I woke up, packed up and got out on trail. Mantis hadn’t slept well so he wanted to sleep in a bit. It was a nice morning walking through the woods.
I stopped at a spring a mile up and filtered some water and made coffee. I kept going and took my time walking and picking huckleberries as they were plenty.
There was a bit of climbing and a small burn zone, it was cool seeing Jefferson way in the distance, getting smaller and smaller. I passed a man from Israel, Mark at a spring and was aiming for the next stream to have lunch and filter water.
I was approaching a forest road intersection and caught sight of a blue tent on the road. I got my hopes up for trail magic and trail magic there was! A couple from Portland came out and provided hot dogs, chips, fruit, cookies, drinks and other snacks.
I stayed there for an hour or so waiting on Mantis and enjoying the food and conversation. Another hiker named Haze stopped in, he and two other hikers were shooting to do 100 kilometers (60miles) that day. Ido and Leah also showed up while I was leaving.
I kept going, filtered some water from the next stream, then had a much bigger climb than I had anticipated. Alas it eventually ended and the trail was super smooth and gradual downhill so I was able to cruise. I had heard there was more trail magic up ahead, in the form of grilled cheese so I was excited to get there.
A few miles before the end destination I came upon a man named Carbs and his trailer. He was grilling grilled cheeses for the hikers that passed. I had two grilled cheeses before two other hikers arrived. They had already done 40 miles and were going to try to hike through the night to get to Timberline. Mantis was soon behind them and I had another two grilled cheeses.
I was in a hurry to get to the lake to swim before the sunset so I took off a bit early. Not even a mile down the trail there was a man sitting there with a box of pizza and beer and gave me a slice and a can! I apologized as I was in a hurry and took it for the road.
I hurried down the trail and got to the spot Mantis and I agreed to meet at but there were already tents there. There were three tents above but I knew there were some spaces below too. I ask the people that were there if that path went down to the water and if I could cut through. They showed me the way and I saw there was a whole other group at the sites below sitting by the fire.
I quickly greeted them and told them to tell the guy with the orange backpack that I was down there and ran to the water. The sun was minutes away from setting so I stripped down and went for the swim of my life. The water felt so warm and nice and the lake was beautiful.
Mantis was close behind and I could hear the group calling for him and telling him I was in the water. After we both swam and got out we thanked the group for letting us crash and they invited us to have some beers around the fire with them. They gave us some snacks and other beverages and eventually invited us to camp with them as well. We stayed up late chatting around the fire and it was very wholesome. They are a really nice group of friends from the Portland area who met in college and do this reunion trip every year.
Day 151
Start: 2078.8 End: 2098.8 Total: 20
We woke up and went to say our goodbyes to the group. They offered me some cold coffee and a bagel which I graciously accepted. We said our goodbyes and headed out on trail.
We walked for a mile or two before taking one last dip in the lake. We passed some southbounders who told us about some trail magic up ahead and we picked up the pace to get there before they left.
About 3 miles in for the day we took a short side trail to Little Crater Lake and where the trail magic was. We were greeted with sodas/beers, pancakes, sandwhich supplies and tons of candy and other snacks. Ido and Leah stopped by for a while and there were a few southbounders as well. There was a hammock strung up so I lied in that while eating the pancakes. We ended up staying there for at least two hours. We started to leave around 12/1 and we still had 18 miles to go.
Full on pancakes and beer we slowly started to hike, passing glow worm on the way out. we had some gentle trail followed by a few different climbs. A southbounder passed and told us there was trail magic up ahead. We soon got to another road section and there were two ladies with gatoraid, cookies, fruit and other snacks. We stopped briefly but didn’t want to get stuck as we still had many miles to go.
We went another 5 or so miles and once again came across MORE trail magic! We were astonished, so much trail magic in such a short span. We hadn’t even needed to open our food bags then entire day! We were given Jimmy John sandwiches, beer, cold brew coffee, cupcakes and more fruit! We had our fill then continued to make our way. We had 8 more miles to go until water and 10 until where we intended to camp.
We had some uphill walking then got to our water source around 8, the sun was setting and we didn’t have much day light left. That was the start of the steeper part of the climb, 2 miles to go until right before the Timberline Lodge where we aimed to sleep.
We did about a mile and a half and entered into a sand dune area right below Mt. Hood. There were awesome views of both Mt. Hood and My. Jefferson in the distance. We decided to stop a bit short and cowboy camp right on the dunes. We set up, got ready for bed and watched the nearly full moon come over the horizon. It was a tough night as there were mosquitos out and it was also quite warm. I needed to be in my bag to protect myself but I couldn’t sleep very well because of how warm it was and how bright the moon was.
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