To Have and To Hike: Crater Lake to Bend

Last you heard from us we were happily eating hash browns in the front country majesty of Crater Lake National Park's Mazama Village. (Funnily enough when you are thruhiking a "campground" with a store and restaurant in a national park is in fact a "town" stop. When you have access to outlets, cold beverages and omelets you are most definitely in town, in the front country.) We have since made it 160 miles north to the beer capital of Bend, OR, which true to form kicked off a brew fest the day we arrived. Winning. But before we made it here, we had some run ins with boredom, fire closures, alternates and finally some epic scenery.

Mazama Village isn't exactly situated with a gorgeous overlook of Crater Lake, and by the time we hiked up the thousand feet to the edge of the crater it was nearly 5pm. We decided to hike out on a PCT alternate trail, the Rim Trail around Crater Lake to take in the views, and camp early so that we could wake up to see the sunrise over the lake. The National Park has strict no camping rules up on the rim of the lake itself, which hikers are known to flout regularly by stealth bivvying far from roads.

As rule-abiding hikers, we looked into legal camping options and decided to stay at Lightning Spring, a little site with water a few miles into the 12 mile alternate, and also the only spot with water in 25+ miles once we returned to the trail. Feeling very pleased with ourselves that we'd only have another three miles to hike until dark, we bought a bottle of wine and $1.99 opener, poured it into a Gatorade bottle and gave the opener to a tourist from Mt. Shasta. We ambled around the start of hike, taking lots of pictures and enjoying ourselves. By the time we approached the turn-off for Lightning Spring it was nearly 7:30pm, and there was a problem: orange tape over the trail with the sign "closed" due to operations around the Bybee Fire that had been recently put under control nearby.

At this point, a short aside: it's nearly impossible for thruhikers to follow all rules in every park we cross into because we simply cannot get the latest information. Most of the time the little signboards with pieces of paper are hopelessly out of date (though not always), and we don't have cell service. Typically this is only an issue with the ever changing fire regulations, and we defer heavily towards no campfires unless its freezing outside, extremely clear that we can make them, and/or it's raining. However, in this case we hadn't seen any information about a closure on the public information boards in Mazama or Rim Village, hadn't seen any information on our PCT apps (Halfmile and Guthooks), and had no cell service at the entrance to the springs. We needed to figure out where to camp and also needed water for the next 25+ miles of hiking. In addition, the good folks at Crater Lake NP do not allow hitchhiking, which meant that following the rules required backtracking several miles to just get water, and then several more to camp. The kicker: a sign on the Rim Trail that said "Road closed at 5pm." To this day we have no idea what it meant given that neither the trail nor the road seemed to in any way be closed. Even if we wanted to follow the rules, we felt thwarted at every turn. No bueno.

Date night = off. Night hike = on. Booya. We got some stealth water, and started the truly scenic night hike around Crater Lake. Besides being bummed that we were missing out on the epic scenery and not enjoying the delicious Pinot Gris - Crater Lake vintage, night hiking that close to the thousand plus foot drop around the rim of Crater Lake was not what we had hoped to sign up for. It ended up being an eerie and memorable hike. Dozens of cars kept driving around the Rim Road late at night, parking in pull-outs -- presumably to see the sunrise in the morning or because they couldn't find a place to stay, and generally making us question whether we too could sleep in parking lots or whether only cars had that privilege. We made it the remaining 8 miles to the Grouse Hill campsite just before 11pm having kicked it into gear.

Sunset from stealth water

Going down

Night hiking

The next day, we woke up super late and began to be overwhelmed by the boredom of the north-end of Crater Lake National Park, a flat expanse with thinning trees that provided no shade from the sun. It was hot and dry again with dust turning our legs black. When we looked forward to the next 50 miles we saw several 16+ mile stretches without water, and only small sitting ponds to fill up in. We were not thrilled. At the last flowing creek in a while we were chatting with other hikers and learned about a magnificent thing: the Oregon Skyline Trail, an alternate to the PCT with much better water access. Yes, please. We camped early that night 24 miles into the day near a pretty overlook of a nearby valley.

You can sort of get a sense of how dry it is

Harder to tell from above

Mount Thielsen

Blue ridges in the distance

The PCT high point in OR and WA... 6,000 feet below CA

The next day we started the alternate, which we would take until we reached Crescent Lake, a big enough lake to attract water enthusiasts in the area. Unfortunately, the map pages for this alternate were not in our possession (it turns out they we had unhelpfully put them in the next resupply) and the signs from the trail to the campground by the lake were anything but clear. We hit a wall of mosquitos, took several wrong paths, I ran half a mile up the road, and an hour or so later we stumbled into the campground. We set up camp away from the crowd of hikers there -- the alternate was popular -- and called it a night.

Green tunnel

Lakes taunting us in the distance

Filling up in a pond

It was a short 12 miles from Crescent Lake to Shelter Cove, where our next resupply box was, and we got up early for the first time in a while to make sure that we could wash our clothes and charge our devices without zeroing. On our way back to the trail we spooked a horse, which jumped up on its hind legs, got untied from a trailer and started making a ruckus. Once the owner calmed the horse down and tied him back up, we had to walk through a gauntlet of a half-dozen horses. It's one way to wake up in the morning. The hike took us along the beautiful Trapper Creek, while we talked about making the outdoors a consistent part of our normal lives.

Still a tunnel

Reflection of Diamond Peak

Shelter Cove was an unexpected surprise: a beautiful set of log cabins on the shore of Odell Lake, with a general store, Adirondack chairs around a flagpole with the American flag, and a refreshing breeze. It felt like summer camp. We plugged in our devices, put in laundry and showered within the first 20 minutes of arriving. It turns out, however, that a lot of other hikers are truly disinterested in both showering and doing laundry at the same rate as us. We like to wash our clothes and shower at least once every 80 miles or so, otherwise we start to feel particularly grimy. Other hikers seem to be content to wait for 160 miles or more. I don't get it. Showering is so great. It's a favorite part of life.

The charging situation

The waiting game

Hiker trash loves the magazines

The entrance to the resort

Even though we arrived around 10am we had to kick it until 5-6pm when UPS arrived to deliver Aidan's care package for us. The downside of being ahead of schedule is that we had to drink a six pack of beers and read in Adirondack chairs. The price we pay. It felt downright like vacation. When the package arrived early at 4pm we were delighted to see an US Weekly for Jenny, salt and vinegar chips, dark chocolate with orange, and lemonade drink mix. Definitely winning.

We hiked out a couple of miles and camped on a gorgeous spot overlooking the Rosary Lakes. The mosquitoes agreed with our choice, and decided to join us for dinner. They were not welcomed guests, and they decided to continue harassing us the next day through camp the next night at Cliff Lake.

Rosary lakes in the distance

In the morning

Burn area

Moon rising

As we got into Three Sisters Wilderness area the mosquitoes began to disappear and the scenery began to get epic. Sisters is a volcanic area with glaciated peaks, and thinning trees. In other words, we were finally out of the green, mosquito-infested tunnel of Southern Oregon and into some wide-open mountainous wonderland. It felt like Argentine Patagonia, and we couldn't have been happier to be there. We walked through a singular spot, the Obsidian Basin, in the midst of the wilderness area. It's a special use permit area that the PCT goes through, and besides having obsidian everywhere, including a beautiful waterfall, it feels like the landscape is out of a movie. It would be an incredible place to explore on its own. That night we feasted on mac and cheese and a dehydrated package of creme brulee. Yum.

Getting epic

Patagonia?

Soaking it in

Trucking

Meadows!

A sister

Epic hiking shadows

Obsidian waterfall

Sierra-like stream

Laying down to get water

Mountains ahead with Mt Jefferson on the right and Mt Hood in the far distance

South Matthieu Lake

The last few miles of trail to Highway 242 at McKenzie Pass felt like we were on a Martian volcano, lots of red, grey and black volcanic rock tearing at our shoes. We had been corresponding with UberDucky, a trail angel, since Shelter Cove to organize a ride from the Pass to Bend. UberDucky picked us up around 10am along with two other hikers he dropped in Sisters (the town). A huge Oregon Ducks fan, he is not in fact an Uber driver, just an uber fan and a wonderfully kind man.

We started the tour of Bend's beer right after showers, because a PSA: showers are wonderful treasures, and everyone should appreciate them... in moderation when droughts are involved. Our first stop: Silver Moon, a brewery recommended by Gourmet that happened to be right across the street from a laundromat, where we (gasp) did laundry again. After we finished there, we had an unexpected delight and surprise: Jenny's friend Emily's brother, Jerry was here in Bend. We met up with him and his girlfriend at the Brew Fest down by the river, and spent several hours sitting in the grass, drinking beer and talking about managing the tension between academic / corporate life and being outside.

Leaving Three Sisters Wilderness