chris
07-21-2003, 15:52
Hi all. I just left California and have entered Oregon, where I am taking (gasp!) my second zero day in a week. Ashland, OR is very nice, but it has been bloody hot and humid (for this area) for the past week, which has made the afternoon hours tough. This is mile 1721 and I still have roughly 930 to go and about a month to do it in. Northern California was an absolute joy, despite a lot of vertical and the heat. The trail out here is so open and exposed, that I have views constantly. It also means that the sun scorches me. I've left the main pack several hundred miles behind, and there are only two hikers in from of me, both trying to set the speed record.
With Cali behind me, I get to enjoy the full measure of the Cascade range, with its snow capped volcanoes rising out of a sea of green forest. Crater lake is next up. I should get there in 3 days and a morning. Then, the main range begins, broken only at the OR-WA border, where I have to cross the Colombia river at 90 ft. above sea level. You don't want to know what the climb out of the gorge will be like. Then, a last push across Washington to the Canadian border. Will I make it before time runs out? Who knows? It doesn't really matter, though. I'll have my time, and that is all I really want.
Off to drink some beer at a local brew pub and get treated to dinner by a woman writing a book on PCT hikers. Maybe she'll even be cute!
With Cali behind me, I get to enjoy the full measure of the Cascade range, with its snow capped volcanoes rising out of a sea of green forest. Crater lake is next up. I should get there in 3 days and a morning. Then, the main range begins, broken only at the OR-WA border, where I have to cross the Colombia river at 90 ft. above sea level. You don't want to know what the climb out of the gorge will be like. Then, a last push across Washington to the Canadian border. Will I make it before time runs out? Who knows? It doesn't really matter, though. I'll have my time, and that is all I really want.
Off to drink some beer at a local brew pub and get treated to dinner by a woman writing a book on PCT hikers. Maybe she'll even be cute!