PCT 105 – Out of Timberline

Daily Miles: 17
Total Miles: 2111

After a sweltering night in our motel room, we headed back up to Timberline Lodge. Qball was at the lodge, so we got to hang out with him for a bit. MountainMan and his mom, Carol, headed out while we finished up a few town tasks. We said goodbye to Ace and then Qball walked with us exactly a quarter mile on the trail. He turned around and we headed up the trail. We will see Qball again in a week, so we didn’t have to say a real goodbye.

We walked for an hour or so before catching up to MountainMan and Carol. There were lots of views of Mount Hood for us to admire throughout the morning.

We hit the 2100 mile mark this morning and took the obligatory photo. Not sure if the photo quite captures the demise of SweetPea’s shoes. The fabric on top of her shoes has split almost all the way across her shoe. Luckily she has new shoes waiting for her at Cascade Locks.

After lunch, we had a nice few miles of downhill to a river crossing which had two large trees across it. The way the trees were laying, you basically had to shuffle sideways along the lower tree while holding onto the upper tree. There was a rope tied along the upper tree to give you something to hold on to, but it was still a bit awkward.

Once we crossed the river, that marked the start of a three mile climb. Unfortunately for Carol, it was a pretty steep climb. But she is in great shape and steadily got to the top. We passed a group of four ladies on one switchback (they were out for just a night or two and appeared to all be between their late 50’s and mid 70’s) who talked about the relentless uphill we had in front of us. Not really what we wanted to hear, even if it was true, but the ladies were pretty funny.

Tonight we are camped near a dirt road with three other thru-hikers. We had dinner with two of the guys who are from California and who are doing a flip-flop, which in their case means that they started at Agua Dulce going north and once they get to the Canadian border, they’ll go back to Agua Dulce and hike south to the Mexico border. They were really nice guys and they even knew some hikers that Beardoh had met on his 2012 PCT hike.