It’s getting chilly, real fast now. Last night was one of the cooler nights on trail, and it stays frosty long throughout the morning. I started hiking out in my thermal pants, down-jacket and gloves, which I’ve hardly done before. Today there were some blue skies, alternated with smoke and clouds. The winds picked up significantly too, making me cool down fast after snack-breaks. Especially exposed on the ridge, even in the sun I needed to get my jacket out to get comfortable again.
As of this morning there are 32 miles left to Mazama Village, the large campsite/store/restaurant that belongs to the popular Crater Lake National park. Not sure how many miles I’d manage today, I did want to get as far as possible, securing a long day tomorrow of chilling out and taking care of chores. Fortunately I got service along the ridge such that I was able to download a bunch of new podcasts. Still I felt a bit in a funk, similar to the past couple of days. The pain in my back keeps coming and going, it now being more a constant background nuisance. There are only a handful thru-hikers hiking NoBo surrounding me at the moment, none of which I knew, so today was another day of solitude. After a 4 day stretch of hardly talking to anybody I’m looking forward to some social contact again. 
After getting lunch on the ridge and climbing all the way to the high-point of the day, there would be one of the last reliable water-sources until Mazama Village (now 18 miles ahead). Not wanting to get off trail later and waste more time, I decided to fill up my Platypus bag (2 liters) plus to 2 liter bottles of water, which should get me through the night. My pack was now heavy again. Near the spring I noticed that I’d passed the 1800 mile-marker.
The final miles of the day led me through a large burned area. I checked my maps to learn that there were several camp-sites available, so I decided on one of them and aimed on arriving around 2000, leaving me with a little over 7 miles on trail to the road to Mazama Village tomorrow. As I hiked through it, I was amazed at natures ferocious ability to totally eradicate something that was once a dense green forest. Nothing but widow-makers, charred stumps of tree and fields of ash as far as the eyes could see. Quite impressive.
Near dusk I made it to the campsite. It located halfway up a hill, and some of the nearby trees seemed to have escaped the fire. Others were heavily burned and lay collapsed throughout the woods. I pitched my tent and took a closer look around. That’s when I noticed that there were still a few widow-makers in my vicinity. Camping near widow-makers is strongly advised against, because they can come down at any time. I reconsidered the camp-site and despite it being almost dark now I decided to push on. Now irritated that I didn’t check out the campsite more thoroughly before pitching my tent, I put on some rock-tunes and opted to hike the 3 more hours all the way to Mazama Village.
To add insult to injury, I had to stop hiking in the pitch-black, to change out one of the batteries of my headlamp; the faint light would not guide me safely along the trail. A little further I was startled by two eyes in the distance, reflecting the beam of my headlight. After peering through the dark, I let out a sigh in relief when I could make out the contours of the deer gazing back at me. Even though I’d made up my mind to hike to Mazama, I kept my eyes out for possible safer camp-sites along the way. My feet hurt and I was tired. I did really prefer to camp anywhere nearby, instead of arriving at the Mazama campground at midnight and having to figure everything out there myself. Within the hour I was fairly high on the last climb of the stretch. I looked around and saw a very nice, flat and open area. After shining my light on the surrounding trees, I learned that all of them were in a healthy state, not showing any signs of burn and I declared this spot safe enough. Quickly I pitched my tent and was happy to get into my warm sleeping bag, since it had cooled down significantly again. Grateful I’d have only 5 miles on trail and 1 mile off-trail left to the campsite tomorrow, I should have plenty of time to hopefully get a warm shower, a nice meal and wait and see if my buddies make it there too. No more solitude!
She moves fast
Takes control
And like a heart attack
I know I can’t turn back
And time just passed
Nights move slow
And she was all I had
Thought I’d never last
Can’t let her go
It’s who you know
We came down to watch the world walk by
And all she found was trouble in my eyes
From the sky she pulled me down tonight
Let her go
Rough Landing, Holly – Yellowcard
