Mackenzie Pass (Sisters) to ~Timberline Lodge.

Miles 1,985 – 2,099.

Days 96 – 100.

Between MacKenzie Pass and Timberline Lodge, the Pacific Crest Trail skirts around the edges of several large volcanoes. First, Three Finger Jack, then Mount Jefferson, and finally Mount Hood. These mountains feature dark volcanic rocks, spiky peaks, and large, semi-permanent snowfields.

Day 96

Today, I slack-packed the 17 miles between MacKenzie Pass and Highway 20. This was all thanks to my mom and her friend Alex, who came to see me in Sisters, OR.

I slept in, which I now almost always do in town. I figure that I might as well get the most enjoyment out of a mattress while I have access to one. Waking up early can wait until I’m on the trail. Or never.

Even so, we got up to MacKenzie Pass before 10 am. My mom and Alex dropped me and Swish off at the trailhead. Just as we got there, we briefly crossed paths with AC, Stag, and 100Grand – who were all arriving and headed to town. After hiking pretty closely with these guys for the 700 miles or so following Sonora Pass, it felt like I hadn’t seen them in a long time – about 10 days ago when I’d left Ashland. I felt happy they’d caught up.

The 17 miles of slack packing to Highway 20 flew by. Swish and I enjoyed the opportunity to hike with nothing but our snacks, water, and a few other day hiking essentials. We rock-hopped across a few lava fields, but mostly the trail was flat and easy walking.

Excitingly, we hit trail magic not once, not twice, but 3 times today! I haven’t had trail magic since around the Ashland area – the last major town before Sisters. My walk today almost felt more like a race with aid stations – I almost didn’t need to bring my own snacks!

Also excitingly, I hit the 2,000-mile mark on the trail! This means that I only have about 650 miles remaining on the PCT. While there’s still a long way to go, it feels crazy that I have less than the length of the trail to Kennedy Meadows remaining.

After my hike, I resupplied and ate dinner and ice cream. It’s been a restorative town stop. But I’m now feeling refreshed and looking forward to returning to the trail. With not many large towns ahead, I’m really not sure of the next time I’ll do laundry or shower. Since there are only 650 miles left, I might only shower a handful of additional times and do laundry 2-3 times. Honestly, I’m not sure how many more washings my worn-out garments can handle before they fall apart entirely.

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Day 97

After 3 nights in Sisters, OR, I got back on the trail today. I woke up at my mom’s Airbnb and had a final leisurely town morning. I slept in and we went out to breakfast. Then my mom and Alex drove me up to the PCT trailhead on Highway 20 so I could pick up where I left off after slack packing.

It was so fun to have my mom and Alex come out to the trail. I said goodbye and started hiking around noon. Not the earliest, but still pretty good for a day leaving town.

Today, the hiking mostly crossed through a very old burn area. This area is different from some of the other fresher burn areas I’ve crossed through. Here, there are old standing dead trees as well as younger ~10-20-foot tall trees coming back in the understory. It brings me hope to see such recovery taking place. I don’t know how long ago the fire was, but I hope that in many years some of the other burns I’ve crossed start looking more like this.

The most exciting view of the day was walking directly below a jagged peak that I’m told is called “Three Finger Jack”. This peak looked pretty neat from the front side. Then, when I hit a saddle and rounded the backside, the mountain became even more striking. From the back, the mountain was a towering, vertical wall of red and black lava rock, topped out in a jagged ridge that would require some serious rock climbing to summit.

As I walked today, I crossed paths with many southbound thru-hikers. The southbounders typically start from the Canadian border in June and July. I’ve been seeing them since just before Crater Lake. But they’re seeing a lot more of us. I’d estimate that for every 1 southbound hiker, there are at least 5 northbound hikers, if not more.

I ended the day by filling up water at a lovely lake where quite a lot of thru-hikers (both northbound and southbound) camped. I opted to walk another mile to a lovely flat open area on a wide ridge-top, with views back to Three Finger Jack. It was the most scenic campsite I’ve had in a while, and a wonderful place to watch the sunset and end the day.

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Day 98

I awoke at 4 am to the sound of my tarp flapping loudly in the heavy wind sweeping across the ridge. Unable to tolerate the noise, and feeling confident it wouldn’t rain in the next few hours, I got up. I quickly walked around my tarp removing each stake, before shoving it all into my backpack. I crawled back into my quilt and went back to sleep, cowboy camping, noise-free.

My morning got off to a bit of a slow start after I struggled with the wind. But I enjoyed my morning nonetheless, walking across a ridge with views to yet another towering volcano: Mt Jefferson. It seems whenever I pass one volcano, a new one appears on the horizon, and I start walking towards it.

Eventually, the trail wound around the left side of Mount Jefferson. A lot of this area was burnt. Once again, I found myself walking with no shade on a hot day – giving me flashbacks to NorCal.

I’m thankful that my dress does a good job of keeping the sun off me. Though it looks a little worse for wear now than it does in the desert. It is actually slowly stretching out and becoming longer as the elastic wears out. What started as an above-the-knee dress is now approaching my upper calf.

People love commenting on my dirty dress. Back when it was clean, people told me how cute and comfy it looked. More recently, people used the following descriptions to refer to me in my dress:

• Dobby the house elf
• A Jedi
• A druid
• An Orthodox Jewish woman
• A “filthy beggar”

Despite how I look, I’m just feeling hopeful I’ll make it to the end before the dress totally falls apart.

After my tent flapping incident last night, I opted to cowboy camp tonight, in a small meadow next to a lake. There might not have been much of a view, but it was quiet, cool, and peaceful.

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Day 99

I awoke in the not-so-early morning in the lovely little meadow to find moisture everywhere. A fine mist covered my sleeping bag, backpack, and even my phone and glasses lying next to my head. Such is the price for this nice campsite.

Feeling in no rush, I spread out my damp gear in the sun to dry while I got ready. I slowly ate my morning meal of Nutella, English muffins, and beef jerky. Not a bad breakfast. At this point in a thru-hike, hikers can end up eating some pretty odd stuff. Case in point, I watched in fascination as Swish, sitting next to me, mixed up a thick goo of chia seeds in a liter water bottle as his breakfast. Over the first 5 miles of the day, I observed him struggling to pour the slimy concoction into his mouth as he hiked.

The first part of the morning’s hike took me through a small burn area. Though the burn areas in Oregon have overall seemed smaller and less severe than the ones in NorCal, there are still many of them. Quite a few of the burn areas I walk through weren’t here 5 or 10 years ago.

It’s heartbreaking to hear locals in the trail towns talk about the loss of the beautiful forests that used to be in their backyards – a resource that once provided both recreation and tourism in these communities. Anthropogenic climate change and unnatural levels of fire suppression are changing these areas. Certainly, walking through these places today is very different from the experience of PCT thru-hikers a decade or more ago. There is beauty in the burn areas, but also great loss.

Thanks to the lack of shade, I was sweating and hot by the time I reached a small pond next to a road crossing. The road leads to Ollalie Lake Resort, a place with a campground and a small camp store. I took a quick dip in the little pond to cool off, then walked a short way down the dirt road to the camp store to grab a cold soda, before continuing on.

Soda wasn’t the only sweet treat today. The trail corridor today was lined with tons of huckleberry bushes – all ripe and ready to eat! I learned from Swish, who takes an interest in foraging, that you can tell huckleberries from blueberries because they are reddish, not greenish, on the inside. We stopped and gorged ourselves on the tasty berries several times throughout the day.

I stopped for a long lunch break in the shade. It’s hot and muggy today, with highs in the 90s according to the cashier at the camp store. So much for the cool spell that I’d enjoyed last week. While I lunched, a hiker who looked mildly familiar walked into the campsite. It turned out it was J-Go – a hiker I met on the Aquaduct and haven’t seen since Tehatchapi back in the desert! J-Go, Swish, and I hiked together into the evening, chatting and catching up.

We all stopped at the final water source for the day, filled up, and started up a hill to look for dry camping. Unfortunately, the forest was extra brushy and there were zero places to camp, due to the shrubs. After a few miles of this, we found the tiniest little patch of bare forest floor directly next to the trail. Thankfully, it didn’t look like rain, so all three of us squeezed into the tiny campsite side by side to cowboy camp.

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Day 100

I struggled to fall asleep last night. Once the sun went down, an army of tons of huge ants came out and swarmed over everything. At first, I told myself I was imagining them. But after pulling 15 or so of them off me and throwing them out of my quilt, I could no longer ignore them.

I was just wondering how the other two managed to sleep among the horrid insects, when J-Go jumped out of his sleeping bag. “I can’t take these ants,” he grumbled, before packing up quicker than I’d seen anyone pack up, and taking off down the trail by headlamp.

Swish and I endured the rest of the night at the ant-ridden site, but it cost both of us quality sleep. We awoke late and groggy.

Unfortunately, the ants weren’t our only nighttime critter visitor. In the night, some animals came and chewed through the cork handles of my trekking poles. Feeling disgruntled, I repaired them as best I could with Leukotape.

I made up for the frustrations of the morning by taking my sweet time eating breakfast and packing up camp. I hit the trail at 9 am and busted out a quick 11 miles to reach a huge lake just after noon. There, I took an extra-long break and enjoyed swimming and catching up on writing in the shade.

In the evening before camp, I stopped and filled my cold soak jar with huckleberries picked from the many bushes lining the trail. Shortly after, the trees gave way to sandy, open slopes on the shoulder of Mount Hood. Here, I made my camp, beneath the view of the colossal volcano. As I dozed off under the stars, tucked in my quilt to protect me from the whipping wind, I watched the Perseids meteor shower. I was tired enough that I only saw 5 shooting stars before I fell asleep.

Oddly, today didn’t really feel like a day of hiking. It felt like a day of sleeping in, swimming, picking berries, and watching meteor showers, just with some hiking in between. Despite my lollygagging, I managed to hike about 29 miles today.

Today was day 100 of my thru-hike. Within a month, I’ll likely finish. Tomorrow, I’ll hike 1.2 miles to Timberline Lodge, a ski resort on the side of Mount Hood. There, I’ll pick up my next resupply package and take advantage of the All-You-Can-Eat breakfast buffet at the restaurant.