8/5/17 – Hiking the Green Tunnel

Blog 8/5
Day 104

Miles: 2,043.05 to 2,066.58
Total miles hiked: 1,425.54

Refreshed after the enormous amount of food we consumed yesterday and a good time chatting with fellow hikers for the entire evening, Dave and I were the first ones out this morning.

We were greeted by an amazing sunrise over Olallie Lake that colored the sky pink just above Mt. Jefferson. It was a beautiful sight, I wish we had more mornings like that.

For the rest of the day, the trail offered little distraction, except for a very brief view of Mt. Hood and without too many interesting things to stop and admire, the miles flew rather well. 14 miles before lunch, including all the uphill ones.

After lunch we cruised to Warm Spring River which was a refreshing creek with smooth flow where we refilled our bottles and spend some me time talking to our friend Vlada who got here shortly before us. It was his first day on trail after 4 days off. He got a chance to visit Hood River and the Columbia River Gorge and today him and his new hiking partner Squirrel were taking it easy. They briefly considered pushing on with us but in the end they opted to camp by the stream.

Dave and I hiked 4.5 more miles. The forest was dense and thick underbrush covered the forest floor as well as debris from previous downfall. Sites were few and far between and luckily one appeared just when we were getting pretty tired. It wasn’t perfect by any means but we made it work and by 9:30 p.m. we were fast asleep.