Riv's 2015 PCT, Day 33, July 28

Day 33, Tuesday, July 28, from PCT mile  1836.74, elev. 6491, walked 19.2 miles to 1855.94, elev. 7180.  Total up/down +2136/-1497. 

Dear Trail Friends,  

Today was a lovely hike, much of it level. Even the climb was mostly a gentle slope on a soft dirt trail. Beautiful woods, and the day not too hot, not too cold. 

Photo 1. I like the way this tree is slowly growing around and over the PCT marker. It gives me the feeling that the wilderness -- the wild natural order of things -- quietly and persistently heals around human intrusion. 

Photo 2. This little tree seems to me to express more eloquently than words are able to how each individual life finds its own unique shape, with turns and twists that make up the story of that life and that somehow create balance and harmony. 

Photo 3. Coming up to a pass and seeing this lake -- don't even know what the lake's name is -- and having that discovery experience (that was difficult for me to have at Crater Lake.). Speaking of discovery, I forgot to tell you about a young man thru hiker I met. We were sitting side by side on the floor in the Mazuma store, recharging our iPhones and connecting with wifi. He happened to mention having been a math major and I said I was a math major too. I told him I had started grad work at a very good grad school in math (U of Wisc Madison) but that I saw the difference between my plodding logic and the students who could "see" where they were going. He asked if I had seen the bench at Burney Falls with the quote from Poincare: "It is by logic that we prove, but by intuition that we discover. ". We were amused that we had both taken a photo of that bench. It seems interesting to have that quote from the very first hour of my hike echoed now -- perhaps it too is part of what my pilgrimage is about?

Photo 4.  Just for fun -- the bench from Burney Falls, taken June 26, Day 1. 

Photo 5.  Lying in my inverted position, feeling the earth under my back, looking into the sky--and having given myself permission to not worry about my iPhone battery, just enjoy and see what happens, listening to music in this case John Denver songs Here Comes the Sun accompanied by YoYo Ma on the cello. 

Photo 6. Bonnie's wave of the day. Can't you just see the molten flow lines of the lava in the hardened rock. Really makes me want to learn some geology. 

Photo 7. I was pretty tired when I came to the water source (17 miles from where I slept, 27 miles from the last water source, which caused me to carry way too much weight in water yesterday on the rim hike and may have been a factor in the lack of passion in my response to the beauty. ) I didn't do everything I'd hoped to, but did resolutely rinse out my bandanna-substitute (an ultralight towel) and two pairs of socks, one liner pair and one regular hiking socks pair. So I squeeze everything out a few times in a nice deep pool, lay the wet socks on a small rock, and wring out the towel/bandanna and drape it on a little fir tree. I go back and there are only two socks left on the rock. The little creek has kidnapped my socks. I walk downstream but see no hint of them, then finally find my missing liner sock submerged in a pool under a boulder. I search all along the stream for my missing hiker sock. It could not have gone far. It's too big. It would have gotten stuck somewhere. I get a stick to reach under the boulder and search by feel where I can't see. Then when I return with my stick, there the sock is. It's hard to see in the photo. It's a grayish U-shape at the bottom of the falls, to the right of and above the reddish rock, slightly under the Boulder. At the top of the falls you can see the rock --the farthest back of the three -- I had placed it on. I am convinced some river goddess or nymph snatched it as a prank. I don't see how the stream itself could have reached up to the rock and gotten it. 

I'm in my tent and it's now very dark and time to go to sleep.  Thanks as always for walking with me in imagination and making it possible for me to experience the joy of hiking alone without being completely overcome with loneliness. 

Until tomorrow. 

Riv's 2015 PCT, Day 32, July 27, Part 2

Day 32, July 27, Part 2. 

Photos 1-6. Views of Crater Lake as I walked the rim. Apparently a mountain we now call Mazuma exploded lava all over the Pacific Northwest around 7700 years ago. Crater Lake was the indentation that was left after the mountain blew it's top. As I walked the rim I tried to imagine that mountain.  It seemed very large. 

Photo 6. I met three bikers, two men and a woman, who were also admiring the view. Seeing them made me think of my friend John who died in early 2014, soon after this pilgrimage started. I recalled how much he loved motorcycles and how his best friend Norm held him sitting upright by sitting behind him in bed (staying upright was important so that the "Death with Dignity" potion could work its gentle magic and not get rejected and vomited up), how Norm had imagined "we're going for a motorcycle ride, brother. Here we go. " I even told these three beautiful biker souls how my friend had ridden his Harley off into the unknown when he died. Funny how with people as with landscapes one has these wow moments, where the beauty of souls just appears and is noticed, effortlessly. Then I saw them much later, sitting on their bikes, ready too zoom off into the unknown. How could I resist taking their picture?

I loved Crater Lake's beauty, but I also felt also a sadness as I noticed how different a park feels to me from a wilderness. Each of the views had built-up viewing areas, platforms, steps, fences. Each was, in its way, framed and put on display. It felt more like a zoo. I noticed that I turned to other tourists to say, "isn't it beautiful?"  But never did I step around a corner or rise over a ridge and say spontaneously and with surprise, to the place itself "YOU are beautiful."

That is all for now. Sure hope my little blogtouch pro app doesn't crash again from all these postings I've saved to local and been unable to post. Hope o get coverage good enough to post them all soon. Missing you! Love and blessings, crests and craters, to you. 

Riv's 2015 PCT, Day 32, July 27, Part 1

Day 32, Monday, July 27. Part 1. 

From  Mazama Village, Crater Lake National Park, elev. 6021. Walked 1.07 miles on Annie Springs Trail, to PCT mile 1818.4, elev. 6336, (up/down +324/-20). Then walked (not counting a 7.2. mile round trip "excursion" where I took the "stock" PCT -- for horses--which bypasses Crater Lake instead of the hiker PCT which goes along the Crater Lake Rim Trail) 2.4 mi to the 11.72 mile "Crater Lake Alternate Trail." So while I only did a little over 14 actual PCT miles, I hiked over 22 miles. The gps doesn't give me any way to calculate the total up/down but it was considerable. 

Dear Trail Friends. 

Oops. I was about to write you that I am in my tent with my headlamp having wakened promptly at 4am, and getting myself ready to get started hiking at 5am. There is one itty bitty problem. The iPhone tells me it is 12:40am, meaning that I mistook 12:20am for 4am. I guess I will now try to get back to sleep (too bad I already drank coffee as I began the process of waking up and organizing myself!  Well, thanks for pointing out my mistake. (Good thing I decided to start the morning writing to you. Funny thing is how deeply rested I felt and ready to hike after such a good night's sleep. Let's hope that's how I feel when morning actually gets here. For now, back into my sleeping bag! Oh, another good thing. I had one half of the front beak down on my tent because it totally looked felt and smelled like it would rain last night. As a result I got a bit of condensation inside my tent. This ultralight tent is condensation-free when the beak is up--as it can be in mild weather- and there is lots of air passing through.  But less so with beak half down and a lot less so with the beak fully down -- tho that gives the most privacy and protection from wind and rain. The good thing is that, unless it rains, having opened the beak as part of the preparation for heading out, I probably will have a nice dry condensation-free tent by the time actual morning arrives. Until then, sweet dreams. Speaking of which, it's a long time since I've received any dream guidance for this pilgrimage. I think I will request some. )

Hello again --

Now it is night time and I'm in my tent. 

I am sooo tired and I feel sad that in hiking more miles a day I am leaving myself with less zest and creativity for writing about the walk. 

I didn't exactly choose to hike more miles today. I planned a fairly easy day but misunderstood maps, apps, etc. and stayed on the (well-marked as the PCT) stock trail instead of the hiker alternative trail (not marked as the PCT) that follows the rim of Crater Lake. 

While I did not receive a dream as requested, I did seem to receive guidance from the terrain and my reverie. It began with reflection on the name "Pacific Crest Trail" and the way that name reflects a tendency among Americans (and humans in general, maybe?) to focus on the peaks, not the valleys. Because of course it is just as much a trail of Pacific lows as it is of highs. And to get to the highs you have to climb up from the lows, and the highs are always followed by descents to lows. 

As I thought about the up and down nature of the trail, I found myself hiking through a burn area that was fairly bursting with new young life. I couldn't help thinking that I/we have that same one-sided preference for life over death, birth over destruction. 

Photos 1-3. Life springing up out of destruction. Even the bent over trees in photo 3 seem less to be screaming out against destruction and more bowing to the inevitable and welcoming the new life. 

In relation to my pilgrimage, I think this is a big part of what it is about. To take the valleys of life with the peaks, the destruction with the creativity, death with birth. Not easy. 

I am so tired I think I will sleep now and finish this in the morning. 

And now it is Tuesday morning July 28. Despite weak and shaky cell coverage Chrissy and I had a sweet talk last night. 

Back to pilgrimage thoughts: less abstractly, I think a big pilgrimage theme is learning to embrace and cherish incomplete, fragmentary experiences. To fully take in the beauty of relationships that ended in disappointment, with feelings of guilt or hurt or rejection. Or of dreams and projects never fully "fledged" like all the unfinished graduate programs and novels. 

When I was on reverie about the "10 best things" that have happened to me in my life, I found myself including friendships wIth people with whom I lost touch, whether through my own lack of attention or their unwillingness to stay in connection. My best friend in college Debbie Friedman. Perhaps she was frightened off by my lesbianism, perhaps by the period when Mary died (during which I looked and acted a lot like a person with mental illness, just didn't get involved with and labeled by the "mental health" system, which in my case I suspect was a blessing and allowed me to find my way back to the trail. ) I found myself counting Debbie's friendship: her love of folk singing and social justice, her bright colors, her vivid warm personality, her welcoming family with its tradition of commitment to social justice, her calling me to account when I acted thoughtlessly in the friendship ( and so helping me to learn about love) as one of the "10 best things." So often when I think of Debbie I argue with the outcome: why didn't our friendship extend into adulthood? What defect in her (or me) caused it to die young? Now I could simply savor, love, feel genuine gratitude for the beauty of the connection between those two young women. Of course there are valleys as well as crests, of course friendships like forests undergo destruction as well as the miracle of new growth. This feels central to my pilgrimage. Learning to love what Is. 

Chris tells a story of when she was born: that her parents made a vow over this beautiful, so-wanted baby,long awaited (as they put off marriage for years and years until her father. Vati, had a secure job as a professor and could stably support a family, not knowing that Hitler would be elected the following year and that Vari would be fired for being, in Hitler's eyes, Jewish). Their vow: "to love this child for who she is, and not who we want her to be." This pilgrimage for me is about learning to love my hike, this trail, this walk through the world -  for what it is and not what I want it to be. Crests and crevices, death and life. 

This particular reverie grew out of the intimate interweaving of life and death, the dead burn area trees and the very young fresh new trees bursting with life and possibility, shining in early morning light--on the trail I was on only because I made a mistake and missed my turn. So these "wrong turns" themselves provide a metaphor for experiences I might see as mistakes or failures. This pilgrimage is about learning to see them with new eyes. 

When I arrived at the Rim Village store I met G and G, the couple from BC Canada I had dinner with last night. They two had taken a wrong turn, going left instead of right when they reached the PCT from the spur trail to/from Mazama Village where we had spent the night. 

Photo 4: G and G at Crater Lake. 

Photo 5: Me at Crater Lake. I was glad I chose to hike the extra way back -- knowing there would be no camping on the rim and it would mean a 21+ mile day. But wanting to see Crater Lake. I had worried a little that all the build-up might make the real thing disappointing. But no, it was truly beautiful. Especially the deep deep color blue of the water. 

Of course I took far too many pictures of Crater Lake. And so, to be continued in part 2 of Day 32. 

Riv's 2015 PCT, Day 31, July 26

Day 31, Sunday, July 26.  From  PCT mile 1801.82, elev. 5815, walked 17.4 PCT miles to Annie Springs Trail, PCT mile 1818.4, and 1.07 miles on Annie Springs Trail to Mazama Village, Crater Lake National Park, elev. 6021. Total up/down +2352/-2092.

Dear Trail Friends,

There is no accounting for desire. Here I am in my tent at 2:47am, breakfast eaten, about to pack up and begin hiking probably around 3:30am by headlamp. This is ridiculous you might be thinking. I could not agree with you more. There is no way I can arrive in Mazama in time for Rattles' Parents' trail magic and hiking in the dark -- in this rocky terrain and with a lot of trees down across the trail will be slow going at best. But what to do? I woke up at 2 with absolutely no interest in going back to sleep. 

At least by writing this prelude to you I am postponing my departure into the dark. On the other hand I have to admit a certain excitement about trying out my new ultralight headlamps (new for this section hike) in real night hiking. More to come. 

Now I am sitting on the floor of the Mazama Village Store in Crater Lake National Park. My tent is set up in a special (crowded) area for PCT camping. Laundry is done. Showering is done. My resupply box is unpacked and for the most part organized. I had a good dinner with a lovely couple from Vancouver who are close to my age and thru-hiking. 

Once again I am too tired to write this but I so want to share at least a little of today with you. It was a wonderful day. I was amazed I could find the trail in the dark--sometimes it seemed more intuition than vision. And I was so relieved as the sky slowly slowly lightened (first the stars disappeared then very very slowly the landscape began to shift from black and white to color.)

But then it became very misty. The dawn light was still dim and I was transitioning into a burn area where the tree trunks were burned mostly white rather than black. It was an eerie, surreal scene. 

Photo 1. Too dark to see white trunks but maybe you get the eerie feeling a little?

Photo 2. A lot of the trees were bent over and I imagined them a little like the screaming horse (is it a horse?) in Guernica -- their very shapes silent screams at the total destruction of their lives and world. 

Photo 3. I made it!

Photo 4. Same day: blue sky, green living trees. 

I really hiked faster than usual, got my 18 1/2 miles hiked and arrived here (Mazama village, store, restaurant, campground) just after 1 pm. I really have been hiking with more ease and pleasure, a little faster, more endurance and much better able to handle climbs and altitude since Judith brought me iron and magnesium supplements when I was zero-ing at Callahan's. 

I am so tired tonight I have no idea if I will pack up tomorrow and return to the trail or take a zero. 

I paid to get wifi unfortunately it won't work (probably too slow) to upload the last couple of days of blogs and there is no cell coverage. There is supposed to be some on the rim trail (along the edge of Crater Lake)  and that does make me want to go back to the trail. 

We will see what tomorrow brings. 

Love to you. 

Riv

Riv's 2015 PCT, Day 30, July 25, Part 2

Day 30, Saturday, July 25, part 2

Photo 7. After my excursion I wanted to go all out and still follow my original program, so I was wanting to go 8 or 9 miles without a rest. (I usually rest, including usually shoes and socks off and feet allowed to air and dry, and some time in an inverted posture. Usually also including a meal or snack. ) so we had a long conversation between the "foot soldiers" and the "general."  Representing the foot soldiers was a sergeant who said "with all due respect, sir, the enlisted men need their rest and provision. It wouldn't be right to penalize them for officer error." The general thought over that one and capitulated. We were however hiking through a burn area with absolutely no place to rest without getting covered in soot. 

Photo 8. Finally we found an oasis of green trees in the midst of the burn area. It is always amazing to me how good it feels to lie upside down and look up through the treetops to the sky. 

Photo 9. I think that might be the lake I hiked down to -- it looks a long way off from here. Close up, more rock. But the lava rock was lighter, grey and gold and red, and I liked it a lot better than the black yesterday. Or maybe I was just in a better mood? Some of it looked similar in texture and shape to yesterday (kind of chunky) and some was in smooth pieces that seemed broken from a one inch or so thick layer -- I don't know for sure this shale/slate/like stuff was originally lava or not. I liked it a lot. I especially liked the way it clinked and rang when the pieces collided as I walked through. 

Really wishing I knew some geology.

Photo 10. Klamath Lake. I wondered if it could be Crater Lake, but my compass said it was south and that pretty much ruled it out. Then I met some hikers who told me. They were day hikers and kept telling me how awesome I was to be hiking the whole trail. It embarrasses me and made me feel very good. 

Photo 11. This is a triple wow. That means I came to this pass and said "wow" out loud. Then I looked around and said it again. Then I looked more and said it a third time. So Oregon too has its "wow"s. 

I'm in my tent now at the place I stopped-- not where I'd planned before the excursion but not totally impossible to hike to Mazama tomorrow if my body is feeling good. It would be an 18.47 mile walk and it includes, as is usual with the PCT, some significant climbs. I've had a really beautiful way despite getting lost -- I've loved being out here and took more than twice as many photos as I felt able to post. My one big disappointment though was that I was looking forward to cell coverage today -- but I had misread the cell coverage report, it was based on the "old" PCT mile numbers and I had assumed it was the new ones. The actual coverage was 10 miles back from where I was expecting it. 

So I am glad to at least be able to write this, not knowing of course when I will be able to post it, and missing being able to talk with Chris and hear her voice.

Wishing you happy trails,

River

Riv's 2015 PCT, Day 30, July 25, Part 1

Day 30, Saturday, July 25. Part 1. 

From campsite at PCT mile 1796.9, elev. 6135, walked 14.82 miles (plus 5 mile "excursion" with significant up's and down's) to PCT mile 1801.82, elev. 5815, total up/down +1942/-2247. 

Dear Trail Friends

Here I am (and you with me) at a creek collecting and filtering five liters of water - no water for over 20 miles on the trail ahead - and I allow about 1 liter every 8 miles, plus 1/3 L each for making breakfast, dinner, coffee, and for drinking overnight. 

If I knew for sure I would be hiking to Mazama (my next resupply) tomorrow I'd only need 4 liters, but that was a big stretch even when I first contemplated it--33.4 miles in two days -- and now, having had a little special "excursion" today (taking the wrong trail about 2 1/4 mi down to a lovely lake and, after realizing my mistake, having a long, steep climb back - a little harrowing because after a bit the gps told me I was getting farther and farther away from the nearest trail access - but I lack the ability to bushwhack directly to the lost trail, especially up steep rock cliffs, so I had to follow the trail back to the point where I went astray. And of course when I got back to the PCT I had to walk a 1/4 mile in the wrong direction before discovering my mistake --)  so that I hiked an extra 5 miles, some of it very steep uphill, which would bring the total for the two days, if I decided to still hike into Mazama tomorrow, to 38.4 miles. A bit more of a stretch for a gal who used to think 15 miles a day was more or less her max, and that if she did 20 or near 20 two days in a row she was likely to injure herself. )

Photo 1.  The beautiful morning light in the woods not long after I began my hike (at 6am -- I "slept in" til 5 this morning). 

Photo 2 and 3. Beautiful mountains to serve as Bonnie's wave and to hold that balancing of joy, pain and transience involved in Bonnie riding her wave. Take your pick, sister, and know I am out here surfing the strange bittersweet mystery of this world right alongside you. Let's all ride the waves and go for our dreams in the moment of being alive. 

Photo 4. And 5. The lakes, the beautiful seductive lakes that lured me off the PCT and down, down, down. I had looked at the apps and I knew we were by heading for any lakes, but did a worried thought cross my mind? No, I just hiked happily through the beauty, deep in a reverie about choosing the 10 best things that had happened to me in my life (I chose at least 60 to include in the top 10). A reverie, by the way, that might never have happened had I not taken the wrong turn. A striking thing: I allowed myself to include rich and memorable experiences that did not have "happy endings," desired outcomes, completions. Another step toward learning to live with and even bless all the unfinished business and loose threads in my life? It felt wonderful to acknowledge the goodness in experiences that were incomplete, or ended in hurt or catastrophe. I think the idea that goodness has to be impeccable and permanent is part of that mother complex of mine, part of the longing to return to some lost paradise or womb. 

Photo 6. When I finally found my way back to the PCT ( more than two hours after I left it), I looked to see how the crossroads was marked. There were large beaches pulled across the trail to block the wrong way I took. Amazing that I walked over them without noticing there was an alternative trail. Makes me think my unconscious actually wanted to head down to the lakes, and my goal of getting to Mazama be damned. (I had hoped to get to Mazama by tomorrow for some "trail magic" -- a hiker named Rattles and her boyfriend Nomad are being met by Rattles' parents who want to provide three days (fri-Sat-Sun) of trail magic food to hikers. I thought it would be a fun time to see more of the thru hiker culture. I wasn't really due in Mazama til Tuesday (which was already 2 days ahead of my original schedule) and I knew I would arrive easily Monday. But it seemed like a fun challenge to aim for Sunday. It is clear to me that beyond some kind of hero archetype, or a need to push myself, there is a very childlike pleasure and sense of play in calculating times and miles and playing with schemes about how far I can get in how much time. The calculations are fun, the tracking and seeing if I can do things in less time is fun.

To be continued 

Riv's 2015 PCT, Day 29, July 24

Day 29, Friday, July 24. From  Fish Lake Resort (a 2-mile walk or hitch on highway 140), PCT mile 1770.89, elev. 4970, walked 16 miles (plus 2 mi off-PCT from Fish Lake Resort back to trail) to PCT mile 1796.9, elev. 6135. Total up/down: +1991/-908. 

Dear Trail Friends,

I am sitting in my tent, it is almost 8:30pm and all I want to do is go to sleep. I am wondering where I will find the energy to write this message. 

My day began at 3am when I woke up as I so often do wanting it to be 4am already so my day could really begin. 

At 4am I began my morning very slowly, with coffee, cheese, beef jerky and a breakfast bar, while still sitting in my sleeping bag. 

It occurred to me I should upload the blogs for the last few days because I did have cell coverage. But when I tried to do so, my iPhone app for uploading blogs (blogtouch pro) crashed. I spent the next couple of hours researching my options (searching the Internet for folks with similar problems, contacting the app creator - who actually answered!) and when it was clear I had to reinstall the app and recreate the blogs I proceeded to do so -- luckily I had rough drafts of the text part on my iPhone "notepad." By the time I had recreated the blogs, reinserted the photos (going to smaller size because I suspect both too many and too large photos may have contributed to the crash-- tho who really knows? Not even the maker I suspect )

At this point it seemed tempting to stay for a hot breakfast (the cafe would open in less than two hours, at 8) so I packed up my backpack and went to the laundry room, where I plugged in my iPhone and battery backup (they had not gotten fully recharged yesterday) and did a few sewing projects: repairing the bag where I store my p-style (the well-loved pee chute that lets me pee standing up without taking off my pack or pulling down my pants); sewing a cord loop on one of my ultralight "towels" (sort of like thick durable re-usable paper towels) so I could hang it from the -- oops forgot the word for those thingies you can hook onto things -carabiner!- on my waist pack, and use it in place of the bandanna I lost (I left it drying on a tree the day I got caught up in the mother complex, at the water source where both I and the boys with the dogs had stopped--it is so interesting that when I engage with people on the trail I tend to lose things, real things, not just my sense of how I want to hike my own hike. ); and a second button on my pants (I mostly wear them way low below my hips like those boys whose pants are almost at their knees. I do this because the waistband chafes painfully if it is under the backpack hip belt -- and that is precisely where the pants are designed for the waistband to be, alas. I decided to sew on a second button so I could experiment with wearing the pants higher, at my actual waist (above the pack's hip band). I had a second button (I discovered they supplied an extra button, sewn into a pocket or something, when it began to chafe badly under the pack. So I cut it away from the fabric but kept it in case I needed it. Then I came up with this great idea -- why not two buttons, one for wearing the pants high, one low?)

I went to breakfast where I found the service disappointingly slow ( I know I'm in the grip of the mother complex when nothing is good enough - it's wanting to be fed on my terms, in my time, with none of the friction of actual others--the return to paradise. )

After breakfast, in a foul mood, I walked the half mile out to the road to hitch, and then for reasons known only to my unconscious, I refused to hitch and trudged the remaining mile and a half in the hot sun, feeling sorry for myself. 

It was almost 10am when I got to the trail. The first thing to greet me was the sound of a very robust white water creek. I made a video remembering my brother Scott wanting to hear the actual sound. Only I dare not upload it and risk crashing my blog app again! It would be fun to share it with you, though. 

For a moment it was fun to be back on the trail. I was glad to be in woods and not in unending fields of lava. But then I began to be bored with the woods. The trees went on and on. Between and behind them, more trees. One couldn't see very far in any direction, just a blurring into trees-trees-trees. No horizon. Not much sky. It occurred to me the best way to look at the woods is in the inverted pose where I get to see sky. I began to understand why some people refer to Oregon as the green tunnel and feel claustrophobic after the vast open expanses of at least the  crests in much of California. 

I tried to get myself to notice the beauty of the woods. What I noticed is that I was not having any spontaneous "wow" experiences, any coming around the corner and falling in love with what I see and having it take my breath away. 

Photo 1. The falling water (viewed from the bridge) that I made a video of.

Photo 2. River beginning to have a little teeny hint of the wow experience when we climbed a little higher and I could see more sky between the trees. 

Photo 3. A genuine woods-wow: this lovely shade of green, this soft looking understory, and River is off and running making up her story about how soft Oregon is (uh...lava rock fields? Volcanoes? Remember?). Then it's all about the soft and the hard, the soft of course relating to the mother complex and the hard, well, you know.  

Photo 4. A lake comes into view --not sure but I'm guessing it might be Four Mile Lake. At first I'm struck by the beauty. Then I look closer and notice the pale tan border around the lake -- no trees, no water-- and realize that's how far the level has fallen during the drought. 

I was amazed that I could get in a 16 mile day getting on the trail so late. I am hiking faster and easier in Oregon. Everyone says Oregon is easier and faster, and it probably is; I also think the magnesium and iron supplements Judith got for me are really helping my stamina and ability to do uphill hiking and tolerate elevation change. 

I stopped for water today at a place some of the comments in the app described as "mosquito hell." Thanks no doubt in part to my insect shield (permethrin treated) long sleeved shirt and pants, and my headnet, I did not get bit. But a man beside me got bit fiercely and had blood dripping down his leg ( from killing a mosquito, or? I'm not sure). 

When I got to my tentsite there were Mosquitos suddenly all around (there had not been any noticeable number on the trail), so I just put everything inside the tent and did the setup (of pad, air mattress, sleeping bag, etc. ) all from the inside. A little awkward, but it's exactly the same as what I will have to do when it is raining (water, instead of Mosquitos).

 I ate my dinner inside, with yellow jackets fiercely buzzing around my tent. I'm not pleased there is a giant ant somewhere in the tent, an ant I've been unable to locate and kill. At least I managed to get the three Mosquitos that got in. Summer hiking is going to be interesting. 

That's it for now. As always, thanks for coming along.