Even though we all slept fairly well (the one exception was when I had cramps in both legs when I tried to take my socks off in the middle of the night), we were a bit sluggish getting out of camp. One big disadvantage of our camp was that the trail ran all around it so finding a private spot to despoil took care. It seemed like no matter where one dug, it was possible to be seen from someone hiking on the trail. I was ready to resort to direct eye contact with passing hikers to create discomfort, but I was fortunate and found a hiking lull.
We started hiking on snow right away. We were expecting it. We asked almost every nobo hiker about it. We checked postholer.com every time we got enough signal. It was 100% consensus that we would cross snow and none of it was sketchy. That didn’t satisfy us. We wanted someone to tell us we were going to die. All it did was slow us down. A lot.
It appears that hiking sobo has a big gotcha with snow. The north sides of mountains are not as exposed to much sun. Nobo hikers get to swish on down the snow but sobo hikers have to trudge up the snow covered north slopes. Our biggest climb of the day was pretty much out of the box. The sun was shining and we were sweating. The more you sweat, the more you drink. The harder you climb, the more calories you burn. After a mere 2.5 miles we needed water and a snack.
As often happens, we stopped too soon for our break. We followed the creek where we drew our water from for about 1/4 mile before it turned into a nice 100’ waterfall. There were already 4 other people at the base of the falls; this was all in the Obsidian Limited Entry Area when we hit our snow and the creek. We try to play by the Covid rules so we continued on.
I, being the designated expendable member of the party, was out front leading. Ahead, I noticed 2 hikers coming towards us wearing huge face masks. As they approached, what I thought were face masks morphed into long beards—these were obvious thru-hikers. I started quizzing them only to discover I knew one of the hikers, Wolverine. We had met Wolverine last year at Warner Springs barely 100 miles into our thru-hike attempt. Like us, Wolverine has been reduced to LASHer status. He made it to Diamond Mountain last year before he ran out of time. This year, he wanted to attempt another thru-hike, but when forced off the trail because of Covid-19, he decided to pick up where he left off and head to Canada.
While Bunny and I were talking to Wolverine, Bear started conversing with his travel companion, Spoon. Sassy was feeling left out and wasn’t feeling well so she sat down. When we looked over at her, she was about to fall over from the heat. We wrapped up our conversations and got Sassy into the shade. Since Sassy needed some recovery time and we had some cellular signal, we decided to take the time to try to find a hotel for a few nights in Bend.
I am officially invoking my card carrying male privilege and suspending Bear’s “male status” pending further review. Bear wants the “perfect” item when he shops (for anything). He wants to compare: location, price, customer reviews, websites to see if someone has a better deal, etc. It’s like shopping with my aunt that has been to the same store every week for the last 10 years, but still insists on picking up every item and inspecting all labels each time. I am a certified male. I find the best option I can come up with in less than two minutes and never look back. I found a hotel within my 2 minute limit and sat with my finger over the “confirm booking” button until even Sassy, laying on the ground near death, said “good enough, book it Easy.” I was so excited to have a confirmed room in Bend that I had to wear bandaids on my nipples the rest of the day.
Having a confirmed hotel was all it took to perk this group up. We’ve only had one day of so far on this trip with John and Jenny. We enjoyed every minute we spent with them, but we need some pure relaxation, sit in the nude, turn down the AC and sleep time. We still had 11 miles to go and out pace picked up. Admittedly, this was not a high bar to clear sine we had taken 4 1/2 hours to cover the first 5 miles.
I will admit, Bear and I are lucky guys to hike with two tough women. I’ll even go so far as to say Sassy is a bad ass. I can’t bestow that title on Bunny, yet, and it’s doubtful that will happen any time soon. For that to happen, 3 things need to change: 1) she needs to not crawl under me whenever there is a thunderstorm (she’s so bad, she converted my once brave Great Pyrenees into locking herself in a dark closet during storms), 2) she needs to not scream like a little girl whenever she sees a snake (I’d allow it on poisonous snakes to be cowardly, but a little garter snake in a water hole almost cost me an arm), and 3) to not break down when a couple of ants crawl into her shoe (we searched for 10 minutes to find the tossed shoe).
There are two General summer seasons in Oregon. The first we experienced the first two days on the trail…cold, miserable, and drizzly. I’ve been hoping we could avoid entering the second season. We have had a few glimpses of it at Breitenbush Camp and a couple other random places, but we hiked full on into second summer season today, known locally as Mosquito Hell.
The little mother f#$&ers began in earnest the last mile of our day as we dropped of a high plateau beside South Sister. They are evil, pure and simple. They watch and learn unprotected spots. The preferred locale of torture is the back of your neck, the back of exposed legs, the back of your arms, and for sheer enjoyment, they’ll fly in your ears just to make sure you know you’ve been targeted.
When we arrived at our camp, I had already donned my head net and slathered all of my exposed flesh with Jean Luc Picardin. It had little effect. We were in a swarm worse than the invading alien fighter in Independence Day. I was sure Sassy would be taken out in the initial attack (even bad asses die eventually). As it was, we sat up our tents as fast as possible and climbed in with all our gear. Once inside, we killed every little bastard/bitch that made it in with us. We stayed in our tents all evening until after dark hoping against hope for some relief. It never came. They knew they had us. We’d all eventually have to pee.
EFG