As much as I wanted to sleep in and relax at the hotel a little longer it was supposed to be in the upper 90’s in town and I wanted to make sure I beat the worst of the heat for the big climb out of the gorge.

Approaching the Bridge of the Gods at 6am. Notice the large PCT sign lit up on light post.

Not much room for hikers…and you can see the water a 50′ below through the metal grated road deck.

View from Bridge.

Slightly less hazy this AM.

Hello Washington !

I bumped into an acquaintance hiking southbound. This is Badger from Golden, CO who has a very popular hiker oriented blog/website originally known as Appalachian Trials (originally a book by the same name) and is now called The Trek. I’ve written some guest posts for the site.

Washington is very lush…today reminded me a lot of the AT with kinder grades. The humidity (a first on the PCT) definitely gave it an east coast feel.

Still kind of hazy for the occasional views.

The bridge over Trout Creek.
Began and ended the day with a bridge.
I Setup camp just above the creek. It was still in the 80’s when I arrived in camp at 6:45 and it’s been cooling down very slowly.

I had a short day into the town of Cascade Locks. It was supposed to be smokin’ hot so I had booked a room at the Best Western (A/C).

All the haze made for a brilliant sunrise.

The trail dropped about 3500′ in 7 miles. Unfortunately, the views down to the Columbia River were obscured by all the haze.

Tomorrow the trail goes across The Bridge of the Gods into Washington. I got breakfast next door at the popular Bridgedale Restaurant with a gorgeous view of the river.

Since I couldn’t check in until 1pm I hung out a local trail angels house, “Shreks Place” and was able to do laundry 🙂

A very special guest drove up from Portland to visit for the afternoon…my great friend from college, Juliet and her husband Aaron (know by his grade school students as “AA-Ron”)
Another view of the bridge from one of the canal locks.

The famous Oregon Blackberries are starting to come into season.
Absolutely, delicious !
The obscured view toward Washington.
A new pair of shoes to start a new state:-)

Unfortunately, much of today’s views were obscured by haze and smoke being blown in from surrounding areas. It was supposed to be 105 degrees in the nearby town of Cascade Locks (4000′ lower), so I as feeling lucky that the temps were as comfortable as they were…helped by elevation, the thick forest canopy and even that layer of haze.

This is Ramona Falls. The vegetation has definitely made changes recently. There have been ferns and cedar trees and an overall feeling of a greener understory.

There was an early morning log crossing over some swift moving water. It had an old decaying rope lashed onto the upper log which actually provided a little psychological assistance as the lower log got fairly narrow by the end.

Breeze thinks he’s onto to the next big thing in backpack accessories…”Trail Nuts”.
I think it just looks like he blew out his shorts and has some sort of weird condition.

Normally, this would have been a spectacular view of Mt. Hood but today it is mostly obscured by haze.

Most of today’s views looked like this 😦

There was a double rotor helicopter making laps with a water bucket in an effort to put out an ongoing persistent fire nearby. Unfortunately, this fire prevented us from hiking a common alternate route through Eagle Creek and the famous Tunnel Falls.

Scooping water out of the lake.

This brief section of trail gave me traumatic AT flashbacks from the White Mountains. The PCT was kind enough to build an actual footpath through the giant rubble rather than making us scramble.

I’m camped with Monster for the the 5th night in a row. Tomorrow he’s going to visit some friends in Portland for a couple days. It is definitely one of the warmer nights I’ve had…In using my sleeping bag in “quilt” mode for the first time.

Another great day with an easy 24 miles.

There were six llamas sharing last nights camp spot with us.

Mt. Hood as the sun rises.

And a little later this morning.

This photo makes me laugh. First, we all have the same pack and they’re lined up against the outhouse. We were super excited to have an outhouse a little ways down trail this morning.

As we got closer to Mt Hood the wildflowers started popping.

The lone ski run getting the ski camps back to the bottom of the mountain.

I think they call it a day around 11am (when I arrived). The snow gets too soft and they need to maintain for a summers worth of campers.

Timberline is a fantastic example of Parkitecture built by the CCC in 1937. It was also used in the movie The Shining.

The Lodge is very Hiker friendly and many of us parked are butts on these couches for a good part of the day while charging batteries and using free wifi.

After a 4+hour siesta there were 10 more miles of hiking. Most of it was pretty easy until we got to an area of giant blow-downs. These logs are about 4′ in diameter and could Bering the trail length-wise.

The scale of the Mt. Hood area is awesome. Notice the waterfall at the bottom? That is prob about 150′ tall.

One last obstacle was crossing the chocolate-brown Sandy River. The log and a couple rock hops kept me dry.

Home for the night with Monster and Breeze.

It was a long day, but easy miles. There were only a couple small climbs in between long stretches of flat-ish pine needle cruising. I had 15 miles done by 11am when I took a 1.5hr siesta in the cool shade of some tall pines. The truth is, a lot of today’s hiking was kind of boring, so at least least the miles were fast. I burned through a bunch of podcasts, listened to music and started the Keith RICHARDS autobiography, Life (read by Johnny Depp).

These incredible flowers seem to like the burned areas. The rest of the day would be buried in the trees which was worked out ok because it was getting really hot out in the sun. I heard Portland is supposed to be in the 100’s for several days !

This was the best sign of the day and a perfect rest stop at 3:30 after 24 miles.
Our hosts, Connie and Dozer (the 190lb English Mastiff).

A Hiker Heaven spread, plus cold sodas !

It was a pleasant evening stroll around the very popular Timothy Lake.

I had only seen a handful of other hikers today (mostly at the trail magic). When I showed up at my campsite for the night there were 10 other folks there…luckily I knew a bunch of them (Monster, the Swiss Couple and Breeze).

For those of you keeping track, one year ago today I finished the AT. By the time I’m finished with the PCT in mid Sept. I will have hiked 5000+ miles in 18 months.

A very interesting day with all sorts of random things going on.

The colors in the sunrise were unfortunately being enhanced by a nearby forest fire.

There was a wet crossing of Russell Creek which is fed by glacial runoff from Mt Jefferson (in the background). The creek was moving pretty good but nothing like the Sierras in June 🙂

It turns out that fire was getting pretty close to the PCT. Fortunately, there were personnel on the ground managing the situation.

This was a side-trail that had just been closed off due to fire.

Mt Jefferson is an impressive peak towering over exquisite alpine lakes and meadows.

The wildflowers were kicking into high gear.

There were several large patches of snow that had to be crossed but nothing treacherous.

Let me formally introduce you to Monster from Germany and his 65lb pack Ozzy. As I mentioned yesterday, we briefly met on the AT last year. Monster is one of only a handful of hikers who made it all the way through the Sierra without jumping any sections. Super impressive!

A short snow traverse with Mt. Hood on the horizon. I could also see Mt Adams and Mt St. Helens but there is not enough resolution on this blog to make them out.

We had heard there was Trail Magic at Lake Ollalie, and we were not disappointed. It made a great late afternoon siesta.

Lake Ollalie is stunning!
(Mt. Jefferson in background starting to become obscured by smoke haze).

We were visited by a USFS Ranger informing folks that the section of PCT we had just hiked through this morning would be closed starting tomorrow at 6am….just made it through in time! The closure would require 40 miles of dirt and paved roads to get around the 10 miles of PCT closure. Better to to be lucky than good sometimes!

We were among quite a bit of hiker royalty. I recognized the Ranger from a blog I followed. He hiked the PCT in 2011 with his 11 year old daughter (aka Balls and Sunshine). They went on to finish the Triple Crown by the time Sunshine was 13).

The other royalty hiking through was Halfmile. Halfmile creates all the maps everyone uses while hiking the PCT and makes them available for download free of charge! He has also built a GPS app that’s free with extremely accurate data showing distances and elevations to the thousands of waypoints located on or near the trail. Thanks HalfMile !

The Trail Magic mascot.

A campsite on the banks of Jude Lake was home for the night.

A correction to yesterday’s post…Pretty much everywhere I was referring to Mt. Washington was actually The Fingered Jack. And also, 1500 miles completed ✅

The majority of the day was spent hiking through different burn areas (or perhaps all one?). We hiked through ghost forests as far as the eye could see sometimes. The big upside was that it made for wide open views. On the downside there wasn’t mush shade on a hot day.

Smoke on the water over Big Lake at sunrise.

Dead trees and green meadows made for an interesting juxtaposition

This is the backside of Mt Washington that we hiked around.

This is a view of Mt Jefferson with an unusual forest of live trees down below and a giant burn area beyond.

The north side of Mt. Washington.

After 15 miles without water there was a nice pond among the deadfall. It Made for a good lunch stop.

Mt. Washington fading into the distance.

Mt Jefferson getting bigger around each bend of the trail.

There were several small patches of snow to navigate through.

I bumped into Monster, from Germany, who I met on the AT last year.

Home for the night was likely buried in snow two weeks ago.

Today was a long day both in miles, time and all the different terrain and views.

I was on trail by 5:45am and got to enjoy a great sunrise.

Most of the day afforded fantastic views of big peaks.

There was a lot of snow in places but only a couple patches we needed to hike through.

In several areas of Qwest hiked through old lava flows. Not the easiest hiking underfoot.

Brilliant wildflowers !

Peaceful ponds (North Sister in background).

North Sister

Even Trail Magic…
Their son hiked the PCT last year and since they live in the area (Eugene) they like to come out to help out the hikers. They helped me out with a pint of Haagen Daz (gone in 60 seconds), as well as coke, chips and Oreos!

Mt Washington with more lava fields (5 mile section).

Selfie in the middle of the lava field with Middle Sister and North Sister on horizon.
Mt Washington again.

Home for the night was Big Lake Youth Camp…they are very Hiker friendly !

I camped next to the lake and cant wait to go to sleep!

I had a relaxing morning catching up on email and organizing gear/food. Then Neil and I ran around town doing errands ( breakfast, toothpaste, DEET, etc).

Neil’s daughter, Sylvia, showing off some of her Karate moves before soccer practice.

Neil dropped me off back at the Elk Lake trailhead around 4:30. A great 24hrs off trail…a big thanks to the whole Bodo family!

The mosquitoes were swarming but my new 100% DEET came to the rescue. Plus, the views were fantastic. This is Broken Top Mtn.

I think this is South Sister.

If it wasn’t so late in the day already I would have taken a dip in this pond.

A blissful evening of hiking with views of South Sister.

Around 8:15 I bumped into my Swiss friends, Michelle and Peter, in the area I planned on camping. Can’t pass up a campsite like this!

No sunset, but alpenglow on South Sister is even better !

It was another mosquito infested morning and I used up the last of my DEET as I left camp. Luckily, I was planning to meet an old friend (Neil) from Colorado who had moved with his family to Bend, OR last year…so I’d have all afternoon to run errands.

One of the many peaceful ponds I hiked by today.

…even an occasional meadow.

My latest gear malfunction… my two week old shoes started to tear away from the sole 😦 Hoping I can deal with this is town too.

Finally, a view ! It took a large burn area to be able to see the giant peaks we are approaching. This one might be Broken Top ?

About a mile off trail is the Elk Lake Resort. Here are my friends Steve and a Diane (met them around mile 550) from Calgary, eating copious amounts of food. Neil picked me up here a short time later and we drove into Bend 30 miles away.

There’s a great shop in town that sells used outdoor gear…and even better, they repair gear and have a cobbler on site. Luke here fixed my shoe up in two minutes.

Voila ! This should be good enough to get me to Mt Hood where Altra Shoes was kind enough to send me a warranty replacement pair.

This is why I pre-wash my socks before including them in the laundry with the rest of my clothes. Disgusting!
My lovely hosts, Neil and Sarah (their kids were away at an overnight activity with their camp)