August 15th, 2022 by Jon
We woke, and it was cold. Very cold. Colder than it’s been in months. We got ready quickly, and I had to wear my beanie and down jacket for warmth. I managed to find chai tea latte packets at the store, something I had back in the Sierras, and it’s great to have them again. Breakfast eaten and caffeine in my body, we began our hike. Today we wanted to hike a big day. We continued walking through the forest. We could tell the sun was up, but the trees were so thick here that light didn’t seem to penetrate through the darkness. We continued gently descending for about 2 miles to a small river at the bottom of a valley. There were some tents here, and we were pretty sure Stealth had camped here last night. We saw Tits as well, but he looked like he had barely woken up, so we snuck by as it was still pretty early.
It had been less than an hour since we started hiking, but it was already much warmer than it was when we started. With the climb that began just after the river, Singsong and I both began to sweat, so we stopped to de-layer before continuing. We had 3 or 4 miles of climbing up and over a ridge before descending. We crossed several dirt roads as we went downhill and took our first break near one to eat a snack. Stealth showed up as well, and we managed to make a reservation for breakfast tomorrow at 9 am at Timberline Lodge. It’s a pretty legendary breakfast buffet, and we’re extremely excited for it.
We got to the bottom of the ridge and began walking a long flat section. We passed the sign that told us we had entered Mt. Hood National Forest, and for the first time on the trail, I felt like I was getting back to the Pacific Northwest, and that felt really good. We kept hiking for a few more miles and came to a trail junction where you could head to a nearby horse camp. Rumor had it that there was a clean pit toilet there and garbage dumpsters as well. We went to check it out and sure enough, both were there. We took advantage of both hiker luxuries before pushing out again.
The trail led up a small ridge, and we came to the southern end of Timothy Lake, a popular camping and hiking area for locals. The PCT went around its eastern rim, and we saw lots of day hikers and campers. The lake was beautiful, and we got our first glimpses of Mt. Hood. We hiked along, admiring all the nice campsites by the lake before finally walking by the inlet of the lake and crossing a small footbridge over it. We found some shade there in some trees and ate our lunch as we watched a good-sized inflow of water rush by. We sat there for a solid 45 minutes before packing up and heading out once again.
We hiked a little way along flat ground before taking a short detour to check out Little Crater Lake just off the trail. A tectonic plate slipped, and as a result, water was forced up towards the surface, dissolving some of the limestone there and creating a deep-blue pond. It was very cool to see. We kept hiking afterward and had a short, steep climb up a ridge. We hiked along it for a while, admiring the views of Mt. Hood, which was very prominent and towering above a nearby ridge line. The trail led down to Highway 26, and we had to wait to cross the busy highway. Once we crossed, the trail led uphill again and reached the top of another nameless ridge, which didn’t offer much in the way of views due to a thick pine forest covering everything. We came back down again and found a small flat area with a picnic table, where we set up camp. We hiked 29 miles today, our longest yet, and set us up for a 5.4-mile climb up to Timberline Lodge tomorrow morning. Today’s blog is somewhat short because I was totally exhausted when we finally got to camp.
