Day 139&140 Miles 1786-1823

Day 139

Start: 1786.5 End: 1811.5 Total: 25

There were a bunch of mosquitos out in the morning and we walked through more flat green tunnel to start. We confirmed that those bushes were blueberries (or huckleberries?) but they were edible and we feasted on them!

It was a pretty chill hiking day and I listened to some more Moby Dick as we cruised some miles. We had 15 miles to the first water and lunch. There was a small climb before lunch. It was super rocky at times but there were great views of all the surrounding trees and we even caught our first glance at Crater Lake!

Coming down from that climb there were rocky switchbacks with remaining snow on the downslope but not on the trail. We had lunch in shade that was becoming smaller and smaller.

We then did another 10/11 miles over a good amount of dead trees. We continued through the green tunnel which turned into a huge burn zone. We were forced to get water from a pond as there was no water for the next 13 miles until we got to Crater Lake.

We went a mile further and found an oasis of live trees admist the destroyed area. We set up camp and to my disappointment my bug net zipper is starting to break again. I fixed it once but I need to email the company and get more zippers in order to fix it again. Oregon is known for being super buggy so I hope I can get it fixed ASAP.

Day 140

Start: 1811.5 End: 1823.3 Total: 12

We were out on trail by 6:45 and aimed to maintain a quick pace to get to Crater Lake as early as possible. We had a thousand foot climb to kick off the morning and the entire uphill was burnt down. As on par with most Oregon climbs it didn’t feel too difficult and we were up in no time.

We had some ups and down through the trees for a while until it evened out for the last couple miles into Crater Lake. I finally finished Moby Dick so I can move on to another audiobook!

When we got into Crater Lake we got set up in the free hiker campground then proceeded to try to hitch to the other side of the rim so we could go down and swim. We tried for about an hour on the main road to no avail. We then went back to the store and asked and eventually found a guy that would take us but he had to set up his camp first.

He came back about 25 minutes later and told us he could take us part of the way. He dropped us off a few miles down the road at the rim and we went and saw crater lake close up. We sat at the rim for a bit before trying to hitch again but gave up after a bit and Mantis went to get some chicken strips.

We were sitting upstairs in the cafeteria and overheard a couple of girls talking about going down to the lake to swim. We asked them for a ride and they agreed! We went with them and halfway there we saw a group of 12 hikers trying to hitch. We stopped and fit Rocky and Kiki in our car and continued to the swim area.

We hiked down, it was one mile and 700 feet down. It was so cool being down there and getting to swim in the lake. There was a big rock you could jump off of into the lake. We hung out there for an hour or two before making our way back up. We got a hitch much easier on the way back and made our way to camp and to sleep!