Day 129 : 2000 miles

26th August 2013
Mile 1988.5 to mile 2011 : Lava Lake Trailhead to yet another burn zone
Mileage : 22.5

Average mileage since day 101 :

This morning I woke up to the wonderful smell of frying bacon. This, along with fresh bread and coffee, is one of the real luxuries in life, and I was lucky enough to wake up to Dan making breakfast. Rather than take on calories, as I usually do in the morning, I enjoyed breakfast, and after breakfast Dan drove me back to the trail via the coffee shop where I had a cup of really good coffee. The fry up and coffee put me in good stead for the day ahead, which, although was better weather wise than the day before, still entailed several miles of hiking gingerly across seemingly endless lava. To make matters wortse, I didn't have maps for this section up to the Big Lake Youth Camp. This lack of maps was not an issue in terms of safety or anything like that, more that I like knowing about the trail in front of me so's I can prepare myself mentally for any tough climbs, or tricky miles, case in point, the lava. The mapless 13 miles between McKensie Pass and the Big Lake Youth Camp was an error on my part, as I would be picking up all the maps I'd need to Cascade Locks at the BGLC so it more of an inconvenience rather than anything else. About a mile out from the youth camp I came across a very important sign in the dirt, the 2000 mile marker. To be honest it was rather anticlimatic. I have come along way, 2000 miles infact, but the miles seem less important now than the places I'll be getting to. Also, given that I was on my own there was no-one with whom to celebrate, but nontheless I did have a quiet smile to myself thinking about the fact that for all intents and purposes, I have now hiked 4/5ths of the way to Canada from Mexico, an impressive achievement if i do say so myself. At the Big Lake Youth Camp I found my box and packed it up into my rucksack along sime KaZu, one of the Japanese contingent on the trail. The last time I saw her I think was over 1300 miles ago at Kennedy Meadows South just prior to entering the Sierra and so we chatted a while before she headed off to find a ride to take her into Bend for a day off. I on the otherhand made my way to the mess hall of this youth camp where i'd been told the day before from Nora, the girl i'd met at the coffee shop in Sisters who'd offered me a place to stay up here, that I'd be able to find a meal here. Sure enough I managed to find some cheapy reheated pizza from the kitchen and sat eating it while a group of early 20-something years sat nearby. I am used to most people taking some sort of interest in my hike, and have a standard schpeel that all hikers have on stand-by ready to dole out at a moments notice, but oddly the 'kidss' running the youth camp couldn't care less about me. I thought it odd at first, given that they probably had all chosen to come out to work at this camp, but then realised that as college kids they were all much more interested in each other and the trials and tribulations of college life rather than what some bearded english guy was doing hiking through the West Coast wilderness. After my late lunch of cheap pizza, I was back on trail heading north towards 3 Fingered Jack, the next volcano on the road north toward Canada. There are 105 miles betweeen the Big Lake Youth Camp and Timberline Lodge, my next goal, and I intend to get there in 3 days and the afternoon I left from the youth camp. This meant that my dayly average would come considerably the more miles I could do today, so I took off from the youth camp intending to get some serious miles in before nightfall. Unfortunately, my ankles had taken a real battering on the lava flows, and consequently let me know I needed to stop just after 7pm. It is extremely rare that I stop before 8pm, so for me it was a real luxury to have that extra hour of daylight in which to do my evening routine. I also took the opportunity to try out my new, improvised sleeping bag dry system, which consisted of a polyethene poncho wrapped around the foot of my sleeping bag in an attempt to shield it from the worst of the exterior condensation and perhaps, rain. Although I didn't know it at the time it turned out to be a bad idea.