Day 125: Mile 1934.3 - 1955.0

So I overslept this morning. It turns out that I normally wake up a bunch of times in the early morning, usually once around midnight, once around 2-3am, once around 4am, around 5am, and so on. And usually I check my watch, see the time, realize it's not yet time to wake up, and go back to sleep--it's a near subconscious thing. And last night I did the same, only when I went back to sleep I buried my head into my sleeping bag because it was cold. Which meant when I finally did wake, it was because it was already pretty bright outside. As in near blindingly bright--it was 7am! So I didn't get started today until around 8:30am--a pretty late start.

But that's ok: I wanted to do a shorter day today anyway. For one, my left ankle had started hurting again yesterday--the old overuse problem--so today I wanted to baby it some by doing fewer miles. And for another, Double Snacks headed into Elk Lake today and is staying the night there. I am skipping Elk Lake, so I'm currently camped about 1.1 miles north of the northern Elk Lake Junction (there are two junctions, north and south), and if I want to rejoin with her tomorrow, it doesn't make sense to get too many miles ahead. So both for health and for hiking partners, it makes sense to do a shorter day.

Although if I *had* wanted--and *had* been able to--do a bigger today, today would have been it. The scenery today was just green tunnel for miles, broken up by these numerous lakes that would sometimes be hinted at through the trees, sometimes suddenly appear out of nowhere right beside you, or sometimes be indicated by a sign at the trail junction. There are lakes (and ponds--as far as I can tell the difference between a lake and a pond is just that the latter has lily pads, I think) all over the place in this section--look at a map and you'll see blue everywhere. It does help break up the monotony of the green tunnel, but to be fair, as long as the air isn't smoky, I've made my peace with the green tunnel. It is what it is, and what it is is a place to put your head down and go. It would probably be a good place to think long thoughts about important things--do a classic Emerson or Wordsworth or Thoreau--but since it's a rolling sort of landscape and there are hence ups to do, I find myself mostly with a blank mind, those long thoughts sporadically glancing off my consciousness, those important things seen but fleetingly out of the corner of my mind. Which is to say I haven't been successful at thinking about much on the trail, and the green tunnel isn't proving any different!

So in a way, today was boring, but it wasn't a bad boring, or a frustrating boring. It was just a walk in the woods. Wetfoot broke camp before me, I passed her at some point (I think she went to hit the head), then we took second breakfast at a random fallen tree trunk along the trail. (Oh, lots of downed tree puzzles today, although nothing particularly tricky.) I took off before her, she passed me when I stopped to leukotape my left pinky toe (I think it's too dirty, so it started abrasively rubbing against my fourth toe--the leukotape is a preemptive to hopefully prevent any blistering), then I caught up when she stopped to take lunch at the Porky Lake junction. A prime spot: there's a mini rock fall there, so lots of places to lay out our tent flies--both had built up some condensation last night camped near the lake. I hiked out from lunch first, hiked most of the afternoon alone, stopped at the last spring before the Elk Lake junctions to get water and there talked some with McQueen and Pain Perdu and Catch (who I just met today), then headed out again and passed the southern Elk Lake junction. From here, the trail walks a bit of a ridge, and there's a small burn area, so from the burn I looked out east to see Mount Bachelor--which overlooks Elk Lake--and even in the distance, the Sisters (where we'll be headed tomorrow). Hiked past the northern Elk Lake junction, then kept going for some unofficial campsites mentioned in the Guthooks comments. Found these, picked the one farthest from the trail and set up (perhaps a bad decision, because it turns out this site half sits on a granite slab, so pushing in stakes is tricky), and was eating dinner when Wetfoot came up. Her original plan had been to get to the top of this "hill"--about 2 miles hence--but was getting eaten by mosquitos (who especially liked the spot above her right eyebrow) so decided to make camp just to get inside her tent and keep them at bay. And that's where we're at. So another green tunnel day, with a lot of lakes and ponds, even a meadow or two, but mostly just hiking hiking hiking.

Oh, the weather! The weather today was much more clement--much warmer than yesterday (by +8 degrees or so). And the overcast was traded for mostly clear skies which makes a huge difference: there were times today when I just stood in the sun and appreciated the warmth. It's almost as if yesterday's cold snap was really a singularity--a brief, ominous reminder of what to expect in Washington--and we're now in a recovery that's slow, but still fast enough to be comfortable. I will say that today's sunny skies reminded me of one of my own adages, which is: trust tomorrow. I call it the creative's creed--I mostly use it to remind myself that nothing is so precious, just move on to the next thing--but it also applies to backpacking. Yeah, today is cold and miserable but you know what? The sun will eventually come out, and everything will eventually dry out: you just have to wait for it. Wait long enough and it'll all be gravy (to mix adages--for the latter, cf Platoon (film)).

So that was today: a lot more green tunnel, but still a fine day. Nothing special, but prime hiking both in terms of terrain and in terms of temperatures--sunny and warm but still cool from yesterday's cold snap. Prime hiking that I didn't take advantage of, due to babying my ankle, but that's ok: I'm not young anymore, so have to be more cautious about these sorts of things.

But that was the hike!

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Some notes:

-- Jezebel Lake > Stormy Lake > South Lake > Horseshoe Lake > Porky Lake Junction > Island Lake > Elk Lake Junction > Campsite

-- So I've noticed in these two days of cold weather (a whole *two* days!) that I'm not drinking as much (makes sense: not sweating as much) but I *am* peeing a lot more. This doesn't quite square up in an input-output sense, and Double Snacks noted this as well yesterday, and Wetfoot noted it again today. It seems strange, but the pee is pretty clear so I'm not getting dehydrated. I feel it's something to do with the colder weather, and it almost contracting my bladder, but that's just my pseudo-science: no basis in any sort of fact!

-- In retrospect, thinking about yesterday, I do fear for my reaction to the cold weather in Washington. At lunch, Wetfoot noted that today the weather was really nice, if only it could stay that way. You mean it won't be like this all the way through Washington?, I joked. I got news for you, she said. When she hiked Oregon and Washington before, she got cold rain and hail in parts, so that's in my future. As I've said before, I don't do well in cold weather, so we'll see how it goes!

-- So at the water source, I asked McQueen if he was heading into Elk Lake. Nah, he said, we're fine with resupply, I got like 11 ramen packs. I think that's a box!

-- Also at the water source, I heard Catch's mailing nightmare story. She had ordered a new backpack from ZPacks, and asked it to be sent to the Bend post office via USPS. And she was very insistent on this point: via USPS. She emailed them about it, called them about it, confirmed it, and then they shipped it and they sent her the tracking code. And of course, they sent it UPS. sigh. So of course it arrived at the Bend post office and got rejected--nobody there to sign for it. So she was heading into Elk Lake to hitch into Bend to deal with a headache of postal logistics. I hate logistics, she said, as she hiked off. And I coudn't disagree.

-- I did speak a lot with Wetfoot as we were leapfrogging throughout the day. She's a nurse, and after the trail will be leaving Portland and moving to Idaho for a while. But she also listens to podcasts on the trail, and had recently heard an interesting one about laundry detergent. Really. Evidently, the people who design the detergent have this massive lab, with washing machines of all stripes, and with the ability to emulate water for all these municipalities, and they try to make sure the new detergents work no matter where you are. And they're optimized for cold wash cycle. But there's a lot of thought in designing detergent, and this makes sense: at university, chemical engineering was by far the toughest department in the School of Engineering. She also mentioned that for dishwashers, evidently if you wash at least 8 dishes, it's more efficient to run the dishwasher than to wash by hand. Hmm, I'll have to keep that in mind when I get back home: these days I only have one dish--a Backpacker's Pantry Pad Thai bag--and after rinsing it out I drink my dishwater!

-- Today's peanut M&M color is blue.

-- Camping cohorts tonight: Wetfoot.