DAY 6 (92 TOTAL)
Timberline Lodge to Mile 2,111.6 (Ramona Falls Junction) 12.2 Miles
1,408.9 Total PCT Miles
If there’s one thing about me, I will take advantage of every allowable second in a room I’ve paid money for. Thankfully, the drunken revelers next door aren’t too loud or too late, and I sleep OK. My master plan is to not go as hard at the breakfast buffet today. I’m hiking out later this morning once I check out, and I’d rather not have to roll myself down the trail – even if I am keeping the mileage low today.
As it turns out, the best laid plans of mice and Kathryn often go awry.
To be clear, I pace myself well at breakfast. It’s a slow morning full of hot coffee and reasonable amounts of food. I sit solo at a table once more, getting refill after refill of water and watching the steady hum of guests swirling to and from the buffet. Post breakfast, I’m back to the room to pack up and then head out into the haze of early afternoon on a busy trail.
From Timberline Lodge, the trail meanders beneath chair lifts before veering steeply down towards the Zigzag River. There’s an array of hikers at the water’s edge, some with shoes off to wade through the river, others attempting rock hops or a log crossing downstream, others still lounging around at the water’s edge–day hikers taking a break before facing the climb back to Timberline.
After a quick assessment of the options, I opt for the log crossing downstream, bypassing a hesitant hiker who has stalled behind their group. I don’t particularly enjoy log crossings, even when they’re only perched a foot or two above the water, but I charge across anyways. There is no time for hesitation when an entire group of people is watching you from the other side. It’s over in a blink and then I am traipsing back upstream to reconnect with the trail with just a brief glance over my shoulder to snag a picture.
The climb away from the river is uneventful. Surprisingly, it feels less steep than I had remembered from my 2022 hike of the Timberline Trail. That said, I’m still slogging. I am a few miles in and I feel sick! Cute! I wish there was something more poetic to say, something profound even in the discomfort, because it feels wrong to experience anything but awe when in the presence of mountains and rivers and wildness. But all afternoon, there is only a pervasive sense of “blah” punctuated by smoky views of Hood. Sometimes the shortest mileage lasts a lifetime. I’m descending once more through the trees, fighting the feeling of monotony. I’ve been on this part of trail before and I don’t feel well and I can’t see much at all.
I trudge along, probably not miserable but feeling moderately close to it. Occasionally I’ll pass a Timberline Trail hiker, including one grown man with a pillow pet strapped to his backpack (low-key jealous), or day hikers. Otherwise, the air is still and the trail quiet. The further I descend into the woods, the more eerie and stifling the afternoon feels. Even the ground covering that spreads up into the woods from the trail looks defeated, covered in a layer of sad brown dust (dried mud? I don’t know) as if the saturation of the whole forest has been turned way, way down.
At least the mushrooms are thriving. I don’t know what’s in the soil here, but it’s producing some insane fungi.
More down, down, down. There’s the occasional hiker chugging uphill but otherwise the silence of the forest has enclosed around me. A mile before Ramona Falls, the trail spits me out onto a wide swath of riverbed with the narrow and murky brown Sandy River flowing quickly between, splitting the wash in half. It’s not particularly wide, at least at this point in the year – maybe just a couple of feet across – but it’s rushing.
I walk a few paces downstream, then upstream, scouting for the best place to cross. It’s far too late in the day to have any hope of drying out shoes, which leaves me one option: do not get my shoes wet. Seeing nothing, I turn upstream and check out the options there. Nothing looks great – mostly wet, slippery rocks that are just far enough apart that I’d have to jump. Finally, I decide to simply choose the least aggressive rock-hop option and go for it. A good ol‘ reach and pray. It’s not ideal, but thankfully it’s not too slick and I frogger my way across before picking my way back down the other side to rejoin the trail. Dry feet. No slips. Relief.
It’s not long until I’m at Ramona Falls, the space awash in day hikers and noise. It’s beautiful in the glowing evening light, but I don’t stop for more than a minute. Just enough time to inhale a deep breath and marvel at how insanely green everything is before I’m turning down the trail and onward.
Nothing about this section has changed since I was last here. The path is still magical and fairy-like, with soft trail beneath my feet and a babbling stream hugging the trail, golden light spilling down through the layers of the forest.
I stop to filter water, silently chiding myself for not stopping earlier when said water was a little easier to get to. There I stand, balancing on a rock with my left hand holding my bottle in the flow to fill and my water filter clasped in my right hand when, in the blink of an eye, the o-ring from my filter pops out and is immediately swept away in the current of this little stream.
Oh.
That’s not good.
I stare frantically at the water, quickly swiping my hand around the shallows in case the o-ring is miraculously still here. Nothing. Of course. Standing up from my crouched position, I look downstream.
The emotional How did that even happen, that was so stupid of me pushes back against the logical Ok ok ok, I’ll just figure it out.
I’ll have to. I have about two liters of already filtered, clean water and am just about thirty-three miles away from Cascade Locks. Without the o-ring, the seal between the bottle and the filter becomes leaky. Water could still filter through, but it could also leak out the threads and contaminate my clean bottles. Is this water pretty clean? Sure. But do I feel like tempting giardia? Hard pass. My mind flips through the options. Walk all thirty-three miles into town tomorrow? Stick to my mileage and just be really, really dehydrated on my last day? Hope I see another hiker tomorrow afternoon and ask to use their filter? The obvious answer is really just to boil water, but somehow in the moment that’s the option that sounds most like a burden.
Ironically, I used to carry a spare. In my attempts to stop packing so many little extras, though, I left it behind. I’ve hiked over one thousand PCT miles, and many other miles off the PCT, and never once have I lost an o-ring. Lessons, lessons, lessons. Another lesson I learned? The water filter I use has two o-rings. I find this out later that evening, once I’ve set up my tent and changed into my sleep clothes and am sitting cross-legged on my foamie, chatting with a group that rolled in and set up camp next to me.
It’s a funny gang, four women who met through a Portland women’s hiking group, and this random older man who they kept leapfrogging with on the Timberline Trail and eventually just settled on hiking with. He’s the one who eventually tells me to check for a second o-ring by dismantling the top portion of my filter, after I fill them in on my water woes. With bated breath I do, finding with sweet relief that there is, in fact, a second o-ring that is nice to have but non-essential in the flip cap. Genius. The six of us end up eating our dinners together, talking about food and blisters and trail stories as hikers tend to do when they gather. It’s a welcome distraction from the blah of today, a sweet moment of hiker camaraderie that is decidedly missing (for better and for worse) when I’m here outside of peak season.
This whole trip, while so good and beautiful but tough and empowering, has also felt like this dismantling of my perception of myself as strong independent capable outdoors woman. I’m afraid of wild animals and I can’t hang on to critical pieces of gear and I miss Kellen. But then, as I lay there in my tent before falling asleep, listening to the roaring of the Muddy Fork, a realization softly dawns on me. Those reasons are exactly why I am a strong independent capable outdoors woman. I’m brave not because I’m here without those emotions but because I’m here even with them. Sometimes I’m afraid and sometimes I have to problem solve and sometimes I miss the people I love when I’m alone in the woods – but I’m out here, even still.
It’s a sweet moment of clarity, albeit an annoying one – because it forces myself – as I’ve done before and will do again – to embrace the uncomfortable.
DAY 7 (93 TOTAL)
Mile 2,111.6 (Ramona Falls Junction) to Tentsite 5 miles in on Eagle Creek Alternate, 23.3 Miles
1,432.2 Total PCT Miles
Easy, hard, easy, hard, easy, hard. Today was a day of dualities. My morning begins with a sharp climb up and away from the Muddy Fork through humid, dark forest. Long switchbacks wind their way across the incline and then nearly double back upon themselves, contouring the way they came but a few feet in elevation higher.
The long climb continues up and up through muggy forest until at last I crest at the top, thankful for the tree-lined ridge walk ahead. My hard work is rewarded by a body that still feels mildly unwell and hazy views of Hood but not much, literally, beyond that. Even the mountains are hard to see amidst the smoke. I slog onward at somewhere around 2mph because there is only onward and yet this slow pace is all I can muster this morning. There’s not much going through my head, although I do take note of how the fungi continues to be colorful and crazy looking.
This section passes in a wash of lush green and ridge walks and a fairly quiet trail, until I begin to crest out of the trees into what feels more like sub-alpine. Above me the sky is blue. Beneath my feet, the trail rocky. I’m approaching the cutoff to the Eagle Creek Alternate – although it’s not optional this year, given the PCT fire closure ahead – and am apprehensive about the initial descent.
As it turns out, it’s better than anticipated which means it’s still tough and uncomfortable. The first two miles are 1700 feet of straight elevation loss on sandy, scree-like trail with nary a switchback to be found (ok, maybe one). I give an audible sigh of relief once the trail begins to flatten, and I pop out into the scorching heat of late afternoon. My legs are beginning to feel crispy despite the caking layers of dirt and sunscreen. There are more crispy burnt trees. Crispy crispy crispy and dry dry dry.
And then…
Then, the dryness of the afternoon shifts. Slowly, I begin to notice the occasional trail-side trickle of water. I keep hiking. The trickles turn in to tons of tiny lush streams and mini waterfalls rolling over large smooth rocks across the trail. I imagine them as water slides for frogs. The burnt trees are no longer awash in ash but surrounded by vegetation and foliage, and then the burnt trees begin to be outnumbered by mostly alive trees. The end of my day is near.
Spotting the entrance to a cluster of tent sites, I descend left off the trail towards a series of flat plateaus, each layer further from the trail and closer to the water. Tossing my pack down somewhere in the middle, I wander every which way in search of the best spot to set up for the night. Eventually, I settle on a mostly flat spot on the lowest plateau tucked away so much that the PCT isn’t visible from it. Perfect.
With my tent set up, I scramble down the embankment to the water. Within 60 seconds I am floating in one of the calm pools lined by smooth river rocks, hair swirling around my head in the gentle flow. The tough parts of the day are washed away with the dirt and the sweat, the reminder that one good moment can instantaneously make me forget about what was so hard in the first place. Suddenly I am not tired, hot, and uncomfortable – I am refreshed, calmed, at equilibrium once more.
It changed my whole day. Maybe even my whole life. I spend the evening watching the water and eating my food. Content. Quiet. The forest grows dark early and I tuck myself into bed.
DAY 8 (94 TOTAL)
Tentsite 5 miles in on Eagle Creek Alternate to Cascade Locks, 10.2 Miles
1,442.4 Total PCT Miles
A sound directly next to my tent snaps me out of sleep with a heart pounding so loud I can feel it in my ears. What. Was. That!!! I hold my breath, straining to hear if whatever just nudged up against my tent is still out there. In the all-consuming darkness and silence of midnight, I hear it again. Something is shuffling around and snuffling at the edges of my tent. Eyes wide, I swat the side of my tent as if whatever’s out there will know that I am indeed in here and do not want to be bothered. The internal dialogue is swaying wildly between It doesn’t sound too big, just let it lose interest and move on it’s fine and You will never in a million years fall asleep unless you open your tent, headlamp on, and try to spot what’s out there.
I don’t want to look, I really don’t. Blissful ignorance sounds far more appealing. However, I must know if I’m to attempt sleep again. I pull out my headlamp from a mesh pocket, strapping it onto my head and reaching for the tent zipper. One last deep breath before I poke my head outside into the inky black night.
I’m so relieved I let out a shaky laugh. A doe and two fawns stand a couple of feet away now, all three giving me the side eye as if I am interrupting them.
I don’t care that you’re here but stop touching my tent! I whisper-yell into the space they stand in the beam of my headlamp, thinking it’s been the curious fawns sniffing out my tent. I’m relieved they’re here though. My mind had assumed the worst, afraid I’d see glowing cat eyes or something equally sinister (or actual nightmare scenario, a person) when I poked my head out. If deer are here, probably no other predators are, and with that reassurance in my mind, I whisper once more at the deer – Carry on, but please let me sleep –before ducking back inside and re-zipping the tent.
When my alarm goes off a handful of hours later, it’s with a resigned sigh that I begin the process of readying for the day. Between the midnight wake up call, and the ground being the hardest ground in the history of all backpacking ever, sleep did not come easy. Even so, I slither out of my warm sleeping bag and pull on my dirty hiking clothes for this trip’s last day, feeling the usual tensions of trail and town, adventure and routine, fluidity and rigidity. Always, the tension.
I completely spook a NOBO man I last saw at Timberline as I hike back up towards trail from where I was camped. Clearly I chose a perfect tucked away tent site given he didn’t even know I was down there just a plateau or two away from him.
Back up on the trail, I point myself towards Cascade Locks and begin.
The sun doesn’t hit inside the canyon for most of the morning so I walk along in shaded silence, listening to the babbling and at times rushing, cascading, dropping noises of Eagle Creek flowing alongside the trail. I can’t stop myself from the near constant pausing to stare out at the water. It gathers in deep pools before collecting itself and spilling over rocky edges for a spell, then gliding along smooth sections of basalt, transitioning for a moment to a meandering flow and continuing on in the cycle.
When I’m not watching the water, I’m watching my feet – actively avoiding eye contact with the drop off as I cling to the inner edge of these narrow strips of trail. I’m trying to enjoy the views and take in the morning but I am also not a huge fan of heights. My rhythm is this: pause, deep breath, take it all in, focus, then scurry like mad down the trail until there’s a wider portion where I can resume my normal pace. The same goes for my arrival at Tunnel Falls. It’s crazy beautiful, surrounded with lush vegetation that is nearly neon green and moss lined cliff faces. It’s also crazy vertigo-inducing, and I find I can barely grab my phone out of my front pocket. Beneath my feet, the rocks have turned slick, the path somehow even more narrow, and it’s a long – long – way down to where the falls hits a pool of water.
After passing behind the waterfall in a spray of mist and chilling breeze, the trail turns even rockier. I set my sights on Cascade Locks, telling my feet (as if they are an entity entirely separate of me) that there’s just a couple more miles of hard, unstable trail left. The inevitable signs of civilization grow with each step and I begin to pass a steady stream of day hikers the closer I get to the parking lot. As I descend, it begins to look like fall – leaves already changing to yellows and reds and oranges. And just like that, I burst out from the trail onto pavement. There are rangers stationed at the trailhead and I chat with them for a moment before moving on to more important things, like using the bathroom and beginning my walk into town so I can eat real food.
I walk the bike trail in to Cascade Locks, opting to take the hard surface for my tired feet rather than the soft dirt trail that is supposedly lined by poison oak. I don’t really know what I’m doing once I get to town. It’s the beauty of trail and one of the few times I can just plan to not have a plan. I’ll see when I get there. (It’s a problem for future Kathryn). All I know right now is that gambling on September sure paid off.
As I near town, the sounds of the highway jarring after the past week, the distance is not lost on me. After this trip and a summer of high mileage weekends, I am halfway done with the Oregon section of the PCT, and halfway done with the entire trail. Wild! So many miles, and so few miles, so much time and no time at all. Cheers cheers cheers and an immense amount of gratitude for every step.