to my right and left, but I had no way of knowing whether they were dry this time of year. Now I was really worried. Glancing to the south, down a slope, I espied a patch of conspicuously green plants. I decided to explore it in hopes of finding a spring. Flinging down my pack, I left the trail. About ten minutes later, I spotted a tiny puddle gently overflowing into a small creek bed. A spring! I rejoiced as I hurriedly pumped water through my filter and into one of my bottles, stopping every five pumps or so to drink the contents of the bottle and start over again.
Once quenched, I assessed my situation. In my hurry, I had taken only my filter and one bottle, leaving my other water containers with my pack at the top of the ridge. I had been so concerned with getting something to drink now that all foresight had gone out the window. Stupid. After hiking back up to my pack, returning to the spring, filling all my containers, and then hiking to the trail once again, I had wasted about an hour and really upset the knee. Feeling ridiculous, I took up my pack and continued down the trail. If I encounter easy water within the next few miles, I thought to myself, I am going to be very angry.
Just a few minutes later, a dark-haired, bearded hiker approached from behind. He appeared to be in his early thirties. From his expensive-looking gear and his mountain-man appearance, I suspected that he was a through-hiker travelling from Mexico to Canada. He stopped to greet me.
“How far you headed?” he jovially inquired.
“Just to Washington,” I replied, still panting from my exertion. “Are you doing the whole thing?”
He responded in the affirmative, in a manner that seemed to suggest that walking 2650 miles is no big deal. “I’m Wombat,” he said, reaching for a friendly handshake.
“I’m Aaron,” I responded, feeling somewhat inadequate for lack of a trail name. Before this encounter, I’d always thought trail names were silly, but the instant respect commanded by Wombat’s impressive undertaking and his friendly demeanor led me to consider adopting one. (Greenhorn, perhaps? Tenderfoot?) Somehow, within just a few minutes of talking to him, this guy was my friend and my hero at the same time. I debated whether I should tell him of my one-pack goal.
“So you’re hiking the Oregon section, eh? When did you start?”
“Two days ago.”
“Well, you’re making good time,” he said. I could not tell if he was just trying to encourage me, or if he actually meant it. I had heard of through-hikers achieving forty-mile days, so my speed should have been anything but impressive to him.
“Thanks,” I said. Hesitating, I added: “I’ve got this crazy goal to hike all of Oregon without restocking food or supplies.”
“What?” he asked, reacting as though he must have misunderstood what I had said. “For the whole state? You mean you’re just buying stuff at stores without shipping food to yourself, right?”
“No, I’m carrying all my food and gear with me for the whole trip. I promised myself that I won’t restock anything.”
“No town stops?”
“Nope.”
“You’re saying you have all of your food in that pack right now?” he asked, pointing to my red backpack.
“That’s right.”
“How much does it weigh?”
“I started with fifty pounds of food. I just guessed my gear weight, but I think I’m carrying at least seventy-five pounds.”
“And you’re lugging that all the way to Washington? You’re more of a man than I am, that’s for sure.” This compliment was uplifting. “Well, if you find that it’s just too hard, you could always ship some of your food ahead when you reach Hyatt Lake Resort or Crater Lake.” I could sense that he had his doubts about my project.
“That would be cheating,” was my only response.
I hiked with Wombat for a bit. When I mentioned that day’s water crisis, he replied that there was a spring with a cistern coming right up. We soon came to it, and I was glad that I had not seen this improved water source in my state of extreme thirst. The temptation to use a man-made water-supplying device might have overpowered me. The cistern further increased my distrust in my maps, which made no note of it. A little later, in the vicinity of Soda Mountain, Wombat left me in the dust as I struggled up a small incline. I wondered if I would see him again.
I stopped for the night in a clearing near Soda Mountain Road. I had hiked about fifteen miles that day, but I felt much less exhausted in comparison to the first two days, and the knee had been manageable most of the time. I was optimistic. I was also very hungry. My thoughts turned to food.
It had occurred to me that I was carrying quite a bit of superfluous food. I had packed extra for the thirty miles of hiking south from Interstate 5 to the border—an additional distance that I did not end up traversing. I had also brought enough for a possible side trip up the South Sister, a trip I was now determined to skip in light of my sore knee. With enough extra food for forty miles—about four pounds—I could afford to splurge a bit. I decided that eating the surplus food in the first few days of the trip would be best, as it would lighten my load and provide me more energy at a time when my body was still not used to such intense exertion. After just a few minutes of performing these mental acrobatics to justify breaking my food schedule, I chowed down. Disgusting, of course—but filling nonetheless.
It was dark before I started to hang my pack in a nearby tree as a precaution against bears. On the first two evenings, this task had been done in daylight. Now, flashlight in mouth, I was struggling. I tied one end of my cord to my pack and the other to a stick, and then attempted at least ten times to throw the stick over a tree branch. When I finally got it, the stick dangled about twelve feet above the ground—just out of reach. I had to pull it down and select a lower branch. After another seven throws, the cord was over the lower branch and I began to hoist with all my might. I really wished that I had packed my food in a stuff sack so that didn’t have to hang the whole pack. Bad planning. When I finally tied off the end of the rope and inspected my work, I realized that even a medium-sized black bear could easily reach the pack from the trunk of the tree. I sighed and went to bed.
8/12/08
Breakfast was the first thing on my mind when I awoke next to Soda Mountain Road. I got my pack out of the tree (no bears!) and eagerly ate another pound of food. For some reason, the summer sausage was more repulsive than usual.
The scenery of my morning hike alternated between shady forests and warm, dry meadows. I noticed within the first few minutes of walking that my energy level was much better than before. I attributed this to going to bed with something in my stomach.
In the early afternoon, I stopped for lunch near a small reservoir. The dilapidated dam that held it at bay seemed almost ready to burst. Streams of water poured through obvious cracks. A strange system of pipes had been retrofitted to the structure, allowing some water to be siphoned to the other side of the dam instead of all of it pouring over the top. I guessed that these were intended to reduce the strain on the sorry device. If the dam ever failed, the ensuing flood would surely destroy the nice bridge that the PCT uses to cross the overflow stream.
After lunch, I was given some great views of Hyatt Lake. The trail wraps around the south and east sides of this body of water, but not very close to the shore. By virtue of my elevation and distance from the water, I was able to observe large portions of the lake at one time. I appreciated its scenic beauty and hoped that Howard Prairie
