In the morning, the weird dude and his dog continued to mill around camp.   I pulled my tent, grabbed a couple granola bars, and left to eat on the trail.    Time to end this section and get a beer.

Ran into a reminder of why going any farther North will suck.

Here is reminder of what I will not accomplish this year.

Passed this shack on the way to a road crossing.    Found out later that Twigsy hiked there yesterday and found Captain Ramen.    He did a 34 mile day.    That guy can hike.

We got a some awesome trail magic right after this spot.   Cold Pepsi’s and Mountain Dews.   The guy who stocks it with his wife showed up to drop some more water.   He says they check it 3 times a week.   Wouldn’t accept any donations.    What a nice couple.  

Back into the woods, I started to run into lava rocks.   This will continue until Fish Lake.

I have to say, this turned out to be much easier than I expected.   The folks from the good state of Oregon have made this trail incredibly easy to walk.    I’ve no idea how they did it.   They must have hauled thousands of wheelbarrows of dirt and gravel to fill in this in.    It let me actually enjoy the scenery instead of of watching for the next twisted ankle. 

It is a cool section.   I which I had Rock Doc along to explain it to me.   It appears there were old flows here which had weathered and became tree filled.   Then more recently another explosion of Liquid Hot Magma has filled in the valleys.  

I was wondering where all this crap came from.   Turned a corner and saw this peak.   I suspect it might have something to do with it.

I was feeling better until I hit this sign at 2pm.   The 17 miles had gone by fast.    This was mile 1771.     

Soho showed up 30 minutes later.  The food and beer was good.    We sat around until 5:30 when Soho’s buddy Jim showed up.   He will put us up for the night then get us to a train to Portland in the morning.