Day 57
1818.43-1838.63 (20.47)
This morning we slept in past sunrise and then just laid around even longer. We packed up camp and walked over to the store around 7:30 to pick up food and hit the trail. Unfortunately, the man behind the counter said my box had not arrived. After making them double check, the guy told me my box was likely at the post office 4 miles away. Since there was no hitching in the park and no service I felt a bit stuck. After attempting to use a pay phone and returning to the same guy to say the pay phone took my money, a nice ex-PCT hiker offered me a ride to the post office. I waited around until he returned and retrained a wifi code from someone staying in a cabin so that I could call my mom. A few hours later I made it to the post office only to be told that the box was in fact at the first place. I took a picture of the information and returned to the store to ask the guy to check again. He looked again and what do ya know...he found my box. So yay now I have my food and have to reorganize it. While repackaging, the last trolley to the crater lake rim trail pulled up and I threw everything into my pack to hop on a bus. The bus was filled with smelly hikers and then was stopped to pick up a bunch of people who had just finished the marathon at the lake and were left by a broken down trolley. A trolley car packed with stinky people did not help with the car sickness that I was already feeling from the post office drive. We sat by the lake for a while as I organized my pack and then headed for the trail. The rim trail alternate was quite crowded compared to the PCT and my frustration with the many many lost tourists grew. I was still feeling sick and I just wanted to get out of the crowds so I moved pretty quickly around to the other side of the lake where I found a nice spot to sit and enjoy the lake in peace. It was the bluest lake I have ever seen and so absolutely stunning. I stopped to read some of the info signs along the way and learned about the naming of the lake. It was pretty fascinating to think about the first people who stumbled upon such an amazingly enormous feature. This fascination led to conversations about early expeditions, the growing population, the environment, work to help deter human effects on the environment. We walked until the next water source which was a bear box fully stocked with gallon water bottles. The rest of the evening we took easy and talked about what life might be like after the trail.
Day 57
1838.6-1870 (31.4)
We freaking made it. 31.4 miles through 2 back to back dry sections and we aren't feeling too bad! My feet and legs are killing me (of course) but I really couldn't argue that they are much worse than they would be on any other day. There were water caches along the way being generously stocked by people in the area so technically we didn't do the first dry section. It's pretty amazing to think that someone around here is driving up and down a dirt road every day to make sure that hikers have water. The whole tree vortex issue we are having in Oregon was not so bad today as we had some nice views of mount theilsen and made a conscious effort to keep each other occupied for the last 10 miles. Conversations moved from elections to history to gymnastics to coaches to relationships to college to philosophy quotes and around again. We both were getting bored in our own heads and did what we had to do to make it work. We succeeded and although the sun was almost entirely set by the time we reached camp we were pretty dang happy.
Day 58
1870-1890 (20.38)
After a pretty achy and restless night we both opted to sleep in a bit. Once I was all packed up, I walked the .4 to water without my pack and the .4 back. By the time I started walking it was pretty late and we ended up only reaching 8 miles by 12 o'clock. Lately, I have been having a bit of back pain on my lower left side and it seemed to worsen throughout the day today. I took some of my trusty ibuprofen in order to keep walking with a little bit more comfort. We moved slowly and eventually made it to a lake in the afternoon. I decided that it was a good time to go for a swim as I was being consumed by mosquitos trying to retrieve water so I got into my birthday suit and swam out towards an island. The water felt amazing on my feet and took a bit of the pressure off my back. After swimming/floating around for a bit I made my way towards camp among many ponds about 4 miles down trail.
Day 59
1890-1908.44 (18.44)
We set alarms so that we could wake up at our old early morning time so that we could be on trail before 6 am. The first 10 miles felt like I was having Sierra flashbacks as I climbed up a pass and then made my way along creeks (with mosquitos) at a higher elevation. I was ready for a 10 mile break when it came as my heel blisters are getting to be pretty painful. I drained them last night but they were not fully dried out and the dirt irritated them. I rested and ate as much of my remaining snacks as I could before finishing the 6 miles into town. We had to take an extra trail and walk the road but there were fresh blueberries all along the way! Shelter cove didn't have much but it had wifi to get in touch with society and my resupply box so I relaxed for the afternoon. We then made our way out of town for a short hike to a lake campsite. The lake was beautiful and we cleaned our clothes in the lake before making dinner and reading some magazine articles!
No comments:
Post a Comment