[pct-l] Oregon weather / Section C & D report / The Pack

[Suzannah Swinehart]

You're not kidding about that long night! 

My dad and I finished our section hike of Oregon's C & D on Monday afternoon. We spent Sunday night just below Diamond Peak and yes, the storms just kept coming...and going...and coming back in again. Lightning tends to make me a little jumpy when it's less than 2 seconds away and you're at 7000 feet, but we made it through :)

The weather was actually pretty good for most of our hike. It was sunny for the first 8 days, and just as I thought I was going to melt from the heat, the cloud cover came in. Unfortunately, with all the lightning the area filled up with smoke Monday morning, but the weather should help keep fires from blowing up. We actually called in a fire using my cell phone, from a rare spot where I could get a signal out. (Don't worry Paul, I only turn it on every so often to get a text out reassuring my mom...it is a nice break to be "off the grid"! :) )

We had a great time and met quite a few of The Pack, though none of the ones I'd met a few weeks ago in Old Station (save two who had skipped ahead to rejoin friends). It was fun to put faces with so many of the trail journals I'd been reading this summer. I think I may have scared a few hikers that they had a potential stalker, but hopefully they'll keep writing :) Reports from a southbounder said that there were maybe 90 hikers ahead of us, so I'd say that puts the pack solidly in Oregon around now. 

As for trail magic, I can personally say that Hwy 138, north of Crater Lake, is a great spot. It's 15 miles into a 25 mile dry section, and the next 8 miles are spent dragging your sorry behinds up the side of Mt Thielsen. I am soooo over hearing thru-hikers talk about how FLAT and EASY Oregon is! Bah!  Anyway, we'd cached ourselves some water and had some left over to share with incoming hikers...it was well received. Ricola and (??) from '07 had  left some treats there at the beginning of the month, but it was pretty well raided. Plus there is a trailhead campground 1/4 mile from the trail (complete with pit toilet!), so you can even be a magician in comfort!

The highlight of the trip for me was probably getting to see Crater Lake for the first time, despite having lived in Oregon my whole life. We spent a relaxed afternoon at the campground store getting clean and fed, then decided to hike up to Dutton Creek to spend the night. But...the almost-full moon was rising, so we just kept going up...and up...and up...and reached the rim around 10:30 pm. CL by moonlight is a beautiful thing.

And yes, for anyone heading out there on the trail, BRING DEET. We had the 98% stuff and I swear the mosquitoes from Summit Lake -> north were lapping it up. I seem to be a mosquito magnet so I wound up hiking most of Diamond Peak Wilderness in long sleeves, long pants, a headnet, and...finally resorting to putting my rain poncho on over it all since they were biting through my deet-sprayed clothes. I was a sight coming down the trail. I guess I have not yet reached my "zen state" with mosquitoes that Don't Panic was so serenely describing...

Okay, enough writing. My legs are twitching with an uncontrollable urge to go walk somewhere.

-Chipmunk

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