Category: Long Distance Trails

Start: 1733.1

Stop: 1751.4

Today’s miles: 18.3

Total PCT miles: 164.8

Man oh man I slept like a baby in that wind! I didn’t need the earplugs and I kept pressing snooze til 7am.. in the snow I knew I’d need all day long to barely make it ten miles, but if today is anything like yesterday, why rush the wake up when I’m so dang comfy?!

The views were just as pretty this morning as they had been yesterday. Easy trail, no bugs, a little cool temperature wise. I was 4 ish miles away from water, so I sipped on my last half liter and made sure to keep reminding myself to turn at the road crossing to get water! I was slightly concerned I’d be in Heaven walking that I’d forget about the water and just keep on going.

I turned at the road to realize it was like a real, paved road. And the water source was a large lake at the bottom of the hillside at a reservoir. Alrighty then. As I got closer, the water had a weird green hue to it that looked not just dirty, but questionable for other contaminants. Not that I’d have the privilege to care every time water looked odd, but I saw on the app that this same road takes you to a campground in a half mile or so.. maybe more, but seeing that water had me deciding I’d rather fill up from a water hose than filter that mess.

So, I road walked. Cars were flying down that windy two lane road! I made sure to be as far over as possible and no one came close to me, but it was a little unnerving. I missed the woods already! That is, until I got to the Green Springs Campground. They had an open sign on at their cafe and a water refill station like the ones in airports. Even better!

When I sat my stuff down to fill up my water bottles, a waitress asked if I wanted to see a menu. Well now I do! I got an egg and cheese biscuit and a mimosa with zero regrets. I’m doing great at this whole “stick to a budget” thing. Hahaha. The biscuit sandwich hit the spot, the one that wasn’t hungry to begin with, I downed my mimosa and hit the road.

Before I knew it I was passing the signs to Hyatt Lake Resort. Already? Sheesh! It was too early for lunch and I knew if I walked down there I’d have zero impulse control, so I kept walking on the trail. By 1:30, I was actually hungry again, so I sat on some rocks above a pretty little creek to eat lunch. The day was simply beautiful. Blue skies, dotted with puffy white clouds, thick forests and open meadows. I was truly loving every second of it.

After lunch my feet were getting achy. After a few hours of walking along, occasionally climbing over a tree bigger than my car, I ran into Tashina and Romy! The girls from the Netherlands that I had briefly met in all of my filth at Callahans lodge! They were taking a break, resting their feet, so I stopped to talk and do the same. In their 4 days out here (they’re being smart and easing into the mileage since they just began their hike), I’m the first person they’ve seen!

Literally as they’re telling me this, a couple appears out of no where! They are day hikers out exploring, with the goal of hiking the same number of miles as the circumference of earth! That’s pretty dang cool. We all chatted a bit, Tashina and Romy’s accents get quite the attention.. their English is perfect but once you learn they’re from the Netherlands you can’t help but pepper them with questions.

Before we all said our goodbyes, I decided I’d stop at the campground they were aiming for. They wanted to rent a cabin on the lake for the night so I said why not? I’m only here now, maybe I should also get a cabin on the lake and hang out with my new friends for the night. I kept hiking and it was only a couple miles from where we were. My feet were happy I made the choice to want to camp with them, too.. instead of hiking the 5-6 more miles I had originally planned on.

The campground was so pretty. Huge trees and soft ground, little cabins peppered around a lake.. refreshingly beautiful. I walked up to the camp host site, as there wasn’t a soul on the entire property. They had lights on, but no one was home and no vehicle was near the camper. When I took my shoes off and slipped on my crocs, Tashina and Romy appeared. We decided we’d wait around for the hosts and just relax.

We talked and ended up walking the grounds and checking the doors of the cabins and looked out at the lake for almost two hours. No one ever showed! That’s when we decided we’d walk the mile and a half down to the other campground and see if we’d have any luck there. The girls were dead set on getting a shower, they’d been out here for 4 days to my 2 and were ready to feel clean. The other campground also had showers available, but no cabins. Meh, a price we were willing to pay.

We started our walk to the other campground and almost immediately a man on a power line truck stopped us. He was fascinated that we were hikers and insisted on driving us to the campground. Ok, sure. We were close enough as it is. We climbed up on the back of his truck with the big bucket lift thingy and held on to what we could find-thankfully he drove at a snail’s pace to make sure we didn’t tip over. Another pickup truck came up behind us and then gave us such a wide birth it was almost like saying, “if one of you falls out I won’t be the one rolling over you!” Hahaha

The new campground also appeared abandoned at first, but then we spotted other campers. We picked a spot with views of the lake and set up our tents. I pre apologized for my rotisserie chicken sleeping habits, they laughed and said Tashina does the same thing.. I instantly felt better. We ate our dinner at the picnic table, watching the sun slowly dip. Then we all headed down to the shower house.

We plugged our stuff in and they showered, I decided I was a bit too chilly to wet my hair.. I just used hot water from the sink to wipe my legs down and I washed my face.. then called it good enough for now. It was just starting to get dark as we walked back to our tents, and the wind had really picked up strong. I’m laying here watching my tent look like it’s in a turbine and I’m hoping my new poles continue to hold it steady. And with that thought, time to tuck in, get warm, and get some shut eye. Goodnight!

Start: 1718.7

Stop: 1733.1

Today’s miles: 14.4

Total PCT miles: 146.5

I did not want to wake up this morning! I slept so good, that when my alarm went off I actually groaned out loud. Oh well, stuff to get done. I quickly dressed and took my stuff to ship to the UPS store next door. The guy there was quick and efficient, my Fanny pack was going home.. now that I have the pack with the brain on top, the Fanny pack is overkill. Although I do think I’ll end up missing it. My extra food went to Fish Lake, where I should be getting to Thursday.

From there I walked to a different grocery store, why there’s practically 3 within the same block is odd-but this one did have the mio drink mix I like, in a new flavor even, so it was a worthwhile side adventure. I also remembered to get cash back, so another small victory. I came back to the room and packed all my goodies, and then chatted on the phone with one of my favorite humans, Kelly, while I waited for Big Mama, the trail Angel to pick me up.

She got there right before 10am and took me to get a new gas canister before driving me to the trail by Callahans. We popped in, they only had a large one, but I figured at least with it I wouldn’t have to think about gas for awhile. On the way to the trail, she stopped for coffee at a local cash only place. I tried to buy hers for her, but she refused to let me. Instead, she bought ME a breakfast croissant. LADY! That’s not how this is supposed to work! There was no telling her otherwise, and I was very grateful.

I hit the trail around 11am with no real care as to how far I got. There were to be plenty of options to stop, although not that many options for water, so I just needed to make sure I paid attention to that. The trail was gentle with easy ups and downs and it meandered up and around this huge rock that I remembered seeing in the distance back when I was on the ridge line before coming down by Mount Ashland. Pretty neat to be literally right beside it now.

It was truly beautiful. I felt an ease and peace that I had been craving since before starting this trail. I was enamored by the views, smiling every few steps, beyond thrilled to just be able to walk. I knew the snow had me stressed before, but this-walking and knowing there wouldn’t be any snow around any corner no matter what today, was sincerely a relief I didn’t realize I desperately needed.

I found a nice spot with a bit of an overlook to set up camp. It was gorgeous, albeit windy as hell. I ate my dinner, watching the sun set and then read some before typing this up. I think I’ll read a bit more and then try to get some sleep. I may not even need my earplugs tonight with this wind making such a sweet white noise for me. We’ll see! Goodnight!

I tried to sleep in yesterday, but was wide awake by 8:15. I was restless in my sleep because my motel door opens to the back door of a bar in the same parking lot.. and, well, Friday nights and all that. Surprisingly at 8:15am people were still loud as hell outside my door, but I don’t think that’s what woke me up.

All my clothes were dirty, so I put on my rain pants and puffy jacket and walked across the street to that same bar-that’s a cafe during the day. I had a mimosa and a breakfast burrito.. and was no longer mad at their late night patrons. It was delicious!

I went back to my room to gather my clothes, and had the pleasure of putting on dirty socks to walk in my crocs with.. the plastic makes blisters on the top of my feet if I walk too far in them, and the nicer laundromat (that doesn’t eat your money per reviews) was a mile away on foot. Dirty socks and crocs and in rain pants and a hot jacket, I trudged to the laundromat. Thankfully it wasn’t too hot outside yet.. but it was gonna get there.

I washed my clothes and while they were in the dryer I carefully (sockfree now) walked across the plaza to a thrift store. I decided I needed to have an oversized comfy tshirt for town days and maybe to sleep in. The sun protection long sleeve shirt I hike in is fantastic while hiking, but very annoying when I’m not in hiker mode. I found a nice army brown shirt that fit the bill for a whole $4 and walked back to get my clothes. I changed into my clean undies, shorts, sports bra, and my “new” shirt in the bathroom, slipped into clean socks and headed back to my room.

I was able to get a Lyft into town to the hyped up used gear store. Apparently they only have like one or two drivers for the whole city. This guy was a cutie and told me someday someone is going to walk into my life and open the door of my heart that I had no idea needed opening, and when that happened, I’d know that was the man meant to love me for life. I didn’t tell him this, but I’m pretty sure any doors on my heart are currently padlocked and have trip wire leading up to them. Haha

I was able to get gently used poles from the gear shop. From there I walked around downtown. There was an arts festival going on and I got some pretty gorgeous earrings (couldn’t help myself, support local artists and all that). I walked into shops and stores looking for sunglasses, because mine snapped in my pack when I unsafely tucked them away during my week of thunderstorms. One of the stores was having some kind of celebration thing happening, so I got to taste test wine, some yummy snacks, and they gave me a free “Ashland, Oregon” sticker. Neato!

I moseyed and walked the whole Main Street, walking into almost every store open. I checked out antiques, I looked at books, I saw paintings and people playing in a cute park. Then, like the old lady I am, I went into a sushi place at 5:15pm for dinner LOL! Whatever, I was hungry and had nothing else to delay me from eating. Y’all. I destroyed that sushi! And the red wine was on point, too! Budget smudget-plans keep changing and things have been rough.. that early dinner gave me life!

As I walked back through town towards my hotel, I saw two weary souls with slumped shoulders and backpacks sitting on a bench. Thruhikers! I waited for the man to get off his phone, he was arranging somewhere for them to sleep tonight.. and then I started chatting them up! They are a couple from New York that already hiked the whole desert section, jumped up to Truckee thinking they’d skip the Sierras and have better luck there, only to have to bail because of the never ending snow. Now, they were here.

We chatted for a long time, then walked and talked on the way to their hotel.. which was on the way to mine. They’re heading north today (sunday) from where I’ll start north from tomorrow. I had already decided early on Saturday that I was waiting til Monday to hike out. I could have shipped stuff saturday from the UPS store, but then I would have had to complete my grocery store chores and everything else-and my toes needed to heal up a bit more. Basically, I just didn’t want to.

We swapped numbers and I said my byes, silently praying they single-handedly remove all of the snow from my path from here to Washington. Lol! I made me back to my room and worked on the blog, watched SVU, relaxed. I ended up taking a shower at like 1am because I was wide awake. That hot water soothed me enough to let me fall right to sleep after I got out.

And then, today. Today I slept until almost 11am. No shame. It was great! Across the street apparently serves breakfast til 2pm, so I had biscuits and gravy topped with two fried eggs a little after noon. I went to the Bi-Mart, which is more like a Walmart.. I got new headphones (broke mine lol, I’m doing so great), and some of my groceries, then went next door for every thing else.

I had big plans of walking back downtown and maybe catching The Little Mermaid or something, but then just decided to lay around, rest my legs, and stalk the Facebook PCT groups for intel. My plan may be to hike to Fish Lake and then get a ride to Medford, Oregon.. send out some resupply boxes, then fly up to Seattle, get a ride to the trail head to the Northern Terminus (Aka to the Canadian border) and hike south from there.. I’m so torn.

Washington apparently had a normal to low snow year, unlike Oregon and California. And apparently, according to these FB angels up there the trail will be “mostly snow free” two weeks from June 2nd.. hmmmmm. It’s a tough call. Who’s to say I don’t spend all this money and make all this effort to get up there just to be in the same situation here. And if I continue past Fish Lake, to Crater Lake (with definite snow) then decide to jump up to Washington, then it’s a longer ride into an airport and therefore more difficult to make happen.

Bleh. So stressful. I’ve packed and organized all of my stuff.. except my tent, splayed out drying in the corner. I’m still watching SVU (gotta love USA network for these marathons), and I’ve got plans to get picked up at 10am by Stephanie, the trail Angel that brought me here. I’ll go ship my food box to Fish Lake at the UPS store before she gets here. I’ve already showered again, and my legs are itchy as hell.. so maybe I’ll get some shut eye soon and get to forget about all my healing scrapes. I’m hoping it’ll take me 4 days or less to get to Fish Lake.. and there’s quite a few hikers ahead of me now, according to the trail angel. Maybe from here it’ll be better. Fingers crossed I can start moving forward without all of the delays 🙂 Goodnight, y’all.