July 24, 2016 - I tried to wake up at 4:30am to get an early start since I was trying to get to Crater Lake 37 miles away, but it was just too dark so I slept another 30 minutes and was on trail by 5:40am. The mosquitoes were a little better when I woke up but there were still a lot. I did as much packing in my tent as I could.
I was hoping for more nice level trail as it’s much nicer on my ankle but that was not the case. There were so many down trees that it just took forever to go around, over and under them all. It was kind of like being in the Sierras again because it was like dealing with snow only it was trees, hard to see the trail at times.
Pretty soon my ankle started to act up again, it had been feeling great the last 3 days. It got painful at times and didn’t seem like the pain was every going to stop. At that point I decided I just need to get to Mazama Village and take it easy tomorrow, maybe a rest day. Really the only thing keeping me going was pizza waiting for me at the village. The pain did start to go away those last few miles.
After those 10 miles of tree climbing I finally came out of the woods and got a nice view out of the south, could still see Mt Shasta.
Then it was back in the woods and still had more down trees to deal with but not as many as before.
Took a quick break to fill up on water since it would be the last water source for the next 20 miles.
After that it was more walking in the woods which slowly transitioned to a burn section. The burn trees did look cool, almost this silver color, but I needed to keep moving in the afternoon warm weather with no tree cover. I was surprised there weren't many down trees in the woods than in the burn section, I guess the heavy snow year maybe the reason for that.
The rest of the day’s hike was in the woods with nice level trail with very few down trees and little elevation change. Slowly I started picking up the pace as I got closer to the road. Once I got to road it was about a mile walk to Mazama Village and to Annie Creek Restaurant. I did have to wait about 30 minutes to get a table so I did a little cleaning up while waiting.
Had a great dinner of a 14 inch meat lovers pizza, almost too much but I took it all down. I was able to ice my ankle while I ate which seemed to help.
My original plan didn’t have me come to Mazama Village but to stay on the PCT, camp about 2.5 miles down trail. However since I was already at a campsite and had hiked so far to get here I just decided to make camp for the night. Normally it’s $5 for PCT hikers but the lady just told me to head on down and camp, computer was already off. I got to the campsite and it looked full but I looked around and saw a whole other area where no one was camping. However the last ones at this site left a fire going. With it being dark I tried to put it out. There was a little water jug nearby so I dumped it on the fire but there wasn’t enough. Unsure of where the water was I did the best I could by peeing on it but I didn’t have enough in me. So I went across to the RV section and filled up the jug with enough water to put out the fire.
Depending how my ankle feels will determine how far I go tomorrow, 31 is the plan but I’m probably going to sleep in and take a little more rest. I still plan to head back over to the restaurant for breakfast and maybe lunch as well, just have to see how I feel in the morning.
