Lava is hard to walk on. No, not molten lava, the kind that spits orange magma into the air like in Hawaii (you would certainly injure yourself quite badly…or die), but lava that has been cooled and hardened for thousands of years. It’s impressive a trail was even built through it. The mostly hollow rock, the consistency and look of a hardened sponge, lays spread out in small and medium size chunks for you to walk over. It crackles underneath your weight, much like the music Rice Krispies make in a nearly frozen bath of whole milk.
Your ankles twist in weird angles, trying to even your weight on the uneven surface. The rock salad moves around, fluid and chalky, perfectly in tune with the laws of physics thrust upon it.
The rocks are hot too. Mostly black, they absorb and radiate heat. This is especially evident in the afternoon, around 3 or 4, when the sun is the most miserable and enough time has passed to trap enough energy in the molten earth to make it feel as if it were magma again. If it wasn’t for the nice views of the Three Sisters, a series of giant mountains, this section of trail just north of McKenzie Pass would be nothing more than a frustrating snooze fest.
“Shit,” Carolyn said over the snap, crackle, pop of walking over lava. “My bottom button fell off my shirt.”
She turned around, pale blue button in hand, the same color as the perfectly clear sky. Her white stomach and belly button poked out underneath the inverse V shape of the shirt.
I laughed.
“Shut up,” she said, giggling.
“New trail name,” I said. “Belly Dancer.”
She snapped her hip belt in place, tightened the straps across her waist. It acted like the missing button, clinching shut the inverse V, concealing her belly button.
“Not so bad,” she said, turning away and walking on.
The afternoon was a mess of dry heat. The sun slathered itself over our already salted bodies. My pale blue shirt had a ring of dried sweat around the back collar of my neck, and two large stains under each armpit. You could have probably scratched it off, collected all the shavings in a salt shaker to use later; to add more salt to the already sodium infused Ramen Noodle packets that awaited our devouring for dinner.
After crossing McKenzie pass, the lava persisted for another mile and then stopped. Back in the sparse canopy of spread out pine trees, we hung a left towards Lava Lake Camp to find water at the lake.
Their was laughter at the lake. A large group of kids were swimming. Someone was kayaking, their dogs paddling along side them in the water, trying to stay afloat.
The water looked somewhat dirty.Unclean. Certainly not something you wanted to put inside your body. A sheen of something oily glossed the surface. Sunscreen. Insect repellent. Maybe something else entirely.
We dunked our water bottles in. We needed the water for the night, and this was the only water within miles.
One. Two. Three drops of bleach in each liter of water. We shook each one well, said a prayer.
On our way back to the trail a sign from the Centers for Disease Control was posted on the campground board.
“Swimmers from this Lake have reported symptoms of Swimmers Itch.”
This caught our attention.
“Several people have contracted small red itchy spots after swimming in Lava Camp Lake. These spots do not require medical attention.
It is a skin rash caused by an allergic reaction to infection with certain parasites of birds and mammals.
Refrain from swimming in the lake or dry off immediately after swimming.”
The bulletin went on to illustrate the life cycle of the parasites.
We looked at each other.
“Gross,” I said.
“Hopefully the bleach works,” Carolyn replied, looking at the water.
I looked at the water closer, expecting to see things swimming. Like some kind of red dots floating around. Or some small thin vermicelli noodle looking worms, narrow like white thinning hair, squirming and writhing.
But luckily, I didn’t see much of anything. The water was pretty clear.
“It’ll be fine…” I said.
Night came and then morning. We both felt fine. The bleach appeared to have worked.
The next night came and then morning. We woke up at the edge of a meadow, sunlight filtering into the small woods, lighting it up like sunbeams blasting through the sky light of a living room with painted white walls. It was our last day hiking in Oregon. Carolyn was going to be all caught up.
We arrived at Elk Lake early afternoon. It was a busy place. Cars were all packed together in the small parking lot, more cars lined the narrow entrance street, like a kid playing with matchbox cars, a disorganized mess.
We found a spot by the lake to rest. We were out of food but it was too early to eat dinner. We planned to camp the night at the campground there, and then hitch into Bend the following morning.
We passed the hours reading, watching the activity on the lake. Kids swam. People canoed. Kayaked. Stand up paddle boarded. The restaurant was buzzing with people. Beers were delivered in pitchers. Hikers and tourists sat outside under army shaded brown and green umbrellas getting drunk, eating overpriced hamburgers and chicken wings. Summertime chatter and laughter flooded the lakefront.
A girl approached us, brown hair, fair skin with freckles. Slightly sunburnt.
“Do you mind watching my stuff for a few minutes?” She asked, pulling her green stuff sack up into view.
“No problem,” we responded. “Are you hiking the PCT?”
“Yeah, just a section. I finished up today. I started at Mt. Shasta.” She sounded tired. “How about you guys?”
“We finished a section up today too,” I said. We started at Cascade Locks and headed here. We missed it last year on our thru-hike. We are renting a car in Bend and heading to northern Washington to finish the trail from Stevens Pass to the Canadian border.”
“That’s so cool,” she replied. “This was a LOT harder than I thought it was going to be. I don’t think I’d ever want to thru-hike.”
“That’s what I said after last year,” said, Carolyn. “Nothing longer than 500 miles from now on. It was too much.”
“I don’t know how people find it fun,” she said.
“It’s not!” Carolyn replied. They laughed.
I smiled. I thought a little differently on the subject.
“I have a campsite,” she said. “Your welcome to put your tent up there for tonight so you don’t have to pay.”
“Wow, thanks so much,” I replied.
She left to go swimming in the lake. When she got back we headed to the campsite, set up our tent and unpacked our things. Tonight was the 13th straight night in a row sleeping in the tent. Probably a record for us. The city of Bend sounded so good. I could here the air conditioning 32 miles away, could feel the soft sheets of the hotel bed, waiting for us.
Night came and cooled off some of the earth. Sleep came easy, aside from the loud campers to our north. They were up late, drinking, laughing, playing cards, banging and fumbling around with all their stuff. Camping chairs. Coleman stove. Headlamps. Stoking the fire. Drunkenly talking about life. How there jobs stank. How they didn’t want to go back to them.
In the morning we found ourselves by the road, thumbs at the ready. Everything was quiet. A car came after ten minutes, passed without even a second look.
20 more minutes went by. Another car, a truck, passed us, speeding up and screaming by.
30 minutes went by. Another few cars. No luck.
Sometimes hitch hiking is a lot like fishing. You just cast out your line and wait for a bite.
We saw an RV in the distance. RVs never stop. We put up our thumbs anyway, if you don’t play the game you can never win.
To our amazement the RV slowed down, stopped by the side of the road. The driver waved us in. It was a sweet older couple from Bend. He had large sunglasses on, she wore a simple, sweet smile.
We exchanged stories of the trail for a ride into town. They pointed out the ski mountain.
“You ski?” she asked. “The skiing is great in Bend. Mount Bachelor got over 500 inches this season. The biggest in 25 years.”
I nodded, looked out the moving window. Mount Bachelor stood over a giant meadow, moving slowly with the fast moving car. Snow lingered on its slopes, patches of white on black and grey, like a giant, melting ice cream cone. Vanilla with chocolate chip.
“What do you do that you get the summer off?” She asked.
We told them about the last 16 months over the roar of the road. The RV swayed. Pine trees blurred past the window, streaks of auburn and dull green.
Yellow grass swayed in the soft breeze, thick strips of straw, dry and sun burnt, sticking out of the dust and rocks, alone together in the sharp, Oregon heat.
We sat in the RV, listening to all of it.
