Hooray Oregon!!! I was excited to start my hike. And on the very day I had planned to, no less - Independence Day... (Hey there, Henry David Thoreau! ;-) )
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Franz, his girlfriend and Greg gave me a ride to the trailhead. I was very
surprised to run into thru-hikers this far up north this early in the season. |
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| At the Siskiyou Summit trailhead - ready to start! |
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| Here we go... |
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| Pilot Rock |
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| Mount Shasta |
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| At my first campsite |
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I was woken up in the middle of the night by the moon
shining on my pillow. It was like a gigantic spotlight. |
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| Lunch with trivia string cheese |
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| Not the greatest picture - but I did see an owl! |
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| Hyatt Lake |
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| "Zero" (= rest day) at Hyatt Lake |
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Note the single green shoe in the tent vestibule. I managed to
lose one of my camp shoes right before Hyatt Lake. Somebody
picked it up and, not knowing that I was taking a zero at Hyatt
Lake, started carrying it northward without me. So I started
chasing after it, telling everybody I met on the trail about it in
the hope that trail gossip might reach the "shoe bearer" and that
they would leave it somewhere along the trail for me. I had
already given up hope of ever seeing the shoe again, but I did
find it eventually in the hiker box at Crater Lake. (Huge thanks
to the unknown person(s) for carrying it all the way, and for NOT
getting rid of it! My blistered toes are forever grateful to you.) |
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| Butterflies on the trail |
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| Getting water at Big Springs |
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| "Wildlife"... |
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| I spent a long time listening to that bird. |
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| South Brown Mountain Shelter |
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| Self-portrait at the pump |
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| My feet were pretty blistered. |
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| Lava flow |
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| Mount McLoughlin |
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| Mount McLoughlin with trail |
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| More lava flows |
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| Fish Lake |
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| Camp at Fish Lake |
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I spent a wonderful morning sitting on the dock reading, enjoying the sunshine
(and the fact that my feet were free from my boots for once), and waiting for
the café to open... Food!!! |
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On the porch of the Fish Lake Resort café with fellow PCT hikers Casey ("Wannabe")
and Charlie. I spent an entire day on that porch, eating, chatting, writing postcards,
talking to my parents on the phone, eating again... It was great to hang out with
other hikers (although Charlie told us a really scary cougar story)! |
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| The first patch of snow on the trail! (But not the last by any means, oh no...) |
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If I look a little unhappy in this picture, take a look at what I'm wearing and take
a wild guess why! (Temperatures were in the seventies at least that morning.) |
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| Helpful advice |
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| More snow on the trail... |
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| Pretty flowers |
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| Indian Paintbrush |
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| Panoramic views of Mount Shasta |
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| The north side of Devils Peak. This was the snow the nice Forest Service ranger at Fish Lake had warned us about. |
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| Devils Peak |
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| Looking back. It wasn't so bad after all. |
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| New growth in burn area |
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I guess some people didn't like the water. (Or, more to the point, the fact that
they had to go off-trail for half a mile and 300 feet down to get to it.) |
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| I finally made it to Crater Lake! |
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| ...and found my missing camp shoe resting securely in the hiker box at Mazama. |
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| Goodbye Creek |
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| A very happy Happy Plate reunited with her second camp shoe... |
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| Hanging out with other PCT hikers at my camp site at Mazama Village Campground. |
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