Washington: Last Leg of Journey

(Stud) We arrived in Cascade Locks, WA around noon yesterday. We now have 2100+ miles under our belts; and less than 600 miles left to our journey. The last few days have been "testers", and I guess we passed since I'm still around to write about it. A not so brief summary:.

8/19: We slept cowboy last night--and I awoke around 1pm to Dwight saying: "it's raining". I was using the tarp for a pillow, so I quickly threw it over everything while Dwight jumped up and started tying it up. Luckily he'd positioned our groundcloth between 2 trees, and he managed to get it in place before anything got to wet.

It was still misting rain in the morning when we headed out. Helen, Norman, Speedstick and Rest Stop were camped nearby, and we were the first to get going. Around 10, Speedstick and Rest Stop caught up, and the four of us hiked together for the rest of the day with the rain continuing on and off. It was a 24+ mile hike to Timberline Resort (at the base of Mt Hood) where we arrived it late afternoon. By the time we arrived there it was cold, windy, overcast and a thick fog shrouded the resort. I felt like I had hiked into a Dickens novel. The main building was built in the WPA era--and it's a huge post and beam structure with amazing ironwork, huge fire places, beautiful artwork. We ran into Rocket Cop and Lidsl in one of the restaurants there, and they'd managed to get a small room with 2 twin beds. (I had inquired about rooms, but they were totally booked.) Lidsl had dried out all his gear--wet from last night--and he offered to give up his bed. Rocket Cop was OK with the rest of us jamming in the room--so we were five people in a room than was probably not much bigger than 10 X 12. Dwight and I slept in one twin bed, Rocket Cop in another and Reststop and Speedstick on the floor. Lidsl, who'd we only just met that day, headed back out in the miserable weather...we owe him big!.

8/20: It was so nice to have slept in doors last night! I didn't sleep that well, but still was so happy not to have had to head back into the cold, misty night. I got up early to write a birthday letter off to my mom, and joined the other hikers waiting outside the restaurant for the breakfast buffet to open--and what a delicious buffet it was!!! Waffles, eggs, bacon sausage, fresh fruits, pastries, cheese..."lovely" as the Brits would say.

We headed out in the misty rain around 10:3o or so. Met a boy scout troop leader on the trail that had done the PCT with his family in 1969 when he was 10 or 12 years old. They did in on horseback--a family of 6 and they took 12 horses. It was written up in both Life Magazine and National Geographic. He told Dwight there was a lot of road walk back then (including in the area of the high Sierras). Those would be some neat articles to find and read.

The rain continued throughout the day thoroughly soaking us. I was wearing my light plastic poncho (about the weight of a garbage bag) since I'd sent my rainsuit on to Cascade Locks. At Sandy River, we spent a lot of time trying to figure out where to ford--with Dwight heading upstream and me heading down. Who'd guess that down stream was actually the best place to cross--but we luckily found a couple of logs and I went across on all fours. I'm sure I looked ridiculous, but with the logs so slippery, I didn't want to risk falling in--although in retrospect, I'm not sure I could have gotten any wetter. Just after the ford, we ran into Thomas (Suess) going south. We'd hiked with him and Chickadee in the Sierras, and when Chickadee got off at Echo Lake, he hitched to Manning Park (northern terminous) and started hiking south. So we had a 20 minute reunion, then headed on. Helen and Stormin Normin caught up to us and the four of us hiked together. There were some trail reroutes--and the notices posted at the trail crossings were not very clear on direction. Not helping the matter was that the rain totally soaked our guidebook pages and they stuck together in one gloppy mess. Around 7 or so we got to a 4 way trail intersection--with another reroute posting. After some discussion, we picked a direction we thought was right, and headed on. We'd already regained a lot of elevation, but this took us up another 1000 feet or so and just didn't feel right to me. But with darkness setting in, and us all being "chilled to the bone" as Norman said, we called it quits for the day.

Setting up in the rain and not getting our dry things soaked in the process was a tedious and time consuming endeavor. We put the tarp up first, then got under it, took off our wet gear, then laid out the ground cloth and sleeping bags, and layered on some dry clothes. With my jacket wet, that left me with my sunshirt any nylon pants. We ate cold food after getting in our bags--and called it a day. 8/21: We were really late getting going this morning. Rain had stopped although it was still dripping rain from the trees and I was terribly unmotivated. Got little sleep last night because the bottom half of sleeping bag was wet (I think from touching wet gear), and campsite was on a big slant--so I spent most of the night in a fetal position sliding down hill, then scooching back up, sliding down hill, then scoothing back up.... Thankfully, it wasn't really that cold. Hell on Wheels and Stormin Norman passed by the tarp around 8:00 and continued on the trail in the same direction we were headed yesterday. They said they would leave us notes along the way to indicate any turns they made. I think we got going around 8:30 or so and headed in the same direction as they did--even though I thought we were probably off trail. In a mile or so we reached a marked junction, and spent at least 15 minutes studying the overview map to figure out where we were. Long story short, we'd gone about 4 miles off trail. Based on the arrow Helen and Norman left, we could see they'd decided to head down to a forest service road and then hitch to town or make their way back to the PCT. We decided to retrace our steps back to where we made the mistake--and with the help of some day hikers we met enroute, we figured out the intersection where we went wrong. (BUMMER: We almost made it out of Oregon without taking a wrong turn!) When we arrived at the fateful intersection, Rest Stop was there doing (what else), taking a break. The 3 of us headed on together, and around noon, stopped at a sunny spot and put out all our gear to dry. Speedstick arrived a short time later and joined the gear drying session. Then the 4 of us hiked together to just pass the Indian Creek Campground where they headed on after we found a great little spot to camp around 8pm on a ridgeline just off the trail . We ended the day with dried out gear, a beautiful orange sunset and a delicious mocha mousse dessert that came in the mail drop Sharyn and Paul sent to Timberline. Proof that a good day generally follows a crappy one.

8/22: Absolutely beautiful hiking today on the Eagle Creek Trail. So glad we took this alternate. The trail had a tropical feel about it with trees and rocks draped in moss, ferns and several waterfalls. The coolest part was Tunnel Falls, a waterfall so tall, I couldn't get it in one frame of my camera and where the trail actually went behind the falls. We arrived in Cascade Locks just after noon, and stopped at the first restaurant we came too. There are lots of hikers here either zeroing or neroing: Gary, Tiki, Rocket Cop, Lidsl, Speedstick, Hoover (Ryley), Rest Stop, Scott, Sandy and Thomas (who went as far as Timberline, then turned back north again). We did our resupply at a small grocery store, picked up the mail drop from Tim (got back my rainsuit, rain hat, gloves and warmer sleeping bag), had dinner, got icecream then waddled back to the Best Western where we're spending the night.