It’s been eight straight days and 150 miles of sweat, misquitoes, dust and forest fires. Oregon is dry. Really dry. And hot. Very hot.
Clouds are all but absent here, as if they were somehow sucked out of the sky by some large Hoover vacuum, leaving one blinding shade of perfectly clear indigo sky to dominate the stratosphere. The sun shines right through it, blasting a laser beam of UV energy straight into you. If you don’t have a hat or sunglasses, good luck. Not only will your ears blister like a poison ivy rash, you’ll probably go blind too, which would be a real catastrophe. You would get lost, sure, but most importantly, you wouldn’t be able to see where the mosquitoes are landing all over your body to swat them away, or better yet, smash them out of existence.
Those tiny little flying insects, the spawn of Satan himself, are of biblical proportions right now. Burped up from the hollows of hell, they swarm the snow melted landscape in search for unsuspecting hikers. Hiker blood is the best kind, or so legend has it. It’s much sweeter than normal people’s blood. You have the Mars and Nestle company to blame for that. Snickers. Twix. Milkway. These tasty treats may seem like a good snack, but they overload the blood stream with sugar, make them sweet and succulent. The mosquitoes can’t seem to get enough. They go on suicide missions just trying to get a small taste. They’ll risk getting obliterated by the smashing of a sunburnt hand on dry flesh just to drink a little bit of that pre-diabetes blood.
The only thing mosquitoes hate worse than smoke from a burning forest fire is DEET. A chemical known to melt plastics, its the only thing that will make you invisible to these miniature vampires. We slather it all over our dusty legs, the back of our hands and skin-cracked ears. The risk of cancer is worth the reward. The forest becomes bearable then. The tiny devils go away, but still stay near, like flies hovering over horse manure.
There’s at least two fires near the PCT. The first one burns right on the Eagle Creek trail south of Cascade Locks. You can see the thick smoke billowing up from the trees. The other fire is east of the Jefferson Wilderness. Some teenagers started that one. Got held by the forest service for questioning. We heard the constant hum of helicopters flying over Mt Jefferson basin, collecting water from the big lake there to dump on the fire. Smoke filled the air and made it hazy, like how Beijing might look during an air quality alert day, thick and chalkly, like walking through a BBQ smoker.
The miles went quick. Oregon is mostly flat and the hiking is easy. After battling the nightmare landscape that is the Long Trail, this was a pleasant change of pace. 20 miles can comfortably be covered in 7 or 8 hours. You can take breaks where the mosquitoes aren’t too bad; stop and look at the landscape, swim in a lake to wash off your dried and salty skin. The large string of volcanoes are impressive. Mount Hood. Jefferson. Three Fingered Jack. They dominate the surrounding landscape, hover over it like a calm watch dog. They demand attention and they hog the spotlight. It’s in their nature.
We arrived in Sisters Oregon yesterday, after hitch hiking down from Santiam pass from a couple in a Subaru. Oregonians are like that. The whole state probably owns the majority of Subaru and Volvo station wagons in the entire country, with the same dust colored dirt green paint job as their friends.
Sisters is mostly an expensive tourist trap. It’s hot and dry, even more so than the spine of the PCT. You have to avoid walking on the dried up crispy and pathetic grass. Just the friction from your sneakers alone may be enough to spark the ground ablaze. A small flicker and then, boom! With one swift wind, the entire town could be a giant bonfire.
Everything in Oregon is ripe with buzz words, and this is evidenced very strongly in Sisters. Everywhere you turn you see signs saying local, artisan, organic, gluten free, farm to table, craft beer. Okay. We get it. I swear, if the town police catch you walking your dog and leaving its shit on the sidewalk, your punishment would be to eat a basket full of genetically modified Roma tomatoes from South America. That, or you’d only be able to drink Mileaukees Best Light beer for the rest of the year. AND they would make you shave off your perfectly manicured Paul Bunyan beard that you worked several years to perfect, using only the very best localy sourced organic bees wax to get it looking just right.
We are taking a zero day here. We are ahead of schedule and there is no need to rush. There is a decent campground in town, right by a Creek. It’s cheap for hikers and cyclists. 5 dollars. We figured it’s a cheap enough place to spend a few nights. There are hordes of cycle tourists here. Turns out the Trans American trail goes right through Sisters. This is the most popular cross country cycling route in the States. It seems forever ago now when I cycled across the country. It made me miss it a little bit, even though I bitched and complained about a lot of it. Funny how that works. Allow enough time to pass, and something like walking for three days straight in pouring rain in Vermont can seem like a restful day lounging on the beach.
We only have 45 miles left of Oregon, and then Carolyn will be caught up on her PCT progress. We’ll then head north to Stevens Pass where we both left the trail last year. Another 190 miles north lays the Canadian border. It’s been a long time in the making, but I’m finally ready to see it and put the Tripple Crown to rest. It’s time.
