Category: PCT

Dumbbell Lake (mile 1947) to campsite at mile 1970

The alarm goes off at 5:30am and I do not want to get up. Starman, it would seem, is also reluctant. We snooze and snooze again, our secluded campsite next to the lake insulating us from the clacking clomping footsteps of other hikers. I know we have a 24 mile day planned, plus a two mile detour into Elk Lake to pick up stove fuel, but I cannot get worked up about getting on the trail late today. I’m tired of feeling like I’m always rushing towards something, always looking one step down the line when truly I have nothing to do but be here. There is a pervasive sense of false urgency in thru hiking and I’ve decided I just don’t care to participate in it anymore. Not when I could be eating breakfast next to a perfectly calm blue green lake.

It’s almost 9am by the time we’re walking, and I observe my utter lack of caring as though I’m watching someone else. Who is this new person who is wearing my body and doesn’t particularly care if we’ll have to night hike. Around me the forest is quite. The trail rolling and undulating below us as it ferries us up and over a ridge into Elk Lake. We eat nachos and ice cream in the cool darkness of the resorts dining room, weekend tourists in swimsuits and cover-ups take shots of vodka and thoroughly ignore us until after 1pm when we finally drag ourselves outside and down the trail. We’re still supposed to hike 18 miles or some such malarkey. I guess we’ll see, maybe.

On the climb out of Elk Lake we can see the three sisters along the horizon. We climb up up up onto their shoulders, the trees shrinking back into the ground while volcanic rock begins to pepper the landscape, the sky a perfect blue expands above us and I can finally see the forest and the mountains without the hindrance of the trees. South Sister stands alone and red, her dark face pockmarked with small grey bowls, as though someone giant has eaten into her sides, taking great ice cream scoops out of her. We walk before her along the Wickiup Plane, heading north towards Middle Sister. Middle Sister looms large over the rest of the day, grey and dominating the skyline. Her darkness is shot through with the white of snowfields, drawing the eye along her smooth sides. The grey fading to brown and red as the sun angles towards the western horizon, she has a thousand faces in the shifting light. While North Sister hides behind the skirts of her sibling, neither so prominent nor brave as Middle or South, we only catch the occasional glimpse of her face as she peeks at us like a small nervous child.

Our path wraps us north below the Sisters and in the warm slanting light of evening the world feels both grand and small. Above us mountains loom while to the west an enormous maw of a valley opens up as though we might slide right off the shoulders of the Sisters and down into the waiting pine teeth of the forest below. Even as the sky near the horizon burns yellow and orange, above us the air is a deep unending blue. The iridescent middle of an enormous donut of smoke that surrounds us on the horizon and makes for a dazzling sunset. We eat dinner ensconced in our warm tent, watching the world go dark around us.

Is it possible to feel nostalgic for something that you’re still living through? Maybe. But I know that I’ll miss these moments so much. The knowledge that our trip will soon come to an end settles inside my chest like a dark, heavy stone and I try my very best to hold onto the moment as the sun burns red and disappears from view.

Charlton Lake (mile 1925) to Dumbbel Lake (mile 1947)

In the early morning we walked through a recovering burn area. Grey trees stripped of bark and needles made a forest of ghosts. Everything was quiet without the normal hustle and bustle of birds, their homes singed to ash and not yet regrown, what would they have to sing about. And where would they do it. This area made for a stark sort of silence, and a small chance for a view before we were once again consumed within the tunnel of trees before us. The sky overhead was a startling blue. When was the last time I’d seen a perfectly blue sky? Weeks? More? The haze of fire rimmed the horizon in all directions but here in this little bubble the sky was a clear perfect blue.

And for the first time in a long time I could see a horizon beyond a wall of trees. Low rolling hills like torn shades of construction paper layered one on top of the other. This sight, more than the months spent walking, far more than the ever growing milage number that I record each night, made me realize that we are well and truly waking to Canada. That those ridges represent a tiny bit of my future, again and again in little bits. Until one day, if I am very very lucky I will arrive at a funny wooden monument where the trees are cut down in a long line stretching towards the horizon. And then this two and a half year dream will come to a resounding end and I will cry a million tears for everything that we did out here because it was so so beautiful.

Shelter Cove (mile 1907 + 2mi road walk back to trail) to Charlton Lake (mile 1925)

We leave Shelter Cove around 8am and begin the two mile rolling road walk back to the trail. Any hope of hitching seems foolhardy on this Monday morning, and indeed the only person who stops does so just to tell us he’s going only a few blocks further. So a two mile road walk it is, up to the highway, a quick dart across traffic and we’re back on the trail. Well, trailhead. We dawdle here using the bathroom and fixing things in our packs in no real hurry despite the 24 miles we still plan to hike.

I am excited about this section, with it’s promise of actual views and lakes and not just endless trees and long water carries. Southern Oregon has in many ways been a continuation of the endless pine forests of Northern California, except with less elevation gain which also means fewer views. Starman’s excitement is certainly depleted after so many weeks in tunnels of green. We further putz around at the first lake we see, filtering water, taking pictures, and sitting staring into space. A few miles later and we’re stopped again, up on a ridge we hide in the shade buying shoes via spotty data which is still infinitely better than the WiFi at Shelter Cove was. Then three miles later we’re stopped at the Maiden Peak ski cabin for lunch. We just can’t seem to get going. Or rather, Starman can’t. I can hear his reluctance in his heavy footfall.

Starman is a perennial problem solver. He sees the little things in the world that could be better, small ways in which life could be easier, and goes ahead and fixes them. He is quick to realize that things rarely have to be the way they are. This is especially true when it comes to boredom. Starman is not one to divert from hard work so long as the task is interesting. However, if the task is hard and boring he will spend considerable effort in finding a work around. He will actually spend more time and effort in an effort to be lazy than the original task might have required. Out here this trait might manifest as a desire to skip or shorten some of the tree lined miles, or to focus more on town days than trail days. I on the other hand am more likely to accept what is, which I’m not sure is always a great trait in the real world, but proves to be useful out here. If it’s hot, it’s hot, if it’s 11 more miles to camp, then so be it. In some ways the long sedate miles are what brings joy to this kind of hike. Or perhaps my longer athletic career, the fact that I’ve been camping since before I was one, means that I have a higher immunity to the specific brand of monotony that occurs when you’re outside for days or weeks on end.

I’m worried Starman is growing bored with this hike. I’m worried the PCT is losing its appeal and that he’ll want to quit. That months of the same activity, weeks and weeks of walking through trees are wearing him down. Quitting this late in the trail is not unheard of. At Crater Lake two hikers we’d recently met choose to pull the plug on their hikes. One because of nagging shin splints, and the other because he just couldn’t do it any more, his heart was no longer in it. If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a dozen times: nothing ensures that your thru hike attempt will be successful, there’s no foolproof way to know if you’ll love it all the way to the end. But you can adapt as things change.

In the early afternoon we scramble off the trail onto a grey rock outcropping—the kind that might normally offer a view of an expansive valley were this not Oregon, so instead we’re looking into the crowns of trees. The light is both artificially and naturally warm, the fire smoke casting everything in an orange light, but also because the sun is lower on the horizon, signaling the arrival of fall and the fact that our trip will soon come to an end. We chat about how we might make these remaining weeks better. How we can enjoy the time on and off trail more, and what needs to change. The first decision is to shorten the length of this section by hitching into Bend from an earlier road crossing, this means fewer miles each day and a more relaxed pace. It also means that we’ll relinquish a future zero, but that seems a fair trade. We talk about how we can shift our hiking schedule to allow for a leisurely lunch break while taking advantage of the long, cool evenings. And how we can compartmentalize errands during town days so that our off trail time no longer means spending every moment getting ready to be back on trail.

Then we put on some classic American rock, music so nostalgic it can almost make you believe the good old days ever really existes, and cruise six easy downhill miles into camp. Yes, the only views are trees, but bathed in the warm golden the twang of Americana the green shines like a forest of fine silk. We pitch our tent near the shores of Charlton Lake, where a long peninsula extends into the shallow waters. There we laugh while hobbling into the water, our feet tender against the pumice stones that litter the bottom and wash the silty dirt from our legs. Paddling around in the warm water until the dust from the day sloughs away and sinks.

Windigo Road (mile 1878) to Shelter Cove Resort (mile 1906)

The crinkling hiss of sleeping pads being deflated pulls me from sleep. My body feels reluctant to return to the waking world but once I realize we’re the second to last tent left in camp I rouse myself to eat breakfast. Surprisingly I feel pretty good after our 30 mile day. Everything except my feet which feel like painful puffy loaves of bread. I was sleeping around packing things away and delaying the moment that I’ll have to put on my shoes. Eventually there is nothing to do but to walk and hope that the deep ache radiating from my toes to my heels eases. Starman on the other hand feels less enthusiasm for hiking today after our big day and we decide to take the Oregon Skyline Trail alternate into Shelter Cove which will put us closer to water all day long and shave a little distance off in the process. I don’t like the idea of cutting things short just for the sake of ease, but I also don’t like the idea of forcing unnecessary miles upon a tired hiking partner. Plus, I’m not sure a few additional miles spent hiking through dense trees and forest fire smoke is really going to make or break this hike.

And dense trees and smoke is exactly what we get. The trail is mellow and kind underfoot and we make good time below the flat white sky. Winding through a hall of mirrors where everything is trees trees trees and occasionally another hiker.

It’s mid afternoon when we pop out on the road and decide to make a go of hitching the last little bit into Shelter Cove. On average Oregon has proven to be a harder state to hitch in than California ever was. So we are completely shocked when a Mercedes Benz screeches to a stop on the shoulder and reverses back towards us. Starman and I are grinning at each other like confused children who have just been told Christmas has come early. As a rule of thumb, luxury cars don’t give rides to hitchhikers. They’re far more likely to give you the shrug of rejection that says “I would give you a ride, but I’m too rich and you’re too dirty.” Getting a ride in a luxury car is a unicorn, one which I never thought I’d see on this trip. But even I can be proven wrong.

Our driver is a Saudi Arabian woman named Ava who peels out into traffic before I can even get my seatbelt on. She tells us in accented English that once she saw that I was a woman, she had to stop—that women need to look out for each other. “Men” she says “they can manage just fine on their own. They have been given enough handouts just by the virtue of their gender. But women, we need to look out for one another.” In our short ride Ava tells us she has just moved to Oregon three months ago. That she’s here to get off the track that was laid out for her back home. “We’re alike in that way” she tells me “you and I. We saw what was the norm, what was expected of us and decided to do something else. Something that feeds your soul.” Her smile is contagious, splitting her warm face and crinkling her eyes. Her short dark hair is run through with copper highlights and billows in the wind from the open window.

When we arrive at Shelter Cove she uncoils her long limbs from the car, bare legs under tan shorts, long slender arms coming from a flowing white tank top. Starman and I hop from the car and Ava joins us, walking to the edge of the water to take a picture of her new home state.

Highway 138 (mile 1948) to Windigo Road (mile 1878)

I’m pretending I’m walking on another planet. Dark droopy trees reced in all directions, their high branches cover much of the grey-white sky, their long grey trunks plunging towards the ground like Greek columns. Shafts of slanting light tell me the sun is less than a hands width above the tree tops, colored a violent neon red from the smoke so thick that it creates bands across the sun. I could be looking at Jupiter instead of our familiar yellow ball, or maybe another red giant in another solar system with another set of planets, one where they just happen to have long hiking trails and pine forests.

My feet hurt so so bad.

We’ve been on trail for nearly eleven hours including breaks and we’re about to hike our longest day yet. 30 miles with 4,000 feet of both gain and loss. I known we’re almost there but I won’t celebrate yet. Finally, I can’t take it any longer, my patience snaps and I pull out my phone to check how far we are from camp. 0.8 miles from Windigo Road. I sag with relief, I’m almost there and then I can sit down and nothing will feel as good as sitting down.

We hit the road at 8pm and we’ve done it. There is a message board with only one note on a tiny piece of green lined notebook paper, on which someone has scrawled “welcome humanoids.” That feels about as good a welcome as any, I suppose.

Mazama Village at Crater Lake (mile 1821) to the junction of the PCT and rim alternate, I think. (mile 1839)

I think it has taken my brain four months to power down into thru hiker mode, and now that it’s reached this point I’m worried it is going to ruin my life. Or frankly, it has just occurred to me that a far more pressing worry is that I will fight against any urge to drastically change my life after the trail. In many ways the easiest path would be to simply return to the lifestyle I had before I started the trail. Change, especially that which falls towards the edges of the socially normative, requires a good deal of bravery and a tenacious belief that you’re making the right choice.

I’m not sure I can find a way to say this where it won’t sound pretentious and utterly privileged, but I’ll try my best to wrap this around to a coherent idea by the end of the post. And awaaay we go!

Boulder Colorado is a very high achieving town. Certainly athletically, but also academically and vocationally. This is in partly because during the Vietnam war young men were able to defer the draft while enlisted in higher education. As a result, college towns such as Madison, WI, Austin, TX, Eugene, OR, and of course Boulder, CO received an influx of mostly while, very libral, highly educated young people. And because Boulder is located near some amazing hiking, climbing, and skiing, many of those young people were also athletically inclined. After these second wave hippies graduated college many of them stayed around Boulder, grew up, got married, and had some kids. I am one of those kids, and I have inherited the norms of a society where it is very important to perform at a high level in athletic and intellectual pursuits. Winning age group awards at Ironman triathlons while owning a small organic dog food company while driving your two beautiful kids and equally athletic husband to weekend soccer games five hours away in Grand Junction is the norm in Boulder. It is not extraordinary to think that I would have an impressive career and do long thru hikes.

Unfortunately I have never had much direction or urgency when it comes to my career. A friend told me that when I was in third grade I told her maybe I’d drive one of those cars with ads on the sides, because I didn’t know what else I would do. Have I told you that story before? I’m pretty sure I have, but it succinctly illustrates how I so often felt as a kid. I was a pragmatic child, I could think my way out of every career I knew of—granted that was a limited number. I never wanted to be anything, not until senior year in highschool where I somehow won an award in a filmmaking competition and that was good enough to get me into film school. But only after that win did I decide I wanted to go to film school. I went because I appeared to be good at it, not because it was a childhood dream—which is what so so many of my classmates told me. But at 30, it feels like the end of stumbling through life without clear goals.

And here is the part where I bring it all back around. My concern is that I am too comfortable with the idea of returning to some version of a corporate creative gig in which I sell something, basically advertising, in order to fund the lifestyle to which I have become accustomed. The second problem is that I have no idea what I would do alternatively, and coming in third with the bronze is the problem that I will need some source of income regardless. These concerns are all compounded by the fact that all I think about recently is wandering through a forest with a tiny little pack, and those two lifestyles aren’t really cohesive. Who do you know who is in a high powered career and also scampers off half the year to travel very slowly on foot?

In some ways this feels so cliche it hurts. White woman goes to the mountains, there she thinks a great deal and maybe has a vision in which a fox is her mother, she emerges months later, changed and fulfilled.

But what else? What the dingly dangly else?!?

The morning we walked into Crater Lake village the trail was a smooth, buttery brown, soft with fallen pine needles and so gentle under foot. There were great tall trees in all directions. An infinite depth of trees. A whole other world of trees and soft moss in the yellow sun with chickadees making their cheeseburger call. Keith was a bit ahead of me and I slowed my pace from his because I didn’t want to walk that fast, it felt good to move with less haste. It occurred to me how lucky I am to have these moments, these places and these people, how ratified this is. It made me want to walk away forever into those woods, to see what is on the other side of that hill and fold into the slanting light and green undergrowth.

Mazama Village at Crater Lake (mile 1821) to the junction of the PCT and rim alternate, I think. (mile 1839)

I think it has taken my brain four months to power down into thru hiker mode, and now that it’s reached this point I’m worried it is going to ruin my life. Or frankly, it has just occurred to me that a far more pressing worry is that I will fight against any urge to drastically change my life after the trail. In many ways the easiest path would be to simply return to the lifestyle I had before I started the trail. Change, especially that which falls towards the edges of the socially normative, requires a good deal of bravery and a tenacious belief that you’re making the right choice.

I’m not sure I can find a way to say this where it won’t sound pretentious and utterly privileged, but I’ll try my best to wrap this around to a coherent idea by the end of the post. And awaaay we go!

Boulder Colorado is a very high achieving town. Certainly athletically, but also academically and vocationally. This is in partly because during the Vietnam war young men were able to defer the draft while enlisted in higher education. As a result, college towns such as Madison, WI, Austin, TX, Eugene, OR, and of course Boulder, CO received an influx of mostly while, very libral, highly educated young people. And because Boulder is located near some amazing hiking, climbing, and skiing, many of those young people were also athletically inclined. After these second wave hippies graduated college many of them stayed around Boulder, grew up, got married, and had some kids. I am one of those kids, and I have inherited the norms of a society where it is very important to perform at a high level in athletic and intellectual pursuits. Winning age group awards at Ironman triathlons while owning a small organic dog food company while driving your two beautiful kids and equally athletic husband to weekend soccer games five hours away in Grand Junction is the norm in Boulder. It is not extraordinary to think that I would have an impressive career and do long thru hikes.

Unfortunately I have never had much direction or urgency when it comes to my career. A friend told me that when I was in third grade I told her maybe I’d drive one of those cars with ads on the sides, because I didn’t know what else I would do. Have I told you that story before? I’m pretty sure I have, but it succinctly illustrates how I so often felt as a kid. I was a pragmatic child, I could think my way out of every career I knew of—granted that was a limited number. I never wanted to be anything, not until senior year in highschool where I somehow won an award in a filmmaking competition and that was good enough to get me into film school. But only after that win did I decide I wanted to go to film school. I went because I appeared to be good at it, not because it was a childhood dream—which is what so so many of my classmates told me. But at 30, it feels like the end of stumbling through life without clear goals.

And here is the part where I bring it all back around. My concern is that I am too comfortable with the idea of returning to some version of a corporate creative gig in which I sell something, basically advertising, in order to fund the lifestyle to which I have become accustomed. The second problem is that I have no idea what I would do alternatively, and coming in third with the bronze is the problem that I will need some source of income regardless. These concerns are all compounded by the fact that all I think about recently is wandering through a forest with a tiny little pack, and those two lifestyles aren’t really cohesive. Who do you know who is in a high powered career and also scampers off half the year to travel very slowly on foot?

In some ways this feels so cliche it hurts. White woman goes to the mountains, there she thinks a great deal and maybe has a vision in which a fox is her mother, she emerges months later, changed and fulfilled.

But what else? What the dingly dangly else?!?

The morning we walked into Crater Lake village the trail was a smooth, buttery brown, soft with fallen pine needles and so gentle under foot. There were great tall trees in all directions. An infinite depth of trees. A whole other world of trees and soft moss in the yellow sun with chickadees making their cheeseburger call. Keith was a bit ahead of me and I slowed my pace from his because I didn’t want to walk that fast, it felt good to move with less haste. It occurred to me how lucky I am to have these moments, these places and these people, how ratified this is. It made me want to walk away forever into those woods, to see what is on the other side of that hill and fold into the slanting light and green undergrowth.

Campsite at mile 1809 to Mazama Village at Crater Lake (mile 1821)

It feels totally unreal that we are four months into this hike. We’ve left California behind (finally!) and are a third of the way through Oregon. If everything goes to plan we’ll be done with the trail in 6-7 weeks which is totally wild to me. It has taken a while but it feels like we’re finally getting good at thru hiking, or maybe that we’ve just had enough practice so things feel achievable. I still refuse to let myself think about the end of this trail, I’ll believe that I’m going to finish when I see the northern terminus. Until then, here are some more things I’ve learned in the last month.

1. I am a clean freak when contrasted with others on the trail. The other day I was passed by a dude who smelled like a literal poop. When I saw the same hiker in town days later he was stinking up an entire coffee shop, apparently with no inclination to bathe. One dude I met at Hiker Heaven (mile 450ish) told me he’d only showered twice since starting his hike, it seemed to be a point of pride for him. I’ve seen folks who look like they’ve been napping face down in the dirt, and one hiker who was blown away by my use of hand sanitizer after I popped. Apparently he’d just been dealing with terrible stomach issues and hadn’t thought that some kind of hygienic practice might help. In comparison I wipe the dirt from my face, arms, and legs every night before bed with a small pack towel and a little water. It is amazing to wipe away a day of dirt and sunscreen, I sleep way better and my gear is less disgusting as a result. I also shower and do laundry at every town stop. And as I illuded to earlier, I use hand sanitizer after pooping. No, it’s not a terribly robust practice when compared to city life, but it would seem that I am much more prone to cleanliness than my fellow hikers.

2. People can leave the trail for any reason at any time. Early on I’d hear folks say that if you can make it to Warmer Springs you’ll finish the trail. Or Hiker Heaven, or Kennedy Meadows, or the halfway point. But all of those are untrue. People who have hiked 1500 miles will roll their ankle and it will end their hike. Or maybe it’s tendonitis after 1,000 miles, or shin splints, or maybe they miss their significant other, or their kids, or maybe they’re just over this whole hiking thing and want to go home. There is no certainty that you’ll finish your thru hike, and the idea that making it to a certain landmark ensures you’ll finish is false. I will say that people who have a hard deadline, or something pulling them off trail are more likely to quit. If you find yourself thinking whistfully about how much better things will be at home, then you’ll probably be going home soon.

3. Thru hiking is terrible for your posture. Seriously we look like naval gazing question marks. Somebody get me a straight backed chair!

4. I’m pretty sure nobody is getting laid on the trail. Everybody is disgusting, the gender ratio is way skewed towards men, and while I know that pink-blazing* exists, I would encourage those doing the chasing to question if the person they are going after wants to be chased. Even as a couple we rarely have sex outside of town stops. The great outdoors seems like a romantic place, but once you’re four days into a section and smell like beef stew and cat piss that appeal goes out the window. *pink-blazing is the term for when a man (typically) changes his hiking schedule to pursue a woman (again, typically. Trail lingo is pretty hetero-normative).

5. It is possible to transcend mosquito bites. At a certain point you’ll have twenty plus bites on your legs and arms, but you know scratching won’t help so you just accept it.

6. You will not get any stronger on a long thru hike. Not objectively at least. For clarification, I do believe you will become a stronger hiker, and probably emotionally and mentally stronger as well, but muscular strength? Nah. Hiking as much as we are is highly calorically consumptive, and at a certain point you’ll start to mow through your muscle mass. I’ll be interested to see how much my squat and deadlift numbers will have decreased by the end of the trail—I know I certainly feel weaker than I did when I started. Perhaps the only folks who won’t experience a loss of muscle mass are those who were primarily endurance athletes with little to no strength training experience.

7. Stay on your side of the tent! I have one side of the tent I always sleep on. When we divide chores we pick the same ones again and again. Having some constants on the trail really simplifies things. I know I always set up my sleeping bag on the right of the tent, that if I set up the tent Keith will filter water and start to make dinner. This means we don’t have to decide who sleeps where or does what when we arrive in camp. It means that when we are tired and hot we don’t have to make a choice, we can just fall into the habit of the trail and get everything done so we can escape the mosquitos in the tent.

8. It is important to figure out your eating, resting, hiking ratio. You’ll have a better time if you know how you hike and what your needs are. I’ll use my preferences as an example. I’d like to wake at six in the morning, eat breakfast in the tent, pack, poop, and be walking by seven. Keith needs a little more time however, so we’re normally on the trail by 7:30; this is one of the arguments that’s not worth having. About two hours into the day I’m really hungry and take 15-20 minutes to eat a meal I call second breakfast but I’m terms of food is basically lunch. I dunno why I like to cram most of the day’s calories into the morning but there ya have it! Then there are one or two afternoon snacks, camp, dinner, writing, bed. I want short breaks, loosely spaced, I like to hike slowly, and I want to be in camp before 7. Other people want to be hiking at 5am, 20 miles by 2pm, camp by 4pm. Some folks fly down the trail and take a break every hour. Learn how to do you and you’ll hike a better hike.

9. Most PCT hikers have very little sense of adventure when it comes to water sources. Mostly the PCT spoils its hikers with amazing water sources, fast flowing streams and creeks, springs pouring clear and cold straight from the ground, and crystal clear lakes are all par for the course. But some folks will refuse to drink from a stream that’s even a little dirty, and a stagnant pond? No way! But really, y’all got filters, don’t be so worried.

10. I can see how folks fall in love with thru hiking. Very recently my relationship with this hike has changed; becoming more relaxed, in a way less thoughtful or rather, less in my head. I’ve also begun thinking about future long trails I’d like to do and how I’d do them differently than this PCT attempt—so that’s a dangerous sign. Thru hiking is such a privilege of minimalist lifestyle and nature exposure, it’s no wonder folks come back for more.

Campsite at mile 1785 to campsite at mile 1809

The problem is, we are 14 miles into our day, facing a 22 mile dry stretch into Crater Lake, and we can only carry three liters of water each. Let me explain why this is problematic. At the temps we’re hiking in I would like to drink four liters over 22 miles. Already I bet you’re seeing the problem here. Additionally, we cannot do a 36 mile day, it would simply crush us, so we will need to camp in between here and Crater Lake. Camping is at least another two liters of water. In short, we need six liters of water each and we can carry three.

But! Oh there is always a but, dear reader. And this one comes in the form of a potentially fictional stagnant pond right where we’d like to camp tonight. Less ideally, there is also a spring a mile off trail that definitely existed before a fire ripped through this area in 2017, but nobody has been able to find it this season. So that’s fun.

We spend a leisurely lunch chatting with some Oregon section hikers and drinking water in the shade. By the time we depart the last certain water it’s 4pm and the day is starting to cool. If we’re going to be screwed on water we might as well not sweat any more than necessary. Though it’s still hot. So much so that on the final small climb of the day I’m dripping sweat from the tip of my nose. I use my finger as a squeegee across my forehead, flinging the little beads of water into the dry, ashy dirt. The lush forest has evaporated around us to be replaced by a desolate moon scape. Skeletal trees scratch their black arms towards the grey sky. The sun is a neon red ball barely making its presence known. We could be on Mars.

I try and conserve water. Even carrying three liters I know it won’t be enough, but at least I can try and lessen the dehydration tomorrow. It is so hard though. As soon as I tip my bottle to my mouth I’m guzzling, my body can’t help it. The desire for water has overridden my conscious mind. We are so close to camp now and I think to what is left in my food bag that I could eat for dinner; if we’re low on water there is no way I’m cooking a meal with it. I see the sign for the possibility defunct spring and right below it, written on a rock in charcoal it says ‘pond 500.’ And we are saved!

Pond 500! Shorthand for there is a pond 500 feet in the direction of the scrawled arrow. Oh hallelujah hallelujah pond 500! Thank you mystery note writer, thank you a million times over. We scramble up a small hill and there, tucked within an expansive field of blackened trees is the stagnant pond I’ve been dreaming off. The pond has receded from it’s edges and many of the lilies are laying on the muddy bottom, but there is still a little water. Keith ventures out on a log to fill our bottles. It’s a balancing act, but the footprints left by a previous hiker make it apparent that the muddy bottom is not to be trusted less you have your shoes pulled off.

The water is the color of pee that you might see a doctor about but I don’t care. That’s what filters are for! And in the moment I can drink as much as my body needs. They say they trail provides and perhaps that is true, so long as you’re willing to drink stagnant pond water.

South Brown Mountain Shelter (mile 1763) to campsite at mile 1785

The trees here are full of secrets. A thousand faces on each one, all sagging cheeks lined with age, all drooping mustaches of Spanish moss. Their arms held wide to grab or shade or conceal. Stretching away in all directions who knows what is out there, certainly not I on this little ribbon of dirt that I call a home. Between the green of the trees and the grey of the smoke we are cocooned in a moving snow globe. The world revealing itself to us one step at a time while our northbound progress gently closes the door behind us. Above us the sky is a flat white, part cloud or all smoke it is impossible to know, but that flat white sky bleeds to the horizon and suffuses the land with a soft gentle light. Across the ground runs the trail of red dirt, our line of breadcrumbs leading us through this forest with all her secrets. And up high? There is no up high here. Only rolling climbs to a small flat campground where with the slight advantage of height one can see just far enough to know you don’t know anything at all.