Due to a wildfire a couple years ago, there’s a 17 mile section of trail closed just north of Bend. Originally we planned to hike through it, assuming there’d be no real consequences for doing so, but we soon realized that wasn’t the case. A handful of hikers ahead of us had their permits taken for entering the closure, and, rumor has it, someone even had their travel visa revoked. After a lot of discussion we decided we wouldn’t hike through; morally it wasn’t the right thing to do (although that hasn’t necessarily stopped us before) and, more so, it wasn’t worth getting kicked off trail for. So we had a couple options. We could take a bus from Bend to Government Camp, which would result in about 90 missed miles of trail, or we could ride in the back of a pickup truck for six hours on backcountry dirt roads, which would allow us to skip the least amount of miles possible. We opted for the six hour dirt road option. Although the closure is only 17 miles, there’s no easy way around it due to the terrain and remoteness of the area. Devilfish, the trail angel and pickup driver who offers rides around the closure, offers two pickup locations - Santiam Pass trailhead and Pamelia Lake trailhead. Santiam Pass is where we get on and off the trail to get into Bend. Pamelia Lake is about 27 miles north of Santiam Pass, and it’s the last place to get off the trail before the closure. I wasn’t feeling well and frankly just needed a break from hiking, so I planned to stay an extra day in Bend while Chris hiked on to Pamelia Lake. Since Devilfish picks up in both of the locations we’d be in, we figured this was the perfect plan. I’d be able to rest and recuperate, Chris wouldn’t have to miss any unclosed miles, and we’d both end up in Devilfish’s pickup the next morning.
As Chris hiked out of the hotel parking lot to meet up with Amy and Paul for a ride back to the trail, I hollered “Love you, Babe! Don’t miss the shuttle!”. 24 hours later, it was my turn to head back to the trail. I got to the Santiam Pass trailhead around 8:30am and hung out with a few other hikers waiting to get on Devilfish’s 9:00am shuttle. At 8:48am I got a text from Chris saying they missed the shuttle. I thought surely he was joking. But then, shortly after 9:00am, Devilfish rolled into the parking lot and there was no Chris, Amy, or Paul on board. I tried to call Chris - no answer. I tried to call Amy - no answer. I needed to know if I should still get on the truck, and I needed to know now. Everyone was loading up and Devilfish planned to leave in just a few minutes. I knew Chris’s options now were to either hitch back to Bend or wait until dark and hike through the closure. If he planned on hiking through, I needed to get on the shuttle. If he was going to try to catch a ride back to Bend, I needed to not get on the shuttle. I frantically fired off a few texts to Chris and Amy, hoping for an immediate response. Nothing. It was time to go now, so I had to make a decision. If I made the wrong choice, it would be days until we’d be able to link back up. I had all of Chris’s food for the next section; he only brought one day’s worth of supplies when he left Bend. We all know it would be an absolute tragedy for him to be food-less, so that was my deciding factor. I got in the truck.
There were nine hikers in total in the truck. Five up front, and four of us in the bed with all of the gear. For six hours I sat crammed between backpacks and trekking poles and three stinky boys (sorry Bob, Bubba, and Hooligan, but you guys were rank!). The 100° heat and unforgiving backcountry roads only added to the discomfort. But I couldn’t complain too much, because Amy finally found service and sent me an update. I’d made the right decision - they planned to hike through the closure once it got dark and meet me at Olallie Lake Resort, where I’d get dropped off by Devilfish. Hiking through wasn’t without its risks, though. The trail was closed for a reason. We’d heard tales of rockslides and blowdowns covering the trail. There was a gnarly river crossing that only became more dangerous in the evening hours. And of course there was a chance they’d get caught, have their permits taken, and be kicked off the trail.
When the ride finally came to an end, the four of us who’d been stuffed into the bed emerged slowly, aching and stiff, like zombies resurrecting. I stretched a bit, then checked my phone for an update from Amy. I was overcome with anxiety when I realized there wasn’t any service out here. If anything went wrong later when they tried to hike through the closure, I’d have no way of knowing. I’d just have to sit and wait and hope to God they’d show up.
Chris had our tent, so I thought I’d be sleeping under the stars in the small creepy lakeside campground. Luck was on my side, though, and someone had recently left a tent in the lost and found of the resort. The resort wasn’t much of a resort, by the way; they had a lot of damage from the same fire that caused the trail closure, so at this point it’s pretty much just a small store and a few wooden paddle boats tethered to a dock. After setting up the lost and found tent, I tried to keep myself occupied by reading The Art of Racing in the Rain and working on writing a blog post. After about an hour I couldn’t take it any longer. I needed an update. I grabbed some water and my phone and set off running down the desolate gravel road in search of cell service. I’d just heard of another hiker who had a gun pulled on him by an unfriendly local in this area, plus it was cougar country, so I was a bit on edge. About two miles into my run, I climbed a hill and found a single bar of service. I wasn’t able to get any updates from Chris or Amy, but I was able to send a text explaining where I was camped and what my tent looked like in case they got in while I was sleeping. The sun was beginning to set and I felt a strong urge to get back to the resort. As I ran back up the road, I constantly spun in circles and scanned the forest, convinced there were eyes on me. A cougar? Maybe. I knew I wouldn’t stand much of a chance fighting one off, so I pulled my phone out and clicked on the camera app so that I could at least document my final moments.
To my great relief, I made it back without becoming cougar dinner. Back at the campsite I was relieved to find a family setting up camp not too far away from me. Thank God - I wouldn’t be here alone. If Chris, Amy and Paul were able to hike through the closure successfully, they should get to Olallie Lake Resort between 11pm and midnight. I gave getting some rest my best shot, but I was too anxious; instead, I laid wide awake for hours mulling over all the possible things that could go wrong. As midnight approached, the auditory hallucinations began. I wanted so badly for them to get through the closure safely that I began imagining their footsteps and voices approaching. After about the 100th time of springing out of the tent to greet them, I finally resolved they wouldn’t be hiking through tonight. The river crossing was probably too unsafe to navigate at night; they’d probably camped close to it and planned to cross early in the morning.
Then, around 1am, I saw lights bouncing into the tent - dimly at first, but they slowly grew brighter. I knew it was them. I sprung from the tent for the 101st time, grabbed my headlamp, and frantically waved it around to signal them. I hugged them, then whisper-yelled (in attempt to not wake the family camped nearby) at them for missing the shuttle and worrying me sick. Chris scarfed down some food while I got his bed set up inside the lost and found tent. He recounted their daunting journey through the closure, and then we were off to dreamland. We were all finally able to rest. Oh and those eyes I felt on me while I was running back to the resort - maybe it really was a cougar. Here’s Chris to share his tale of raging rivers, cougars, and so much more. Chris: Autumn has done a great job summarizing the original plan and events leading up to the split so I'll get into my experience. After leaving the Hotel in Bend, I linked up with Paul and Amy as they were staying at a hostel a few blocks down the road. They had befriended a local gentleman in Bend who had offered to give us a ride back to Santiam Pass trail head. After getting dropped off, I started hiking and was cruising through miles. Since Autumn and I had planned to link up the next morning, I had only packed out one day worth of food, which consisted of two fully loaded MOD pizzas (one for dinner and one for breakfast). It was my favorite on-trail meal and for the first time ever, my backpack was super light coming out of a town. Our plan was coming together perfectly...for now.
I camped 6 miles from the PCT/Pamelia Lake junction and woke up around 4am in order to meet the 8am shuttle. I set off at 5am with Paul and Amy on the easy downhill hike to the junction; it was a beautiful morning as Mt. Jefferson's hanging glaciers basked in the emerging sunlight. There wasn't a worry in my mind. As we approached the junction, I realized something was a little off. Devilfish's comment on the FarOut app stated the pick up point was at the junction but there was no road or parking lot in sight. It was 745am so we had 15 minutes, plenty of time (so we thought) to figure out if we needed to hike down trail a few more minutes. However, upon doing more research, we found out through second hand comments that the Pameli Lake Trailhead was 3 miles from the junction we were currently at....it would take us 45 minutes to hike to the trail head! It was a devastating discovery and I took off running in hopes of reaching the shuttle prior to it leaving. Luckily, the trail was mostly downhill and I made it to parking lot in 35 minutes (by 835am). After combing through the parking lot for over 10 minutes, there was no shuttle to be found...I would later find out the shuttle had waited an additional 30 minutes and had rolled out at 830am. I had missed the ride by 5 minutes... Paul, Amy, and I were angry at ourselves for not reading the additional comments but we figured the primary source was accurate. Feeling defeated, we sat at the picnic table and brainstormed options to get around the fire closure. After a few hours of trying to coordinate rides via Amy's spotty cell service and failed hitch attempts, we concluded that the fastest and most viable option would be to hike through the closure. As Autumn stated, people had been fined and had had their permits taken for attempting to cross. Most of these hikers had tried to sneak through the closure in plain daylight. Our plan was to cross the boundary at 6pm. Having worked for the Forest Service, I guessed the rangers would end patrols as nightfall approached. It was a 17 mile closure which would take us approximately 7 hours to complete. We set off from Pamelia Lake Trailhead and began the 3 mile hike back up to the PCT junction. Little did we know, this would be when the real journey began. Upon reaching the closure, we decided to eat dinner uphill, away from the trail, in order to get a read on any activity (patrols, trail crew, etc) that may be in the area. At this point, I had eaten all my food and was being nourished by Paul and Amy's resupply. I would’ve been screwed had it not been for them. After sitting in hiding for an hour, we had not heard or seen anything. The time had come to pack up and begin our trek through the closure; we officially crossed the boundary at 6pm. The first 4 miles were burnt, but the trail was not in any worse condition than what we had experienced up to that point. Our progress was severely hampered when we ran into a significant river crossing. It was swollen with snow melt from Mt. Jeffersons slopes and flowing rapidly down a steep, rocky gully. It took us almost an hour to find a safe spot to ford but in the end we did so without issue. After the crossing, the trail took us through unburnt, vast green meadows. Vibrant wildflowers and unobstructed views of Jefferson's west side were mesmerizing. I was glad we were getting to see some of this section in the daylight as it contained the best views in Oregon thus far. White silty streams contrasted the lush, dark green grass flanking its banks. The sights were breathtaking but my heightened anxiety did detract from the experience. At one point we passed by a stack of trail tools left on the side of the trail. I would pause after each sharp corner and listen for voices while scanning the trail ahead. Luckily, we never saw anybody. Nightfall closed in on us as we crested the final climb of the section. The ridge we climbed onto gave us our first glimpse of Mt. Hood. Tiny light from climbers headlamps could be seen close to the summit of Hood as the remaining vestiges of the sun's rays disappeared from the landscape. There was a surprising amount of snow at this elevation which made the trail difficult to follow. Fortunately, we were able to successfully navigate the last few miles of trail to a forest road that would take us the last 6 miles into Olallie Lake Resort. The remaining roadwalk to the resort was in the worst part of the burn area. It was impossible to see the complete damage due to the darkness but our headlamps gave us a glimpse of an eerie apocalyptic landscape riddled with blackened trees and ash. The final road walk was uneventful until we were three quarters of a mile from Ollalie Lake. About thirty to forty feet away from my group I heard what sounded like a startled dear stumbling through the burnt understory. I quickly turned my headlamp in its direction and saw two tiny blue eyes starring in my direction. I thought nothing of it and started to refocus my gaze ahead when my headlamp caught a different pair of eyes 15 feet from the deer's location. They were yellow and set lower to the ground. Unlike the deer, these eyes were farther apart and were accompanied by massive, muscular, haunched shoulders. Amy concluded it was a cougar before I did and immediately took off down the road. I bellowed, "holy shit that's a big cat" and slowly backed away as it kept its eyes trained on us. We had interrupted its midnight snack and we had no intention being a part of the menu. I picked up a rock, knowing full well I'd have no chance against this powerful predator. Paul reassured us it was probably just a lost Chihuahua or Boston Terrier but we all knew what it really was! Luckily the feline did not follow us and our destination shortly came into view after the incident. We arrived at Olallie Lake around 1am; Autumn hadn't slept at all and greeted us when we got in. I was ecstatic to see her and we quietly caught up in the tent prior to falling asleep.
Ultimately, we didn't want to cross the closure but at the time, it was truly our only option. Rides around the sections were booked for the next few days and hitching would've been nearly impossible as Olallie Lake Resort is in the middle of nowhere. In the end, we successfully crossed and were able to continue our journey north on the PCT. It was quite the shit show but it worked out as sometimes the rules have to be broken. Hope you guys enjoyed my part of the split up story!
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We allowed ourselves to sleep in a bit the next morning. After a late breakfast of coffee, blueberry donuts with a shelf life of five years, Knorr broccoli cheddar noodles, and a couple Babybel cheese wheels, we returned the lost and found tent and hit the trail. For a lot of hikers, the only feasible way around the closure was to skip up to Government Camp, which is another ~50 miles north of Olallie Lake, so we had a glorious couple days of having the trail to ourselves. Like most good things, it wouldn’t last. By the time we reached Timberline Lodge two days later, the trail was absolutely busting at the seams - like Best Buy on Black Friday the first year the Wii was released, busting at the seams. Due to rampant wildfires in Northern California and southern Oregon, all of the hikers behind us skipped ahead to exactly where we were. We’d worked so hard to stay ahead of the big groups of hikers, so this was extremely frustrating. Not only were many of these hikers rude and entitled, they were also depleting resources both on trail and in towns, and many of them were hiking fewer miles, therefore taking all of the campsites before we were finished hiking for the day. The wildfires weren’t their fault, however, there were about a hundred other places they could have skipped to south of us that would have kept them behind us or at least helped to break up the now massive bubble of hikers. I guess they just figured if they had to skip part of Oregon, why not skip the whole friggen state? All of us who’d actually hiked the trail felt the same sentiment toward the skippers, so we bonded together and commiserated. We decided we’d be cordial toward them, and we did our best to not let them ruin our experience.
But I digress - back to Timberline Lodge! Other than a friendly couple camping with their dogs and horses who offered us breakfast beers, the walk from Olallie Lake to Timberline Lodge was pretty uneventful. Timberline Lodge, however, was magnificent. Situated high up on Mount Hood, the creepily beautiful Lodge offers breathtaking views of the Mount Hood Wilderness. We’d been so excited to stop here for a couple reasons: we love a good spook and the exterior of Timberline Lodge was used as The Overlook in the movie The Shining, and, more so, the Lodge offers an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet, making it a major attraction for hikers. We sat in the beautiful dining room gorging ourselves on an impressive array of breakfast dishes and admiring the architecture for hours. We planned to hike on right after breakfast, but we were so full we could hardly even move.
After an hour or so we’d digested enough to roll ourselves back out onto the trail. The section of trail after Timberline was beautiful, but the unrelenting steep climbs and the hordes of hikers made for a slow pace. We decided we’d push some miles so that we could get into Cascade Locks - our next stop and the final town in Oregon - the evening of August 6th instead of August 7th like we originally planned. We knew the additional miles would make for a longer than normal hiking day, but it’d be worth it for an extra night in town. A few miles from where we planned to camp, I painfully realized I’d calculated the miles incorrectly; instead of hiking three more miles to camp, we’d actually have to do about six more miles to guarantee we’d get to town on the 6th. I never claimed to be a mathematician, but I felt fairly confident in my simple subtraction. After a few choice words, we decided we were committed to getting into town early, and we hiked on. It was getting dark as we approached our campsite. It sucks setting up camp in the dark, so we were eager to get there. To our dismay, the droves of hikers who’d skipped ahead of the fires had already filled up the site that we’d planned to camp at. So onto the next campsite we hiked! Again, it was completely full. We finally accepted that we wouldn’t be getting a legitimate campsite, and we began to look for somewhere, anywhere, that we could pitch our tent. We did our best to clear the debris from the buggy overgrown spot we chose, but it was a lumpy night at best.
A couple days later we took an alternate route that led us along berry covered mountainsides down into The Columbia River Gorge. We were soon hiking through a valley so incredible it was hard to even accept as reality. Above, the perfect amount of sunlight shone through the narrow valley opening. Alongside, bouncy green moss covered the towering 90 degree cliff-sides. And below, icy blue water rushed over the canyon floor and down powerful waterfalls. Just when we thought it couldn’t get any more captivating, we reached Tunnel Falls. Here, the trail led us to a 172ft waterfall and then through a natural tunnel behind the falls. Between the magical waterfall, the cool misty air, and the lush green foliage all around, we felt like we were in Pandora.
After Tunnel Falls, we only had a few miles to hike until we’d reach the Eagle Creek trailhead. From there, we hitched into Cascade Locks. We got a ride from two older gentleman who were good friends from high school but hadn’t seem each other since they graduated ~45 years ago. They were such a hoot. Upon dropping us off at the campground, they demanded we all get a photo together. This turned into quite the ordeal, as one of the men and the campground host who was taking the photo, had very different ideas of how and where the picture should be taken. We finally got a picture the two men approved of, thanked them, and set off to pitch our tent before the massive group of hikers we knew were shortly behind us once again stole all of the good campsites. Success! We landed a spot with a gorgeous view of the Columbia River rushing beneath The Bridge of the Gods. The Columbia acts as the border between Oregon and Washington, and the bridge, of course, connects the two states. We were just steps away from the third and final state of the PCT!
With our tent pitched and our bodies showered, we headed to the small downtown area to meet Amy and Paul for drinks at Thunder Island Brewing Co. We spent the afternoon recounting the last few days, as we hadn’t hiked with them since leaving Timberline Lodge. Most of our conversation was centered around our distaste for the massive bubble of hikers thrust upon us, but eventually we let it go, and once again decided we wouldn’t let the Bubble Bastards (Amy and Paul’s term for the massive group of hikers who’d skipped ahead due to the fires) ruin our experience.
The next day, Chris and I took the bus to Hood River. After checking out the town, which we fell in love with, we hung out in a chic coffee shop roughly planning the rest of our hike and our itinerary for France post-PCT. We resupplied at Walmart and then caught the bus back to Cascade Locks. Throughout the day we ate about six meals each and the best milkshakes we’ve ever had - homemade vanilla ice cream with fresh picked blackberries and huckleberries. My mouth still waters just thinking about it.
Like always, our time in town flew by. This time, though, we were ready to get hiking again. We were eager for Washington for a couple reasons; we knew the landscape was going to be incredible, but mostly, we were eager to start knocking out our last 500 miles.
Oregon was a hot, bug infested, ass-kicking torture session. We were more than happy to bid the state farewell, and we were excited to see what Washington had in store for us! 505 miles to go!
Hump on!
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