“So you’re hiking the Oregon section, eh? When did you start?”
“Two days ago.”
“Well, you’re making good time,” he said. I could not tell if he was just trying to encourage me, or if he actually meant it. I had heard of through-hikers achieving forty-mile days, so my speed should have been anything but impressive to him.
“Thanks,” I said. Hesitating, I added: “I’ve got this crazy goal to hike all of Oregon without restocking food or supplies.”
“What?” he asked, reacting as though he must have misunderstood what I had said. “For the whole state? You mean you’re just buying stuff at stores without shipping food to yourself, right?”
“No, I’m carrying all my food and gear with me for the whole trip. I promised myself that I won’t restock anything.”
“No town stops?”
“Nope.”
“You’re saying you have all of your food in that pack right now?” he asked, pointing to my red backpack.
“That’s right.”
“How much does it weigh?”
“I started with fifty pounds of food. I just guessed my gear weight, but I think I’m carrying at least seventy-five pounds.”
“And you’re lugging that all the way to Washington? You’re more of a man than I am, that’s for sure.” This compliment was uplifting. “Well, if you find that it’s just too hard, you could always ship some of your food ahead when you reach Hyatt Lake Resort or Crater Lake.” I could sense that he had his doubts about my project.
“That would be cheating,” was my only response.
I hiked with Wombat for a bit. When I mentioned that day’s water crisis, he replied that there was a spring with a cistern coming right up. We soon came to it, and I was glad that I had not seen this improved water source in my state of extreme thirst. The temptation to use a man-made water-supplying device might have overpowered me. The cistern further increased my distrust in my maps, which made no note of it. A little later, in the vicinity of Soda Mountain, Wombat left me in the dust as I struggled up a small incline. I wondered if I would see him again.
I stopped for the night in a clearing near Soda Mountain Road. I had hiked about fifteen miles that day, but I felt much less exhausted in comparison to the first two days, and the knee had been manageable most of the time. I was optimistic. I was also very hungry. My thoughts turned to food.
It had occurred to me that I was carrying quite a bit of superfluous food. I had packed extra for the thirty miles of hiking south from Interstate 5 to the border—an additional distance that I did not end up traversing. I had also brought enough for a possible side trip up the South Sister, a trip I was now determined to skip in light of my sore knee. With enough extra food for forty miles—about four pounds—I could afford to splurge a bit. I decided that eating the surplus food in the first few days of the trip would be best, as it would lighten my load and provide me more energy at a time when my body was still not used to such intense exertion. After just a few minutes of performing these mental acrobatics to justify breaking my food schedule, I chowed down. Disgusting, of course—but filling nonetheless.
It was dark before I started to hang my pack in a nearby tree as a precaution against bears. On the first two evenings, this task had been done in daylight. Now, flashlight in mouth, I was struggling. I tied one end of my cord to my pack and the other to a stick, and then attempted at least ten times to throw the stick over a tree branch. When I finally got it, the stick dangled about twelve feet above the ground—just out of reach. I had to pull it down and select a lower branch. After another seven throws, the cord was over the lower branch and I began to hoist with all my might. I really wished that I had packed my food in a stuff sack so that didn’t have to hang the whole pack. Bad planning. When I finally tied off the end of the rope and inspected my work, I realized that even a medium-sized black bear could easily reach the pack from the trunk of the tree. I sighed and went to bed.
8/12/08
Breakfast was the first thing on my mind when I awoke next to Soda Mountain Road. I got my pack out of the tree (no bears!) and eagerly ate another pound of food. For some reason, the summer sausage was more repulsive than usual.
The scenery of my morning hike alternated between shady forests and warm, dry meadows. I noticed within the first few minutes of walking that my energy level was much better than before. I attributed this to going to bed with something in my stomach.
In the early afternoon, I stopped for lunch near a small reservoir. The dilapidated dam that held it at bay seemed almost ready to burst. Streams of water poured through obvious cracks. A strange system of pipes had been retrofitted to the structure, allowing some water to be siphoned to the other side of the dam instead of all of it pouring over the top. I guessed that these were intended to reduce the strain on the sorry device. If the dam ever failed, the ensuing flood would surely destroy the nice bridge that the PCT uses to cross the overflow stream.
After lunch, I was given some great views of Hyatt Lake. The trail wraps around the south and east sides of this body of water, but not very close to the shore. By virtue of my elevation and distance from the water, I was able to observe large portions of the lake at one time. I appreciated its scenic beauty and hoped that Howard Prairie Lake, my intended stopping point for the day, would be just as magnificent.
When I finally reached a good camp spot near Howard Prairie Lake and headed to the shore to wash clothes, I was very disappointed. The water was an ugly, brown, almost mud-like substance. I could not see my toes six inches below the surface. As I scrubbed the sweat out of my clothing, it was replaced by brown silt—only a slight improvement. When I tried to fill my hydration pouch, I had to stop twice to clean the filter element in my water pump.
I returned to my camp spot and ate dinner, thinking that I had made a full twenty miles that day. Rereading my map, I noticed during the last few bites of food that I had only gone eighteen miles. Oh, well.
Making sure to hang my pack before nightfall, I nestled down in my sleeping bag right at dusk and began to write in my journal by flashlight. I paused when I noticed two pairs of eyes staring at me in the dark. I could not tell what sort of creatures they belonged to. My thoughts turned to my poorly-hung pack, and I began to see prophetic images of the thing lying in the morning sunlight, torn to shreds. To acquire peace of mind, I flashed the light in the direction of my nighttime observers. The eyes turned away and flitted into the bushes, and in the moonlight I saw the white rumps of two blacktail deer.
8/13/08
I awoke feeling very refreshed. Going to bed on a full stomach probably had something to do with that. As the sun climbed in the sky and the temperature rose, I consumed my breakfast with great haste. I wanted to make some serious miles, and I knew that my surprisingly high energy level would not be enough to achieve that. I would need to get an earlier start.
Much of my day was spent hiking in forested areas. I was glad that I could be in the shade, as the day proved to be even warmer than I had expected. I stopped for lunch at a highway that my map referred to as “Dead Indian Road.” Despite the unpleasant name, the area was quite charming. Shortly after this road, I passed a camping shelter with a hand-operated water pump. I briefly debated in my mind whether this pump counted as a developed water source. True, the water flowed through a man-made device, but I had to use my own effort to obtain it. What a dilemma. Although I was nearly out of water, I decided to skip the pump in favor of replenishing at a stream depicted on my map. I would only have to walk a mile or so. I headed down the trail.
What I found when I arrived at the stream was nothing but a