Day: August 29, 2016

A long day today that started out much tougher than I was expecting.  I usually have twelve to fourteen miles in by noon, but I only had barely over ten today.  The morning was spent climbing over a pass to enter into the Mt Hood wilderness.  And right at the boundary was the first real view of Hood.

I got up about the normal time and listened to music a little longer than normal and the bagels this morning were everything bagels and not presliced so I had to get up and out of the tent to eat breakfast.  I think I was on the trail about 6:30.

The morning was very cool and breezy.  And since the trail was on the west side of Mt Jefferson, it was also very shady with no direct sun.  Jefferson is a pretty big mountain with lots of snow still on it, so the two streams we had to cross were not trivial, since they were full of raging snowmelt.  Pat had said to try to cross them in the morning when there was less snowmelt, but I don’t think it helped.  I didn’t get wet on either one, but I did have to go upstream sixty yards or so to find rocks I was comfortable crossing on.

Later in the morning, the trail split off of Mt Jefferson and kept climbing to the next butte to get over a pass to get to the Mt Hood wilderness area.  It was probably 10 am when I hit the pass and the view was incredible.  You could see Mt Hood immediately to the north, Adams to the left of it, and St Helens further left.  These volcano mountains stick out like a sore thumb among the others.

The trail down the pass was steep and rocky and passed a large snow field.  There were multiple trails down and it was easy to avoid the snow, but it was hard figuring out which was the real trail.  The trail finally got back down to the woods and got a bit easier again.  It also started passing many lakes, large and small.

I stopped for lunch a little early the side of a lake because I needed to stop for water.  There were several other hikers there eating as well.  More hikers came as some left so there was always a small number of hikers there the whole time I was there. 

It was six miles to Lake Ollalie Resort where I planned to stop and have a coke.  I didn’t need any food, but coke is like crack cocaine to a hiker.  Those six miles took forever.  I have no idea why, but I was slow as molasses all morning and afternoon.

I finally made it to the resort store, which was a quick five minute walk off the trail.  They had no power in the store, but had a refrigerator and freezer that I am guessing ran off of propane.  They had a small solar panel to run credit cards.  I got two cokes and a snickers.  Those went down quickly, so I had to add a Pepsi and a whole tube of Pringles.  And why not get a Klondike bar as I leave?  My coke stop got quite substantial, but it did the job because I was hiking much faster all afternoon and into the early evening.

When I finally stopped for water, it was seven and several other hikers had also stopped.  I was planning to go until about eight, but the terrain afforded no campsites so I had to go until about 8:45 before I found a good campsite.  Walking thirty minutes in the dark is not that big deal, and did put me close to 28 for the day despite a slow start.

The Timberline is now 39 miles away, which probably puts it a tiny bit too far to get to for breakfast on Monday.  I’ll see if I can do more than 30 tomorrow to put me less than eight for Monday morning.  The next two mornings I need to get early starts to be able to have a chance.  I might need to start cutting music time a little shorter.  These are the sacrifices I have to make to make the miles.

I was able to make some good miles after an early start and moderate terrain.  The morning was mostly burn area, but the scenery was entertaining and kept getting better as the day wore on.  Most of the late afternoon and early evening was heavily forested.

Pat got up before 5 am so he could get me out on the trail before he had to go to work.  Molly was ready to play as usual, but we got ready and got rolling before 5:30 and I was out on the trail at my usual time at 6:20.  I saw several people within the first mile which surprised me.  In fact I saw probably two dozen people throughout the day.  It is the beginning of the weekend, after all.

The morning was all burn area.  Pat said that it burned the day George Bush showed up to town, so everyone blames the fire on George Bush.  Hilarious.  Three Fingered Jack was the first mountain to climb.  The top is very rocky and crumbly, but the PCT only went about half way up.  There were a few spots with trees and I found a good one with excellent rocks for sitting, so I stopped for first lunch there.

The next several hours were also burn area, but the scenery kept getting better as Mt Jefferson came into view and we also went around the side of it about half way up it.  The ponds in this area began to get bigger and a few snowmelt streams began to show up, too.

On my break for lunch number two, I ran across three brothers and their brother-in-law out for a weekend jaunt.  They were very nice and one of them I told him that he looked like Tim Tebow.  They laughed and then the conversation turned to football.  I saw them again at the next lake where they were all swimming and one of them invited me to camp with them.  I enjoyed talking to them so much that I would have, but I needed to do ten more miles since I’m on a time table now to get to Portland in time to fly back for the wedding in Pennsylvania.  They looked like they had fun when they got together.

I kept hiking until nearly 8 PM and found a decent campsite near a stream that had lots of blowdowns to sit on for cooking.  There are a few mosquitoes but not enough to make it annoying.  I cooked a black bean and corn dish, ate my usual tuna packet, had a few nuts, then mango cookies for dessert.  The feet were getting sore the last hour, but my left ankle was bugging me since about noon.  Taking time off always brings new pains.  I hope tomorrow goes as smoothly as today.

I had a nice easy day today going into town to buy food for the last four days of this part of the trip.  Relaxing and resting was the name of the game today.

I’m not sure what time I got up today, but it was well after six.  I watched news with Pat for a short bit and he made us coffee.  I have really enjoyed not hearing what is going on in the election circus.  Pat headed off to work and I went to work on the gear.  I got my laundry going and then watched some news with Kelly.  More news than I’ve watched in three months.  After getting the laundry into the dryer, Kelly let me borrow her truck to go into Bend for grocery shopping.

Bend has grown since the last time I was here, but everything is still recognizable.  First stop was a bakery to grab a cinnamon roll.  I got an apple walnut raisin one and it was excellent.  Next was Trader Joe’s.  They have so much interesting stuff there that it’s hard to get out of there without buying too much.  I got most of what I needed there, but still needed lunches and tuna.  Food For Less was next door and I was able to get everything else right there.  I still had some time, so I decided to look up a brewery that a hiker had told me to visit in Bend, the Goodlife brewery.

I found the brewery after a little searching and had to search more for the tasting room.  I ordered a flight and they were all pretty good.  They had food, but I didn’t feel like eating there, so I left.  But right outside was a food truck with BBQ.  I got a pulled pork sammich and it was pretty decent.

I headed back and Pat was already home.  We chatted as I packed the food bags and we had to sample all the interesting dried fruits I had gotten at Trader Joes.  We tried the coconut cashews, dried mandarins, and freeze dried mangoes.  The fruits were good, but the nuts were just OK.  Everything was packed and ready to go.

One of Pat’s neighbors came over to chat about the PCT.  He had lots of questions and it was fun answering them.  With all the visitations done, it was time to get down to business.  One of Pat’s climbing buddies had opened a brewery and Pat had done the heating and chilling work for them, and they named one of their beers after him – Pat Kat Porter.

So we headed down to the Juniper Brewery to have some Pat Kat Porter.  They had flights of 4, 7, or 12 beers, so I got the 7 and made sure to get some Pat Kat.  It was pretty dark and closer to a stout than a porter, but it was good.  The others were good as well.  We went back into the brewery area and saw all of Pat’s handiwork.  They were a 2 barrel operation, which is quite small, but better to start out too small than too big.  Brewery equipment is not cheap.

We headed to a burger joint for a quick bite then back home.  We had an early wake up to get to the trail by dawn, so it was just brief chit chat before heading to bed.  In the picture, Pat is holding his boot from his Appalachian Trail hike that his mother had bronzed.  He and I both have nearly all the equipment we hiked with in the eighties, but I don’t have any footwear from that period other than one pair of boots identical to the ones I used back then, but will probably never use again.

I’m glad I was able to get Pat’s number and was able to get ahold of him.  It was a really great visit and it was nice catching up on what each of us has been doing for the half of out lives that we have missed.  He has been out here doing all the skiing and rock climbing that I expected that he would be doing out here.  All things that I would have loved to do as well.