more water and treated it with GSE. Hope it works! (GSE = Grapefruit Seed Extract, recommended by Meadow Mary). By suppertime at 5:00pm I was so totally wiped out and discouraged at being “slow”, that I ended up adding a few tears to my food.  Bill is very patient when I get sniffly, and I always tell him “It’s a girl thing.  I’ll be OK.” 

By 7:00 I could barely put one foot in front of the other and was eagerly looking for a campsite.  But bummer–there was a fair amount of private property right by the trail, so our options were limited.  Finally we found a spot on nice soft oak duff, in the trees, with just enough wind to keep the mosquitoes away, and best of all, right near the 600 mile “mark” on the PCT. When I calculated our mileage, I could not believe it–26.4 miles, even though I was so slow.  Man, did that make me feel better!  And then when Bill and I did our nightly Bible reading, which always begins with a Psalm, we came to Psalm 33, which is totally awesome and VERY encouraging.  So tired or not,  I am now feeling very much better!

Walk to Lórien: Windy day in mountains near Rivendell

Even though we ate breakfast (last chance for fresh fruit & yogurt!) before leaving home this morning, we had no problems with Bay Area commute traffic and pretty soon we were zooming along I-5. I kept staring at the east for a look at the Sierras, but no luck— the air was too hazy.  I am so glad to be headed back to the trail–for one thing, being at home in June means I’m dealing with grass pollen allergies.  Between allergies and recovering from giardia/whatever it was, I am definitely not at 100% yet, but ready to get back on the trail!

We arrived in Bakersfield on a warm but not unpleasantly hot day and ate lunch at the bus stop while we waited for the bus to Tehachapi.  We noticed a lot of police and security people in the bus plaza area, and our guess was that in view of the number of gangbanger types who were also there, that maybe there’d been some sort of trouble? 

We had a pleasant ride back up into the mountains, and wow!   When we left, the hills were green and Tehachapi Mtn. had snow on top. Now everything was brown, and no snow.

Trail Angel Terry Larson gave us a ride back to the PCT. He said we were only the 3rd hikers going  TO the trail with him this year. Everybody else was LEAVING, worried about all the snow. There was a trail register, which we signed.  Only one hiker had been through today, and several yesterday.  After a prayer of “THANKYOU, God!” off we went— and oh man, my pack was heavy– six days of food, full load of water, and uphill trail. Between being weakened by giardia, allergies and no training for the last 2 weeks, I was huffing and puffing and hiking like a snail. It was a joy to be back on the PCT, but a bummer to be so out of shape.

The Tehachapi winds were definitely blowing this afternoon, but were not the outrageous gale we’d faced when we came IN a couple of weeks ago.  And in spite of me being slow, in our hike from 3:45 till 7:00, we still did 8 miles, and managed to find a fairly wind-protected campsite among bushes and pinyon pines. We found bear poop nearby (not a surprise–we SAW bears near here in 2005), so we kept our food bags right next to us and ice axe and trek poles handy.

It is wonderful to be “back home” on the PCT!

Walk to Lórien: In the mountains near Rivendell

So we’ve rented a car, and the plan is to drive to Bakersfield, take the bus to Tehachapi, then get a trail angel ride back to the PCT.  Then we get to battle the wind again for awhile–there was a wind advisory there today for gusts up to 50 mph.   Sounds like the exact same weather we had coming IN to Tehachapi!

I admit, though, honestly, to being scared.   I have never done the Sierras in early season with snow and roaring rivers.  Bill has, and he is not worried.   So it’s here we go–I read Yogi’s notes, and she said the scariest part for her was the “down” Glen Pass.   Bill agrees with that.  Well, I guess I will soon find out for myself.

We will send our next trail updates when we reach Kennedy Meadows!