Thurs. July 7      Miles today: 16     Total so far: 1002.1 !!!!!  End of Oregon Section G

It was cloudy and 45 degrees but NO RAIN as we headed out on our 16-mile “run” to Cascade Locks.  Our granola breakfast seemed more like a snack than a meal, we were so hungry.  The trail climbed up to the Benson Plateau, which seemed to be covered with bear grass and white fir, with some great views that showed how high we were.  Finally we were headed downhill, and Bill, who was still not feeling well, said that he would do better RUNNING downhill than walking, just as he had done back near Cajon Pass in California.  We had about 7 miles to go, and I asked him not to run too far without waiting for me, which he assured me he would do.  I just could not bring myself to run on that trail–it was a narrow track along a steep mountainside, and had just enough rocks to make it tricky.   

Well, Bill took off, and was soon out of sight and two things happened.  1) Bill totally lost track of time and just kept running, till he’d gone more than 4 miles.   2) The trail got rougher and rockier, and really hard for me to even WALK fast on it.  On and on I went, with no sign of Bill.  It got to be “morning rest time” and I was starving hungry and tired.  So all alone, I just stopped at a lava rock field, had a snack, rested…and fumed.  (Bad!  Very bad!)  By the time I finally found Bill, I was in “very annoyed” mode (also bad, very bad!).  I think part of the problem was that we were both terribly hungry, and we had no food left. 

 So we hiked along together, and then, just as we were crossing our 1,000 MILES OF HIKING “mark”, God did it again!  Along came two college teachers from Portland on a dayhike.  They recognized us as thru-hikers.  “We have leftovers from our lunch,” they said.  “Would you like to have them?”  Would we ever!  We sat down right then and there and happily divvied up a turkey sandwich, an apple, and a banana!  Thankyou, teachers, and thankyou, Lord!  We really needed that, and we thoroughly DIDN’T deserve it, especially me, for being grumpy. 

With some food in our stomachs, the last couple of miles went quickly, and we headed straight for the nearest restaurant for big cheeseburgers and blackberry milkshakes.  Now we felt “human” again, instead of starving. Then we walked down the one main street of Cascade Locks, looking for a place to stay, and ended up at the Econo Inn.  It was $45 for the two of us, and there were other thru-hikers there as well (all SOBOs).  The Inn has a policy of letting PCT thru-hikers share a room with other hikers, which is great.  And right next door is a deli/ice cream/espresso place, a laundromat, a grocery store, and the Cascades Inn, a very reasonably-priced restaurant.  Across the street are a fastfood hamburger place and a Chinese restaurant.  What more can a thru-hiker ask? 

After doing laundry,  taking showers, taking a long rest, and eating some ice cream, we finally went to the restaurant and had dinner.  We also phoned my sister in Portland and had a good talk.  She’s going to come see us tomorrow.  And oh, did it feel good to sleep on a bed again after so long!

Wed. July 6    Miles today: 24.2        Total so far: 986.1          Oregon Section G

(Note: there are no more pictures with the text for a couple of days because I was dumb enough not to notice that the camera memory card was almost full)

It was still raining as we broke camp this morning, but the first item on our agenda was doing a PCT alternate trail to go see Ramona Falls. Wow!  The falls are like a huge rock wall with water cascading over it.  I wish I could have taken a picture of it, but it was 6:00 am, and in the deep, dark forest, so I didn’t even try.  We hiked along pretty Ramona Creek and eventually found a protected spot for breakfast.  Back at the PCT, we came to a sign that said, “PCT hiker bridge, follow pink flags” and sure enough, off into the forest went a crude trail with shocking pink flag markers.  We followed it as it went twisting through the trees and came to the banks of the Muddy River, which looked pretty much like the Sandy–a roaring muddy torrent–and there across it was a large fallen tree.  Somebody had flattened its top surface and made a little “railing” on one side.  Hurray!! Thankyou to whoever did that!  Even I could cross without fear.

Now we faced what our guidebook described as a “killer climb” up Bald Mountain.  Whew!  It was long and tough, and it was STILL raining, but the wildflowers were plentiful.  Views?  Well, all we could see were clouds, and soon we were IN the cloud and could only see about 40 to 50 feet ahead of ourselves.  And then we began to meet SOBOs–lots of SOBOS, a total of 7 altogether.  It turned out that all of them had spent the Fourth of July weekend in Portland, got back ontrail yesterday, and here they were.  I don’t remember ALL their names, but I do recall Tomato, Dick Tracy, Wildhair, Buckeye and Twisted Sister.  They all said we had nothing to worry about, snowwise, in Washington State.  Finally we reached Lolo Pass.  No more killer climb–whew!  But still the rain continued and TOTALLY NOT FAIR–the mosquitoes–lots of them–were out, too, and swarming us whenever we stopped.  (I thought mosquitoes couldn’t fly in rain??) 

We had planned to stop for lunch at Salvation Spring (we thought that was a great name) but the mossies were so awful there that we quickly hurried on.  Finally we set up the tarp in the woods so I could cook up mochas and some beef stroganoff, before we hiked on in the rain.  The guidebook was rhapsodizing about the views.  We saw clouds and nothing more.  But an amazing thing happened at our afternoon rest break.  We were sitting on some lava boulders, with the wind blowing (no mosquitoes!) when suddenly it was as if God pulled aside the curtain of clouds for a minute and let us see through. It was sort of like an oval-shaped picture window, and far away and down below, there were SUNNY fields and forests!  Bill saw it first, and we both got all excited and encouraged.  Then whoosh, back came the clouds and we couldn’t see a thing.  But now we knew two things:  1) There IS good weather ahead and  2) Wow, are we up WAY HIGH on the mountains!

By the time we reached Indian Mountain, which had awesome alpine wildflowers, the rain had stopped, but it was still very windy and cloudy.  The gusty wind was blowing the clouds around, twisting them and lifting them, so we could see more and more.  There were a few soggy-looking backpackers at Indian Springs Camp, but we moved on, ate supper on some wind-dried lava rocks, and hiked on to Wahtum Lake, where we stopped a bit early to set up our very wet tarp and let it dry out before REALLY making camp.  The sun TRIED to help as it was going down–it actually shone for about a minute. Finally we went to bed, comfortable, but very hungry, and thinking about good food in Cascade Locks tomorrow!