Day 127: Mile 1974.9 - 1993.7

And today we crossed the lava fields. Oregon is actually a fairly volcanic region--I didn't realize this, associating Oregon rather with timber and no-sales-tax and Intel--but there is a lot of volcanic activity out here! And we saw it today as we crossed over a lava field, then another, then kind of another.

The day started at the base of North Sister, where we had had a preview of the lava fields yesterday: the last little run before the campsite was maybe 100 yards of lava rock. But today we got that rock in spades, beginning the day with a switchback climb--remember those?--up a lava ridge. And the going was slow: the trail here becomes loose rock, packed down and clearly indicated, but still loose rock. So I needed to pay attention to each footstep, to make sure I didn't wrench an ankle. But when I wasn't just staring down and got a chance to look up, the lava fields were pretty amazing. Just the shapes of all the rocks, strange and almost alien, and in some places, the white husks of dead trees, stark and straight against the Byzantine curves of the rocks, almost as if this whole region was carved by the alien aesthetic of some Martian gardener. It really is a fascinating place to walk through, and I highly recommend that anyone who hikes Sisters also takes some time in the lava field just for the contrast.

We actually took a side trail in these first lava fields, diverting up to a ridge from which we could look out onto North Sister and Middle Sister. And see the glaciers, still white though a bit dirty, up on the high slopes. Water still trickled down from them, gathering in a muddy pool in a silty valley down below. There were some intriguing formations down there too: a large plateau by the pool with what looked like shorelines embossed at different levels along its sides. And if we turned around and looked towards the north, we could see the peaks of Mount Washington, Three-Fingered Jack, and Mount Jefferson all in a row, peak after peak blue and sharp above the clouds, and below the clouds we could peek little skirts of green. It was quite a sight, and well worth the 10-minute climb it took to get up there!

From there, the trail headed down to Highway 242 and McKenzie Pass. On the way, it passed alternately through lava fields and simple forests, constantly trading one biome for the other, the demarcation line between them usually peculiarly obvious: one step you'd be on loose, dark lava rocks, the next on hard-packed, yellow dirt. Where we were at were still clear skies, so on this way we stopped at a pond so Double Snacks could dry out her tent (she had camped in the open last night, whereas I had camped under some trees, and she had woken to condensation on her tent) and I could charge some things, take breakfast, and gather water (the next good water wouldn't be for 15 miles). It was around this time that I started noticing a lot of day hikers around--they with their small backpacks and often with dogs--and realized that we must be close to the Highway. Which we were, except that between the pond and the highway, the trail descended into a true lava field--wide and expansive and, when you were in it, appearing to stretch to the horizon. Here the lava fields were just ridges after ridges of piles of loose lava rock--like a Ruffles potato chip, only with the ridges not parallel but all criss-crossing and intersecting, and the trail rising and falling as it curved around and over them. If we had visited Rivendell atop the Golden Staircase in the Sierras, then here we visited Mordor with Mount Doom (i.e., North Sister) looming ominously behind. Except for the chance to sprain something, it was a really interesting segment of the trail, and definitely worth a visit.

When we got to the Highway, we decided to detour again, walk up the road (not even a quarter mile) and check out the Dee Wright Observatory. This was an observatory constructed as part of the CCP back in the day, and consisted of a tower built from black stone atop the lava fields. The tower itself has a top "roof" from which you can look out, but also just beneath that has a chamber where there are little square windows opened in the rock that effectively form tubes. Beneath each window is a sign telling you what peak you're looking at and it's height, you need just look through the square window to see it. I did this for a few peaks whose names I recognized and they lined up pretty well I must say!

After this I headed back out to the PCT to finish crossing the lava fields, and this is where things got strange. Because as I was hiking up the fields, past Little Belknap peak (by myself now: Double Snacks had headed out from the Observatory before me) what had been a hot sunny day with a cooling breeze suddenly became an cold overcast day with a chilling breeze. By the time I was up over the top--maybe an hour and change?--I was so cold that my stomach was starting to hurt. The lava fields finally crossed over into a bit of woods, and I stopped to pull on my windbreaker and to find Double Snacks taking lunch, so I stopped as well. And just sitting there, the gray clouds moving so fast above us, the temperatures dropped down into the 50s at least, and even my fingertips started going numb from the cold and wind. And I checked the forecast on my Garmin inReach, and suddenly it said a 50% chance of rain at my location! The heck! And I resolved then and there to shop in Bend for a thermal layer--I had planned on getting one shipped to me at Cascade Locks (the town on the border of Oregon and Washington), but that seemed too late, I needed it now! And we finished our lunch and headed out again, now through a burn area--it looked like the woods had started to reclaim the lava fields and slowly convert them back into forest, only to have a fire come through and burn down all the trees, so the trail was a mixture of lava rock and tree shards. And as we were traversing the burn area, which dropped down then started a long incline upwards--me now in full cold protocol, with my shirt tucked in, my windbreaker on, my two layers of gloves on, my windbreaker sleeves over the ends of my gloves--after about an hour and change in this state, the sun came out again and, again, it was warm and breezy. It seems the winds above must have very strong--they had blown that cold storm right over us in a matter of hours, and now only white fluffy clouds lay ahead. In fact, looking south I could see North and Middle Sister in the distance, and I swear it was now clearer than when we had camped under it last night!

And this was the last section of the hike, walking along a ridge first through a burn area, then into the woods. And this section actually reminded me of southern California, mostly because at one point we were walking along a trail carved along the slope of a ridge, with manzanita growing on both sides of the trail, and with a view looking out into the distance. Only instead of chaparral and desert and maybe the ocean, instead I saw a line of peaks all in a row stretching south, slopes upon slopes of conifers, and lava flows longer than valleys, dotted with white tree trunks.

And that was the hike! We ended up finishing a bit earlier than usual, which I was fine with since my ankles were starting to not complain, but I was starting to feel them, from all the walking on lava rock. And we had been pretty slow going across the lava rock, so hadn't made many miles, but that was ok too, since we just need to get to Pamelia Lake in two days--it's roughly 35 miles ahead--and that's doable. So not a tremendous day by the schedule--and we failed to meet our intended destination (which is about 4 miles further down the trail), but scenery-wise, a pretty tremendous day, with a whole new biome--lava fields! And I came out here to see things more than to make schedules, so, yeah, I'm going to call this a Good Day!

(Oh, and I should note: the trail's been pretty empty the past couple days. Where by empty I mean: not that many northbound PCT hikers. And I think that's because 1) we're behind the bubble, which is good in that it means things are less crowded and store shelves more full, but bad because it means we're behind schedule, and 2) lots of people are going to Trail Days, which we're skipping. So the trail has emptied out and that's honestly neither good nor bad, so I might as well interpret it as good!)

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Some notes:

-- Campsite > User Trail (for glaciers) > Minnie Scott Spring > South Matthieu Lake > McKenzie Pass (Highway 242) > Dee Wright Observatory > Little Belknap Junction > Campsite

-- I found that, over lava rock, poles don't help much. On ascents in general I don't use poles, but even on "flats" and descents, poles don't help on lava rock. And the reason is because it takes too much calculation to place both my feet *and* the poles--I have to be careful with where I put the poles since if I pick a bad spot, they'll snag and then cause even more complications when they wrench out of my hand (as happened once today before I learned this lesson). These added calculations just tax my brain too much, so I decided to ditch the poles and just concentrate on good foot placement. And that seemed to work better. I kept the poles in hand--just not in use--though, just in case I tripped and needed a pole to suddenly break my fall.

-- Also at the Dee Wright Observatory, they had bathrooms--both pit toilets and porta-potties--and I took the opportunity to "shed some base weight", as AC/DC would put it. And I used the pit toilets and, let me tell you, those pit toilets were nice!: the floors were clean, the toilet paper was plentiful (nearly six full rolls!), and the smell wasn't that bad either! After finishing my business, I then did a very hiker-trash thing and wandered over to the porta-potties looking for hand sanitizer. And the first porta-potty didn't have any--the dispenser hook-up was there, but the dispenser was empty--so I went to the next one and, lucky!, they had a dispenser with plenty of sanitizer. I used some, then went back out and grabbed my little bottle of hand sanitizer which was getting empty, and refilled my bottle from the porta-potty dispenser. Now *that* is pure hiker trash! But the bathrooms were very nice. (Maybe because this region is in the middle of lava fields, so the only folks here are tourists--no campers, no hikers even--and tourists tend to be a bit more paranoid about cleanliness: one lady who went into the pit toilets carried her own toilet paper! So maybe that's why the pit toilets were so clean. Or maybe because they had cleaned them out recently: it was a long way down to the bottom when I was there!) Anyway, bathrooms?: 10/10, highly recommend, would shed more base weight there in future!

-- I also took the opportunity at the Observatory to empty my trash, and was surprised to find a banana peel and plum pit among my multitude of wrappers and plastic ramen packaging. And I remembered that, yeah, Sheldon's dad and sister had given me these, and that hadn't even been that long ago--just outside Shelter Cove--and I'd been carrying the trash since then. Had plum forgotten all about it but was carrying it and, let me tell you, those are heavy compared to a Kind Bar wrapper!

-- There were also little orange and yellow breasted birds hanging out around the Observatory. I want to say that they were finches, but I have no clue where that idea comes from--I have no idea what finches actually look like!

-- As I was getting back on trail at the junction of Highway 242 and the PCT, I looked over and who should I see but Pele, reclining on a rock and waiting. I first saw Pele back on Selden Pass, where she got to the top and videoed herself doing some tricks with the soccer ball she carries everywhere (hence the trail name), but here she was waiting for Cinderella and Space Case, two thru-hikers who had rented a car, to come give her a ride into Sisters. I asked if she would be going to Trail Days, and she said that a few weeks ago she had been very excited about Trail Days, but as the time got closer her excitement waned. Possibly because of all the skips--she had ended up spending a lot of time in town and now was eager to get back out on the trail. Only she was pretty tired--I think she had just done a 24-hour challenge--so at this point was pretty eager to get into town!

-- My guess--because I don't know anything about geology (and because what else is there to *do* on trail but speculate) is that the woods were here first, and then there was a volcanic event and the lava flows sprung up and spread every which way. They killed everything they touched (naturally), and eventually dried into the fields and mounds and rivulets of lava rock covering the landscape. This explains the sharp delineation between woods and lava field. Over time, the woods will start to reclaim the lava fields, hazarding a few brave trees and bushes in the middle of the black stony ridges, and perhaps aided by the erosion of the lava rocks into mere soil. This will probably take many hundreds of years to do, though!

-- When we got to the campsite, there were several open spaces. And Double Snacks took one of the smaller ones in the back, set up her tent on flat ground--she particularly likes setting up on flat ground. And I took the other, open space adjacent, and set down my ground sheet. And Double Snacks came and looked at it and just laughed. Because I'd set up my ground sheet, not singly, but doubly slanted: it slanted downward from head-to-toe, and also slanted downward left-to-right. But here's the thing: it's *intentional*. I prefer sleeping with my head higher than my feet, hence the head-to-toe slant. And my tent is a duplex, so I get choose which side I sleep on--I prefer sleeping on the side that's lower down (when sleeping on the side higher up I always feel I'm going to roll off my sleeping pad), so I intentionally set up with a "lower down". So doubly slanted. There's a good reason why AC/DC once thought to give me the trail name Slanty--before thinking about it for half a second and realizing the racial undertones--but, yes, in contrast to Double Snacks who always looks for the flat ground, I'm fine setting up on slanted ground!

-- Camping cohorts: Double Snacks.