Monday, July 10
Start: ponds by Wasco Lake
End: Ollalie Lake Resort
Miles: 36.5
Elevation gain/loss: 6201’/6670′
I was awake at 5:05 and on trail by 5:35am. It had been a miserable night. My cut knees had bled onto my sleeping mat and once when I tried to roll over, my knee had clotted and adhered to the mat. I had to peel myself off, which was a very unpleasant sensation. It rained a little bit overnight and the wind continued to blow 35+ MPH gusts all night long, coating me and my gear in seemingly magnetic dust. It was a very desert kind of experience, with grit in between my teeth and coating my tent. To add insult to injury, every time the wind blew in the night, I’d get splattered in the face with water from tent condensation. I woke up to being in the clouds, with everything damp and cold and the wind blowing fiercely.
It was the first time this entire trip that I felt cold, and the visibility was very poor. The clouds lightly sprinkled me with rain/mist as I packed up and headed out. With all the blowdowns, I often had to leave trail to get around giant tree snarls or just couldn’t even see the trail, period. I had to use my GPS track quite a bit. It was psychologically very difficult, as I held off a sense of animal panic, but I focused on just putting one foot in front of another. I did end up putting on my rain shell and pack cover for an hour. With the sun rising, the clouds did burn off after a few hours, which relieved my internal panic – not being able to see was hard in that section and I was worried about my body temperature/safety if the wind had continued and the sky truly rained. I met Wayback early on in the day; he’s a PCT section hiker from Seattle. I was glad to see other people, since I was feeling a bit freaked out and company reminded me that I wasn’t really alone.
My day of hiking brought me around Mt Jefferson, with lots of glacier-fed streams and creeks. There were two major crossings but with some ingenuity, I did both without getting my feet wet. Unfortunately, large portions of today’s miles were through a burn, though most of the blowdowns were cut and water was remarkably frequent. The bugs were at a minimum too, which eased my mental load. I took advantage of the hot afternoon sun (with a shady spot and water nearby) to dry out my tent and sleeping bag. Later in my day, there was a large, steep snowfield later, but the sun-softened snow was very grippy and I didn’t even bother to put on my spikes.
I pushed myself 7 extra miles to arrive at Ollalie Lake Resort at 7:20pm. I was delighted to get some snacks and drinks, for the most reasonable prices since Mazama. It was pure bliss to drink some cold soda and Gatorade sitting in a chair. And the PCT tenting area was in a grove of trees with trashcans, potable water, picnic tables, and a very nice composting toilet.
I met Mattias around lunch time; he’s a German PCT hiker. We leapfrogged for the majority of the day. He arrived at Ollalie an hour after me. I gave him the rundown on the store and camping, and then helped him field repair his broken pack strap with some paracord. I was happy to set up my tent and bed down with no wind with 3 other PCT hikers to keep me company.
Transcending Mountains 