August 26th
The ride back to Olallie with Mom and Dad was quite scenic with mist shrouded valleys and deep green forests. It is a long road with almost no traffic. Hitching would be very difficult, so I would not recommend to other hikers leaving the PC at Olallie Lake unless you have a ride back or do not intend on coming back.
When we arrived at the resort everything was very quiet. And the lake and surrounding mountains were still shrouded in mist and clouds. Mt Jefferson was still not visible.
Since we have been off for two days the “deck” has been shuffled and it will be interesting to see which hikers who were behind may now have caught up. Although with the rain, many hikers may have sought shelter either at Olallie Lake resort or in Sisters, thus spacing themselves a couple days apart. We read through the register and all of the other hikers we have seen the last 1000 miles are now 2 to 3 days ahead of us now. Very little sign of anyone new having recently arrived. But the trail is always full of surprises.
Mom and Dad walked with us the couple hundred yards to the trail junction and we said our goodbyes in the gathering mist, heading out finally around noon.
A couple hours down the trail we ran into Porter who had stayed in a cabin last night at Olallie. And we met our friend Scott Williamson who was on the southbound leg of his quest to “Yo-Yo” the PCT. He had already finished the Mexico to Canada hike and turned around on Aug 9th to hike back to Mexico. Having not seen Scott in several years we spent a couple hours getting caught up and swapping information.
While we were with Scott, Wicked came along after his own time off at Olallie.
There was off and on rain and constant mist during the afternoon. The terrain was relatively flat and we made good time despite an occasional ripe huckleberry trying to distract us.
We passed Porter setting up his camp and hiked on to a spring, which was our destination. Because we had visited with Scott for so long we arrived there just as it was getting almost too dark to see. It was a very makeshift site, not great, but at this late or we made it work. A little while later Wicked came along looking for the same spring and camped nearby.
The rain became heavier at night and our new gear and gear strategies received their first “test”. Everything seemed to work just fine.
