Miles hiked: 22.3
Mile marker: 1998.7
Total ascent: 2600 ft
Total descent: 4400 ft
It’s almost warm when I wake up this morning. Not let yesterday’s cold air that had me walking in my jacket for a few miles.
Bumper and Rafiki both have exclaimed how much like autumn it has felt lately. I agree. Yesterday was overcast and even drizzled, bringing in cold air.
Today, the hike is an almost immediate uphill on lava rocks. The air is clean and cool and smells fresh, like winter, even though the temperature would suggest otherwise.
It was randomly windy last night, and it took me a long time to fall asleep! I’m a bit tired as I trudge up the rocks.
Oh, walking on rocks?
It’s harder than it sounds.
Sometimes you have to watch where you place your feet so you don’t stomp on a fist sized rock. If you do that, then your foot will slip and you’ll get hurt.
Other times, it feels like three steps forward is one step backwards. Walking uphill on rocks means that I slide back a little bit with each step. It’s quite laborious.
The horizon shows off layers of dark and pale blue mountains. It’s topped by a pale yellow sun. The rocks are desolate like walking through Mordor.
In the distance, the puffy clouds float in angelic blues and yellows.
We stop at a serene lake to filter water. It’s nice to not walk on rocks.
We walk on for a while until we hop off trail for a minute to go see a rock observatory. It’s a windy road walk up to a stone structure. Inside there are windows. You can look through a hole in the big stones and see what mountain is ahead. A label is underneath it to describe what mountain you’re looking at!
We walk up the spiral staircase to the top of the observatory to look at the black and gray lava rock around us.
It’s pretty hot as we walk down the road. Some loud motorcyclists zoom past us.
The rock walk is uphill for a bit and it is tough! The walk goes on and on, until we finally break for an early lunch. I eat two packets of ramen they I tossed in a ziplock bag… it wasn’t even fully soaked.
Now on a too full stomach of icky food, I race to keep up with Voyager and Rafiki as they hiked up the hills. It takes a long time before we walk down rock again. We go through a burn zone. The trees are white and ghostly looking.
I wonder how long it takes to recover a forest after a fire.
I go a little crazy it my fatigue, making random noises and speaking in random accents.
We finally reach Big Lake Youth Camp! It’s a kids summer camp. We have to keep our distance from the kids, can’t roam around the facilities and what not. After laundry, showers, and charging our things (Bumper let me use his power bank this morning since mine died) we have a cheesy pasta and green bean dinner at wooden benches!
They provide this for free! They accept donations, of course, which we always give.
Then we walk a mile along the blue blaze until we reach a tent site.
Bend Oregon tomorrow! And I get to see my friend Emma!
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