Oregon, We Love You

Oregon, Section F: Highway 242 to Highway 35 (near Barlow Pass)

Section G: Highway 35 to Cascade Locks

Charles and I are now 2,146.6 miles down the PCT and just like that our time in Oregon comes to an end. We are in the town of Cascade Locks, from which we’ll cross the Bridge of the Gods into Washington.

The last section was so amazing and beautiful! Oregon is definitely in the running for my favorite section on the PCT. Charles pointed out that we finally got good views of the mountains in Oregon due to the smoke clearing up, so Northern California never really stood a chance. It’s all just part of the experience though.

We had a little mix up with the bus trying to get back to the trail from Bend. Once back on track with the bus route, our new bus stop was outside a Catholic Church, where a guy leaving Mass decided to take us the entire way to McKenzie Pass.

Back at the pass we explored a “castle” lookout tower. The smoke we had two days before finally cleared and we had views of the Sisters, Mt. Washington, and Mt. Jefferson in the distance. We finished walking through the lava fields, which felt easier the second time around.

We stopped at Big Lake Youth Camp so Charles could pick up a package. We also passed mile 2000 in the evening, a huge milestone for us. Our great day ended with a sunset as we entered the Mt. Jefferson Wilderness.

Of course, after a wonderful day one sometimes goes through a bad day. We woke up to rain and walked through a cloud most of the day. In the evening we walked through a high severity burn area from the year before, which with the clouds really creeped me out. We had to camp in a burn area, which we usually try to avoid due to the potential of falling dead trees, but this night we had no choice.

The next day was wonderful again with stunning views of Mt. Jefferson. We stopped in at Ollalie Lake Resort for some snacks before camping for the night.

The next day was Charles’ twenty-third Birthday. He got to celebrate with some trail magic in the evening. We passed by Little Crater Lake, a small, forty-five foot deep pond one can see straight to the bottom where dead trees rest.

Though we’re in prime territory for sightings, we’ve had no Big Foot encounters…yet.

The next day we made it to Timberline Lodge, the setting for “The Shining.” The lodge is a popular stop with hikers, usually for the breakfast buffet, which we unfortunately missed out on. We had fantastic views of Mt. Hood approaching the lodge.

We ate at The Blue Ox, where I bought Charles a huge ice cream bowl to officially celebrate his Birthday. We planned to leave that evening but, as Charles predicted, I loved the lodge so much that I took too long to do my planned activities. Luckily the lodge lets hikers camp right up by the trail.

Our hike leaving Timberline Lodge is my new favorite trail morning. We had a beautiful sunrise that painted a perfect scene with the lodge and Mt. Jefferson in the distance. The clouds rested low in valleys and on ridge tops. We had to hike thirty-one miles to make the post office in time the next day and it went pretty smoothly. The whole day was complete with a trip to Ramona Falls, a view of Mt. Hood in the afternoon, and a gorgeous sunset.

We had an easy nineteen miles to the town of Cascade Locks, right on the border of Oregon and Washington. We did our last resupply for Oregon and camped at the Marine Park Campground.

This morning we’ll cross the Bridge of the Gods into Washington to finish the remaining 506 miles to the Canadian border. The last sixty miles of trail were closed due to wildfires and hikers couldn’t access the actual northern terminus. Charles discovered last night that the closure is reduced in size and a reroute now leads to the monument.