August 5th, 2022
When we woke up this morning, it was actually cold again. When we got out of our tent, the mosquitoes buzzed around incessantly. We hid in our rain jackets and face nets and killed the ones on our legs as they landed. The last few towns have all been completely out of DEET, and we used the last of it to provide a thin layer of armor against the marauding army. Soon we were ready to go, so we took off our rain jackets and began the run down the trail. Biscuit had left 20 minutes ago, and Missile had left about 10 minutes ago. The trail continued through the dry forest for a while, with fairly flat terrain. After a short while, the trail began to climb. We switchbacked through an evergreen forest and climbed to the top of a ridge covered in loose rock.
We walked along the ledge, with great views of the surrounding hills, before getting on top of the ridge itself and walking along it for a while. After 5 miles of hiking, we came to the Snow Lake junction, which was off-trail a ways and the first water in about 10 miles. Thankfully, we had enough to get us to the creek in a few miles, but we still took a break at the junction anyway. We sat there and had service, so we messaged a few trail angels to try to arrange a ride around the fire closure that is coming after Crater Lake. We continued hiking along the ridge afterward and worked our way up to the top.
When we got there, we had some hazy views of the upcoming mountains. We began hiking down the ridge on the other side and passed several small creeks over the next few miles. When we got to the last stream, we stopped to pick up some water, took a short break, and then hiked to Honeymoon Creek, which turned out to be more of a pond with a small flow through it. We took lunch there and filled a lot of water because there isn’t another marked water source until Crater Lake, 20 miles away, which would have made for a 30-mile day, plus a bit of a road walk.
Instead, we decided to hike another 15 miles, and we could see a pond on the satellite map just a small distance off-trail. We found some comments that said the pond was still there, so we took 4 liters of water, which would give us enough to get by tonight if the pond wasn’t there, but life would be much better if there was water. After eating, we left around 1:30, having 15 miles to hike. We decided to break it into 3, 5-mile chunks. The first section was through thick green forest, and it was a gentle climb the whole time. The trail wound past little meadows and thick trees. The shade felt good to hike in during the heat of the day.
We came to a small rocky outcropping and took a break there, having finished the first 5-mile chunk of our afternoon hike. We entered the next one, and after another mile or so of walking through the lush forest, we entered a large burn zone. It was definitely an older burn because many of the small pine saplings growing were 6-8 feet tall. Burned trees towered over us as we walked through an ash-covered trail. We had great views, though, without a green tunnel to cover the trail. We got to a burned-out tent site with lots of widowmaker trees hanging overhead. We sat there for another break, and at 5:30, we left to hike the last 5 miles to camp.
We had another 2 miles of burn and got up, over, and down a ridge before we got back into the trees. Before we did, we passed the sign indicating that we had entered Crater Lake National Park! We walked through more green trees and signed a trail register as it got darker. At 7:15 or so, we hit mile 1817, turned, and walked up a hill next to the trail. After a bit of bushwhacking up the hill, we came to a large flat area right next to a small pond. We set up our tent, ate dinner, and decided to sleep in tomorrow since the store didn’t open until 9:00. We have 4 miles to hike to the road, and then a mile and a half road walk to get to the Mazama Store and the restaurant that’s there.
The places you both hike through look amazing!