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!

Plane got in last night to Medford. In the morning it was uber rides around town to pickup a fuel canister then a $120 uber ride to the trailhead around noon. Got dumped at the edge of a busy highway and headed into the bush.

About .1 mile in, I ran into my first PCTer. Magid Marker was laying in her tent by a stream sleeping off the days heat. We chatted for a minute then I was on my way, getting in the first big climb of the day from 5k to 6.5 or so.

The heatwave is pretty rough right now. Low 90’s to start, but got cooler as I climbed higher. The trail is super shady, which is a nice change from hiking the desert last month. The downside is no views to speak of, just green tunnel on a comfortable trail.

I got to Twin Ponds trail junction around 7. There are two choices: go left for swampy pond or right for squaw lake. Took the right which turned out to be a rightous campsite right on the lake. Even the mosquitoes took the day off today and were not that bad. After I setup my tent and was eating dinner, Magic Marker turned up. She setup next to me and we chatted for a bit.

She said I must be “fresh to the trail, because I seemed so happy when we first met at the stream crossing”. Heh. I didn’t realize how charged up I was to get back out here.

She is a speech pathologist from NYC. She came out in March to do the first section of the PCT starting from Campo. It was her first backpacking experience. Well apparently she liked it and decided to keep going. She put her house up for sale and closed escrow when she got to Kennedy meadows! I asked her how she delt with all the paperwork. She had given power of attorney to some lawyer and poof….house sold, check in her account, and continue hiking. Her plans after the trail are undefined. Love it.

On a side note, she is the first african-american gal I’ve seen on the trail. Hope there are more in the future. I told her about the asian guy Vincent from NYC who had a similar story. There should be a club for NYC expats who have forsaken the City for living in the dirt.

8 miles for my first few hours on the trail. Feeling good.

Today is June 30, 2021.  Just checked my Oracle laptop for any last minute emails…login not found.   At 5:00 PM PST some automated script erased all my access.   That’s how it ends….login not found.

It is funny how when switching jobs in the past I never noticed this.  I was moving on to something new and exciting.   My previous contacts would be a source of advice, people I could network with, hire, generate leads, continue to discuss ideas, etc.   Frankly, I never really quit a company, I just moved to another gig.   The cloud of friends and associates stayed with me.  Moving forward.   Onward to the next thing.   

Well this is different.  There is no next thing in technology for me.  I’m not off to build a new product, rescue a project, or build a consulting team.   I’m not joining an organization to solve the world’s next big business problem.   Nope, it is just me and my daughter’s dog sitting here in my man cave.   I’m drinking some gifted 18 yr old Scotch and trying to deal with the void I’ve created for myself.   The dog?   He’s hoping I’ll give him another treat.   My loyal staff.  

Despite the decades of planning this is hitting me pretty hard.   It is tough when so much of my life was defined by a career that was both challenging and so much fun.   Alice threw me a fantastic retirement party.   I received some wonderful emails from previous employees and employers.  Over my career I have done a few bad things, a lot of good things, improved the world in some small way, and reaped reasonable financial rewards doing so.   I’ve climbed the career ladder, reached my personal zenith, and lingered for a while.   Even though I no longer wished to climb the next rung, I was comforted knowing it was there above me.  Waiting.  Now there is no ladder. 

There is no spoon.   

For the first time since May, 1989 I am jobless with zero career prospects.  If I spend much time in my current mindset I’m pretty sure that bottle would soon be gone.   Thankfully I will not have much time to sulk.   In a few days I will be back on the Pacific Crest Trail and have far more basic worries to occupy me.

So, here’s the plan.   I just booked a flight to Medford, OR for Saturday night.   On Sunday morning, July 4th 2021, I’ll find somebody to take me to the PCT and start walking North.   I’ll have 2 months on the trail to figure out what comes next.