After 9 days of hiking, I got back to my car at hwy 138 just north of Crater Lake, went for a swim at nearby Diamond Lake. It was the 4th of July, and the picnic area at the south end of the lake was very crowded, but I did find a parking spot, changed into my speedo's and jumped into not very pristine water, along with a bunch of other families, just long enough to get the dust out of my hair etc.
Then I headed to Chemult where I fetched my bike, got a Subway Sandwich, then on to fetch my other food caches. Finally approached the western edge of Bend by dusk. Decided to take the side road that headed for Sun River (a small community just south of Bend) which is forest land with turnouts on the west side of road, to overnight. After pitching my car-camping tent, I began hearing the fireworks somewhere in Bend. I had thought earlier that I might get to Bend in time for that, but as I was heading into town, I was just focused on finding a place to overnight without unnecessary extra driving.
Fifth of July, A Sunday, spent all day in Bend taking care of business, two matters in particular:
One was researching of my next major loop: Probably between Santiam Pass - the north end of my last hike - to Mt Hood, though in which direction was the question - I could take the same bus to Santiam Pass, after bicycling down south from Mt Hood to Maybe Warm Springs then taking Bend-area local buses to Sisters via Redmond - except it turned out the local bus servicing Warm Springs from Redmond was discontinued, the only option being a regional bus between Bend and Portland, expensive for just a partial hop between Redmond. So it's more cost-effective to leave my car at Santiam Pass, bicycle down to Sisters, take the local bus to Redmond, then catch the Bend-Portland bus from Redmond to Government Camp at Mt Hood. (This turns out to be even more convenient, as I later learned of a $2 local shuttle from Sandy and some intervening towns including Zigzag and Government Camp, to the Timberline Lodge, the "high point" of the trail on Mt Hood, thereby much-simplifying my logistics in that area.)
The other matter was "negotiating" with a camera repair person to see if he could repair my camera at a reasonable cost. I learned of this repair person rather accidentally, after mis-reading an offer via Amazon of a "refurbished" Canon 5D Mark II for under $600, which actually was for the older 5D (a crop-sensor camera,) not the Mark II (full-size 35mm sensor.) But after emailing the vendor to clarify shipping and return-conditions (for the mis-read offer,) I learned that he does repairs at what promises to be a better price and faster turn-around than sending to Canon service. After quite a Q/A conversation that day, I was convinced he could repair my camera in a week, for $200 or so. Mailed my camera off. Done.
So now I decided to return the new Sony I had bought, within the 15 day window. Done. (Now I'm left with just my Nexus One phone for picts. Ugh!)
Decided to head north to do some more scouting around the Mt Hood/Columbia Gorge area. Forecast began calling for much cooler weather beginning next weekend and that might be an opportunity to do my unfinished low-elevation hikes on either side of the Gorge. On the Oregon side of the Gorge, Lolo Pass (on a north-west ridge of Mt Hood) promised to be a convenient high-point from which to bicycle down both sides to complete the portion of PCT from Cascade Locks as it circumnavigated the west half of mt Hood to Timberline Lodge. I could take advantage of the shuttle from ZigZag, (at the south end of Lolo Pass Road) up to Timberline Lodge. It would be convenient to do this short 20mile high-elevation hike before the weather cooled.
This I just completed yesterday. The route consisted of several substantial climbs and drops, much of it on steeply eroded ash as the trail attempted to traverse several glacial-stream canyons including the Zigzag, Sandy and Muddy-fork canyons, but also alternating between lower-elevation forests with still lushly green understory despite the bone-dry soil (although the mossy areas were visibly suffering,) and densely blooming alpine meadows as well as the dune-like ash-barrens. Actually I chose two "alternate routes" (done by most hikers but closed to horses.) Both of these routes are above the "official route". The first of these was the "Paradise loop" trail, which went through lushly blooming alpine meadow. The 2nd was the Ramona Falls-Timberline Trail route, which passed the iconic falls flowing over a roughly textured basalt cliff, and also crossed the notoriously treacherous Muddy Fork glacial stream at a higher elevation, before many of it's tributaries joined to create a truly treacherous crossing.) Too bad the spectacular views I experienced had to be pitifully-poorly captured by my tiny Nexus One.
Logically, I might have followed up with the northern half of that section, from Cascade locks to Lolo Pass (bicycling from Lolo Pass north-east down to Hood River (the upper part of this is gravel but I'll have a patch-kit allong...) then taking a bus west to Cascade Locks (or more specifically just past the Bridge-of-the-Gods to the Eagle Creek trailhead which is the "hiker-only" preferred alternate-PCT, with specifically it's iconic tunnel underneath the falls, and general northern-rain-forest scenery,) then hiking back UP 4000ft (normally PCT-ers are hiking DOWN this) from near sea-level in ten miles, then back down another 1000ft to the "pass" and my car. But I wanted to save that for after I got my real camera back.
So instead last night I drove into Washington to the Panther Campground area just north of Carson expecting to bicycle back down from there to Carson then west along the Columbia River to the Bridge of the Gods, to hike back up the Washington side of the Gorge to my car about 36 miles, so a single-overnighter backpack hike.
Except, I forgot to charge my Nexus phone batteries during my drive, so would have been totally without picture options. I could have driven to Stevenson and used the library there this morning to charge, but too early for library to be open, so decided to drive to Hood River, and take the $1 shower at the Marina there while there. Now I'm at the McD's across from the marina. About to return to Panther Campground and get going.
(Ah, except after the typical McDonald's wifi system-related snags its afternoon already. I had to redo some incompletely posted msgs... Grrr, while also giving up again to download BCNav maps to my Nexus, so I'll be navigating paper-only, sort-of. McD's access timing-out every 20 minutes or so wasting my time... now it will probably be a two-overnighter hike, with two half-days at the beginning and end.
So let me just look ahead a bit... My plans thereafter (assuming I won't yet have my camera back) is to continue the next 30-some miles up from Panther Creek campground to the vicinity of the "Berry Fields" in the Indian Heaven Wilderness (which was the southern extent of my hiking in Washington last year.) Then (assuming by then that I WILL have my camera back) I'll complete the Oregon-side of the Gorge from Bridge of the Gods up the Eagle Creek Gorge and on to Lolo Pass, this after a bicycle ride down from the pass (gravel for the first few miles but I'll have my patch kit along...) to Hood River then a bus ride to Cascade Lacks.
Beyond these three short hikes, in-between which I'll be keeping in touch with the camera repair-guy and hopefully getting it back in working order, (hmm.. it's Friday and I haven't yet heard that he's received my two-day priority mail delivery yet...) I'll do the 100 mile 6-day section between Mt Hood south back to Santiam Pass, which will finish off Oregon for me. Finally, I have left an approx 100 mile section in Washington between Chinook and Snoqualmie Passes, which will ALMOST finish up the PCT for me.
While I'm up here I also have in mind completing the 8 mile Canadian portion of the PCT that "most" hikers do, by doing it as an out and back 16 mile round trip day-hike from the Canadian side to the border and back (to complement the out and back from the American Hart's Pass side to the border that I did last year.)
(Also while "up here" I may have an opportunity to meet up with my friends Sandy L and Peter H vaguely planning to visit the Olympic Peninsula later this summer - our schedules just might coordinate - though I'm not counting on that, and may well visit on my own, along with a few other Washington spots such as Mt Baker that I hoped to visit last year but just missed the chance.) This might be in conjunction with an exploration of what's described as "The Pacific Northwest Trail begins near the Continental Divide in Glacier National Park and travels more than 1,200 miles through Montana, Idaho, and Washington before reaching its western terminus at the Pacific Ocean near Cape Alava." But that's another project entirely.)
Back on-topic, that leaves that 40mile "Aquaduct Walk" in the Mojave that I've "saved for last" pending a promised reroute of that just a little further west into the eastern foothills of the Tehachapi's through the Tejon Ranch. I guess that reroute won't happen as hoped soon enough, so maybe I will do that current Aquaduct Walk this next early spring, maybe in conjunction with another "desert wildflower" excursion with CNPS folk like when I started this PCT trek four years ago?
Beyond that, there's that "Section Hiking the PCT with Bicycle and Bus" how-to book I've got in mind to actually produce, which may well involve (to break-up a long "sit" in front of a keyboard) a few additional excursions along the "PCT corridor" to verify bicycle routes and perhaps car-camping options. Also some PCT section re-do-photo-hikes after I discover serious gaps in my photo-data for that larger much more daunting project of documenting vegetation along the trail, for some sort of "Vegetation Transect" project that was my original stated purpose for this activity.
Presumably I'll be returning to the Bay Area as my home base, where my friends and family reside, but not necessarily, who knows. Presumably, I'll follow-through on delivering the photo-documentation for the Pepperwood Phenology Project, and help finish up the Herbarium Data Entry project that I was involved in last winter, and, um, hopefully, find some sort of maybe part time paying job to supplement my meager current fixed income so I can deal with some deferred car expenses etc. On this latter front though, I'm thinking there may be an opportunity up here in Washington, involving what seems to me to be an obvious opening for a ducumentation and maybe UI tech position at the company Critter-Maps, that produces the BCNav app for Android that I've been trying to use without getting too frustrated by it's documentation and U/I shortcomings! I'm working myself up psychologically to present my resume and a contract proposal.
But I've got to get going, I've got some hiking to do before teh weather warms up again here in the Gorge.
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