Ok, fine, I’ll say more-but please know, this was the one thought coursing through my brain all day long today. On repeat.
I woke up late, of course-by trail time anyway. Marquis and Margot were both packed and gone down the 1/2 mile side trail to get water. Keith was mostly packed, and the guy camping on the other side of me was gone. I just wish the days were still so long like they were in Washington, then I wouldn’t feel guilty about getting up “late” at 6:50am.
I was completely packed and walking down the side trail by 7:12 and back up by 7:30. That side trail was switchbacks down the mountainside to a tiny stream.. it was rough coming back straight up that booger that early in the morning. I started hiking after the other 3, because I knew I’d be slow today in my crocs. My feet have been aching so bad at the end of the day.
The trail was again, easy terrain. We crossed the highest part of the PCT in Oregon.. and it wasn’t steep or difficult or anywhere near the highest peak in the area. The trail is cut so smooth, even with tons of blowdowns to cross, that when I got to the sign telling me as much and that I was standing at 7,573 feet, I didn’t believe it. Oregon has been incredibly gentle. I wouldn’t be capable of doing the Washington part of the trail in crocs-not even a single day!
There really isn’t much else to say. Margot and I ate lunch together. There was a gorgeous stream and Mount Theilson was visible throughout the day. Keith is stopping at this stream and his buddies are hiking in-tomorrow they’ll all climb Mount Theilson, then the next day or so Keith will be back hiking. Pretty neat side trip!
The trail was beautiful and calm, and my sore feet were grateful for all of it. And now they’re throbbing and I’m tired as can be. Tomorrow is a very short day into Crater Lake, where we’ll claim our campsites and then hopefully go swim and get out to Wizard Island. I am SO READY for some short days and some swimming, too.
I hope I wake up on time. Ha. Fingers crossed. Sorry it’s a short one, there just isn’t much to say some days, it all honestly feels so repetitive. Wake up, walk, eat, walk, complain about my feet..
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.
Me, Marquis, Margot
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!
I woke up at 9:30pm last night and had to pee. It was so dark out but I could see a few more tents than there were before falling asleep at 6:30. I tried to sneak out quietly, but I doubt I actually was. I fell back to sleep pretty fast, and didn’t wake again until I had to get up for our sunrise hike.
The three of us packed quietly and were walking out of camp by 3:40am. Margot was in front, followed by me and then Marquis. Once we passed the camping junction, Margot and I put on our bright light and got to it. I turned once, saw the glow of Marquis’ red light and kept moving. The next time I turned around to look for him, I was deciding maybe he should go in front of me.. since he was hurting pretty bad, limping even. This way, if anything happened, he wouldn’t be behind us.
The problem? I didn’t see his light. I stopped and waited.. as I was waiting for him to catch up to me, I could see the glow of Margot’s headlamp disappearing ahead of me into the dark. Crap. I waited some, then kept going, trying to get her attention. When she turned to make sure I was there, realized I was back a good ways, I stopped. She stopped. Marquis didn’t appear, so I got to her and told her as much.
We waited a bit, and then she went back to look for him while I waited where we were-my feet weren’t feeling all that hot in my crocs this morning. I stood in the dark, after she went back and it dawned on me just how dark it actually is out there with no light pollution. I didn’t let my light wander too far, for fear of noticing eyes or something. No thank you. The less I know about what’s out there to potentially kill me, the better.
Then, I got nervous, standing there alone in the dark. I started walking back, too. We met, Margot and I, and 2 other guys, both not Marquis. She said she went all the way back to camp and didn’t see him anywhere. We both agreed that he probably went to the water cache to wait for sunrise to hitch to town. Undoubtedly, that foot is really hurting this morning.
We decided to keep moving, knowing he is smart and capable, and not in any danger since we would have crossed paths or heard him if that were the case. I was certain he just didn’t want us to miss the sunrise. As we hiked through the dark, cold morning, pretty quickly, I turned on my garmin thinking maybe he’d message me there. As I did, I got a message from him. Margot also just got service and had a message, too. We were right. He was hurting too bad and only realized how bad after we started hiking. We got too far ahead of him for him to tell us he needed to turn back, so he sent the messages and did what he had to do. He would rest until sunrise and then meet us in Mazama Village.
This was heartbreaking, simply because the beauty of this morning was unbelievable, and my kind and thoughtful friend was hurting and missing it. I was hoping he wasn’t too stressed. There’s something about any injury or illness or any little thing really while hiking that immediately makes your brain go, “welp, this is it. You’ve ruined it. Your hike is over now. You failed.” And I did not want those thoughts to reach him, though I was sure they already were.
Margot and I got to the Crater at 5am and sat in a wind protected bush for awhile, to warm up. It was COLD. Yesterday we were swimming and this morning it was in the 40s. Sheesh, we’re definitely not in Georgia. Once we decided we were warm enough, we kept hiking to a better vantage point. The sun came up just after 6am. I FaceTimed Meredith and my mom, so they could see this beauty, too.
It was magical. Epic. Extraordinary. Spectacular.Unbelievable. You pick the adjective.. I’m sure if it’s a positive one, it would fit perfectly. It was EVERYTHING. I didn’t even think of doing this, so I am eternally grateful that this specific thing was on Margot’s bucketlist and I got to go along for the ride.
After the sun was up, we continued hiking. We went up the side trail to watchman’s tower for some more gorgeous views. Then back along the rim until we hit the Rim Village. I ate two awful sausage, egg, and cheese biscuits (the cheese wasn’t even melted. It wasn’t even hot at all actually), and had a soda-all for the low low price of $23. Since this wasn’t the breakfast we thought it would be, we kept pushing down trail to get to Mazama Village-where Marquis texted and said he successfully hitched to, although it took awhile that early in the morning.
I got there around 11am. We did some chores, charged things, did laundry and showered. We had lunch at an actual restaurant connected to a gift shop. It wasn’t fantastic, but it was a hell of a lot better than the place that served me my “breakfast” earlier this morning. Marquis and I ate the pulled pork sandwich and Margot got soup (she’s a self proclaimed ‘soup slut’ hahaha).
More and more hikers appeared throughout the day. Keith was there, CEO and Bluebs, and out of no where, someone goes, “is that PBS?!” I turn: ITS CRUISER!! From my first day on trail without Andrea, day 5, right before I hit that crazy snow! How awesome is this?! We caught up and laughed about the way this trail can be so unpredictable. She came in NOBO and will get to the rim trail tomorrow!
Everyone was in different states of chores, we all headed to the free PCT hiker camp and claimed our spots for the night. CEO and Bluebs talked us three and Keith into all going back to the restaurant for dinner. We did, and the 6 of us split pizzas and had a fantastic time sharing stories and cracking up with each other.
Afterwards, they all got ice cream and then we sat up at picnic tables by camp talking until after the sun had set. It has been a seriously perfect day. I’m pooped. I can’t believe I was awake at 3am and it’s already after 10pm and I’m still up-but not for long. My eyes are trying to shut on me while typing mid thought.. haha
Goodnight, y’all. Pray for marquis’ leg for me (and him, obviously). We need our guy back to feeling his best. Sweet dreams!
