Tim & Gerri's Wild Ride
Email & Facebook Gerri:
  • Home
  • Worldwide Travel
    • Everest 2025 >
      • 2025 Everest Packing List
      • Everest Blog Summary
    • 2024 Europe Tour >
      • 2024 Europe Tour Packing List
      • Europe 2024 Blog Summary
    • Asia 2023 >
      • Asia 2022 Packing List
      • Asia 2023 Blog Summary
    • Eastern Europe 2022 >
      • Eastern Europe 2022 Blog Summary
      • Eastern Europe 2022 Packing List
    • Narrowboat Holiday 2022 >
      • Narrowboat 2022 Blog
      • Narrowboat 2022 Packing List
    • Ireland & UK 2019 >
      • Ireland & UK Itineray
      • Ireland & UK Blog Summary
      • Ireland & UK Packing List
    • France 2018 >
      • France Itinerary
      • Blog Summary
    • European Tour 2017 >
      • European Vacation Blog
      • Blog Summary
    • Southeast Asia 2014-15 >
      • Southeast Asia Blog
      • Packing List
      • Blog Summary
    • Afghanistan 2011-12
  • United States Travel
    • Great Lakes Sail 2020 >
      • Great Lakes Sail 2020 Blog
      • Blog Summary
    • Trans-America Bicycle Ride >
      • Blog Summary
      • Our Team
      • Equipment
      • Breweries Along Route
    • Pacific Crest Trail >
      • Pacific Crest Trail 2016 >
        • What is the PCT? - 2016
        • Why Hike the PCT? - 2016
        • Gear - 2016
        • Itinerary - 2016
        • PCT Blog Summary - 2016
        • Where are we now? - 2016
      • Pacific Crest Trail 2014 >
        • What is the PCT?
        • Why Hike the PCT?
        • Gear
        • Food
        • Itinerary
        • Blog Summary
        • Where are we now?
    • Motorcycle Ride 2014 >
      • Motorcycle Blog
  • Brewery Visits
    • 2025 Breweries
    • 2024 Breweries
    • 2023 Breweries
    • 2022 Breweries
    • 2021 Breweries
    • 2020 Breweries
    • 2019 Breweries
    • 2018 Breweries
    • 2017 Breweries
    • 2016 Breweries
    • 2015 Breweries
    • 2014 Breweries
    • 2013 Breweries
    • 2012 Breweries
    • 2011 Breweries
    • 2010 Breweries
    • 2009 Breweries
    • 2008 Breweries
    • 2007 Breweries
    • 2006 Breweries
    • 2005 Breweries
    • 2004 Breweries
    • 2003 Breweries
    • 2002 Breweries

Day 138 (4 September) - Mile 1818.43 - 1845.42

9/4/2016

0 Comments

 

Crater Lake National Park, Mazama Village Campground to North Crater Trailhead

We woke up freezing this morning. Share Bear's thermometer read 25 degrees...literally freezing. We quickly got our gear together and walked back to the general store. The sun was rising on the other side of the building so the picnic table was in the shade. The warmest place we found to eat breakfast was the laundry room, so we piled in there. Between the cold outside and the warmth of the laundry room we seemed to take our time getting ready to hike. We were all finally ready to go at 8:50 AM, at least one hour later than I planned.
Picture
Ready to hike with Brother Frier and Indra
We are slack packing today and Indra is joining us. We first met Indra north of Yosemite about 1.5 months back. She has been a day or so in front of us lately, but she had a few days where she wasn't feeling good so put in some shorter days, allowing us to catch up to her. ​

Today is an exciting day. We get to hike the 9.3 mile rim trail along Crater Lake. This trail is actually an alternate of the PCT and is 5.5 miles shorter than the PCT. It may be shorter, but it is a lot harder with more ups and downs than the actual PCT. Pretty much every PCT hiker takes this alternate because if you didn't then you would not see Crater Lake at all. Which means you would miss seeing this:
Picture
My first view of Crater Lake
How incredible is that?!?  Well, here are some more photos of this amazing place:
Picture
Picture
Epic Crater Lake photo of Tim & I
Picture
Wizard Island within Crater Lake
Coming here I thought, as I assume many of you do, that the crater this lake is in was formed by a meteor. Well, it wasn't. This crater was once a huge volcano that erupted and fell inside itself and formed the crater. Wizard Island within the lake is actually a volcano.
Picture
Alternate PCT sign of the day
As you can imagine, we didn't make great time as we hiked along the lake. We kept stopping and staring and admiring and taking photos is the lake.
Picture
Amazing
Picture
Selfie while Brad takes a selfie
Picture
What an amazing blue
Picture
Incredible...I can't get enough
We made it to the Watchman Trailhead which at 7,671 is the highest point remaining for us for the rest of the PCT. I guess it is all downhill from here.
Picture
Watchman trailhead
Hiking along the rim of Crater Lake is definitely a highlight of the PCT.
Picture
Brad hiking the rim
Picture
One last view
After 6.3 miles of rim hiking the rim trail headed away from Crater Lake and back towards the actual PCT.  About 0.5 miles later we saw Tim hiking towards us. 2 miles later we were at the trailhead where he parked.
Picture
The 4Runner & trailer waiting for us
At this point we had a decision to make whether to hike on the 8.8 miles to Highway 138 as originally planned or hike some of the way. If we can hike the entire distance Tim can meet us at the highway so we can slack pack. If we plan on stopping short we have to carry all our gear. Oh, by the way. It was almost 4:30 PM when we had to make this decision. ​

After a short discussion and looking at the climbing profile and seeing that in the 8.8 miles we climb only 261 feet and go down only 858 feet we were confident we could make it there before full dark. So we headed back out.
Picture
Back on the PCT
We took it as a challenge to get these 9 miles done as fast as we could. We figured we could easily hike 3 miles per hour given the terrain and slack packing. Meaning we should make it to Tim in 3 hours. In the first hour we covered 3.4 miles...amazing. Just over 2.5 hours later we made it to the highway, and 10 minutes later we made it to Tim.
Picture
Highway 138 crossing
Picture
PCT sign - old & new
Tim was quite surprised to see us so early. He figured we would be another hour or so. Woohoo...we are awesome. Brad and Indra showed up 10 minutes later. They had an awesome hike as well. ​

We all quickly ate dinner and got in our tent to get warm. 

Tomorrow we start a 3 day stretch without Tim.  He will be staying in an AirBnB south of Bend, as we continue dealing with these cold evenings and mornings. Good for him...after all the support he has provided the past week, he deserves it.
Picture
Inside our cold, dark home for the night
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.