Sat. June 18   Miles today: 9.2 on the PCT, plus 20 other miles      PCT total so far: 634.1   Oregon section C

This was probably the hardest day we’ve had since we began the PCT on May 11.  But it started off as a great day!  It did rain all night last night, but we were snug under our tarp, and as soon as we started to get up, the rain stopped.  “Aha!” we said happily, “Weather timing again!” It was a cold 35 degrees and the clouds were very low and dark when we began hiking, and the forest floor had a dusting of snow.

  In just a little bit, we came to a junction where we had to decide which way to go.  We could go left, and stay on the PCT, which heads up, up, up to “awesome views” OR we could go right on the Sky Lakes trail, which stays low and goes by a lot of pretty lakes.  Well, duh–that was a no-brainer.  The PCT was shrouded in clouds, there wouldn’t be any views, and we were pretty sure it had been snowed on up there during the night.  So we chose the lower Sky Lakes route. 

It was so cold that all the lakes were steaming, and there were NO mosquitoes.  The lakes were really pretty, and the terrain is very rocky–kudos to whoever managed to put a trail through.  They had to move a LOT of rocks!  We came to Trapper Lake and Marguerite Lake–wow, talk about beautiful!  Each lake had a dramatic rock cliff/mountain backdrop.  As we slowly went higher, there was more snow on the trail, but never more than a foot deep and never extensive enough to be a problem, since the trail was very well-blazed. 

After taking a bit of time to enjoy specially beautiful Marguerite Lake, we reached the Snow Lakes trail, which would take us back to the PCT in 1.6 miles.  Little did we know what lay ahead, or what we were in for!  The Snow Lakes trail immediately began a steep uphill climb, and soon snow covered EVERYTHING, and it was getting deeper.  We cheerfully kept on, still able to figure out where to go by a combination of the LARGE footprints of a previous hiker, plus the blazes on the trees.

But then–it began to actually snow, and the snowfall rapidly became heavier and heavier.  The footprints we’d been following were quickly filling up with soft, fluffy flakes, AND it was hard to see far enough ahead to spot the blazes on the trees.  We knew we must be close to the Snow Lakes, and from there it was only .2 of a mile back to the PCT, but we had no landmarks to take a compass heading from because of the snowfall.  I started to feel a bit scared.  Finally, we “hit a dead end”.  No matter how much we hunted around the area of the last blaze, we could not find the next one.  Then I turned and looked back, and my heart just sank.  Our OWN FOOTPRINTS were rapidly filling with snow.  We only had enough food with us for today plus tomorrow  morning, when we’d expected to come cruising in to Crater Lake.  That didn’t give us enough food resources to play a game of “orienteering in the snow.”  Bill was really annoyed with me for not planning on more food, but I had never expected anything like this.  So very sadly, we turned around and went back down to where it was merely raining instead of snowing, and consulted our maps.

Looking at the maps, we spotted another possible route–to take the Nannie Creek trail to the Puck Lake trail, and follow THAT one back to the PCT.  So back to the “Nannie” trail we went, and it turned out to be interesting in its own right.  It included a whole set of switchbacks up a steep, rocky shale mountainside.  We got to the area where the Puck Lake trail junction was supposed to be–and oh, bother, we were back in the snow, with snow covering everything.  We could barely figure out where the “Nannie” trail went, and though we looked and looked, we could not find the “Puck” junction.  Thinking, “Maybe it’s a bit farther on” we kept going, and kept looking–all in vain.  Again, if we’d had lots of food, we would have persevered, but now we were really in a bind.  (We found out later that the rangers had deliberately HIDDEN the Puck Lake trail junction, because they have closed that trail and don’t want hikers to use it anymore!!)

So in the end, we two VERY unhappy hikers walked down to the “Nannie” trailhead, then 6 miles down its access road to a paved road, where I did manage to flag down a passing motorist to find out where we were.  He said the nearest town was Fort Klamath “about 7 miles away” (it turned out to be more like 10!). He also said that the Seven-Mile Trail (another way back to the PCT) was “only a couple of miles away.”  (Actually, it was more like 14!).   Thinking, “Oh, that’s not bad, a couple of miles” we started roadwalking.  Mile after mile went by, and there was no sign of Road 3334, the trailhead road.  We went about 6 miles before Bill finally got disgusted and said, “That’s it, we are going to just stop and camp.  It’s getting late.”

But the trouble was, we’d left the forest far behind, and were well out in a flat valley full of pastures and cows and farms.  Actually, even though we were feeling really discouraged, we could not help but laugh at the cows.  Apparently they found us irresistably fascinating.  As we walked along, every cow in the herd would follow us, along their fence line, until they came to a crossfence and had to stop.   And every now and then, we’d pass a ranch house. We tried stopping at a couple of the ranches to ask for directions, but nobody was at home.  “I guess they’re at some Saturday night shindig” was the only conclusion we could come to.

So when Bill finally said, “That’s it!  Enough!  We are going to camp!” it meant we two now VERY tired, very sad, very frustrated hikers had to turn around and hike all the way back to the National Forest  where we had stopped some time before to cook dinner.  It was very pretty there, and there were many nice places to camp, but when we had stopped there for dinner,  we found it was loaded with mosquitoes.  To cook dinner without BECOMING dinner for the swarms of buzzing biters, I’d had to wear full raingear and my headnet. 

We had no trouble finding a very nice campsite, set up the tarp and net tent, crawled in, and just plain collapsed.  We’d walked probably 30 miles today and accomplished so little, and Bill was still very unhappy with me for not bringing more food.  I had planned for enough plus a bit of “cushion”, but not enough for 2 or 3 days of thrashing through snow and being lost. I was very, very bummed tonight, and being a girl, I did cry some (it’s a girl thing).  But we did come to one “conclusion of wisdom”–If there is any possibility of snow problems on the trail, BRING LOTS OF FOOD!  We vowed tonight that we will head for Fort Klamath and really stock up before heading back to the PCT!  And we thanked God for helping us to get safely down out of the snow, and asked for help tomorrow.  We went to sleep serenaded by a choir of–coyotes!