Last night was really cold. I was zipped up in my bag with a buff wrapped around my head and still shivering. I eventually got warm enough to sleep, I just needed to stay very still :). Must have been around 30. Morning was cold as well so I stayed zipped up till 7 then jumped out and got moving. Dark Horse was still in her tent when I left.

Today I need to bust out some miles. I’ve 46 to go to get to Shelter Cove and a pickup! I’ve left burnville behind and now walking through some beautiful old growth forest. The beauty comes with a price….skeeters. They go from bothersome, to thick, to outrageous. Near the end of the climb, there is no stopping them. I’m spraying this crappy repellent called Oil of Lemon Eucalyptus which the eco friendly gal at REI convinced me to buy instead of Deet and it does not work worth a damn.

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So I’m walking, slapping off skeeters, spraying, and generally miserable. Then it gets even worse. I’m talking clouds of mosquitoes. They are going up my nose, mouth, eyes. I inhaled several, ate even more. Goddamn. Finally I stopped and unloaded my bag to find my headnet. That improved things a bit and I made camp at the first spot available at the top of the hill. I jammed into my tent and sat there eating trail mix for dinner. There is no way I’m unzipping this tent !

Thank God this day is over.

Started at 6:30 this morning. Getting a little better about rolling out of the sack. Hike today started with a slight downhill then turned into a mostly easy climb from 6k to 7.5k. I grabbed a couple liters at the water cache at 1848, I love these trail angels up here!

Fortunately, there is less burn up here and decent shade. Had a little huffying and puffing up a stiff grade. It was getting windy and I knew I was near the top of this bit of trail. When I finally popped out, there it was. Mt Thielson. Wow.

I was standing around taking pictures when a day hiker appears. He is going up the Mt Thielson trail which intersects the PCT here and offered to take a photo. I was like “You walked all this way to take my picture?” Well here it is, the Salty One fronting Mt Thielson.

Carried on hiking and crossed my first patch of snow. First thing to come to mind was that I should have brought some tang to mix in….but it was not to be. Nobody carries tang anymore. Pity that the science of orange powder has been overridden by Organic this and that.

Next stop was Thielson Creek at 1856 where I stopped and grabbed some water. There was a gal there northbounding from Ashland named Dark Horse. She is out to finish up the trail like me. She said her name came from always being the last one into camp after everyone had written her off (i.e. betting on the dark horse). Anyway, she packed and moved out while I was having some tasty Granola with Blueberries.

Munching away, here comes another full-on Northbounder named Tenderfoot. Turns out he hiked part of the PCT in 2017. I don’t recall meeting him, but the name rung a bell. He only got as far as Walker Pass then. He said his pack was way to heavy and he got some injuries. Well now he is back with a featherwieght pack and full of advice for anyone who would listen. Given that I was the only one there, that person would be me. I busied myself rearranging my pack because I’m carrying an extra set of shoes and the weight distribution is killing my lower back. He had some suggestions on how to pack which were useful, then a bunch of gear suggestions which were not. Dude just wouldn’t quit….so I did. Off I went up the hill.

Climbing away, I passed Dark Horse who was making some good progress. She is slow, but determined. Later Tenderfoot sailed by me, at a crushing pace. Good for him. Hope he makes it this time.
I’m hurting at this point. My pack, while pretty awesome all things considered, is killing my back. I got to thinking about it and I miss all the padding and stiffness of my old pack. Frankly, strapping into my old pack was like having an exoskeleton on. That pack is so stiff, I didn’t even need sholder straps, the thing just hung on my waist, transfering all the weight straight to my hips. This one on the other hand needs those shoulder straps tight. That combined with all the weight hitting my lower back is making me a little miserable. I’m pretty sure that once I dump the weight of my extra shoes, it should get a little better.

So I’m hurting and feeling a little wrung out. I knew I’d hit shelter cove on the weekend which means I’d likely not get a room and would have to tent it. I need a bed and some civilization! So I sent Alice a message on the InReach and she finally found me a place. I just need to get there in two days for a Saturday night stay. She is my Angel!

I camped at 1860. Supposedly this site was “awesome” according to guthook comments, but I found it to be just ok. There is a lot of smoke in the valleys so the views were truncated. The site is at 7600 feet and pretty close to the highest point in oregon for the PCT. Dark Horse showed up later and setup while I was turning in.

Got up at the crack of dawn. Packed my stuff then riffled through the hiker box looking for some extras to take on the trail. Mike had dumped some spam single servings and kind bars that I grabbed. Also found some Knorr rice sides. With that, I took one last trip to the clean bathrom then headed out. Was on the access trail by 7ish.

So I was debating whether to hit the rim trail around crater lake or just follow the PCT route. After slapping some skeeters, I chose the PCT route. I had heard it was mostly burned and the views sucked, but at least I would be hiking without a swarm of bugs and tourists. Well it was certainly all burned up.

While hiking this section Alice, who is monitoring my InReach dot closely, starts sending me messages that I’m off the trail and should be going around the rim. I’m texting her back that this is the actual PCT and rim trail is an alternate. Of course texting by satellite is not the quickest and messages are overlapping. Finally I just stopped and carried on hiking. Don’t worry honey!

Found a nice spot for lunch at Copeland creek (1829). Ate some of my hiker box winnings while lounging in the bug-free shade. Only saw one group on the trail going south. The guy said they were looking for solitude. I pointed South and said he’d find plenty.

After that I reached the trailhead and parking lot at 1839. Trail Angels have stocked a nice water cache there. I refilled and sat down to take a break. Before long an SUV drives up and out hops 3 gals. Two older ladies who are sisters and their younger cousin. One from Alabama, other from New Mexico, and the cousin from Oregon somewhere. Anyway, they want to know about the trail I just hiked cuz they plan to hike it + crater rim in a loop. So after all that they ask me if I needed anything. I’m like “no, I’m fine” then they start listing off things “candy bars, soda, gatorade, cheetos….” Wait, CHEETOS???? One of them runs back and pulls out a huge bag of cheeto paws and hands it to me. Makes my day.

So, I’m sitting there munching my Cheetos when this nice, big RV shows up. The gal driving parks it and pops out all 7 months preggers. She tells me she is supporting her husband who is running the trail, trying to beat the record for the quickest supported thru-hike/run in under 50 days. He has been doing 50+ miles a day ! Her barfooted, shirtless son of 8-10 years old appears at some point while we are talking. He perches himself squating on the hood of the RV. He has hair down to his waste and it looks like his haircuts are designed to simply keep most of it out of his face. Real wild child. They are from Ashland. You meet the funniest folks out here.
Anyway, I hike another mile or so and setup at a huge flat spot and quickly fall asleep. 

On the trail at 7 today. I’m getting back into the rythm of waking earlier. Today’s walk was same as yesterday. Mostly burned out areas of the forest. Didn’t take too many pictures, just wanted to get some miles in. Saw a couple of southbound section hikers and that was it. I did the whole day on 4 liters of water which is remarkable. I was dry when I hit the Mazama village intersection, but well hydrated.

Rolled into Mazama village around 4. I was reading comments on the Guthook app about this place and they were not very positive. I can confirm them. First thing I did was talk to a few local workers taking a break who gave me bullshit information about the PCT campsite there. They said it was closed due to tree fall. Next I went into the store and found it had almost nothing a hiker needs to resupply (not that I needed much since I’m packed for 6 days). The most outrageous omission was any kind of cheap beer or takeout sandwiches.

While browsing the camp store, I notice lots of fresh smelling, put-together people buying stuff. Then I took a look at the parking lot…all expense cars. So then it hit me, this place is near crater lake and probably just want to cater to city people. I found a gal at the checkout who finally told me where the location of the PCT area in the campsite. “I’m not supposed to tell you where it is” then pointed it out to me on the map. Jeez. Bought my Poweraid and left.

At the PCT site there were about 6 or 7 tents setup. Couple of young gals there and a guy. They showed me a free spot to setup my tent. Buster, Pinky, and Mike where the names. I thought, well finally I meet some PCT hikers, but no. Buster and Pinky were sectioning from Ashland to Washington. However, after 5 days and 100 miles, their feet hurt and they wanted off the trail. They called Mommy for a pickup. Mike is also sectioning the same path and was something of an oddball. Once he got talking, he had an interesting story. Just finished graduate school and was going to work at Apple. Was hoping to hook up with him on the trail and talk a little more. Anyway, nice folks….just not the hiker-trash I’m used to.
For the evening I bought some kind of lame Oregon craft beer and a soggy ham sandwich. I covered it with 3 packets of mayo and mustard, scarfed it down and went to bed. I heard the restaurant is busy and the food sucks, so no breakfast tomorrow. I’m getting the F@#$ out of here first thing in the morning.

Woke up around 6:30, loaded up some fishy water, and headed out. Magic Marker was already gone when woke. I think she likes to hike early, take a long siesta, then hike some more in the evening. I probably passed her at some point, but didn’t see her all day. She mentioned last night that she had bounced a few miles ahead of the group she was hiking with to get out of the smoke from the fires going on south of here. I suspect most of the hiking bubble is behind me since I’ve seen almost nobody on the trail today.

Uneventful day. Just walking through some old burned areas and occasional shady forest. There is so much burned forest here. The only bonus is few skeeters. So either shade and skeeters or sun and heat.

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Saw a grand total of 2 people today, both section hiking southbound. The big news for today is my spotify account stopped working saying it needs an internet connection to play my downloaded playlists. This thing drives me crazy…it must have some problem keeping up the DRM for a large cache of downloaded songs. Since I am now on Tmobile (they bought Sprint), I am blessed with zero phone service. So I am now stuck playing a few old albums I have saved on my phone with an application that is playing those songs in a random order. Have you ever listened to Dark side of the Moon in a random order? It really sucks.

To add to my misfortune today, I dropped my pack here for a little rest.

While I was eating some granola my pack fell over and took a couple of rolls down the slope before I stopped it. No biggie right? Well my bit valve to my platypus somehow got hooked on something and was thrown down the hill. I looked all over the place for it and never found it. Now I have a leaking tube. After some redneck repairs, I have a stopper taped up on the end of the hose which I remove to suck strait from the tube. It sortof works. It will have to cuz there’s no way I’ll replace it until I get to Bend.

On the positive side, my InReach is giving me some basic comms with my wife. $.40 per text, up to 160 characters. I try to use all 160 on a carefully composed message. Alice, on the other hand, sends me tons of one liners. I’m going to be racking up a big bill.

I switched packs for this hike. I decided to trade my almost 6 pound Baltero 60 pack for a 2 pound Osprey exos 58. The most noticeable difference is the Osprey has this trampoline like mesh on the back which allows your back to breath. I sweat a lot less now and consequently my water consumption has dropped by half. I carried 4 liters at the start of the day and skipped several water stops. When I finally filled up at Honeymoon Creek at 1802, I still had a liter left. Amazing.

I dry camped shortly after that at a small non-descript spot at 1803. I was not lonely, plenty of mosquitoes there to keep me company. Tomorrow I hit Mazama Village and hopefully get some good food!