August 16.
Woke up late since I knew I had an easy day. Did the morning stuff and hiked up and over the hill next to Mt Thielsen. Had pretty good reception all day which kinda sucks since I immediately got swept into social media stuff.
It was a dry stretch from the creek to a cache at a road. Right before the road I caught up to another sobo named Twist. At the cache we talked to some sobos and she saw that I was eating a vegan jerky. She asked if I got it out of the box at shelter Cove. She had left some there. Turns out she’s vegan too! Hurray! More VTFs. We talked about vegan stuff and hiked out together. I’m faster than her so got ahead a bit.
There was another 9 mile dry stretch to another cache. It was quickly warming up with a lot of exposed sections. On the way up, a nobo guy in a black skirt and punisher shirt told me that the cache was down to 4 gallons. I immediately got upset with myself for relying on a cache. I only carried out 1l and 20oz and was running really low.
Without the cache I’d be fucked. I hurried in case more nobos got there and took the last of the water. Made it to the cache which was right next to the Rim Trail alternate junction. It was in a bear box and when I opened it up I was disheartened when I saw that up front was mostly empty bottles. Twist showed up and pulled out some of the empty bottles and lo and behold there were a ton of other water bottles in there. The nobo must have only seen the empty ones in the front. He had told Twist the same thing and she had also been worried about the cache being low.
We laughed about never trusting nobos and talked for a long while about being vegan, our non-trail lives, our partners (she’s married). It was cool talking to her, especially about vegan stuff.
Pringle showed up and got water from the cache. The nobo had told him the same thing and he was also glad to see the nobo had been full of shit. We hiked back with him to the junction where Glowworm was waiting. We all hiked up together for a bit, splitting up as our paces dictated. I went in front and passed a few more nobos, hiking through a long exposed section.
Finally made it to a parking lot where I got my first view of Crater Lake! It was really hazy though I could still see it, just not in its full blue glory. I could see Wizard Island and the different peaks. It was still gorgeous. Twist, Pringle, and Glowworm showed up and we talked some more, all of us deciding to wake up early the next day to catch the sunrise and hopefully see the lake without all the smoke.
Kept hiking along beautiful ridge line, exposed but with really nice/hazy views. It wound around the lake for a bit before merging with the road and back to trail.
On the way to Lightning Spring, I took the Watchman side trail up to the Watchman lookout. It was a steep ¾ mile climb that lead up to a little fire lookout NPS uses. Had a nice view of Crater Lake though it was still hazy.
Was really low on water so I ran down the trail and then down to Lightning Spring. There were a bunch of great lookout spots that’ll be perfect for the sunset.
Twist passed me after I went up to Watchman. I caught up to her though and we hiked to the spring together and got water and decided to cowboy camp. In the time we got water Pringle and Glowworm showed up as had Lucas. They ended up taking all the good spots which was fine since Twist and I were cowboy camping. Had dinner and Watermelon also showed up. There were also a few nobos here too but it was still a sobo party.
It was so nice kinda hiking with others and having a really easy day for once. We got in to camp pretty early and I had time to eat and clean myself at the spring and talk to others and actually relax. It’s not even 9 yet and I’m almost done with this entry.
Tomorrow is an easy hike down to Mazama Village to get a vegan burger (again) and my ressuply and hopefully my shoes. Amazon says they’re in transit so hopefully they actually get there tomorrow so I can hike out and not get stuck there. As always, we’ll see.
Plants Outside 