To Have and To Hike: Ashland to Crater Lake

Leaving Ashland, aka paradise, was tough. We wanted to continue eating lemon mint sherbet, drinking kombucha on tap, and reading the hard copy NYT we'd purchased at the co-op. Fortunately, we called a taxi company earlier in the day and pre-arranged a ride to the trail at 5.... Otherwise, we never would have left, especially when we got a text from Bivvy suggesting just one more drink at the brewery. Commitment devices: they work. Sadly, we got a text from Blue Sky and Bright Eyes while we were in the taxi, saying they'd just arrived in Ashland. We hiked together in the desert and they came to our wedding. They also got engaged on the trail (in the Mojave!) and have been a day or two behind us for the last few weeks. We have so much to celebrate with them, but sadly we were already trail-bound. We're going to do our first double-zero of the trail in Bend, OR and hope they catch up to us there!

Final emails and fancy drinks before leaving town!

With all the delicious local food and craft beers sloshing around in our bellies, we only made it 6 hard-fought miles that night. We camped in our first of two parking lots for this section (just pull outs on a dirt road with no cars - this isn't like a Costco parking lot), ate some delicious Ashland snacks, and passed out. When our alarm went off at 6 the next morning, we saw something we haven't seen since we left SF: fog. Somehow, this fog dampened every "get up and go" impulse we have and we stayed in bed for another 2 hours. We didn't leave camp until almost 9 am, our latest time on the whole trail. It felt awesome.

Foggy morning

Baked goods from Ashland! Makes waking up so much better.

Yep, almost 9 am departure

Beautiful sun through the lingering fog

We've long heard that Oregon is where thru hikers can really do "Big Miles." Every hiker defines Big Miles differently. For some, Big Miles means 25 miles a day. For our crazy friend Thirteen, Big Miles means once doing a 45-mile day. For us, Big Miles is anything north of 30. Which, when you think about it, is really quite impressive: we're going to walk a marathon + five additional miles, with a backpack, elevation change, and difficult terrain, every day. It's the "every day" part that kills me sometimes. I do Big Miles for a day, and then I think I deserve a vacation. Nope...time to wake up and do it again! Oregon is known for Big Miles because hikers are in epic shape at this point and the trail is really soft and springy. It's not the deep sand of the desert nor the rocky, painful trail of the Sierra. It's just soft dirt and pine needles. You don't have to pay great attention to where each foot goes and therefore you can fly. Big Miles!

Gourmet first course of lunch! Day 1 out of town always has the best food.

But when we left camp at 9, we figured there was no way it would be a Big Miles day. I mean, usually we've already got 7-8 miles under our belts at that hour. We were hoping for 24-25 miles. But then we walked and chatted and podcasted and took a break for lunch and did all our normal things and suddenly it was 8:30 pm, getting dark, and we'd done 30 miles. Oregon! Home to Big Miles for a reason!

As we cooked dinner in our second consecutive dirt road parking lot, we started thinking. If we'd done a 30-mile day without much effort, could we pull off a 40 the next day? There was no pressing need - it wasn't like we were running out of food or wanted to catch someone. We just were excited by the challenge of it. We set the alarm for 5.

Everything went great the next morning. We got out of camp before 6, just as the sky was beginning to lighten up. We saw the sunrise from the top of our first climb of the day. We were on track to do 14 miles by 10 am. Everything was going smooth as can be.

Waking up in the dark!

Mucho early departure

#goals

Sunrise at the top of the ridge

Eating breakfast on the go

Then, somewhere around the 8 mile mark, we saw this:

Uh oh. Trail magic from our favorite 2014 friends - Jolly Llama, 1-Track, and Gourmet. There's no way we could miss this. We agreed we'd pop over and give everyone a hug, but stay no more than 20 minutes. We have a 40 to do after all!

As soon as we got there, we knew our dreams of a 40 were shattered. They had an epic set-up: a shade tent, camp chairs, silly costumes, and something like 8 coolers filled with gatorades, sodas, beers, and snacks. Most importantly, they'd set up "Le Bistro," a backcountry fine dining establishment. Gourmet got his name because he is a chef in Hawaii when he's not thru hiking. And not just like a cook at a Panera. He prefers fine dining restaurants and was the head chef at his last restaurant before he quit to come hang out on the trail again. So we had Gourmet, wearing a silly apron, bow tie, and top hat, manning the camp stove inside Le Bistro. This was going to be GOOD.

They were making food for the other thru hikers who wandered through, but as soon as we rolled in, they got excited. Jolly Llama, the head server at Le Bistro, seated us at a table for two and, no joke, lit a candle. He said they'd planned something special for us since they wanted to celebrate our wedding. I think I almost started to cry.

First, he popped a bottle of champagne that they'd brought just for us. Yes, Justin and I split a bottle of champagne at like 8 am. Jolly Llama helped a bit.

Head server at Le Bistro: Jolly Llama

Why yes, I'd love some champagne. As Jolly noted, the solo cup really opens up the flavors.

Le Bistro and the head chef

Gourmet working it.

Then, the five course meal started coming. While Le Bistro has a beautiful menu of options that thrilled and delighted every thru hiker (BLT! French toast breakfast sandwich! Salad with poached egg!), they'd planned a special "off-menu" meal for us. Gourmet is a vegan and he remembered I'm vegetarian, so he even had veggie and meat versions of each course for Justin and me. It was amazing to see a pro at work. First, rainbow carrots and dipping sauce. Then, caprese salad. Next, entree salads with tempeh bacon and vegan cheese for me, real bacon and cheese for Justin. For our main course, sweet potato hash (my favorite!!) with sriracha and delicious veggie patties for me, and a steak for Justin. And finally, cheesecake and an ice cream sundae. Holy Toledo, it was delicious.

The five courses:

The whole morning was beautiful and almost overwhelming for me. I couldn't believe we were here at mile 1760, having a five-course meal with some amazing friends. One of the reasons we were most excited to return to the trail after 2014 was because we love the sense of community that this crazy hike forms. While we rarely actually walk and talk with anyone, the shared experience of doing something so unique and challenging instantly bonds you to people. And then over afternoon siestas at water sources, dinners in camp, and beers in town, true friends start to emerge. Even more importantly, Justin and I actually forged our own relationship on this trail - we'd barely started dating when we began the hike in 2014 (indeed, we quietly celebrated our two-month anniversary on our first night in the trail, when we camped next to Gourmet and his girlfriend Lady Mac!). And now, here we are, two years and thousands of miles later - celebrating our wedding with some of these same friends. In 2014, we liked to say "The PCT giveth and the PCT taketh away" - it was a way to not ride the lows of windy nights, scorching temperatures, or other challenges too hard, because we knew there'd be an epic sunset or instance of trail magic around the next corner. But in 2016, we know better. The PCT just giveth. Even all the challenges and obstacles are part of the PCT's enormous gift to us and to the life that we're building together.

Gourmet, Jolly Llama, and One Track

So we left Le Bistro riding high (hiking high?). We weren't going to hit 40 miles, but that was beyond the point. We had full bellies and happy hearts. Not even the lava fields (ow, my feet!) or the two bee stings Justin got could slow us down. We ended up doing 33 miles that day - while not 40, it was a new PR for us.

Lava fields

Hell yes I packed out a huge bag of rosemary truffle popcorn

Sweet burn area

More lava

Our new PR didn't last long. The next day, we realized if we hiked 35 miles, we could make it to Crater Lake National Park. The Park has a store and restaurant that close at 9, so we figured we had a fighting chance of picking up our resupply box (thanks, ECP and Matan for sending!!) and getting a soda before bed. Off we went!! Unfortunately, we were not prepared for what awaited us. This section of trail hadn't been maintained in a while and clearly some nasty wind storms had whipped through. There were constant blow-downs - knocked down trees that block the trail. Blow-downs are tricky. Sometimes they're low enough you can step over them. Sometimes they're high enough you can duck under them (though you inevitably snag your pack). Sometimes they're so wide/fat that you can't straddle over them. Sometimes they're so brushy that you get super scratched up. Sometimes the only way past them is to take a bushwhacked trail all the way around. When we say there were a lot of blow-downs, we're not exaggerating. We crossed 102 in the first hour (1.7 a minute!) and 407 before the day was done (props to Justin for counting. I think this was his main form of entertainment yesterday). Crossing endless blow-downs obviously slowed us down.

And then in the afternoon, we made a critical mistake. The last water before the park is twenty miles out. We filled up enough water to get us to the park, but no extra. So later in the afternoon, when we realized that the blow-downs had slowed us down so much that making it to the park before dark would be impossible, we didn't have enough water to set up camp and then hike again the next morning. The death march was on. Ultimately, we hiked with headlamps for a mile or two, got to the road into Crater Lake well after dark, had a somewhat harrowing road walk in which we jumped into a ditch every time a car came by, and then finally got to the designated PCT campsite sometime around 10:30. Justin shoved a cliff bar and a chocolate bar in his mouth, I went directly to bed. But then we woke up and were in Crater Lake! Hell yeah! We're currently enjoying a delicious breakfast and then are going to sort through our resupply. 80 miles to Shelter Cove, a resort where our next box is waiting, 160 miles to Bend, the trail town we're arguably most excited for and then Washington and then Canada and then....!!!!