Fired Up!

Part 4 of the PCT starts early in the morning at White Pass, with Scavenger eager to resume the trek south unchafed.

I can still remember the bemusement of the White Pass Kracker Barrel employees that Scavenger was going to become a permanent fixture at their store. I even joked about seasonal work if the chafing didn’t cure. Well, I woke up feeling as good as it gets and got into the buggy climb. My goal was to reach the next town of Cascade Locks, the Oregon border, in 6 days, averaging 25 miles a day to accomplish this.

I’d soon sync up with F. Sunshine (of Germany) & Adelaide (of France) who I briefly met while loitering the day prior. F. is a little shorthand that belies the name ‘Sunshine’; let’s say he can be a bit sarcastic. The three of us took on the Goat Rocks together, which may be the most scenic stretch of hiking on trail until the Sierras. I enjoyed our hang outs enough that I let them convince me to only do 18 miles in order to encamp with them up at elevation instead of descending alone. Not a hard choice to make with good company, really, and there we met up with another of their friends, Krystle (of SoCal), the first vegan I’ve met on trail and another interesting soul.

I’d keep a pace with this trio and have my hiking morale jump-started through the first half of this 6 day section, only for us to part at the junction to Trout Lake. Hikers typically stop in there to do a partial resupply and enjoy town amenities, but I promised repeatedly that I’d skip it in order to atone for my double zero and time lost to chafing. Sunshine teased me about (veg) burgers and soda I’d be missing out on. Well, with that allure, I waited an hour with Krystle at the road to Trout Lake, where people allegedly love to pick up hitchikers, but none came. Since I had my food already, I had no reason to linger about; we had done a 20 by midday on Sunshine’s suggestion. who was already in town savoring his lunch. When a guy drove up with room for 1, I took it as providence, bailed and did my first 30 mile day.

It’s a little ironic to have been lamenting so frequently about isolation and then leave behind a trio of awesome people, but it felt like the right thing for me. I’ve always enjoyed spinning the roulette wheel on who I’m with adventuring and my time with them helped me get over the lingering funk that was being at a pace with the disagreeable and failing to outrun my problems, compounded with the malaise of injury. The latter half of the Trout Lake section through the Indian Heaven Wilderness would go most swimmingly, with the legendary mosquitoes being only a moderate nuisance, and brief crossings with curious friends like Maverick and Turtle (Meg from chapter 1!), as well as many more NOBOs and section hikers, so isolation concerns were dampened.

I’d approach Cascade Locks under cover of clouds in the first rain since the trail’s onset back in chapter 1. I considered it a fortunate turn of events to have an extended length of cooled off days and relief from the otherwise omnipresent sun. Maverick decided he’d rather hike a 48 mile day instead of risk getting moistened, so I bid him adieu when he passed my campsite at 9 pm. “I’m not into that crazy shit”, I thought as I drifted off to sleep, waking to a piddly drizzle. I’d still wind up speed hiking the last 20 miles into Cascade Locks in my thrift store briefs because that drizzle at elevation on overgrown trail waterlogged me from the waist down. As long as I didn’t stop, it wouldn’t be a hypothermia situation! Thankfully, I was back in the warmth of low elevation when the blackberries appeared to send me off from Washington with a full stomach and purple hands.

Cascade Locks was a funky stop on my journey. Walking across the Bridge of the Gods is now my third distinct human-powered crossing of the Columbia River, and it’s never been less than a death wish each time. Let’s get some funding from that infrastructure bill for pedestrians on bridges, please. The town itself I had a good time in, as any trail town one walks through during the season are generally mirthful places. Beyond good showers, ales and sunsets, I got treated to something even more magical, a soccer game over in Portland! Glad I spent too long dithering about the brewery, as not only did I get that but also a chance to reconnect with the Sunshine Squad while awaiting departure. You just don’t say no to trail magic that good. It was a funny quirk to accept that offer, since it again slowed me down. I still managed to eke my way out of town however, by walking the 3 miles along the Columbia River out of town to the Eagle Creek trailhead where I found a nice, damp picnic table to sleep on. And ascending the Eagle Creek alternate out of town? A *chef’s kiss* of waterfall vistas to treat the senses!

I fought taking a day off as I planned for an extended rest with Dave & Sarah Hunter near Eugene, who’d meet me near Timothy Lake. My ‘circus connection’ from Tucson (hi Tina!) got me their info and they became my way to get around my first fire-damaged section of trail, 100 miles with some deeply remote scorching from the Lionshead Fire last year, still unopened. Some amount of hikers have opted to go through it as outlaws, reporting adequate conditions along the majority of trail, but having this ride removed any selfish temptation on my part to emulate those tactics. Not to mention, I get to pass clubs and a premium resupply in Eugene. The Hunters live along the McKenzie River, an area I bicycled through on my 2017 cross-country ride (that I panned for poor cyclist safety). The area was savagely burnt last year and the forested river road I rode down to Eugene is now a charred waste.

So, this chapter’s wordplay is another bit of dual meaning. I’m feeling confident and happy on my ability to do this again, with results to back it up from my strong pace down here, but there’s an external situation that’s beyond my control, and that’s the fires driven by a changing climate. I’m equipped with N95 masks now courtesy of my hosts here as I proceed southwards into the smoke of the Dixie Fire, which has another couple hundred miles of trail closed and is raging unrelentingly. My concerns about speed in previous chapters are increasingly artifacts, with so much trail burnt and skipped, my time to finish the Sierras is ampler; I just have to do it with my lungs intact and hope I avoid any additional closures that would marginalize my hike further.

I have officially given up the ghost on paperback books out here. It’s lamentable, but with the mileage demands I have been operating on, I just do not find myself eager to take a book out to read midday. And the Libby app has been fantastic in syncing with my library and allowing me an efficient, low-power way to read whatever I want (Give me all that Expanse). I was foolish and stubborn to think walking around with a paperback while backpacking was worth it in 2021. Here’s to a lower base weight!

I’m also really puzzled by the weakness of character in some of my fellow thru-hikers. Multiple times now, I’ve witnessed people skipping miles in order to stay at a pace with friends. Cool people they’ve met and fell into a groove with. But you know what? Y’all have one job out here, hike all the miles that are open. If you can’t do that, you need to relinquish your claim as a thru-hiker. I know, personally and deeply, that the fear of being isolated and losing your friends is real, but I saw from my time stuck still in White Pass that cool people are still ahead and behind of you (though in small numbers as a SOBO), and that if you are truly destined to be with your trail family, you can catch them through determination and grit. Skipping miles to do so? Sorry, but you’re just out here to party. A thru-hike is a physical feat designed to bend and break you in many ways, and the powerful physical attachment to other humans is one. See Halfway Anywhere’s writing for a bit more nuance on this.

With those addenda offloaded from my brain, it’s soon back to miles for me. I’ll be aiming to make it to Ashland, Oregon which is the last stop in Oregon and some 300 miles away in about 13 days. I’m excited for a second opportunity to visit Crater Lake and may burn an extra day exploring it since I was robbed of the opportunity last year. My resupplies have split pea soup & mashed potatoes for dinner every night. Wahoo! I’m packing slightly less than a full resupply for the boxes I’ve mailed in hopes of scavenging some good loot from the hiker stashes (‘boîte de randonneur’, thanks Ade!) at Shelter Cove & Crater Lake. And the Sunshine Squad? Well, they’re a half day ahead of me now since I took all this time composing this chapter, so hopefully I’ll catch up and have more nice things to say about ’em!