back on the trail again 7/21

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I feel badly that, like a book, we left you with a cliff-hanger! Last time we posted, we were thwarted by fire! and that was way back on 7/21…..

so, to bring you back to the trail and up to date From Elk Lake, where we received our resupply packages and a wonderful STEAK dinner, grilled in person by (our hiking buddy) Ian's 2 friends, Connor and I headed off into the wilderness of the evening, with our plan to camp beside a small lake about 4 miles in. It started gettin dark, which didn't bother us, but then we saw the big pile of bear poop in the middle of the trail and we got a bit nervous. We decided to sing at the top of our lungs, but the crazy thing is that we couldn't remember a single song except jingle bells. So jingle bells it was!!!!

We never saw the bear, and had another quiet night with the mosquitos! When we woke in the morning, we realized that we were camped next to a tiny lake, and the real lake was perhaps 100 yards away. oh well. still beautiful.

From this point, the hike was probably the most spectacular and varied of any we had up to this point, as we were now in the Sisters Wilderness and our plan for the day was to hike around all three sisters mountains! The 3 Sisters mountains are gorgeous, and we had the most fun sliding on our behinds down the slopes, and forging our way through snowfields. Who would have thought!! We camped alongside a lava field, and continued north, to lava camp, which is a forested lake amidst the lava fields.

We were hiking on a weekend, in a area accessible to day hikers, and we were so surprised at the number of people (and dogs!) we saw. I guess this area is quite close to Bend and Sisters, and is a favorite for families, and ladies hiking groups, and dog walkers. anyway, after a nice nap at Lava Camp we continued towards Big lake Youth Camp. We have at this point learned to hike in the morning, take a nice break midday, when the temperatures are close to 100 degrees, and then take off again around 4pm or later. So we did. We had a 4 hour hike through tough lava rocks and spent the night in the middle of the lava fields, in a small spot amidst the rocks.

The morning section and part of the previous night we dubbed a "mastadon graveyard" as there had been a burn, and the way the trees split and turn white, they look like mastodon tusks all over the ground. We lost the trail due to all the burnt debris and logs, and some thru-hikers caught up with us, and we all lost the trail once again in the same spot. Luckily, one of the men had hiked this section before, and with the help of our gps, we got going again. After a short while, the graveyard turned to a beautiful wildflower meadow and then forested area. I have never seen so many beautiful wildflowers in one place as in oregon on this hike. just exquisite.

Eventually we made it to Big Lake Youth Camp, which is the most friendly, welcoming place that we traveled through. The staff greeted us, got us set up for showers and REAL TOWELS, fed us lunch, and DID OUR LAUNDRY FOR US!!!!! OMG!!! We hung out from 10:15 until 8pm that day. Our hiking buddy Ian had called his roommate Beverly for a ride to Bend. She and Frederick picked us up at 8, after taking a tour of other youth camps (lol!), and they kindly took us into Bend, where we had found a hotel to stay in.

We have talked before of the kindness of those we have met on the trail, but Beverly and Frederick win a big medal--they drove all the way from Eugene, took us to bend, then drove right back to Eugene--arriving after midnight.

The next morning after an unsettling breakfast in the motel breakfast area (unsettling because there were so many vacationers and families from the REAL world, and because CNN was blaring on the 2 tv's), my wonderful friend Dianne Tapfer came to pick us up and take us around the Fire zone. She drove 2 hours from Hood River, got us and drove us to Timberline Lodge. On the way, we stopped at Smith Rock, which is an area where people come from around the world to do rock climbing. beautiful.

By the time we got to Timberline Lodge, which was our next resupply drop, we hadn't eaten a single meal from our Big lake Youth camp resupply, so needless to say, we had a loooottttttt of food and supplies to get rid of. Dianne was kind enough to take a big box with her, since we would see her 3 days later, at the end of our hike. The area had been having storms, but it started to get very nasty out, and cold. We decided to continue our hotel tour (haha) and were able to get the last room at Timberline Lodge. to be continued…...