Day 93: Passing time and miles with trail games

Day 93 – 8/5/16

2027.11 to Lemeti creek 2052.09

Total miles: 24.97

Last night was a weird combination of hot and sweaty but still cold. I was up again by 5 and just laid in my tent until about 5:45 when I started packing up. I packed up all my stuff and went over to the others were and waited for them. By 6:45 we were off.
Within an hour we came to Russell Creek that we had to cross. It was flowing pretty good. I went upstream a bit and found a place to rock hop across without getting my feet wet. It was pretty sketchy. Jeremy and Mayfly crossed at the trail and got their feet wet. Taming came by and found a way to cross a bit down stream. We came up the trail a bit and sat down so Jeremy could redo his blister bandages. As we were about to head out again we saw a lady named Karen that we met yesterday walk up to the creek. Tami showed her where she crossed and then caught back up to us.

Tami found some sunglasses by the creek and have them to me.

 

We walked through a meadow and then had a couple thousand foot climb. I got to the top and saw I had 4G but couldn’t dial out. I had to use Facebook to make a call using data. Kind of stupid. We sat up at the top where we could see Mount Hood  in the distance and Jefferson was behind us. We could also barely see Adams.

Right below is was a snow patch. It was about 40 feet of snow to cross while going down. We sat and had a sna k break with Mt Hood as our spectacular view. A few hikers passed by but a southbound hiker stopped to sit with us. Her name was Ginger and she was having a hard time mentally. We definitely could sympathize with her. She was super nice and I hope she makes it. Karen came by also and talked with us a bit before setting off.

After addressing even more blisters on Jeremy’s feet we set off again. Going down kind of sucked. The trail was very rocky and was very hard on my feet and must have been murder on Jeremy’s blistered feet. We passed Karen again.

We came to a lake and sat down for another long food break. Mayfly stretched out in the sun. An older couple we have been leapfrogging with came by and washed there feet in the lake.

Karen left before us and we said we would see her up the trail. We started up the trail shortly after. I was in front again and after awhile I was about 50 feet ahead of the others. I kept trying to slow down but it’s kind of hard.

After awhile I stopped and waited for them to catch up.  As they came up they asked me to think of an animal between ocelot and orca. I was confused what was going on but I thought and after awhile I said orangutan but apparently nobody heard me cause Jeremy said something at the same time. A minute later Mayfly said orangutan and Tami said that was correct. Apparently, they were playing a game where one person thinks of an animal and the others guess. Then the person thinking of the animal says whether the guess is before or after the animal they are thinking of.

The four of us hiked along playing the game which helped the miles go by. We came up to Karen and had her join in. We played the game almost all the way to a trail head where Karen’s car was parked and where a store was. About half a mile out Jeremy started to fall a bit behind. His feet were hurting bad and he was getting tired. We had gone any 16 miles and would have another 3.5. He didn’t think he could do another 3.5.

We walked to the store at Ollalie Lake and I got a soda, ice cream bar, and a tiny apple pie. We sat at a table and laughed at the otter pop style  popsicle  Tami bought. It had a certain phallic shape to it.

We got our picture taken by the dock of this beautiful lake with Hood in the background.  Karen offered to take Jeremy to Portland and he accepted. Tami and I both thought it would be got the best. His feet were getting worse and in Tami’s experience she got infections from the blisters. Also, we would have to slow down and we didn’t have enough food if we had to do that. If he feelbys better Tami has a friend that can drive him to Timberline Lodge to meet us. It sucks his feet are all messed up. I could tell he was conflicted about leaving.  He would have been more miserable had he stayed though.

The PCT is hard. Even for people who have lots of experience hiking, backpacking, and running. Sometimes people are more prone to blisters and the only way to find out is hike 20+ miles for a few days.

We say goodbye and then Tami books the one room left at Timberline for Sunday night.  I go back in the store and get another soda (a Squirt!) and a bag of skittles. I down the soda and we had back to the trail.   It’s about 6:30 at this point. We hike 3.5 miles and Mayfly is quiet while Tami and I chat about life on the PCT and things we’ve learned. We get to Jude Lake and Mayfly says she is knackered and is going to stop at the lake. Tami and I continue on for another 5.5 miles. By this point out is about 7:50.

We hike on talking about the trail still. We are heading to this tenting spot that is big enough for tents. Between Jude Lake and this site there are no spots to put a tent. The trees and bushes are super thick.  It starts to get dark and we pull out our headlamps. We finally get to the spot and it is packed with overnight backpackers and their huge tents and also so people in hammocks. We try to quietly walk around looking for a any spots but there is nothing. We did see a small spot next to a fire pit we could both cowboy camp at. We unpack our stuff to set up trying to be as quiet as possible. We finish setting up and the temperature has dropped. Looks like I’m in for a cold night.