I woke early to see mist floating over Timothy Lake, and promptly fell back asleep, waking for real only when the sun cleared the hill behind us and poured golden light onto the trees. A raven croaked from a treetop across the water, and ospreys dove for breakfast.
Since we were going to hike around the lake today, we stashed my pack and most of our gear in the woods near some trail crossroads, then took turns carrying a day-pack for the 13-mile loop.
The weather continued to be warm and unbrokenly sunny with a cool breeze. The trail was flat and soft underfoot, meandering around the lake over a dam, through natural areas, alongside day use areas packed with people and inflatable swim rafts, in between campgrounds, and into the forest. We paused on one of the beaches to soak our sore, blistered, dusty feet in the cool lake. With our toes in the water and a great view of Mount Hood ahead, we were content to sit around for quite a while.
At last we finished the loop, recovered our gear, and headed a few minutes down the trail to Little Crater Lake, a perfectly clear spring 45 feet deep. The cerulean water is stunning!
As we sat in the grass rehydrating refried beans for dinner, a thru-hiker with a canvas tarp rolled onto his pack walked up, and we invited him to sit with us. We learned that he, like many people this year, had planned to hike northbound, but had hit a hard stop with the insanely high snow in the Sierra this year, forcing him to travel to Canada and hike south the rest of the way.
He was serious and sincere, opening up about how emotional it was for him to lose his "trail family" when the Sierra split everyone up. Originally from Hong Kong, but spending most of his life in San Francisco, he had grown up hearing stories of the PCT and had always wanted to hike it. With turning 30 this year, he realized that life was slipping away and that he should chase his dreams now.
We talked with him for a long time, chatting about everything from hiking philosophy to how culture influences our ideas about family and community. We shared some of our dehydrated hot sauce with him. A cyclist walked over and asked if we were thru-hikers ("Yes, but not this year," we replied), and we chatted with him for a while about his adventures cycling across the US and hiking sections of the PCT, Appalachian Trail, and Continental Divide Trail.
By this point an hour or so had passed, so Zach and I packed up, wished the thru-hiker good luck and safe travels, and hiked back down the trail. We walked a few miles, gathered water from a spring while dodging mosquitoes, then hiked on to find a place to camp.
Although the gently-sloping woodlands probably had some good campsites, we weren't tired yet, so we kept walking until the trail cut along the side of a very steep, several-hundred foot slope of trees, with a bank of rhododendron on our right and a sweeping view of the fir-blanketed mountains, and, looming large, Mount Hood's peak, to our left. It was the "golden hour" of the day, the view both sharpened and softened with the evening glow.
We watched Mount Hood's peak slowly march by, flanked by deep woodlands and an occasional stretch of meadow. Behind us, the sun dipped toward the mountains, casting stripes of dappled light over the trail. I felt hushed by the magic.
At last we plunged back into the woodlands, and realized that we had almost made it to the next water source, at a designated campground. Since we didn't want to pay to camp, we ended up pitching our tent a hundred yards from the highway that weaves its way up to Mount Hood. The sound of trucks passing by all night wasn't exactly a wilderness experience, but the stars were beautiful.
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