Crater Lake to Shelter Cove

PCT MILES COMPLETE: 1100.2

PCT mile 1834 to PCT mile 1912
Section mileage: 70
Days: 8/7 - 8/10

We spent 4 nights at Mazama Village in Crater Lake National Park. Three days in Crater Lake without actually seeing a lake. Craig had more writing to do, so he loitered in the hiker corner of the restaurant (ie the back room where our stench wouldn't be as offensive, and there were lots of outlets to plug in our electronic devices). He made friends with the wait staff and they brought him free milkshakes and kept his coffee cup full. Meanwhile, I hung out with hikers passing through Mazama for more respectable lengths of time, drinking beer in the laundry room and spending more time on the internet than a thruhiker should.

On the fourth morning, we had one last restaurant breakfast and hopped aboard the trolley bound for the post office. We dumped all our food on the sidewalk and selected enough for this section; since we skipped up from Sierra City, we had food that we had bought in Sierra City and Medford (cause who can resist a Trader Joe's AND WinCo?) not to mention food from our resupply boxes in Belden and Crater Lake. We mailed ahead a large box of food and Craig's laptop to Sisters, Oregon, our next real town stop, then flagged the next trolley down, waving our hands like crazy homeless folks on the side of the road.

The trolley dropped us off at the rim of Crater Lake, where we promptly went into the cafe to split a soda. You never know when your last soda might be, after all. There were hoards of tourists looking at trinkets all labeled "CRATER LAKE" so there can be doubt as to where they were bought. A big group of forest firefighters came in, bringing with them the smell of smoke. This coterie of firefighters came from Florida; when states can't handle fires with their own resources, they send out for any available crews to fly in to the rescue. Firefighters from Georgia and I think Idaho were also in town. We finally shouldered our packs and set off onto the Rim Trail, a popular alternate to the PCT.

Crater Lake, obviously

Crater Lake is strange, to say the least. It's one of the deepest lakes in the world, formed from a collapsed volcanic crater. But it's also in the middle of an extremely arid section of Oregon. So we set off from the gift shop with 3 liters of water apiece, since the next water source was a blistering 28 miles away. That is the longest dry stretch on the PCT, if you're keeping track, since the Mojave Desert. The Rim Trail hugs the rim of the lake for about ten miles. The trail was really just a thick layer of volcanic sand, and we hiked in the heat with almost constant views of the azure, refreshing water of the lake taunting us from below. There is only one trail to the water, and it was on the opposite side of the lake. We moved slowly, anonymous bearded thruhikers passing us throughout the day. We stopped in the early evening to camp under the trees and watch the new Wes Anderson movie on my tablet, making it a 17 mile day.

Mt Thielsen

The next morning, we didn't get started until 10 in the morning. Kind souls had filled water jugs cached at highway 138 for hikers and we eagerly grabbed a liter apiece to make the hike to Thielsen Creek a little less thirsty. On the climb to Thielsen, we ran into a couple of hikers. Badass and Sunnyside. I met Badass back at the Saufleys (mile 454) and was super impressed with her hiking dress and four bags of popcorn that she night hiked out with. It was such a lazy day for us. We actually sat down in a field after the creek and rewatched Royal Budapest Hotel, for the second time in 24 hours. We considered staying in that field, setting up camp 13 miles into our day. That might sound respectable to you. But we usually walk at least 3 miles per hour. So that's only four hours of walking. Most hikers in this section are averaging 25 miles a day. If nothing else, we're unpredictable!

We ended up rallying and hiking a few miles farther, past the Oregon/Washington highpoint (about 7500 feet). We stopped at this spectacular ledge with views east, ensuring us an early sunrise wake up call. Tomorrow, we swore, we'd hike farther. We were hanging out in camp when another hiker walked up: JustSoFresh. He's also a flip-flopper, having started north bound in Tahoe, and we both liked him immediately. A group of three other hikers showed up soon after, joining us at our awesome campsite. Juno, Rimshot, and Kit, I believe. It's so hard to remember all these new names!

We woke the next morning thirsty, determined to get to another water source early, before it got hot. All of us had decided to take the Oregon Skyline Trail, an alternate to the PCT. Partly because it was ten miles shorter, but mostly because it took us by a series of lakes, including Crescent Lake. Which had a swimable beach! We were down to 1 liter apiece, and had almost 20 miles to the nearest on-trail water. We left at 7 am, before anyone else in camp, and hiked fast and hard. We slowed a bit late morning, because we started passing bushes of huckleberries, these tart, sweet blueberry-like fruits. And even though we were pretty much out of water, we kept stopping to grab fistfuls. Even with these breaks, we finished 17 miles by 12:45! And at the road, there was another miraculous cache of water!

The afternoon was another story. From the cache, we jumped to the Skyline Trail. This trail stays 1000 feet lower than the PCT, which unfortunately means that it's hotter. It was muggy and we were grumpy. We pushed on in misery, determined to get to the beach. We were getting closer, and feeling relieved, when the trail dumped us out on a gravel road. I looked at the map. This wasn't on the map, and the trail didn't continue. In the far distance, down the hill, we could hear motor sounds. A dog barked. Feeling frustrated and unsure whether to turn left or right, we bushwhacked down the middle towards the dog and motor sounds. Ten minutes later, we reached another road, this one paved. Progress at least... We chose a direction, and this time we reached a cluster of RVs, and a campground. Our map listed this as "free camping" but this was a pay per site kind of place, and we were out of our element. Twin girls in jean vests biked past. A woman was standing next to campfire in a matching bikini top and sweatpants. I felt like a dirty leper. We were discussing where to go when a voice called those magical words, "You guys want a beer?"

Faces were turned towards us, like 20 of them, and a few guys came over to introduce themselves and hand us bottles of Black Butte porter. "Are you having a family reunion?" I asked, confused. They laughed, "not exactly!" They asked us to camp and eat dinner with them, and what could we do? On our way down to the lake to wash off, we passed Juno, Rimshot, and Kit, sitting with a different group eating dinner. We waved and smiled. We had been adopted, and so had they. We'd later learn that everyone we had seen that day had gotten lost trying to find that campground. Back at the campfire, cleanish, we got to know our hosts. They were mostly road engineers for the Forest Service, and this was their 20th year meeting up at Crescent Lake for a camping reunion. Dogs roamed freely about camp, one a chow with a lion cut and the rest versions of dachshunds.

"Have some ceviche," said Bill, one of the retired engineers. Spotting a familiar can in Bill's cozy, Craig asked, "is that Hamms?" And we were in heaven. Craig got Hamms, and I got Black Butte Porter. Five minutes later, they invited us to dig in to their food, "we always pack way too much." They weren't kidding. The picnic table had steak, chicken, shepherd's pie, cold salads, grilled vegetables, potatoes, bread. I don't think I could have dreamed up a more elaborate spread, and trust me: I think a lot about food. We stuffed ourselves, trying to answer all of their questions between bites.

Crescent Lake

And then, there were wadoodles. Which are, evidently, made by shaping biscuit dough around a phallic dowel, and toasting it into a biscuit tube over the fire. And THEN you put whipped cream and marionberries (or anything delicious you have on hand) in the hole. When we couldn't stay awake any longer, we hobbled to our tent. We fell asleep to the lot of them singing "Itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini" followed by the two oldest (and drunkest) men trying to sing a whole bunch of songs in Bob Dylan voices. We fell asleep happy.

The next morning, they fed us breakfast of bacon eggs hash browns coffee cookies bagel watermelon and surreptitiously stuffed salt water taffy and coffee packets into our packs. We set off for Shelter Cove Resort, on Odell Lake, ten miles away. It was hot and mucky hiking. Five miles in, we crested a hill and entered a different ecosystem. There was a rushing river, and the landscape was greener. Huckleberries of all varieties lined the trail. It was almost lush.

Waiting out the rain at Shelter Cove

At Shelter Cove, we were met with a big group of hikers, most of which were new faces. I picked up my package and had settled on the gravel to sort through it when it began to rain. Big drops of rain, falling slowly at first, but the type of rain that signals the start of a real storm to come. Thunder followed and we all gathered on the porch of the store with our phones. And then the rain came, with a vengeance, sheets of it, driving at an angle. Since we were by the lake, we could see lightening striking the ridge. "There's a tree on fire!" called one hiker, and we all ran closer for a better look. Sure enough, a few trees were burning across the bay, in the direction of the PCT. The owner of the store called the fire department. We all congratulated ourselves on making it to this porch to wait out this storm. We were planning to hike out ten miles, but ended up setting up by the other hikers in the soggy campsite for the night.