August 2
Miles: 11.8
Mile Markers: 1985.6 – Big Lake Youth Camp
Miles to Canada: 658.4
Listening to: Toro y Moi – Omaha
This morning I was reluctant to get up because I knew it meant hiking through more lava fields, but I got up and was ready by 6:45am. I didn’t know how much water would be in the water cashe so I had just carried 4.25 liters from the lake so I had extra water with me even in the morning. I dumped some filtered water back into the water cache before leaving, and headed out into the lava field since I didn’t need all of my water.
It feels like hiking through an absolute nightmare landscape of just weird rocks. It feels like you’re on another planet. The lava rocks are all loose rocks which hurt my ankle quite a bit, but I made decent time up through the lava fields and down the other side and straight into a burn area.
The lava rocks were cool and I probably would have enjoyed it more if my ankle didn’t hurt so much, but I’m sort of just eager to get to Big Lake Youth Camp. I feel like I smell so bad – like really really bad – even though I’ve been dunking my shirt in the lakes and trying to stay clean. I gave up on using deodorant at one point, but honestly I hate the way I smell so maybe I’ll get some more.
If I can smell myself, I can’t even imagine what other people must be able to smell.
I was really glad to have my sun umbrella because the lava rock fields and then the burn areas are completely exposed and you’re just out in the sun. Even though it’s not really that hot out, when you’re just out in the sun for hours and hours and hours, it starts to feel extremely hot, but having the sun umbrella is like partially being in the shade all the time, so it helps a lot.
I’m debating about sending my Ember watch home as well as the little handheld fan that I bought, because the fan – I haven’t really used much, and then the Ember watch isn’t waterproof and you can’t use it unless you have phone service to log into the app which isn’t that convenient, and I’ve also scratched it up quite a bit so it’s not really made for backcountry life. So once I get to Cascade Locks I think I’ll send it home.
I’ve been debating about keeping my bear can or not. There’s really nowhere to hang a bear bag out here, so having the bear can is convenient in that way, but it is heavy and I would love to have a lighter pack.
I haven’t seen anyone hiking today except a couple going the opposite way. They didn’t look like PCT hikers though. There’s been a lot of weekend hikers and day hikers out here which is interesting. Some of them are so fascinated by us as if we’re just this different type of creature that they could observe in the forest. With how I smell right now, I really do feel like a different type of creature.
After the lava fields, I took a break in the shade of some actual living trees in some dirt which felt nice to sit in some dirt. How crazy is that that I’m excited to sit in some dirt. I took off my shoes to rest my feet and soon butterflies were covering my backpack. Even out here in the middle of the lava fields there’s still tons of butterflies.
A comment for on FarOut pissed me off. It basically scolded anyone complaining about the lava fields because it “wasn’t that hard” walking through the fields and everyone should stop complaining. I actually think this might be the most difficult stretch of the entire trail terrain wise. For me, it’s extremely hard. It’s not even steep, but walking on uneven ground like this is difficult on your joints, on your ankles, and on your body in a way that it probably isn’t for some healthy 22-year-old, but for other people, this could be extremely challenging. I’d love to observe that 22-year-old try to hike this trail in my body. I reported the comment, but probably nothing will happen.
I was dragging by the time I finally made it to Big Lake Youth Camp, and found the building which wasn’t easy at first, and no one was at the camp so I kind of just hung around where the trail came into the camp and eventually some, what looked like high school boys, who may have been counselors there, told me where to go. They have a building set up just for hikers that has Wi-Fi, showers, bathrooms, laundry places to charge our phones and hiker boxes as well as a place to pick up packages if you sent yourself something.
I found my resupply box, which was easy, because I put giant yellow tape with EHRENS written on it in big black letters. I also found my Amazon package with my ankle brace after a few minutes.
I took a shower, did laundry and sat there for most of the afternoon talking to some of the other hikers who were there. There was one guy who had been there for a few days and he seemed to know everything about the camp and joked that he should just work there. He was taking some zeros there because he had what he thought was a stress fracture in his shin, and it was cheaper to stay there for free then to pay for hotels in Bend. A German guy asked why he didn’t just go to a doctor, and he said he didn’t have health insurance and so he couldn’t afford it. The German guy didn’t really say anything but was obviously horrified that people lived in such a backwards society where you can’t even go to a doctor for a bone fracture.
As I have mentioned, I love having nice hair, despite being a dirty, smelly hiker. I sent myself some Malibu CPR to take the minerals and gunk out of my hair and then I toned my hair with purple shampoo. Girly. I don’t care.
The camp usually didn’t serve dinner to hikers on Saturdays, but they invited us for dinner anyways. That night, the camp director came by and was showing some new camp counselors around the building. He was extremely welcoming and nice. After I showered and got all my stuff together, I went down for dinner with a few other hikers. The camp lets the hikers get food after the staff has eaten but there’s almost always leftovers and we had mac and cheese, sandwiches and all kinds of things and it was really good. The camp is run by Adventists and they’re vegetarian, so all the food was vegetarian.
I sat with a few of the hikers, and a staff member named Gloria came to sit with us and started talking to us. She had been a camper there and now worked in the kitchen after having been a counselor as well. She said she liked working in the kitchen a lot more, because she got to sleep in later and she felt like she had more free time in this job.
It was a little unusual getting to this camp, because so many of the places that you stop along the trail, these little businesses and places that cater to hikers, they charge so much money for things and they’re very clearly profit-run. They seem to be annoyed by the hikers, which is fair enough – there are some pretty annoying hikers out there, but this place felt so different. They seemed to genuinely enjoy having us there and wanted to make us feel welcome. The way Christian hospitality is supposed to be like.
They had some areas on the beach where we could set up our tents and camp for free along the lake. They had three coves as they called them. So after dinner, I grabbed my stuff and walked out to the second cove and set up my tent kind of on this aandy walkway in between the lake and then a tiny pond. In the hiker building, they had a laminated map of the camp and asked us to walk around the camp to get to the dining hall and to the hiker tent area so as to not walk through the camp. I thought that was a pretty reasonable request, but also strange to allow random people on site at a place with children. They must have other safety protocols in place.
When I had lunch with Lava she did say that they had gotten scolded for walking through the camp instead of on the road. So I guess the staff are trained to keep the hikers out of the camp.
I set up my tent and sorted through the stuff I had received in my resupply box. I played around on FarOut figuring out the miles that I was planning on hiking the rest of the days until I reached timberline Lodge, and I decided to drop a bunch of stuff in the hiker box.
I watched the sunset over the lake with a front row view right on the lake. Nobody else camped at that cove so I had it all to myself. There were people laughing in the distance riding around on speed boats, enjoying the lake until pretty late in the night.
I was happy to be there.
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