We had a nice warm nights sleep last night in the shelter. However after finding the BIGGEST cockroach I’ve ever seen right before bed, I did have some trouble sleeping out of constant fear of one crawling on me in the night. Luckily nothing got me.
We packed up and walked to the road to start hitching into Crater Lake National Park. It was still early and there was not much traffic. After about 15 minutes though a car stopped and a woman who works as a ranger in the park drove us in and dropped us off at Mazama Village where we were expecting a package. We couldn’t pick up our package until 930 so we headed to the restaurant nearby where we pigged out and had many cups of coffee. Wolf Bird even ordered two breakfasts! I headed over to get our packages while Wolf Bird waited for the check. while getting the packages I found out we could take a trolley to where the PCT picks up (the trail to there was closed due to wildfires in the area). Conveniently the trolley came every hour and there was one outside waiting right now!
I headed outside hoping Wolf Bird would be finished at the restaurant in time and was relieved to see he was! We hopped on the trolley only for me to realize just as it was pulling away that I left the GPS charging at the restaurant. The driver was nice enough to be willing to wait while I ran in to retrieve it in record time. We had a fun ride to the Rim Village. The driver was playing fun music and driving faster than he probably should’ve been given this was a trolley in a crowded national park. Once at Rim Village, we sorted through our packages and were happy to discover that a part of the trail we’d thought was closed was in fact open and we wouldn’t have to hitch around. We chatted with some other hikers at the store–Jackpot, Storm and Yeti.
We set off to hike the Rim Trail starting at about 1130am. This is technically an alternate and not the official PCT. However right now the official PCT in this section is closed due to fire and the Rim Trail only just reopened after also being closed for the same reason. The Rim Trail skirts the edge of the giant lake and was surprisingly steep for the first couple miles going up and down quite a bit. The lake was quite beautiful and a vibrant blue, although smoke from the nearby fires made it less vibrant than I imagine it typically is.
We had a nice leisurely walk along the rim trail. We could spot plumes of smoke coming from the fires nearby. Once the alternate reconnected with the PCT, we stocked up on water from a water cache provided by a trail angel. We decided to carry quite a bit of water, as the next water wasn’t for about 16 miles and we weren’t sure if we’d hike it all tonight (if we were camping Before the water, we’d need to carry more to cook our dinner etc). The next 9 miles were relatively flat. The trees were all spread out and many were dead and the forest was eerily quiet. Because we were carrying so much water, our packs felt quite heavy and walking felt difficult. I was feeling tired and like I wouldn’t be able to make it to the next water tonight.
Wolf Bird and I took a break at the next road crossing and while he took a bathroom break, I looked at our guthook app on my phone. I discovered there is another water cache just ahead!! We didn’t need to carry so much water after all! So frustrating and even more frustrating because we’d talked with a southbounder who didn’t even mention the second cache. We were frustrated and decided to eat dinner now and just hike the extra miles to a creek tonight. We were sitting eating dinner at the second water cache when who walks up the trail but Tofu!! We’d caught her because she did the road walk part of the fire closure whereas we hitchhiked the road part. She sat with us as we ate dinner and the three of us hiked the nine miles to the creek together.
It was a nice change to hike with tofu and we all chatted as we walked which made time pass quickly. It was growing late and the sun started to set which was quite beautiful over the mountains below. We eventually needed our headlamps as it grew dark for the last couple miles. We arrived at camp at 9pm and tried to be quiet as we set up next to a tent that was already there. They seemed to still be awake though and knew Tofu so it wasn’t a big problem. We finally were set up and ready for bed by about 10.
I remember we got lost and went the wrong way when we were approaching the lake and had to turn around.
Oops wrong day! I remember now.