Week 22

Darrell is well into Washington now.  He has left the hot weather behind and is now hiking in comfortable conditions.  It is starting to get colder at night--not as cold as the Sierras but cold enough that he is setting up his tent and crawling into his sleeping bag as soon as he can to warm up.  I think he's growing weary.  Please pray for him each step of the way.

Darrell was delighted to run into Father Sebastian at a watering spot a couple days into his hike in Washington.  He was the one with whom he had hiked through the Sierras on his second attempt.  He hadn't seen him since our trip to Yosemite.  We had dropped Father off in Mammoth; Darrell got right back on the trail, but Father had some things he needed to take care of in Mammoth and was planning to stay a couple nights there before taking off again.  He ended up having to take a couple weeks off due to illness.  He skipped ahead to Tahoe, and he and Darrell have been leap frogging over each other without running into one another along the trail as they've been avoiding the burn areas.  Father was planning to meet up with his girlfriend this week who flew in from Germany to hike with him for the next three weeks.  She wanted to do the part with him  that he had skipped from Mammoth to Truckee, so he's going back down south.  Darrell will probably not see them again before they head back to Germany.

This is how Darrell has been filtering his water during this hike.  He used to have a pump filter, but he decided to use this system on the PCT.  It is a gravity-flow system.  The unfiltered water flows down through the filter directly into his drinking bottle, which is a one-liter Smart Water brand bottle which the filter fits perfectly into.  This way he doesn't have the weight of the pump to carry, and the weight of the filter itself is minimal.

Because of the trail closures due to fire there are a greater concentration of hikers in this area.  Although there are many fellow hikers, he has mostly been hiking alone during the day, but there are many people and tents at the good sleeping spots at night.  He is really not alone, though, with jackrabbits and deer to keep him company.  

At least here in Oregon he hasn't run into the likes of the legendary Hank the Tank, a black bear who is notorious in the Lake Tahoe area and is rumored to have devoured the food of a group of backpackers this year who had ditched their bear canisters when they were no longer legally required to carry them once they left the high Sierras and Yosemite National Park.  Hank came in at night and feasted on their easily accessible food. After this incident, the Forest Service mandated hikers to carry their food in bear canisters further up north through Tahoe.  The hikers don't like the extra weight and the awkward bulkiness of the containers.  Darrell has carried his food in a bear canister from the beginning and will continue to throughout his hike.  Bears don't know park boundaries and don't care about the rules.

I receive these pictures when he gets into a town with cellular/internet service, so although he's walking in Washington right now, these are pictures from Southern Oregon, from Ashland to Crater Lake.  The signs are exciting because they document progress.

Mt Ashland, I believe

Mt McLoughlin

Looking back at Mt Shasta from Oregon

Darrell will let me know if I mislabeled these!

Crater Lake

Beautiful wildflowers along the way.

Remember that Darrell is hiking the Pacific Crest Trail to raise money for clean drinking water around the world through Team World Vision.  Donations can be made using this link:  https://www.teamworldvision.org/participant/pctwaterboy

Thank you for following Darrell's adventure.

Week 20.5

 When I dropped Darrell off in Castle Crags State Park, his plan was to head north toward Oregon, then Washington, and then to touch the final PCT trail marker on the Canadian border.  The weather forecast predicted temperatures in the 100's for the next ten days.  Fortunately, the higher elevation and shade of the forest trees along the trail made for lower temperatures and more tolerable hiking conditions. He made it 100 miles to Etna, California, where he was picked up by Jen.  She is a friend of a friend of a friend who enjoys supporting PCT hikers passing through the area.  Darrell and several other people (Darrell referred to them as "the Belgians") camped out in her yard while they were in town resupplying and resting.  It was over 100 degrees here, and Darrell slept in her yard without a tent, laying on top of his sleeping bag in his swim trunks.  While they were there,  she let them all use her shower and do their laundry, and she hauled them all to a local pub for meals, drinks, and live music.

Once again, we are reminded that we can make our plans and commit them to the Lord, and he's the one who directs our path.  As Darrell was preparing to get back on the trail from Etna, he received word that the trail had been closed that day from where he was getting ready to start and that hikers were being evacuated.  A wildfire had ignited from a dry thunderstorm that came through that night and more dry lightning was predicted for the next night.  Buses were provided for the hundreds of hikers in the area to skip over the closed section and drop them off in Ashland, Oregon (67 miles by road, bypassing over 100 miles of trail).

Darrell made contact with a couple he had met along the trail in California a couple months earlier. At that time they were doing a section hike of the PCT in order to complete a portion of the trail they had skipped in their through-hike last year.  They completed this section and then returned to their home in Ashland, Oregon, offering their help when Darrell made it up that way.  They were true to their word and allowed him to stay at their home and helped him make plans for this next part of his journey.  

Leaving Ashland, he headed toward Crater Lake approximately 105 miles away, his next big pit stop along the way.   He was picked up by Ken and Nancy Goss who drove all the way from Grants Pass to take him to their home for a scheduled rest.  They had arranged this  months before Darrell actually started and have been keeping track of his progress and waiting for word from him that he was ready to be picked up.   They have been making sure he's well fed and giving him a nice comfortable bed to sleep in.  Darrell was able to go to church with them and was even able to share his adventure with the people there.  Thank you to those who made donations for clean water!

This brings us to the next change of plans.  A fire broke out last week just above Crater Lake, and another portion of the PCT has been closed in that area.    There is a great amount of trail strategizing on his zero days:  where the next water is, where the next food is, is there a store in town big enough to carry the kind of food he needs to carry, how close to town the trailhead is, how hard will it be to get a ride into town, where the next hamburger stand is, etc.  During his hiatus in Grants Pass he studied the map and decided the best course of action would be to skip Oregon at this time and walk through Washington.  The Goss' have offered to take him up to Cascade Locks in the Columbia River gorge that divides Oregon and Washington.  This way he will avoid the trail closure due to fires and he will be able to get through the mountains of Washington before the cold and snow hit and keep him from finishing the hike.  I guess he'll tag the PCT end point trail marker on the Canadian border and then take a bus back down to Oregon and hike the parts he had to skip if the fires are out and the trail is open again.

Random notes:  Darrell was able to pick up his pace the last two weeks and was averaging between 20 and 25 miles per day on the trail.  He is sleeping without a tent more often than not.  He has essentially quit eating instant oatmeal for breakfast because he doesn't want to be bothered with heating up water.  He actually prefers the granola with powdered whole milk that we prepackage in ziplock bags for the trail.  The instant oatmeal doesn't go to waste, though, because he now eats it for dinner occasionally since it is much quicker than the dinner meals he has packed.  

In Grants Pass, he purchased his third pair of hiking shoes for use on this trail.  He had to buy another hiking shirt, too, because one of the shoulders has worn through from the shoulder straps on his pack. It's interesting that it is only one shoulder; perhaps the pack straps need to be adjusted. He did try a patch job with duct tape, and he asked me to iron on some patches when we met last, but that was even less useful than the tape. Meanwhile, I'm thinking, "Just buy a new shirt!" His home remedies fortunately worked to get him through to the next available store that sells this shirt that he has come to like hiking with. 

The pictures below are from Castle Crags to Etna.  You can see how Castle Crags might have got its name.  There are several pictures of Mount Shasta from different vantage points, and you'll notice smoky skies in many of the photos. 

Thank you for reading this post.  Thank you for your prayers and encouragement and donations to World Vision for clean drinking water.  We had the opportunity to see this young girl in Ethiopia enjoying the clean water that was made available to her family and community from donations like yours.  Donate at:

https://www.teamworldvision.org/participant/pctwaterboy