So I hiked the Washington PCT. What next? Laura ended up with work during the next summer but I am a school teacher and therefor had some time the next summer. So I decided to do the Oregon PCT. I would hike north from the California/Oregon border and someone could pick me up at the columbia river gorge near home.
I didn't try that hard to update gear as most of the gear we used worked very well. We got another jetboil stove in case Laura wanted to go on a short hike and needed a stove. I ended up taking the tent, although I had originally planned on trying out a bivy sack. I also bought another pair of Brooks Cascadia trail running shoes hoping that the company would have fixed that problems I had using the last model.
I planned to send food to: Fish Lake, Crater Lake, Camper's Cove, Big Lake Youth Camp, and Ollalie Lake. I also planned to hike fast. In fact, I gave myself 20 days to finish the state before I would help out at a church camp. I would start in mid-June right after school and hike until early July.
I made one major mistake in my planning, I assumed that the trail would be free of snow. It turns out that Oregon has snow in the mountains well into July on the typical year. This seems to surprise everyone and certainly surprised me! The snow made for lots of new experiences and adventures.
I ended up hiking slowly due to snow and not making my 20-day window. I made it north to Campers Cove and Willamette pass before choosing to get off the trail. Later in July, I hiked back south from the Columbia River to finish the state.
This hike was a real challenge for me personally. I pushed myself very hard to see what I was capable of. I found this rewarding in ways that I never expected. I look forward to challenging myself in the future to see if I can do even more but more about that after this hike is documented. The following many posts will be from my hiking adventure during the summer of 2016. Then I will be all caught up and not post-dating everything!
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