PCT Day 98: Crater Lake

Miles Hiked: 13.6

PCT Mileage: 1839.2

Despite my intentions of sleeping in, I woke up around 6:30am at campsite C24 in Crater Lake National Park. Sherpa and Jay Bird were up and getting ready to hike out. Sherpa is doing a section with Jay Bird. They met outside of Sierra City and I actually met Sherpa there as well. It was a total coincidence that I was going to see him again. Sherpa cooked blueberry pancakes and bacon for breakfast on a small skillet over a camp stove. I was impressed. He gave me some pancakes and bacon before I even got out of my sleeping bag. It was amazing. I was feeling so sore that I didn’t want to move at all. Eventually I packed up my things and went to go get my charger from the bathroom. Someone stole it and I was so angry and stressed out. I can’t believe someone would take it. Luckily they left behind my cord otherwise I would have had to hitch into town to get a new one. Not being able to charge my phone on the trail would be a big problem. I wished that person would get awful karma. I walked all over the campground asking any hikers I saw about it and let them know to keep a close eye on their stuff. I went to take a shower over at the hiker campground. It was freezing cold but I took it anyway. Afterwards I stopped by the hiker box to see what food was there because I heard the general store would be an expensive place to resupply. I lucked out and got some great bars and snacks. Yay for spending less money than I need to.

I walked back over to our campsite and Gushers was there. I got so lucky because he was carrying an extra charger he found on the trail a week ago. I was so thankful it was the same exact one I lost because it was a nice one I spent money to upgrade on this trail. I hung around camp all morning just relaxing. Diva and I planned to get pizza at 11am. It was pretty great but the ice cold drink was the best part. We ended up sitting around the park all day because it was blazing hot. I watched a movie about Crater Lake at the visitor center just so I could be in the air conditioning. We hung out with Midnight and Sunny J who walked in around noon. Diva and I didn’t hike out until 5:30pm. She was nervous about the heat and I just needed a long rest off of my feet so I wasn’t motivated to leave.

At 5:30 Diva and I walked back to the trail. It was a pretty steep uphill and I felt like all the easy terrain lately has made our climbing muscles get out of shape. I was glad when we finally made it up to the rim with a view of Crater Lake. The lake was deep blue and stunning. It used to be a volcano but it erupted and collapsed into itself creating a giant caldera that gets filled with snow melt. We filled up water bottles at a bathroom before continuing on the rim trail. Views of the lake were incredible as the sun set. I think it is one of the coolest things I’ve seen on the PCT. It reminds me of the Grand Canyon except filled with water. It was a steep drop off and a long ways down from the rim to the water. I had so much fun hiking into the evening with Diva. It felt like a once in a lifetime view. Since we weren’t allowed to camp on the rim we had to keep hiking into the night. I rolled my ankle really bad for the first time since Quincy. I screamed and took a few minutes to get back up. It felt awful but I walked it out to camp. I’m glad I haven’t rolled it in so long but I’m not ready to start worrying about it again. We set up camp at the junction with the actual PCT. The stars were absolutely incredible. It was 11:30pm when I finally was all settled in.

Happy Trails!

-Early Bird