August 16th
Leaving the horse camp we hike over a small divide to reach Shelter Cove resort. It’s a gentle and pleasant walk, with some nice lakes and mountain views. And as a plus there are more and more ripened huckleberries!
At Shelter Cove we feast on hot dogs, sodas and ice cream. Ruth and Toek are there already. TW, Strut and Tigger arrive about the same time as we do. The Carrot and I shower, do laundry and resupply from the hiker’s box and stuff from Ruth plus a couple items from the store. We are in and out of Shelter Cove in 3 hours. A quick visit, to make more miles, to have a different experience from ’94 when I spent 2 days there AND to get to Willamette pass for pizza.
The Carrot and I left with Ruth and Toek to hike the 3 miles to Willamette Pass, where the ski lodge and its promise of pizza await. The three gals showed up later. And the six of us took over a large table away from the general commotion.
A big screen TV in the background was blaring some stuff about the Olympics, which had just begun. It seemed so unimportant compared to pizza and so foreign. Although we were only a couple hundred yards from the trail access the ski resort next to the highway, both with their fill of summer tourists seemed to be a world away from the remote trail we had just hiked, as if we were dropped into some completely new place and time. We were interlopers, on the outside looking in, maybe even fish out of water. Soon we would leave and return to our natural environment – the trail.
We left the gals and hiked on just beyond Ruth and Toek to join them for the night, camped on a low divide between middle and north Rosary Lakes, just three miles from the highway but a whole world away.
