7/26/17 – Finally Some Easy Miles

Day 94
Miles: 1,845.46 to 1,867.11

Total miles hiked: 1,278.76
The weather held till about 3:30 in the morning. Then the rain came down hard and it still rained at 5:00 when we were planning to get up so we decided to wait for an hour to see if it might stop. It didn’t but it slowed down considerably so we packed and off we were. 

We had to make 8 miles to a water source. Except for snow patches, some decently long, it was easy going with most of the path going downhill.
The creek we were looking for was still heavily snow covered at the trail level and we had to follow the snow finger down until we reached the creek flowing from under the snow.

Camp was set there and we met Rhino, ex marine strolling along the trail trying to put his life back together after 18 years of service and a medical discharge. We sat with him by his fire and had an interesting conversation. Hour flew by very quickly.
About 800 feet of elevation stood between us and the highest point of Oregon and Washington. The climb was spread evenly over about 4 miles and it didn’t feel like we were climbing at all. 

Another climb awaited us at the end of the day. It was 800 more feet, this time spread over 6 miles. I like gaining elevation that way. It felt we went flat the entire uphill. 
With no official camp sites showing on our apps, we decided to start looking for a potential spot sometime around 6:30 p.m. There are always more sites than the apps show and it was the case today as well. Shortly after 6:30 we bumped into Vlada, one of the 6 Czech people I met at Crater Lake and there was plenty more space at his spot to pitch our tent as well so we accepted his invitation and settled down for the night.