Start: 806.3
Stop: 815
Today’s miles: 8.7
Total PCT miles: 1002.7
Croc miles: 113.1
Today was pretty dang amazing. Don’t get me wrong, my feet still hurt, and bad.. BUT, that was shoved down and ignored as best as possible. We got up and left before 7, me being the last one out.. I seriously just do not feel or hear the vibrating on my phone for my alarm. I can’t use an alarm with sound because that would wake the whole world.. soooo.. here I am, always getting up a good 20-30 minutes after my friends. I can’t wait to get my new watch my Mom is sending with my shoes.
I quickly caught up to the two of them sitting on logs chatting. Marquis’ left foot is really bothering him. It sounds like shin splints or an overuse injury to me, and I showed him the stretches TBird showed me on the AT. Hopefully they help, but we don’t have service right now.. so he can’t ask for advice or look up better things to do. Once we get service tomorrow he’s going to reach out to a physical therapist. If we’re catching up to him, you have to know he’s in some significant pain. I’m worried about him.
As we hiked, I hit my THOUSAND MILES HIKED milestone! Wahoo! Only 1,655 more miles to go! Haha, yikes. Anyway, we continued walking to the next junction, and then on to our campsite for the day and night. We were set up before noon and walking back to the road to hitchhike down to Crater Lake. We were able to get a hitch pretty fast, a man and his son stopped for us.. we sat in the trunk of their car as they drove us to the swimming area. The guy’s wife is a ranger and they were out here on a road trip. The little boy said he wants to be a ranger when he grows up, too. It was super sweet. He gave us facts about Crater Lake, which were all wrong. Marquis let us know after the fact, not to bust the little boy’s bubble. Ha.
The trail down to the lake was 1.1 mile down semi steep switchbacks. It was smooth and wide, and there were tons of people. I think we were the only thruhikers. At the bottom, we clambered over some rocks, put our packs down (that only had our food and water, since we didn’t want animals ransacking our tents while we were gone), and got out into the water. Well, Margot and I got in to swim, Marquis just got his legs in. He’s really in some pain.
I got to SWIM IN CRATER LAKE!! How stinking cool! I’ve been twice now and never once swam! Margot and I waded out and came back to sun bathe on rocks and then jumped in to swim again. I was sad that Marquis wasn’t feeling his best, because this should have been a favorite day for him too, but he was hurting bad enough that he wasn’t really enjoying himself at all. Even if he didn’t admit it, the misery was all over his face. We attempted to cheer him up. We ate on the rocks while we dried out.. listening to all the kids and their parents chatting and snapping pictures.. “SAY CHEESE!” And fought the fearless chipmunks for the safety of our food and belongings.. they were something else!
The walk back up to the parking lot was of course straight up now, but it was nice seeing how well we’ve been trained for this. We didn’t huff and puff and take breaks like all the people we saw doing on our way down. It was a moment of pride, for sure. At the top we used the bathrooms and sat in the shade while Marquis did his stretches while we had flat space for him to do it.
Eventually, close to 3:45, we stood at the stop sign to hitch hike back to the trail head. Many people drove by, many refused to make eye contact.. Marquis started doing the sprinkler and then talked us into doing it too. We were laughing and “sprinkling” with our thumbs out and a couple stopped for us! They’re from Oklahoma, out here visiting the park. They were so fun to talk to on the 15 minute ride, and they even went out of their way to take the extra turn to get us back to the trailhead instead of dropping us off at the intersection, and then causing us to hitch again.
We were so thrilled! We hiked the 1/2 mile back to camp after getting some water from a cache at the parking lot of the trailhead. Then we ate dinner, Marquis stretched.. we chatted and laughed and now I’m laying down at 6:15pm. Im about to try to force myself to go to sleep, because we’re waking up at 3am so we can hike to the rim and watch the sun rise over the lake.
Depending on how Marquis’ foot is doing tomorrow, we may or may not stay in Mazama Village, the “town” in Crater Lake National Park. Either way, we’ll get there, eat breakfast, brunch, or lunch, and then get our resupply boxes from the post office or general store, do some laundry, charge some things.. then decide to stay or hike out.
It makes no difference to me, I’ll get to Fish Lake either Friday or Saturday, and BigMama says she can take me to Seiad Valley on Saturday.. so, as long as I’m there by then, it makes no difference. I don’t think they’re going into Fish Lake at all, so this is our last few days together.. I’m ok with not rushing it. Now, let’s hope I can get some shut eye, 3am will come very quick! Goodnight y’all!