Just going for a walk

So the original plan had been to do a brief stop at Crater Lake to resupply, then get on with hiking for the rest of the day. But I looked at the map in more detail and--assuming I did the Crater Lake Rim Trail rather than the PCT proper (the Rim Trail allows you to see the lake, the PCT proper does not, and so pretty much everyone takes the Rim Trail)--it turns out you're not allowed to camp on the Rim Trail until Grouse Campground, which is about 13 miles in. And with an 8-mile hike in the morning to get to Mazama Village, then resupply, then do 13-miles out? Yeah, I wasn't going to make that. So today ended up being a nero at Crater Lake, in particular at Mazama Village. And honestly, my body was appreciate: these longer days and bigger miles have indeed been taking their toll and I've been feeling it. Primarily just in how tired I am at the end of the day, but also in how I feel in the morning: the recovery and bounce back is not as strong as it was, say, back in the de...

And today I decided to Take It Easy, and not Push It or strive for Miles, but just try to Walk and see how Far I could go. And I almost even did this--old habits are hard to break and when the Zone kicks in, I forget all my Admonitions and just Go--but certainly didn't get the miles of yesterday. To be fair the terrain was tougher today--if there was a day to get big miles, definitely yesterday with its mostly woodsy traverses, was the day to do it. Because today we actually got some scenery that wasn't just woods woods and more woods. Today for a moment in the morning, we rose up out of the trees, over the tops, and I could see out to the east and south the blue lines of the ridges and the white occlusions of--was that cloud and fog, or just smoke?--in the far interstitial spaces between the peaks, and I looked ahead and saw more rocky ridge and thought, ok, here we go, some rocky terrain!, and then the trail crossed a saddle and promptly dropped back down into the ftrees. And...

Let's talk about miles. So I'm in Oregon now, and in Oregon, you're supposed to be able to make miles. As in there's the Oregon Challenge: traverse Oregon--all 456 miles of it--in two weeks. There's no way I'm doing that, but it's supposed to be possible. And it's supposed to be possible because Oregon is relatively flat and, to be fair, based on what I've hiked so far (all 5 days of it) this is largely true: we're going up and down hills, but the slopes are pretty mild, and I can see how one could pick up speed and miles. For me, though, I'm just interested in how far I can get in a day, and today I tried it out. Got a relatively early start--7:20am--and finished relatively late--7:20pm. In that time managed to get in 26.1 miles; 0.1 short of a marathon! So 25+ miles in a day is possible. Will I do it again? Probably not: the toll on the body feels pretty high. But it's possible, in Oregon. As for the hike today, in the morning things ac...

One of the problems with town is that I always invariably end up getting little sleep. This was true in Ashland--the first night I slept at midnight, the second at 1am, always cranking out blog entries until late. So when I got into camp last night, I got about half of that day's entry done before I just fell asleep, with my glasses still on and my headlamp still shining. And slept. And slept. I woke late, then went back to the keyboard and wrote for another hour and a half or so, then broke camp. Upshot: late start, around 9am again. Well, nuts: I had wanted to get going around 7am. But at least I was up-to-date on all my writing! It's a good feeling for as long as it lasts. Which is until the end of the today (if not sooner because I remember to add something to an older entry) but you take what you can get! As for the hiking today: another day of rolling hills through the woods. The ups and downs weren't bad--nothing severe, everything infinite incline-able--but the scen...

When I arrived in Ashland, the day before yesterday, it was to clear blue skies. When I zeroed in Ashland, yesterday, it was to smoky graying skies. And when I left Ashland, today, it was to cloudy skies threatening rain. And I asked the guy giving me a ride to the trailhead, what's up with that, and he didn't know either. But today I got back on trail, picking up where I'd left off, and walked off along old Highway 99 into the fog. It took a bit, but after maybe half an hour or so, it felt good to be back out here, and it even felt good to be alone, especially with the fog emphasizing the solitude. There would occasionally be "rain"--a few fat drops that almost seemed to be shaken from the trees rather than fallen from the clouds--but overall, it was just a foggy walk through the woods. Eventually around mid-morning the sun made an appearance, played peek-a-boo with the clouds for about an hour, then burned them all off and the day became sunny. Sunny, and to blu...

So today I took a zero day in Ashland. And it's been a while since I've taken a zero: the last one was in South Lake Tahoe, which was 20 days ago! I remember Ghost, way back near Scissors Crossing, mentioning that when you got to Oregon and Washington, you had to *earn* zeros (versus in southern California, where you could just take them). And I'm not sure I've necessarily earned a zero--which I interpret as doing enough big miles that a 0 in the mileage column doesn't affect your ultimate Canada arrival date--but I am sure that the body is starting to break down more than I'd like, so I took the zero. And basically spent the entire day writing. First at the ReMix Coffee Bar (which is a great spot: I set up next to an outlet and wrote for almost four hours--and two meals!--there), then at the Ashland Public Library (which was nice but not as nice as the ReMix Coffee Bar--you have to wear a mask at the library, and there's too much pressure to stay quiet all ...

So I've set up my tent in some tight spaces before, but I admit last night was one of the smallest. Not in terms of being stuck between trees or wedged between rocks or anything--I was surrounded by dirt--but the platform of that dirt was pretty narrow, basically only as wide as my sleeping pad. So half the tent was sort of going down the hill. But when I saw the space I confidently declared: it'll work, and if it doesn't work it can be made to work.* And I put in some work: spent some time carving out a flat space in the dirt with my foot to reduce the slant. But in the end, I made incorrect estimates: the flat space was only as wide as my sleeping pad rather than my whole tent (oh well), and I was wrong as to the way the tent would slant and ended up sleeping with my head at the foot end of the tent rather than the head end (oh well). But I got through it, and when I woke, the tent was still standing, and I was still at the top of the platform, rather than rolled down to ...

You know, I may actually be starting to see why people like these woods. Today we woke to an actual yellow sun and a sky a bit hazy, but intimating blue. It was a cooler morning (and in general, I fear it'll be cold here in Oregon, which I don't handle cold well). The yellow held up until maybe midday, when it went back to orange and the sky, well, became confused. I couldn't tell if it was hazy cloud or hazy smoke up there--there were even suggestions of puffy cumulus higher above? I checked the weather report--we're close enough to town to get occasional signal--and it predicted a mixture of smoke and thunderstorm. So that wasn't helpful. Regardless, by the end of the day the sky was overcast with, well, something, and the wind had picked up. We'll see if it rains tonight. I hope not: our campsite is perched up on the decaying remains of a truck trail, and right now only about 3/4 of my tent is on level ground, the remaining 1/4 is dipping down off a slope, al...