August 31st
It’s always hard to leave the luxury of a nice comfortable bed in town and so, as usual, we slept in later than we had originally planned. We still had groceries to organize and spent some time going through stuff. Of course we had to go to breakfast at the Cascade Inn, the restaurant where we had a farewell breakfast ten years ago. We were finally all set to leave town and were walking toward the bridge when a familiar face rode up on a bicycle. It was “Charlie” who we had last seen in Agua Dulce. He had hiked from Campo to Kennedy Meadows, a 700 mile section, and we had spent some time with him around Big Bear. He lives on a farm about 70 miles east of here and today he was out pursuing his other passion, bicycling, on a several day ride to and from Portland. Good to chat with him again.
A little after 11:30 we crossed the Columbia River on the Bridge of the Gods and entered Washington, the final state, the home stretch, only 520 miles to go. On the other side we turned left and found the trailhead. Some hikers opt for a guidebook suggested road walk to Panther Creek. We stayed with the trail. Despite its longer route and seemingly useless ups and down, the PCT offers a trail experience, not a road walk, so it won out. And we were rewarded with some nice forests, streams and a few nice views of Mt Hood, as well as occasional glimpses of Mt Adams, Rainier and St Helens.
Some of the climbs were steep. Between the heat (more than we have had in awhile) and the humidity we were drenched in sweat. The forecast calls for rain tonight or tomorrow and the dampness in the air makes me believe it. We are carrying food for 7 days, the longest stretch between resupplies that we will have, both in miles and days. The packs are heavy.
We seem to be in a hiker void. Although we did see one day hiker, we saw no thru hikers on the trail or in town. Cascade Locks was the first town stop we have had where we saw no other thru hiker. In fact we haven’t seen another thru hiker for four days now. Because of our two days off at Olallie lake, everyone we hiked with in Oregon is somewhere between 1 and 3 days ahead of us. And since the rains probably kept most hikers behind us holed up in Sisters or further back, we expect that there is at least a 1 or 2 day buffer between any hikers behind us. In a way it’s nice, although very different from any other time on this trip. Hard to say how long it will last.
We pushed pretty hard in the afternoon in order to reach Rock Creek with its promise of water and hope for camping. We found both just as it was getting too dark to see, about 8:15pm. We got enough miles in, approximately 21.0, to be on track to arrive White Pass on Sunday.
