This really is two back to back days, so I will combine both days into this one blog. The second day was physically much harder, but the first day had more elements of a holy shit day.

When I finally arrived at water at the end of what for me was a long day, I discovered what people had said was true. Even though it was listed as a campsite, there was no decent place to camp unless I wanted to literally be in a marsh. The ground wiggled under my feet so I picked up 6 pounds of water and climbed the next mountain. Thankfully, since I had already gone over 17 tiring miles I soon found a place to nestle my tent in among some standing live trees.

I woke the next morning to the sound of water falling on my tent. I soon realized it was not really rain. I was inside a cloud. I packed up and headed off eager to be out of the biting wind.

For much of the day I was walking in dead standing timber. With the gusty wind I was hyper alert to every creaking, cracking sound, aware at any moment one of the dead trees swaying in the wind could fall. I did see a number of branches come crashing down, but luckily none fell too close to me.

With a fully loaded pack, I usually walk slightly more than 2 miles an hour. I was slowed to a mile an hour because of the many blowdowns on the trail. I knew they would get much worse, and I tried to psych myself up for it. Even though it’s tiring going up and over or down and under these large fallen trees, in the beginning I was able to view it as a challenge. Still, I was weary by the time I reached a creek where I was to have lunch. I had been walking not only through blow downs, but also weeds up to my eyeballs. Twice when I took a step my downhill foot went through the weeds into thin air because I was walking on a side hill. Luckily I was able to catch myself before I fell down the cliff.

All morning I had been following the tracks and scat of a large cat. At times I felt I saw something out of the corner of my eye, but I never quite could confirm it was there. Still, I was a bit on edge when I put my pack down and sat on a log to pull out my lunch. I had a huge fright when something jumped on my shoulder. Then I laughed when it turned out to be a squirrel who looked about as frightened as I had been.

After lunch, I made my way up another side hill that had a semi-existent trail. I was soon met with a huge log across the way. There was no way I could go over it so I lay flat on the ground and belly crawled my way under. The problem was when I tried to stand up I couldn’t get any foothold. I kept sliding down the steep mountain on the loose gravely dirt. I forced myself to lay still until I was well focused. Then I slowly found ways to crawl myself to the other side of the log, grab bits of vegetation and raise myself back to standing.

A few miles from there, I came to a river crossing. I could see where I was supposed to land on the other side, but it was such a mess of blow downs I knew I couldn’t cross there. Instead I aimed up river along some ripples in the water alerting me to the fact it was not too deep along my chosen route. There were definitely some spots that would’ve been well over my waist if I had gotten out of the shallows.

When I arrived on land, in order to get back to the trail, I had to push through vegetation that rivaled the thickest I’ve ever pushed through. Not only was I scratched up by the time I got there, but I had also lost the bite valve off my drinking system. I could still suck water out of the hose. It just meant I had to be careful not to bend over because without the bite valve, the water freely drained from the hose. Nourmally this wouldn’t have been a problem, but for much of the rest of that day and the following day, I was constantly going up over or down below multitude of fallen trees.

I was weary as I pushed up the mountain to where I wanted to camp for the night. I was doing a longer day than I normally would’ve because I had knew the following day the blow downs would be ” brutal and torturous,” as described by a young man who had gone through a few days earlier. He normally walked close to 4 miles an hour and said it took him five hours to go 3 miles. I contemplated this as I hiked, aware the last time I had done a section of serious blow downs I had broken my foot by twisting my ankle. I reminded myself to focus on the present instead of worrying about the future. Just as I was rejoicing about the fact that for the first time in a long time I was hiking without foot pain, I heard a wolf howling off to my left. That continued for about half a mile up the trail.

I was definitely relieved by the time I made it to camp that night especially since I was once again dry camping and had to carry six more pounds of water for the last stretch into camp.

As I studied all the comments in the FarOut trail app I use, I noticed there was a possible way to go around the blowdowns. I didn’t want to shorten the trail, but based on how tired I was from that first easier day of blow downs, and my concern for my safety if I fell and broke something in the midst of all that downed wood, I studied my maps for hours until I was fairly confident I knew how I could make my way around the mess and up to the Pacific Crest Trail which I had to join for a bit. I wasn’t completely thrilled with the option as it was noted there could be some rock slides, and there were a few gaps in any possible trail on the different maps I had with me. As much as I didn’t want to go through miles and miles of horrible blow downs, I wasn’t thrilled about slabbing a sidehill with rock falling around me. Still, I set out to make my way across country.

I walked the first few miles of the alternate until I came to a junction that was not as had been described. For those first few miles I had recognized not only my unease about making my way cross country for almost 20 miles, but also I was aware I felt a bit like a wimp for opting out of the horrendous blow down route even though I knew doing what felt safest for me was the smart thing to do. When I came to a junction that offered me yet another choice I once again changed course and decided I would take that 7 mile trail up the mountain to where it would connect with the Pacific Crest Trail. I knew a number of other hikers had taken it. I also knew it could be horrible but I resolved to take whatever came my way.

I don’t know if what followed was better or worse than what I would’ve been in had I taken the original trail. What I do know is it took me nine hours to go 6 miles. I’m positive there were at least 2500 blow downs per mile for much of that route. At one point I stopped trying to find the trail and just made my way in the direction I needed to go by whatever means possible. I was constantly crawling up and over or down below fallen timber that was completely black from last year’s wildfire. Of course that black rubbed off on everything I own, and by the time I made it to the top of the pass, my skin under my clothing was black. The pockets of my pants and shirt were filled with all sorts of debris, and I was scratched in quite a few places, including on my hip, where some branches had gotten under my hip belt. There were a few moments during the day when I wanted to give up. I had the thought I could call a helicopter on my SOS device. But I knew I wouldn’t do that even if a helicopter had been able to land where I was. I knew I had to keep going or die so I continually forced myself to only focus on the blowdown at hand and not on the one I could see 2 feet up the trail. Sometimes I had to go under a huge blow down only to squeeze up between it and another one that I needed to step over. I had to struggle to get between that narrow gap with my pack on. Other times I literally had my nose in the dirt as I wiggled under a fallen tree. Sometimes I had to leap a few feet down off a high log being careful to push myself far enough away that the bulk on my back from my pack didn’t catch the log as I jumped. When I landed I had to make sure not to go flying down the side hill. Another time I stepped on a log which unexpectedly rolled sending me into a flying header. When I stood up, I had a 2 inch splinter poking out from the soft tissue between my fingers.

I thought it would make an interesting movie to see all the ways I had to maneuver to get over the different situations each fallen cluster of logs presented me with. Most the time I had to physically lift my foot up by the cuff of my pants to get it high enough to get over the log. I always had to be careful not to catch my crotch or any other part of my body on the extremely sharp, broken off branches of the tree I was climbing over.

To make matters worse, it was extremely hot and I was having trouble getting myself to eat anything. Luckily, I found a few water sources and downed a number of electrolyte drinks. Then my boots started acting up in a horrible way, forming a ridge along the top of my toes. This was painful enough that I finally sat down in the ash surrounded by burnt out trees and taped up my feet to make the rest of the walking less painful.

Through all the difficulties I was able to feel impressed with myself. Even though it was not easy, there I was at 68 years old finding my way up the mountain carrying a 30 pound backpack over thousands and thousands of blow downs.

When I reached the PCT I let out a whoop of joy. The last time I had been on this trail was when I thru hiked it in 1986. Then the PCT was in some ways like the PNT is now. These days the PCT is like a 4 Lane highway compared to the PNT.

I picked up some water and hiked on to a beautiful place where I could camp for the night, although my difficulties weren’t quite over. I discovered that no matter how hard I tried, my phone, which I used for route finding would not charge. Rather than worrying, I put it aside for the night. In the morning I had the thought to pull out my tiny tweezers and explore the charging port. Sure enough, just as there had been twigs in every pocket I had on, I pulled vegetative debris out of the charging port. After that it seemed to work just fine.

That next morning, I hiked my way from my beautiful can’t spot the 17 miles to Harts Pass. I’m doing a slightly alternate route because of a closure on the PNT. For the next hundred miles or so I’ll be making my own way, but for at least 50 of those miles I will be on the PCT.

I was glad on my hike to Harts pass to meet Kelley hiking in to me. My body was weary, and I was pushing to keep myself going. It was a treat to have her company and even a bigger treat when she offered to carry my pack for me. She then drove me down the narrow windy mountain road to Mazama where there’s a wonderful hiker hostel. I was able to get a shower, wash my clothes, eat some food and take a day of rest to patch up some gear and make plans for the next chunk of trail which will eventually take me back to the official PNT route near Concrete, Washington.

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