I’ll be at Trail Days in Cascade Locks from August 17th to 19th, if you’re in the area and would like to come say hi message me on Instagram @kaymkieffer so we can meet up!
Joe Graham Horse Camp (mile 2073) to Timberline Lodge (mile 2097)
I have this memory of Starman standing at the edge of a valley, I am hiking along a low ridge behind him and he looks minuscule when compared to the world around him. We are a half day north of Mount Laguna and below us is an alarmingly flat expanse of desert. From our perch along the shoulders of the mountain the earth appears to have been gouged away down to a flat tan nothingness where nothing but heat and a small lonely highway live. To the north I can see Mount San Jacinto, the sharp plunging peaks of the San Gabriel mountains. It feels so far way and it feels like it’s right there, and a crowbar of understanding cracks into my skull and 2,650 miles seems like an impossible undertaking. There were so many things to the north, so many future possibilities; too many. Too many to think about, to want. And what if I don’t make it? What if I wanted all of those things so bad only to never get there. I didn’t think I could handle that much disappointment, so I elected to only think about the next town.
One of those myriad things was the buffet at Timberline Lodge. I learned about the buffet more than a year before I hiked the PCT. Though I now can’t recall who told me, I do vividly remember their hushed tones of reverence for the waffles and pastries, their face shone with a soft glaze of rapturous delight. Yet, I never let myself seriously think about going there, not until a few days ago. Almost as if I didn’t want to jinx myself, as though by keeping the idea of hiking in northern Oregon out of my mind
I wake up this morning knowing that tomorrow is the Timberline Lodge buffet. The famous breakfast buffet of which our fellow hikers have been salivating for weeks. Though, if I’m being completely honest the buffet represents far less than the sum of it’s parts. Getting to Timberline Lodge means we’re two days from Cascade Locks and the end of Oregon, it means we’re almost into our final state on this trail; the breakfast is simply a bonus.
As I make my way through the relentlessly thick and viewless forest around Mount Hood I am afforded one single view in the course of 24 miles. A break in the trees, a single view of the mountain, and sitting at it’s base a grey smudge of what must be the lodge. I can’t believe we’re actually here.
Great post!