July 24
Listening to: Nick Mulvey – Infinite Trees
Miles: 11.1
Mile Markers: 1879.8 – 1890.9
Miles to Canada: 764.9
The last few days, I progressively hiked more miles – 13 miles, 17 miles, 22 miles. But today I’m only hiking 12 miles to the next water source, which is a lake where I’ll camp tonight.
I didn’t set an alarm for the morning, because I didn’t want to get up early again. It has turned out to not be as hot as I’ve gone more into the mountains, and hiking during the day hasn’t felt as bad. When I finally got up and packed, everyone else who had camped at the pass had gone. It made me feel a little slow, a little bit alone.
Today is about a 4 mile climb uphill, and then it’s all downhill after that which is good because I like climbing ascents early in the morning before it gets too hot.
The mosquitoes are really bad today, enough that I’m wearing my head bug net. I made it up the ascent pretty quickly, mostly inspired by the amount of mosquitoes, and an inability to take any kind of meaningful rest. Every time I’ve tried to sit down, I’ve just gotten swarmed, so I’ve just kept on moving. I’ll likely just have lunch at the lake, probably in my tent, because these things are so bad. Maybe I got a false sense of security the last few days, because I wasn’t near any water during the long water carry and so there were fewer mosquitoes. But now that there’s more ponds and lakes nearby, I think it’s going to get much worse. The trail angels had a bucket of DEET wipes and I wiped my skin, my legs, my hands, my even my neck, my face and these things don’t even care. They’re still trying to get me.
The trail has gone up a few ridges with some nice views of some lakes and snow-covered mountains in the distance. When a lot of thru hikers talk about Oregon, they seem to say that it’s boring. It’s flat. It’s the most who cares section of the trail, but I actually like it. It feels like I’m home – with the pine trees, and now – more ferns.
I haven’t seen a single other person today. I’m really really alone out here which is a very different experience than hiking in the middle of the bubble, but I like it. All of the thru hiking bullshit part of thru hiking feels like it’s gone, and I’m just hiking. Just enjoying the forest.
Perhaps these posts will be boring to some, without the drama, without the excitement of other people. Just me in the forest walking. I guess it’s kind of boring. I don’t know if it has to be boring though. I think I’ve grown a lot on some of the last sections, especially in the Sierra, and now this feels like my real hike has begun.
I made it through the swarms to the lake and there’s a little peninsula sticking out of the lake that has a couple campsites and big rocks that you can go swimming off of. I washed my clothes and made some lunch. There’s actually not really very many mosquitoes here because of all the dragonflies, and this feels like a special and magical place because there’s a lot of butterflies of different colors, and I also saw a hummingbird. Dragonflies eat mosquitoes, and so they are more than welcome to hang around my tent.
I found a piece of guy line in the Sierra the day before I went up Glen Pass, and I’m now using it to hang my clothes so that they can dry. I love being by the water, the wind, the feeling on my skin. This would be a perfect lake for a tiny little sailboat.
In the Sierra, I got into the habit of washing myself at night before bed so I wouldn’t get into my sleeping bag and be all disgusting and dirty. But I haven’t been able to wash myself the last few days just because there’s not really been enough water, and I felt bad using water cashe water for anything besides drinking. But there’s plenty of water in this lake. So I took my microfiber towel and washed all the dirt off.
I sat by the lake washing off my legs and thought to myself how lucky that I get to live here for the next 2 months. Not here, as in, this lake, but here, as in, on the trail in the wilderness by myself.
I’m enjoying being alone a lot more than I thought I would. I gained so much confidence in the Sierra, and even though I’m still a little bit skittish around river crossings and climbing down rocks because of my fall that resulted in my shoulder wound; I feel so much more confident, and I can just hike the way I want to hike because now I know what my body needs.
All of the hikers that I’ve seen the last few days are way faster than I am, so I haven’t seen any of them a second time. In the beginning of the trail, people were much more open and friendly, but as time has gone on, more and more people leave the trail, and so I think people become a little more guarded. They don’t want to invest in meeting new people that they know they’ll never see again. It just becomes exhausting doing it over and over, so I don’t blame them for not being friendly, because I also don’t really feel that friendly right now.
But, today, I don’t have to fake any sort of niceties. I didn’t have to see anyone except the mosquitoes, some dragonflies, some butterflies, and a hummingbird. I’ll be nice to them because I hope to see them again. Not the mosquitoes though.
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