CHAPTER FOUR
FORESTS, LAKES & VOLCANOES: OREGON

Wrangle Gap to the Columbia River

August 1 to August 26

444 miles

 

The walk through Oregon began with an urban break in the city of Ashland. My first full day in the State I walked just four miles along a dirt road before a car carrying some of the geology students stopped and offered me a lift. Their two weeks sojourn in the woods was over and they were returning to Ashland. I’d been considering hitch-hiking there anyway in order to sort out my broken pack so this ride was welcome. I was in the big city by lunchtime (not that big I guess but with a population of 20,000+ it seemed huge to me). As it was Sunday the only outdoor store I could find was closed so I decided to stay overnight, which actually became two nights. Ashland is famous for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which was on at the time so the town was very much Shakespeare themed. I thought of seeing a play but the one on that night was Henry V, which didn’t appeal. I think A Midsummer Night’s Dream would have been more appropriate for my walk. Instead of a play I went to a party – beer, music and talking. This was the students’ end of course party to which I’d been invited and was just like the many student parties I’d been to back home when I was at college. I was also offered a floor to sleep on, which was welcome.

Much of my second day in Ashland was spent in the Sun Cycle outdoor shop deliberating about a new pack. As I’d suspected mine couldn’t be repaired, at least not here. Ideally I wanted another one with an internal frame – one as similar as possible to mine in fact. However none of the internal frame models in the store were anything like as big as my 100 litre monster. I did try, dumping the contents of my old pack on the floor and attempting to stuff them into the biggest internal frame pack they had, much to the amusement of the tolerant and helpful staff. It was quickly evident that there was no way it would all fit. This meant I had to overcome my prejudices and consider an external frame pack (prejudices formed by using one on the Pennine Way in England six years earlier and not liking it), which meant one with a separate rigid tubular frame from which the pack hung. I ended up with a pack from The North Face with what I hoped was a promising name, Back Magic 1, chosen mainly because it was big enough but also because this was the model Dave had been given back in Mammoth Lakes and he’d been very pleased with it. With more pockets and compartments and the external frame it was as different as possible from my pack so I’d have to relearn how to pack it and how to adjust the straps for a comfortable carry, both of which were now automatic with my old one. I was reluctant to part with it but I didn’t want to hike another 1000 miles with an uncomfortable pack. The new one claimed to have a capacity of 87 litres but was at least as roomy as the old one (testing packs over the last 30 years has since taught me that litres are not a fixed quantity when it comes to pack volume!). The pack that had accompanied me this far, an old friend now, I sadly sent off to its British makers for repair. I hoped I would grow fond of the new one quickly, especially as it cost me $177.50 I didn’t really have.

Both the packs I used on the PCT would seem like heavyweight monsters to today’s thru-hikers. Back then lightweight packs made from materials like Dyneema and cuben fibre didn’t exist. Other gear was heavier and bulkier too so large capacity packs that could handle big heavy loads were needed. Despite the ruggedness failures were common as the suspension systems were complex with many components. Larry, Dave and Scott all changed packs during the hike.

After this city interlude I was glad to return to the trail and the woods. Two of the students gave me a lift up to Siskiyou Gap, where they’d picked me up. Now I could really start hiking the PCT through Oregon. Much of the trail in Oregon is fairly level and it has the reputation for being the easiest walking on the PCT, though there are some long dry sections where water has to be carried, making for a heavier load. In Southern Oregon the PCT follows the crest of the Cascades as here they are low, forested hills with occasional rock outcrops. I made only eight miles this first day though, stopping at the large Grouse Gap Shelter, which I shared with two families here on their annual outing. They arrived with a six week old kitten called Caesar, which they left with me while they went for a walk up Mount Ashland, which made for an unusual and entertaining few hours as I played with the kitten and ensured it didn’t wander off. On their return I was invited to join in their hot dog and toasted marshmallow supper as a big moon rose through the clouds above the still visible Mount Shasta, giving a dramatic night sky.

The first week on the PCT in Oregon wasn’t the most memorable part of the walk. The trail meandered through forests without much ascent or descent and without many views. This was multiple-use forest and there was much clear-cutting which gave an unnatural patchwork look to the forest with contrasting squares of regenerating forest, cleared forest and mature forest. On the first day from Grouse Gap the dramatic volcanic rock tower called Pilot Knob dominated the landscape. Further away I could see Mount Shasta dipping in and out of drifting clouds and again there were glimpses of Mount McLoughlin. This was my first full day with the new pack and after 20 miles I decided I liked it though the rattle of the split-rings that attached the pack to the frame was a little irritating.

There was much wildlife in the forest though – deer, squirrels, kestrels, grouse, ravens, hawks, humming birds – and where untouched the trees were marvellous. I identified two more – grand fir and noble fir – and reckoned the tiny booklet called Pacific Coast Tree Finder one of my best purchases. Twenty-eight years later I was to take the exact same booklet on the Pacific Northwest Trail and find it just as useful. From it I’d already identified nine pines, six firs, four cedars, two spruces, two hemlocks and Douglas fir, which isn’t actually a true fir at all. The richness of the forest continued to astound me.

Dotted through the forest in Southern Oregon are many large lakes, some with an attendant fishing resort prepared to hold parcels and mail for PCT hikers. Two days into Oregon I reached the first of these, Hyatt Lake Resort. There was a good café but the store was the poorest I’d yet seen for hiking food. With anglers as its main market all it sold was beer, soft drinks, crisps and candy bars. I had evening meals in my supply box but not much else so for breakfasts and day snacks I bought fifteen candy bars, which I reckoned should get me to the next resort in a couple of days and, hopefully, a better store for hikers. I did eat dinner and breakfast in the Hyatt Lake café, which saved me some food for later on.

Lake of the Woods Resort, reached two days later, did have a slightly better store, in that it had cheese, sugar and trail mix as well as candy bars, plus a good café where I had a lunch that was far better than a handful of those bars. On my shopping list I ticked off three items out of ten. At Hyatt Lake I’d ticked just one.

That evening it rained slightly for the first time in a few weeks and there was a cool breeze off Fourmile Lake by which I was camped. I noticed that it was already dark at 9 p.m. It was closer now to the autumn equinox than the summer solstice.

North of Fourmile Lake (actually a reservoir) the country was wilder and unspoilt. It’s now protected in the Sky Lakes Wilderness. The PCT ran right through this wilderness-to-be but didn’t visit any of the lakes. I soon passed Mount McLoughlin as the landscape grew more mountainous. The dominant peak was still Mount Shasta though, now far away to the south. Ahead I could see the jagged peaks around Crater Lake and beyond them the spire of Mount Thielsen. In places there were still a few snow patches to cross. I had one camp in the future Sky Lakes Wilderness beside Honeymoon Creek. In the evening rain began to fall and I could hear long slow rolls of thunder in the distance. Suddenly the storm reached me and from all around came echoing, rolling thunder and flashes of lightning. I was glad to be in the woods and not on an exposed site on a mountainside. The storm passed on as quickly as it arrived leaving a clear starry sky though I heard distant rumbles of thunder for hours afterwards.

A mostly viewless day in thick mountain hemlock forest led to roadside Mazama Campground and Crater Lake National Park, the only national park in Oregon. Just once, on a traverse called Watershed Divide, was there a view of the rock fang called Union Peak and the peaks ringing the south end of Crater Lake. I needed a permit to hike and camp in the backcountry in the park but these were self-issuing and there was a box of them where the PCT entered the park (today all thru-hikers need to do is sign the register at the same spot).

Mazama Campground offered an outdoor slide lecture on the Cascade volcanoes which I found useful and informative. A knowledge of geology always adds to the appreciation of a landscape and this volcanic area was one I didn’t know much about. Wanting to learn more the next day I bought a copy of Stephen Harris’s Fire and Ice: The Story of the Cascade Volcanoes (the updated current version is called Fire Mountains of the West). From this excellent book, which I carried for the rest of the walk, I learnt that Crater Lake is not really in a crater but in a caldera, which is the hole left when a volcano blows its top and then collapses in on itself.

At the time of my walk the PCT didn’t actually visit Crater Lake itself but stayed in the forest out of sight of the lake. I couldn’t imagine though that any hikers didn’t walk the short distance to the lake. It’s the most impressive sight on the PCT in Southern Oregon. Today the PCT has been divided into two here – equestrians are still directed down the old forested trail, hikers up to Crater Lake.

At the Crater Lake post office I collected a big food box – it was around nine days to the next supply point – and then topped up my supplies at the grocery store, which was far better than those at the fishing resorts. I noticed that my estimated date of collection was July 28th. Today was August 10th. The High Sierra was the reason of course. At Weldon I’d been two days behind schedule. By Echo Lakes this had risen to twelve days. I hadn’t yet made up any time. In the PCT Register there were no entries from Larry or Susie and both had mail waiting for them here. I couldn’t imagine Larry was behind me but did wonder if he’d stuck to the PCT and not come here.

Supplies sorted I walked on to magnificent Crater Lake, one of the great sights of the PCT. Despite having seen many pictures it was still breath-taking. With a depth of 1,932 feet it’s the deepest lake in the USA and the seventh deepest in the world. The basin it lies in is nearly 4,000 feet deep and the lake is five to six miles across. In geological terms it’s a very new lake, formed around 7,000 years ago when a 12,000 foot volcano, now named Mazama, erupted and disintegrated leaving behind a caldera that slowly filled with rain and snow to become Crater Lake. When Mazama erupted an estimated 12 cubic miles of volcanic material was blasted into the sky, traces of which have been found as far afield as British Columbia and Alberta, far to the north in Canada. The water in Crater Lake is very pure as there are few sediments and very little surface water runs into it. None runs out. This purity accounts for the brilliant ultramarine colour that greets you as you reach the rim and gaze 900 feet down to this fairy tale lake. Rarely have I been so moved on seeing a view as on first seeing Crater Lake and I spent hours walking along the rim and staring across it, fascinated by the circular shape, the deep blue colour, the volcanic cone of Wizard Island rising out of the water, and the coloured rock strata of the unbroken cliffs stretching in a great curve round it.

At Crater Lake I also had my first sighting of a bald eagle, one of the birds I most wanted to see on the walk. These magnificent white-headed eagles were once endangered but have made a good recovery due to conservation measures. PCT hikers today are far more likely to see bald eagles than in 1982. Slightly smaller than the golden eagle, which I was familiar with from the Scottish Highlands, bald eagles are fish eaters that frequent large bodies of water. Whilst I saw other large raptors that may have been bald or golden eagles they were usually too far away for certain identification. It was not until I reached Lake Chelan near the end of the walk that I was to see another bald eagle. I love seeing eagles, both because they are impressive in themselves but also because they signify wilderness. I did have a tiny pair of 8x20 binoculars with me that helped with bird and animal watching and identification and I watched the bald eagle soaring over Crater Lake through these.

Unsurprisingly Crater Lake is popular and this being the height of the summer season there were many other people around. Access is easy too as a road runs right round the rim. Eventually I tore myself away from the lake and dropped back down into the forest to camp. I don’t know if this was legal or not. Today wild camping is allowed in the park’s backcountry as long as you’re a mile from a road – the PCTA publishes a map showing the areas this includes. That night it rained heavily and I woke to thick clouds and a cold, wet wind. Unable to resist another look I returned to Crater Lake the next day. With sunshine gone the scene was very different. Grey threads of cloud raced over the rough dull water and round the tops of the volcanic cones of the islands, mist wreaths that gave an other-worldly air to the scene.

I couldn’t stay long though as the next water lay 25 miles away across the strange Oregon Desert. This is a flat area of sand made of pumice and ash from the Mazama eruption through which all water drains and which is dotted with widely spaced, stunted lodgepole pines whose roots just stretch down far enough to reach the streams that run underground below the pumice. I was hoping there might be some snow patches left but I couldn’t rely on this. Ironically, it was raining heavily when I left Crater Lake for this long waterless section.

The walking was easy though and the 25 miles were soon done. Sometimes I forgot just how fit I now was. The trail took me over the Oregon Desert then around Mount Thielsen, a 9178 foot high volcanic remnant that forms a splendid jagged spire of twisted yellow and red rock strata. Being the central plug of a volcano, the rest of the mountain having been eroded away, Mount Thielsen is the geological opposite of Crater Lake and also the visual opposite – a soaring rock pinnacle rather than water-filled deep hole. Volcanoes like this in the Cascades are known as Matterhorn Peaks because of their steep pointed shape. I had a superb view of this fine peak from my camp beside Mount Thielsen Creek on a well-used site. Mount Thielsen looked particularly impressive at dawn when the rock shone in the rising sun. In my journal I wrote ‘best camp site and view I’ve had since the Marble Mountains’. The night was frosty for the first time in weeks and in the morning the snow patches on the trail were rock hard and there was ice on puddles. Not long after leaving I met a party of twelve heavily laden boy scouts toiling up to the Mount Thielsen Creek camp site. I was glad they hadn’t arrived the night before. It wasn’t a large site and I’d enjoyed the quiet and the solitude.

Later in the day I met a PCT hiker heading south. He was just doing the Oregon section of the trail. ‘The mosquitoes have been terrible’ he warned me and sure enough they promptly increased in number as I headed for the interestingly named Nip and Tuck Lakes where I camped. These forest lakes lay on the old Oregon Skyline Trail, which ran end-to-end through the State. It was built in the 1930s but was superseded by the PCT which often takes a different route. I planned on following the old trail here though because it had water sources, unlike the PCT, and was nine miles shorter. An extra nine miles of forest walking didn’t seem to have any advantages. During the day I crossed into the Williamette National Forest. On the boundary there was a PCT sign reading 195 miles to California and 219 to Washington. I was almost halfway through Oregon.

A long hot forested mosquito-ridden walk led to Cascade Summit on Odell Lake, my next supply point (nearby Shelter Cove Resort is used by today’s hikers). I barely stopped all day due to the bugs and arrived sweaty, thirsty and tired. The post office was a cupboard in the small store and only open in the summer for PCT hikers and long-stay visitors. In the register I discovered that Larry was five days ahead of me and Scott and Dave nine. The store had the best selection of trail food and hiking accessories I’d seen in anywhere this small so I was able to supplement my dried meals with some good trail mix and granola bars and buy stove fuel, candles, insect repellent and a pot scrub. Just garlic powder, packet soup and socks remained on my shopping list. There was also a café so I’d no need to eat dried food here. Camping and showers were free for PCT hikers too, a very welcome touch. In fact Cascade Summit was a great spot. I was joined here by a southbound hiker called Mark who was just doing the Oregon and Washington PCT (I say ‘just’, it’s a thousand miles!) so I had company in camp for the first time in a couple of weeks.

Mid-August turned out to be Boy Scout season in Oregon as I encountered literally hundreds of them during the next few days including a mass camp at Middle Rosary Lake that filled the woods for hundreds of yards. I passed this by, as I did Wait Here Lake, after hesitating a little, tempted by the name, and finally camped by Bobby Lake. I was still in fairly flat forest but was approaching the Three Sisters Wilderness, the first of a series of wilderness areas the PCT runs through in the northern half of Oregon.

I still had a mostly viewless day in the pond-dotted forest though, but there was one brilliant experience that made the day stand out. Hurrying along towards the peaks that I occasionally glimpsed tantalisingly through the trees, I caught a movement in a small, shallow, lily-dotted pond beside the trail. I stopped and looked and soon saw an otter and three cubs in the water. Slowly and quietly I took off my pack and sat down on it. I then spent half an hour watching the otters swimming and diving in the clear water. They glanced at me occasionally but seemed curious and wary rather than afraid. Often they dived closely in a group, arching their backs together in the air. When they came nearer – just a few feet away - I could see them swimming underwater. They made loud hissing noises and occasionally high-pitched squeaks as they swam. Once, they came out of the water to lie draped over a small rock in the middle of the pond and as I was leaving they all climbed onto a log. Watching the otters was a wonderful experience that took me completely out of myself. It was one of the wildlife highlights of the walk. The following day I saw two more of these beautiful creatures swimming together in Island Lake.

The Three Sisters Wilderness is unusual because here a whole collection of volcanoes are grouped together whereas elsewhere in Oregon they are well spread out with often dozens of miles between them. It’s a popular backpacking area and as I reached it I began to meet other hikers, fourteen in total that first day. Three of these had seen Larry who’d gained another day on me and Scott and Dave who were a day ahead of Larry. Maybe, I thought, I might catch up with Scott and Dave.

Finally leaving the confines of the forest the trail climbed up and around Koosah Mountain from where I could see Diamond Peak not far away and, looking back, the already distant spire of Mount Thielsen. Then came a really special view of glorious rocky mountains – symmetrical Bachelor Butte, ragged Broken Top and red rock capped South Sister with beyond it Middle Sister and North Sister. I wanted to camp with a view of these mountains but the shores of Camelot Lake were already lined with the tents of others with the same intention so I went on to slightly less crowded though still scenic Sisters Mirror Lake. Here I had a surprise. I heard someone approaching and looked up to see Wayne Fuiten, whom I hadn’t seen since Weldon, three months ago. Wayne wasn’t surprised to see me though as he’d been following my entries in the trail registers since Crater Lake. His walk had been a complicated one. He’d taken two weeks off to allow some of the snow to melt and had then walked south from Northern California to Weldon before hitch-hiking north again and continuing towards Canada. I was now to see him most days during my remaining time in Oregon though as before his regulated walking style and my haphazard one didn’t gel so we didn’t walk together often. We tended to use the same camp sites however as these were far and few between. That first evening we spent hours talking about our adventures and the places we’d seen.

I woke to a mist on the lake and dew on the grass. Gray jays were flitting round the camp. It was the start of one of the most memorable days of the walk. In my journal that evening I wrote ‘A superb day! One of the best! Glorious mountain country and fantastic volcanic features. Hiked through meadows, forests and parkland past the Three Sisters; South Sister large rounded and complex, Middle Sister a pure cone and North Sister a jagged rock remnant. Plus glaciers on all of them. And then lava flows, curling rivers of frozen basalt and huge mounds of pyroclastic cinders and a switch-backing path up the flow into the breached wall of Collier Cone’. Ahead further volcanic peaks soared above the dark forest. In a line fading away to the north were Mount Washington, Three-Fingered Jacket, Mount Jefferson and, barely visible, Mount Hood, beyond which lay the Columbia River and Washington State. As well as the big mountains – the Three Sisters are all over 10,000 feet high – I really liked the sparse almost parkland like tree-scattered volcanic uplands such as Wickiup Plain and the minor volcanic peaks – Broken Top, The Wife, The Husband and Little Brother. In fact there was nothing about this landscape that displeased me. It was all a delight. On the trails I’d seen more hikers than on just about any other day of the walk and that night I camped by another scenic lake, South Mathieu, along with Wayne and a few other people.

This was the start of a succession of fine landscapes that stretched all the way to Canada. Although there would still be days deep in the trees and areas of logged, despoiled forest to cross these would be mere brief interruptions between wilderness areas. Since Echo Lake the PCT had been more low-key and gentle, with rather too many roads and logged areas in the quiet forests. That 850 mile section through Northern California and Southern Oregon, which had taken me 53 days, is the part of the PCT I’d suggest skipping for any hiker without time to do the whole trail. There were high points, especially the Marble Mountains and Crater Lake, but overall the wilderness feel, the beauty of the landscape, and the sense of adventure didn’t compare with the areas to the north and south. I didn’t realise this that first day in the Three Sisters Wilderness of course. I was just pleased to be in such grand country. It was only as the weeks went by that I realised the walk had changed and that the wilder and more exciting mountains were back to being the norm rather the exception.

From South Mathieu Lake there was much walking on rough, brittle, cinder-like basalt lava flows as I crossed a highway at McKenzie Pass and then entered the Mount Washington Wilderness. Mount Washington is another volcanic plug Matterhorn peak, with a fine soaring spire. A long haul up the dark unstable lava of the almost barren Belknap Crater, which was like walking on a slag heap, was a tough test of my lightweight shoes and the balance of my new pack. Both, I was pleased to find out, were fine on this rugged terrain. The landscape looked like that of an inhospitable alien planet in a science-fiction film. All was brown and black twisted rock. There were barely any plants. It was easy to imagine the lava molten and flowing sinuously down the mountainside. The walking was hot and sweaty as there was no shade from the sun and the dark rocks soon became hot to the touch. From the col with Little Belknap I could see back to the Three Sisters and ahead to Mounts Washington and Jefferson. I was becoming used to seeing these high peaks rising above the forest in almost a straight line. Round them rolled undulating forested green hills. There were closer views of Mount Washington as the trail traversed its flanks before the day ended with a descent into a ghostly burned lodgepole pine forest, the stark dead trees pointing forlornly at the sky, that led to Santiam Pass, where a highway crosses the mountains, and Santiam Lodge, a combined Presbyterian Retreat and Youth Camp and American Youth Hostel, the only such one on the PCT (and now long closed). Here I stayed with Joe, a southbound PCT hiker who was hoping to at least reach the High Sierra before the first autumn snows started to block the trail. The lodge was a good place for a shower and dinner and relaxation, though I commented in my journal: ‘slept on a typical Y.H. creaky bed’. I had a supply box here along with mail that included a note from Warren asking when I thought I’d be in Stevenson, my first supply point in Washington State, as he wanted to send me a special item. I was intrigued!

The next morning Wayne turned up with his family from Seattle, where he’d been having a short break, and offered me a lift to the nearby town of Sisters where I could add to my supplies, there being no store at Santiam Lodge. As we were leaving Mark, the PCT hiker I’d camped with at Cascade Summit a week before, turned up very thirsty and tired. He’d been without water for some time and had hoped to make it here the night before but had ended up having a waterless camp in the lava fields. The trip into Sisters was a quick one and I was back on the trail before midday, soon rounding the rocky spires of Three-Fingered Jack, another Matterhorn peak. I was especially impressed with the convoluted red strata of the north side of this ragged triple-spired mountain. Late in the day the skies clouded over as I entered the Mount Jefferson Wilderness – the wilderness areas were coming thick and fast now. I’d just pitched the tent beside Rockville Lake when Wayne turned up. Rain soon began to fall and there many loud rumbles of thunder and a gusty wind. The latter didn’t deter the mosquitoes though and I was soon driven into the tent where I lay reading and writing by candlelight. The mosquitoes had been pretty bad for a few weeks now. ‘When will they stop?’ I wrote in my journal.

More rain and thunder woke me during the night but by dawn it was calm and the sun soon dried the tent. I left early, heading for Mount Jefferson, whose graceful cone had been slowly becoming more dominant in the view for several days. The Mount Jefferson Wilderness is popular and I met quite a few other hikers. I soon saw why as the mountain and the landscape round it is beautiful. I found it one of the most attractive areas on the whole walk and 10, 497 foot Mount Jefferson one of the finest peaks. That evening I again wrote ‘a superb day!’ in my journal. The whole day I had excellent views of Mount Jefferson and its glaciers. The guidebook warned that creek crossings could be problematic here but this late in the season they were shallow, the most notorious, fast flowing Russell Creek, no more than ankle deep. Milk Creek was true to its name, being chalky white with sediment washed down from the glaciers. I decided not to drink out of that one. The heart of the area was Jefferson Park, a lovely timberline area of meadows and tree groves on the edge of which I camped by Russell Lake with a view across the parkland to the great glacier-smeared north-west face of the mountain. This memorable day ended with a wonderful calm evening with subtle shades of pink and blue as the sun set on the snowfields across the lake. It was almost perfect. But not quite for, as I wrote in my journal, ‘the mosquitoes have been bad all day’. I was prepared to put up with them for such beauty though and I was really enjoying being at timberline again.

As with all the mountain and timberline sections of the trail in wooded Oregon I soon left the Mount Jefferson Wilderness behind for a descent into the forest. Green would be the colour for the PCT in Oregon, it spends so much time in the trees. First though I climbed over late-lingering snow patches to a ridge that gave excellent views back to Jefferson Park and Mount Jefferson. Then there was a long descent over glacial rubble and more snow that took me out of the open country (and the Wilderness Area) and back into the forest. Down in the trees I headed for Olallie Lake where there was a resort that provided a lunch of Coca-Cola and donuts and enough candy bars and trail mix for the next few days (today the resort carries ‘hiker foods and supplies’). The lake was tranquil with a good view of Mount Jefferson. After more forest walking I again camped with Wayne, at a quiet spot called Trooper Springs.

A forested day with just one brief view of Mount Hood followed, a day of easy walking on flat terrain mostly in the Warm Springs Indian Reservation. Away from the more scenic landscapes there were few other hikers. I thought this might mean there would be more wildlife but I only saw one deer. During the day I crossed the 45th Meridian – half way between the Equator and the North Pole. That evening Wayne arrived again as I was setting up camp by Timothy Lake, the last water for quite a while. Preparing to boil water I lit my stove only to see flames licking round the filler cap on the fuel tank. I turned the stove off and managed to smother the fire before the cap blew off, as it was designed to do to prevent the whole fuel tank exploding if the pressure grew too great. Cooking with gasoline can be exciting! I’d always been careful to point the cap away from my tent so that if it did ignite the inevitable jet of flame wouldn’t burn it down. Once the stove had cooled I replaced the cap with the new one I had bought back in Mount Shasta. I hoped this would last until the end of the walk as I probably couldn’t get another.

I was now heading for Mount Hood, the last of the Oregon volcanoes and also the highest at 11,235 feet, and Timberline Lodge, which lay on its flanks. The day began in particularly fine forest above the Salmon River with stands of big majestic Douglas fir, western hemlock, western red cedar, Alaska cedar and more. I never tired of these huge magnificent trees, even after hundreds of miles of forest walking. Mount Hood appeared in glimpses through them. Then came an 1800 foot climb up to Timberline Lodge during which the full glory of Mount Hood was revealed.

A curious and slightly disturbing incident occurred during this climb. As I ascended one particularly steep section I could see a hiker sitting on the ground where it eased off. As I reached him he pulled aside his jacket to reveal a pistol in a holster and started talking about how he was ready to shoot anybody who messed with him. He said this while staring into space, almost as if I wasn’t there. As soon as I got my breath back I said farewell and walked on as quickly as I could. When I looked back he was still sitting there. Much further on in the walk another incident occurred that made me think of him but that comes later.

Timberline Lodge is a very grand stone and timber building and the centre of the Timberline Lodge Ski Resort that provides year round skiing on Mount Hood’s permanent snowfields. It was a government project, built in the 1930s by unemployed craftspeople during the Depression, and is now a designated National Historic Landmark. I had a food parcel here at the store, which was basically a gift shop without any provisions suitable for hikers, and ate a huge and tasty if expensive meal in the restaurant before having a few beers with Wayne, who turned up shortly after me and was more interested in the bar than in food. We then walked off a few hundred yards to sleep under the trees. Next morning I returned to the Lodge for a hearty breakfast before setting off on another superb timberline day across Mount Hood. For ten or so miles the PCT coincided with the Timberline Trail that goes right round the mountain. The walking was fairly arduous as the trail climbed in and out of many glacial creek canyons but this was easily ignored as the detailed views of the alpine landscape of Mount Hood, replete with icefalls, cliffs, glaciers and hanging valleys, was marvellous. Mount Hood is certainly a beautiful mountain, competing with Mount Jefferson for the most attractive in Oregon in my mind. Hood was more rugged, Jefferson more graceful. I couldn’t choose between them. I really appreciated the trail here though as for once in Oregon it was actually on the mountain itself rather than below it. Skiers were out early on some of the runs near the Lodge as avalanche danger in summer meant they closed at lunchtime. There were many hikers too.

Beyond Mount Hood I could see ahead to big bulky Mount Adams, the first Washington State volcano, and back to Mount Jefferson and the Three Sisters. Eventually the mountain was left for the forest and I descended out of the Mount Hood Wilderness to camp in an old logged area at Lolo Pass where I was soon joined by Wayne. Although in the trees there was still a view of Mount Hood towering above us but I was soon driven into the tent by the mosquitos which I could then hear humming outside the insect net door. Earlier the little biting flies that had been an occasional nuisance for the last few weeks were overactive, buzzing round me and repeatedly trying to remove chunks of flesh. There were high cirrus clouds and I wondered if a storm front was coming in and rising humidity was making the flies more active.

Like virtually all PCT hikers then and now I was planning on leaving the PCT the next day for the far more scenic Eagle Creek Trail. This isn’t part of the PCT because it’s impassable for horses but, like Crater Lake, it’s not to be missed by hikers. The ‘official’ PCT is a gentle descent through the forest, the Eagle Creek Trail is an exciting descent down a cliff-rimmed canyon. Various volcanoes bobbed briefly in and out of view on the initial walk in the forest. Then came a stony traverse in open terrain around Indian Mountain from which I was excited to catch my first views of Mount Rainier, far away still, and Mount St. Helens from which rose a steam plume, an aftermath of the big eruption that had taken place just two years before.

I left Indian Mountain on a very steep, jarring descent down the rough unmaintained Indian Springs Trail that led to a junction with the Eagle Creek Trail. Down this trail I went, a pleasant wooded path at first but its character changed dramatically on reaching Eagle Creek itself. Here the trail began a long traverse down the steep-sided canyon past beautiful waterfalls and deep pools. The centrepiece of this magnificent ravine is Tunnel Falls, where the East Fork of Eagle Creek drops 150 feet into the main creek. Here the narrow, exhilarating trail is blasted into the side of the vertical cliff some 75 feet above the river before passing behind the waterfall in a spray-drenched rock passageway – a superb and imaginative piece of trail building. I could have wandered up and down here for many hours. Wayne and I had arranged to meet here in the late afternoon as that’s the only time the sun shines on Tunnel Falls and we spent some time photographing each other on the narrow trail.

Unsurprisingly the Eagle Creek Trail is very popular and camping is restricted to certain spots. Beyond Tunnel Falls we descended to Blue Ridge Camp, which at 1120 feet was the lowest on the walk so far, and slept out under the trees. For once there were no mosquitoes.

Eagle Creek is one of the many creeks that pour down from the mountains either side into the huge Columbia River, which splits the Cascades here. Rising far to the north in the Rocky Mountains in Canada this 1,243 mile long river is the largest in the Pacific Northwest region. Between Oregon and Washington State the river runs through the Columbia River Gorge for 80 miles. In places this massive gorge is 4,000 feet deep. Waterfalls pour down the sides and it is these that gave their name to the Cascades, which were known as ‘the mountains by the cascades’ by the first western explorers. This was soon shortened to just ‘the cascades’ and the name became applied to the whole range that extends many hundreds of miles either side of the Columbia River Gorge. The actual name ‘Cascade Range’ was first used by the Scottish plant collector David Douglas who explored the area in the late 1820s and for whom the Douglas fir is named. Earlier in 1811 British-Canadian map maker and explorer David Thompson had become the first European to navigate the whole Columbia River from source to sea. The stories of both these intrepid men give an insight into what travel was like in the area traversed by the PCT before the advent of maps let alone roads or railways and without any of the backpacking equipment we take for granted. Living off the land and travelling on horseback, on foot and by canoe, often guided by local natives, without whom their journeys would have been impossible, these men were true explorers venturing into an unknown world. I wonder what they would make of the area now.

At Blue Ridge Camp I was just eight miles from the Columbia River and the end of my traverse of Oregon. Many more waterfalls and pools lined the narrow trail as I continued the descent to the little port town of Cascade Locks on the Oregon side of the river. Here I found Wayne and his family in the Cascade Locks Marine Park with a huge and sumptuous picnic spread out on the grass. ‘It was great!’ I wrote in my journal.

After the feast I wandered over to the park campground to pitch my tent. Here I met Jay J. Johnson, who I’d heard so much about, and a southbound hiker called Robert who told me that Larry was about a week ahead while Scott, Dave and Mark were four days away. They’d told Robert they were planning on 15 miles a day through Washington. I hoped to average more than that – I’d averaged 19 over the last two weeks – so I might yet catch up with them. Jay had met up with Susie and hiked a short way with her but said she was off the trail as she’d been hospitalised with a stomach bug, which was sad news.

The park was on Thunder Island, just offshore of the town, and here I spent my last night in Oregon. At just 150 feet in altitude this was my lowest camp on the PCT. I’d reach the lowest point of all – 140 feet - the next day on the other side of the Columbia River. With just one State to cross I felt for the first time that the end of the walk was closer than the beginning. I knew though that the PCT had a reputation for toughness in Washington. The easy walking in Northern California and Oregon was over. It was also late August. Summer was fading away in the mountains. Soon the first snows would fall.