Another morning greeted us in Bend, OR with cloudy skies. Tabasco and I packed up the backpacks for another trip up to Santiam Pass. As we packed our gear into the back of the car Shaggy hopped in for the ride, probably thinking he was going to go hiking again for the second day in a row. Jumpback Julie drove us out of Bend and as we got closer to Sisters, OR the rain began to fall, at first as light rain then more steadily as we closed in on our destination up in the Cascades.
After we drove through Sisters, OR the highway began a slow gentle ascent up to Santiam Pass. Our morning check of the weather forecast had been abysmal...snow today above 5,000 feet, lowering tonight to 4,500 feet, and more rain and snow predicted for the next 7 days. I had looked at the radar from Bend before we left and it too showed abundant precipitation right where we were going to be hiking today. At least we had a plan to hike alternate trails for the first 20 miles before having to face 6,000 to 7,000 foot elevations for a few miles.
As we got close to the Santiam Pass, I noticed that the rain pelting the car began to look a lot like snow that had just melted. I checked the watch altimeter and it we were at about 3,700 feet. At 3,800 feet the rain changed to snow. At 4,000 feet the highway was covered with the white stuff and it was snowing heavily. We only had a few more miles to reach the pass, but already my heart was sinking and I was feeling some fear about trying to hike in the snow today. Again, it wasn't that we didn't have the gear to survive, the food, the knowledge and experience....it was that route finding with heavy deep snow on trail that is poorly marked to begin with could set us back several days with no opportunity for re-supply without coming out to a road and hitch hiking.
By the time we reached the turnoff at Santiam Pass to the parking lot where we had just spent time yesterday afternoon, the snow depth was an inch or two on the highway, snow was falling heavily, and we all were in agreement it wasn't a good day to be hiking on any trail, period. After quick, almost frantic debate, we decided to have Jumpback Julie make a U-turn to take us back to Bend. Man that was a tough decision and I felt sick as we started driving back down from the pass toward Sisters and Bend.
Our only options were to wait the storm out, which really wasn't an option with a forecast for nothing but more snow over the next several days. The weather forecasters sure missed the snow line this morning, with snow accumulating above 3,800 feet, not the 5,500 feet we have read about on the National Weather Service website. Another option was to hike on through the snow on the trail, hoping we could locate trail...but we would be facing short mileage days with worsening conditions. All along we knew we might have to face weather that would effectively end our quest to finish at Mt. Hood. We wondered out loud about our trail friends in Washington up in the N. Cascades...surely their situation was much worse than ours and they had no place to bail out like we did.
As we got closer to Bend Tabasco and I weighed the options and decided that the only real option left was a road walk. We couldn't afford to wait any longer to go, and to get the miles done by our planned Monday date we would need to hike big miles. So we looked at the road maps and made the decision to hike from Bend, OR to Mt. Hood. Effectively this was a longer route, covering more miles of latitude south to north. It was a desert route east of the PCT, allowing better weather and eliminating snow on the trail until we reconnected with the trail up near Mt. Hood. But, it was a LONG road walk, 95 miles of heavily traveled highway, with limited towns, a long hike through an Indian reservation with nothing but high desert. Yet this was our only viable option other than quitting which really wasn't an option.
So we talked in the car and made the decision to do the long road walk. Next we talked with Jumpback about the possibility of slack packing the first 30 miles today since we would have a late start and our bodies were going to take a beating on a highway walk. Julie was so accommodating, and felt sorry for us for having to abort the trail hike. She kindly agreed to pick us up wherever we landed tonight on the highway, with a return trip to drop us off tomorrow morning. She gets the "Donna Saufley" award for new trail angel of the year! So Julie dropped us off just south of the Intersection of Hwy 20 which runs to Santiam Pass and Hwy 97 which would take us north.
Our road walk began with light packs and a little light drizzle. Traffic whizzed by in Bend. In a few miles we were out of town and making good time along the 55 mph highway. A trucker blew his horn and we saw him inside the cab clapping his hands for us. An occasional horn would blow, a wave from a car would brighten the walk, and I entertained myself by doing a statistical count of cars per minute, collecting about 10 samples and figuring out the statistical mean and median with a sample deviation coefficient of plus/minus 1%. I came up with almost 20 cars/minute that were passing just on our side of the highway. At 10 hours of hiking, almost 12,000 cars would pass us today. And ALL of them stared at us as they passed!
Then I used the mile markers to time our pace. We consistently were hiking within just 5 to 10 seconds of a mile every 13 and a half minutes. We passed lots of interesting businesses in the rural scenery...there were a couple of canine vacation resorts, a place called "Poles Galore", lots of farms with emus, llamas, horses, cows, sheep, and goats. I did my best to stave off the boredom of a long road walk and the frustration of not getting to stay on trail through the entire state of Oregon.
After 16 miles we reached Redmond, OR, where we stopped at the Burger King to eat some lunch. I actually ate my trail food inside the BK Lounge and drank a soda. Neither Tabasco or I were really motivated to resume hiking, but after an hour break we continued north on Hwy 97. Toward late afternoon our feet were really hurting from the pavement and gravel shoulder, so we took a 15 minute break next to some farmland. At least the views to the west of the Cascade range were beautiful, with clouds hanging over the mountains and lots of fresh snow on them that we weren't having to negotiate.
In the last hour of hiking before darkness fell we passed two closed truck weigh stations, one on each side of the highway. I weighed myself as we hiked by, coming in at 150 lbs. Tabasco didn't get a chance to weigh himself as two trucks drove in to weight themselves. So we hiked to the other weigh station on the other side of the highway where Tabasco too came in at 150 lbs. We continued until darkness fell around 6:15pm.
Jumpback Julie arrived just minutes later to rescue us from the cold breezy highway and whisked us back to Bend. We hit a Wild Oats grocery store for already prepared foods then headed back to the Donnelly hostel for yet a fourth night of warm dry beds to sleep in! We watched yet another movie then Tabasco and I both headed to our rooms for some much needed sleep. Julie had to stay up to retrieve Pepperman from his return flight from NYC which would arrive at the Redmond airport around 11:30pm. We were sound asleep by the time they got back to the house to get some sleep themselves after long days. We sure have been blessed to have Julie in our lives the last four days!!!
Today's weather: Snow at the PCT, cloudy on our road walk about 45 to 50 miles east of there. Today's Road Miles: 30.0 Equivalent Trail Miles: 25.0 Cumulative miles: 2,175.4
