I slept so well last night on the sofa pull out bed at Jumpback and Pepperman's invitation only thru-hiker hostel! My fourth night in that bed, warm and toasty! I didn't even get up this morning until 7:30am. Since Jumpback had to drive to Redmond last night so late to pick up Pepperman at the airport we all took a leisure approach to the morning. After catching up with Pepperman (Kevin) briefly we packed up the car one last time and Jumpback Julie, Shaggy, Tabasco and I headed north on the highway, retracing the steps we took yesterday 30 miles out from Bend.
Our trail angel extraordinaire said goodbye and at 9:30am Tabasco and I continued our painfully long highway hike. I measured our hiking pace again for a few miles as we passed those green highway markers and we were averaging just over 4 mph with full packs. Cars and lots of large trucks whizzed by with continued waves and honks on occasion. Virtually every vehicle that went by had the same "what the hell?" look on their face as they saw us hiking in the middle of nowhere.
We reached the town of Madras, OR around 12:30pm and stopped at the Black Bear Diner where I had eaten once before with the Dishman clan on our way down to Sun River Resort for Christmas skiing just last year. Tabasco and I ate a large lunch then finished off the meal with milkshakes...our last "on trail" restaurant lunch before finishing the journey. Once back on the highway, the miles continued to be hard on our bodies. Tabasco stayed on Ibuprofen all day for painful feet and tendonitis, while I had a shin splint on the right leg and pain in my hips from the hard pavement and shoulder next to the road.
The flat and high desert terrain provided excellent views to the snow covered Cascade peaks to our west with partly cloudy billowing cumulus clouds over the mountains...a very scenic backdrop to the otherwise long boring road hike.
Late in the afternoon we dropped down inside the walls of a large canyon carved out by the Deschutes River. The winding road with metal guardrails around the curves kept us close to the car lanes and many cars and trucks whizzed by in the 55 mph zone just three feet from us. On a straightaway next to the Deschutes River we saw a car pull over to the graveled side of the road up ahead. As we neared the car the passenger got out and faced us. He took a few steps toward us. I immediately recognized "H"! He didn't recognized us at first except that we were hikers...then he recognized me. We were very excited to see each other! "H" finished his thru-hike in Manning Park, Canada on October 18th with Whistler and Bloody Knuckles. He and a friend were driving up from Bend to Portland for a Saturday night movie and as they passed us on the highway "H" recognized hikers so he pulled over to see if he could help in some way.
Since the Warm Springs reservation was just a few more miles down the highway we really didn't need anything but water which we could obtain at the gas station/convenience store. So we thanked "H" for his offer and desire to help us then said goodbye and continued our hike down to the bottom of the canyon to Warm Springs.
There was a roadside diner along the highway so I stopped and went inside to see if I could buy us a canned or bottled soda. The native American gal running the empty restaurant couldn't help me with my quest for the soda but she did ask me what we were doing with backpacks and why we were hiking down the highway. When I explained about our long journey on the PCT and our alternate route through the reservation on the highway, she got excited and gave me not one, but two "high five's" and some "right on's" as I left to go back outside.
We hiked another couple miles to the lone gas station/convenience store, the last manmade civilization for the next 49 desolate road miles to Government Camp on the side of Mt. Hood. There we stopped and I bought a liter of Coke and a liter of water while Tabasco bought a soda as well. From there we hiked another mile and a half up the highway where we began ascending out of the small Warm Springs community and out of the canyon. It was nearing darkness and approaching cars couldn't see us as we hiked on the shoulder so we sought a camping spot right off the highway with a buffer to hide ourselves from eyesight of passing motorists. A curve in the road with a high rock outcrop provided just what we needed, so we slipped off the road and through the barbed wire fence outside of the state's highway easement. So we are camping illegally tonight on the tribal lands, a "first" and "last" for us on our long journey north.
Hopefully we won't get caught because the consequences of trespassing on tribal land could include jail time and we would fall under the jurisdiction of the tribal council as well as federal law protecting the tribal land. I have lots of peace though about our passing through these lands...if we are caught and are allowed to share our story surely the tribal council would understand that we are seekers, journeyers, wanting to experience nature, the wilderness, the land as it was before the white man came and raped and pillaged the land and its native peoples. And we pose no threat to the land, respect it, and care for it as we pass leaving no trace except our footprints.
So we set up tents, cooked our dinners, and I am now inside the tent journaling with several days of backlog to catch up on. But I'm too tired from a hard day's road hike so I wrote today's entry and skipped the prior 3 days which will just have to wait until a later time to write. We have 48 more road miles to Government Camp so we will have to hike all day tomorrow with gusto to get into position to finish our epic hike on Monday at a reasonable time.
I am ready for the hike to be over and in particular I am frustrated and disappointed that the last 100 miles couldn't be on the actual PCT, although we will cross the PCT and will hike on the trail the final 10 miles to Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood.
Today's weather: Partly Cloudy. Low 25, High 60. Today's Highway miles: 28 Equivalent Trail Miles: 21 Cumulative miles: 2,196.4
