Oregon PCT 2016: Day 3

Klum Landing

Day 3 began bright and cool and quiet. I hiked about half a mile to the Klum Landing day use area. It was completely deserted but the was an unlocked bathroom where I plugged my phone in to recharge. This put me a little behind schedule, as did my circuitous route back to the trail, but I hiked hard to make up the difference.

Road walking back to the trail

Bridge over Grizzly creek

The first of hundreds of downed trees

Unfortunately for my plans, the trail had some difficulties in store for me. The trail had only recently become free of snow and downed trees were everywhere. It is hard to explain how difficult this was to deal with. There were sometimes piles of trees 4 or 5 feet tall and stretching hundreds of feet in many directions. I occasionally had difficulty finding the trail, which slowed me down quite a bit. It also used up tons of energy!

A small wall of tree branches

Where's the trail?

Another tree wall

View to the southeast

Again, where is the trail?

I trail head that was in the wrong spot at the wrong time...

As I approached the Brown Mountain ski cabin, things cleared up on the trail because it was also a ski trail. It was nice to have a break from climbing over downed trees nearly continuously. When I arrived at the cabin I met some new friends, all of whom I would hike with later. But at the time I was much more interested in arriving at Fish lake before the store/diner closed. I was told by one of my new acquaintances that the restaurant was closed that day. This concerned me because I was planning on picking up supplies there. I figured I would have to hike to the resort and find out who was correct. Either way, getting there by 7 would be difficult. So I took a few pics of the cabin and traveled on.

Ski trail: winter upkeep!

Made it to the cabin

Brown Mountain cabin

Random stuff left by/for hikers

Pretty Tree

Log bridge

First glimpse of rocks

The trail around Brown mountain was hot, dry, and a bit hard on the feet (though nothing compared to the area north of the sisters!). I was feeling tired and trying to locate myself on the trail when I actually came up with a good set of questions for my Geometry class (I teach HS math) regarding orienteering. I arrived at the highway at close to 6:30 and had to hurry to make it to the resort two miles to the west. The clouds of mosquitoes helped me to hurry!

Rocky trail ahead

Nice red rock path

Mount McLoughlin is much closer

Lava flow

Closer

Almost there!

Junction for Fish lake

When I arrived at Fish lake resort, I was TIRED (and yes, that was a yell). I had hiked two consecutive days of about 25 miles during my first two days on the trail. Any experienced hiker will tell you that is kind of stupid. One is supposed to ease into long days and my body was angry that I had ignored such advice. I ate a meal but felt like I would fall asleep before I could finish. I was so tired that I decided to splurge and get a small cabin. My wife had stopped here on her first solo hike, sick and tired, and returned home the year before and it was fun to imagine her experience as I relaxed in a cabin similar to the one she stayed in.
 

The Fish Lake Resort

The Tadpole Diner

Delicious!

My cabin

Sleeping on a mattress!

I also took the time to nurse my leg back to health. I don't blister easily and had no blisters on my feet. However, I think that I touched something like poison ivy while climbing through the trees. It gave me a nasty yellow blister that rubbed against my hiking gator and irritated my ankle. I drained it and let it dry a little before dressing it with a bandaid... it would bug me for days as my dressing was regularly ripped off as I climbed over trees in the future.

Ugly blister

That's what a drained blister should look like!

While eating, I talked with the owners of the resort, who warned me they had heard stories of snow and danger up ahead from southbound hikers. I didn't take the warning terribly seriously. I figured that if someone had hiked south along the trail then I could hike north. It couldn't be that bad, right? Ironically, I also met a trail runner who wanted to get the speed record for the Oregon section of the PCT. I warned him about all of the trees and he reacted much as I had about snow. "We jump over trees all the time." he said... and that was that. It is funny how easily people give advice and how easily they discredit the advice of others. Humans are masters of self-deception. Anyway, we both ended up continuing despite advice to the contrary, and that ended up being more of an adventure than I ever thought I would have!