This morning it was brisk, but not miserably cold, and clear skies prevailed overnight with a bright moon illuminating Mt. Thielson just above us. Twice during the night I awoke to the sound of small rockslides on the steep face of Thielson. Tabasco and I were up at 6:45, on trail at 7:45, working our way north once again. We climbed over a few miles to the highest official point on the PCT in Oregon and Washington at 7,560 feet. We were thankful that in only a few spots snow patches were on trail, otherwise it would be a very difficult section to do route finding if the trail was covered in snow.
We next descended 1500 feet over several miles in cool wooded terrain, then made another climb and descent, which brought us to our first break of the day, 16.5 miles into the hike. We both were tired and very hungry and I was even dizzy from lack of calories despite eating bars all morning as we hiked. The side trail, .33 miles to Six Horse Spring, was about a 300 foot steep drop, which gave me cause to let out some choice words. When we got to the “spring”, it wasn’t. It was some puddles of not so pleasant water, but I filtered anyway so I could cook a meal to get some significant calories into my body.
At 2pm we pushed on with feet hurting and legs not wanting to hike. At least it was a picture perfect day, cloudless, relatively warm, but unfortunately very few views. Around 4pm we reached Windigo Pass at a dirt road crossing where we took a break and Tabasco took a turn with my cell phone. At the crossing there was a message board with several reports of “no water” ahead on the PCT. Fortunately our guidebook had an alternate, lower route available on the Oregon Skyline Trail, which the author states is a preferred, more scenic route along many lakes. Since water ahead was reported to be scarce and Oregon suffered a drought last year, we opted for the Oregon Skyline Trail, and we hiked another 4.7 miles to Oldenburg Lake, where we arrived about 6:15pm.
We set up tents, then I made us a campfire to sit by as we ate two dinners each. Our six day supply of food is almost gone after four days, but we have just enough to get us to Shelter Cove tomorrow where we’ll resupply. I am journaling by the fire, which is now reduced to coals. It is a cold night, but crystal clear and calm and there are millions of stars. Time to wrap up and get in the sleeping bag. We are fatigued, starving our bodies, doing long miles, and hoping the weather will hold so we can finish by a week from Sunday. Time will tell the rest of the story. No hikers at all today, just a couple hunters we saw at the Windigo Pass road crossing. Today’s weather: sunny; low 32, high 63. Today’s miles: 26.7; cumulative 2031.1.
