Oregon: Santiam Pass to Ashland

After leaving the comfortable bed and home-cooked meals in Black Butte, we were dropped back off at Santiam Pass. We planned to hike only a few miles, but continued for 8 miles south on the PCT through a huge burn area (with no camping) and ending the night at Big Lake Youth Camp. This “hiker friendly” camp was about a mile off the trail and worth every step. They offered hikers free meals, built a hiker shed with chairs and outlets for charging phones, they offered free laundry, showers, and directed hikers to camps along the cove of Big Lake with a picturesque view of Three Fingered Jack and Mount Jefferson in the distance. The next day we hiked through lava fields around Belknap and Mount Washington. In the lava fields we saw Pikas, the small bunny-mouse creatures I’d only ever seen in the Sierras, and views of the Three Sisters and Broken Top. We were thankful at this point to have switched out our trail running shoes in Portland for sturdy boots.

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When we reached highway 242, we met another Trail Angel, the infamous “Coppertone” who greeted us with cold Rootbeer Floats! What a beautiful human.

Over the next few days we hiked through the Three Sisters Wilderness. This area is one of the geologically most awesome places I’ve ever seen. As we headed south, we hiked right along the North Sister, Middle Sister and South Sister. The first half of this wilderness area we saw the most colorful rocks of all types, including almost a mile around Obsidian Falls covered with beautiful black, shiny Obsidian. The second half of the wilderness was somewhat of a sharp contrast, filled with tons of lakes and diverse forest canopy. We were able to get our fill of swims and sun bathing in before we headed into Diamond Peak Wilderness area and a rest day at Odell Lake.

Diamond Peak is special to both Jordan and myself because it is where we had our first backpacking experiences – independent of each other – more than 8 years ago. Although we know much has changed during that time, this wilderness area still felt the same. Our zero day at Shelter Cove Resort on Odell Lake was much needed. My feet had begun to act up again and walking with my pack was extremely painful. We stayed in the PCT hiker camping area, talked with lots of hikers, sat in the sun by the lake, found an area to meditate and do some yoga, drank not-so-good beer and ate several hot dogs with all the fixins. Little did we know, this would be one of the last hiker-filled stops we would make on our trip.

We continued south through Diamond Peak Wilderness, taking the Oregon Skyline alternate trail and weaving into the Willamette and Deschutes National Forests. The trail was dry, dusty, and HOT. There were many lakes to see, unfortunately it seemed we timed our breaks badly and ended at small mucky lakes that were still beautiful, but terrible for swimming in. (We do not recommend Nip and Tuck Lakes…) However, we did take notes on the lakes other hikers raved about and we will be returning at some point for some top notch swimming.

Our longest day in Oregon was hiking through Mount Thielsen Wilderness, about 26 miles. This section takes you right along the western side of Mount Thielsen, which is very, very pointy and still appears to have a glacier on it. The forests in this area felt healthy and diverse and the soft ground was like butter on my feet.

Next, we entered Crater Lake National Park. We took the Rim Trail, aptly named, and walked for about 7 miles on an often steep and sandy trail around the rim of Crater Lake. We found a beautiful spot to meditate and then spent the next several hours running into “old friends” that we had hiked with at some point prior to our departure at Lake Tahoe. It was an amazing day. I’ve seen Crater Lake once before, but this was a different experience all together. There are no words that can really convey the feeling of awe that this lake produces. We were lucky to be here, knowing that only a few weeks ago this trail was closed due to a fire just west of the rim. We could still see small amounts of the smoke from the fire, including a small section inside the rim where the fire had jumped, but there were signs posted acknowledging that there will be smoke for several weeks and asking people to not call it in…

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Exiting the park, the trails in the Sky Lakes Wilderness were heavily forested and often filled with downed trees. We made a game of hopping over logs: commentating, awarding points and announcing winners of various obstacles. Although somewhat exhausting after a few miles, we managed to have a blast. We had some steep rocky climbs in this area too- near Devil’s Peak. The footing was tough, shale for miles, but the views made everything worth it. We came upon Mt. McLaughlin- a classic, almost perfect looking peak surrounded with huge old growth forests. We had a great stop at Fish Lake Resort, 2 miles off the trail, known for their burgers and welcoming environment. I would highly recommend this stop and we can’t wait to come back in the future and get our fishing on.

We ended this section in the Soda Mountain Wilderness. This area was a lot more rugged with many micro climates ranging from thick forest canopy to exposed, grassy oak savannas. On the first weekend of September we found our way to Interstate 5 near Ashland, OR and walked along a road to Callahans Lodge and Restaurant. We enjoyed a free hiker beer and delicious food while we waited for our lovely friend Emily and her 5 month old to whisk us away for a few days in Ashland.

The Gap fire south of Ashland caused part of the PCT to closed. We waited for a few days in Ashland (not a terrible place to be at all) until we could make further plans. Looks like we will have to be flexible about our plans, but at this point we both feel pretty accomplished.

Chia & Topo