A Jaunt on the PCT II, Day Three

A mountain with grayish splotches of burnt trees

August 20th, 2019:

I awoke in the earliest watch of the morning, when the sky was gray with a few stars still lingering, to the sound of a barred owl hooting in a tree nearby. I took out my earplugs to hear him better, listening to the rhythmic Who-cooks-for-you, who-cooks-for-you-all echoing across the lake in the morning stillness. Then I immediately fell back asleep.

I woke up a little while later, when the sky was still gray but a flaxen light was starting to paint the rim of the eastern mountain ridge that rose up as part of the bowl that encased Wahtum Lake. Zach and I packed up quickly and were on the trail by 7:15, just as golden light was pouring onto the uppermost trees on the far ridge.

My shins and calves were super sore, and we both knew that the hike today would entail a lot of downhill, as we were heading into the Columbia Gorge to meet Gary at Cascade Locks. The hikes of the past two days had been difficult, and I'd never felt like I'd gotten enough sleep, and that, combined with my muscle aches and the weather growing sticky and warm, made me feel leaden with exhaustion. We walked slowly and took lots of breaks, but I could not push myself harder.

Checking out this huge mushroom!

Although the forests were similar to the ones of the past two days, we wound in and out of distinct ecosystems, such as fir forests where the ground was carpeted almost entirely with waxy, bluish clumps of beargrass. 

Soon we began ducking in and out of burned areas that stretched from the gorge up onto the hills like fingers. I grimaced at the rows of scorched trunks, but Zach reminded me that the forest is supposed to reset every couple decades— and if a single spark from a firecracker was enough to set the entire gorge ablaze, it meant that the forest was past its due. Wanting the gorge to be only lush and green on our terms was pure nostalgia, not actually what's best for the woods.

"Still," I said, "it's sad that there are people around who will never live to see the forest in full glory again."

"But that's just a human perspective," Zach said. "An old forest that hasn't been burned in too long isn't a fire ecosystem in its full glory. Every stage is important. Humans just like certain stages less than others."

I looked around at the blackened trees, which had a handsome ombré effect due to the scorched bark giving way to sun-bleached wood above. Clumps of beargrass and whips of huckleberries were slowly retaking the ashy ground, and among the shards of burnt bark on the ground you could see fir trees half an inch tall, bristling like green stars. Black-and-white hairy woodpeckers flitted between the dead trees, rattling the silence with their pecking. The forest was still very much alive, just not in the way we're used to. The glory of a fire ecosystem is to be what it is, no matter what stage.

Still, I was glad we had hiked the Eagle Creek Trail when we'd had the chance.

The day grew hotter as we hiked back into live trees and started a never-ending downhill that hurt my tense muscles so badly that I groaned with every step (Zach was faring no better, with his knee hurting). Popping some Ibuprofen helped, but it was just a matter of getting through it, switchback by switchback. We got some last beautiful views of Mount Hood and Mount Adams before we disappeared behind the ridge of the mountains that stand right at the banks of the Columbia River: the blue water called to us from a thousand feet below, and we limped toward it.

After a couple hours of tedious and painful downhill, we paused by a spring to gather water and rest our sore legs. Unlike the still warmth of the forest, this cleft in the rock was a channel for cool air, which tumbled down from the mountain heights along with the water. Here we revived a bit, and felt better as we headed toward the last several miles of the hike.

The trail more or less leveled out now, winding us alongside the mountain shoulders, past twenty-foot-tall triangles of volcanic rock, and through woods that became full of familiar plants: cat-ears, Oregon grapes, big leaf maples, licorice ferns. 

We popped out into a gravel parking lot, followed PCT blazes on telephone poles down the road, ducked under a bridge, and came out at a little park right next to Bridge of the Gods, where Gary was waiting to pick us up.

We collapsed in the car, aching, sweaty, and stinky— and satisfied that we had completed this breathtaking section of the PCT. That night, I slept twelve hours straight.

 ~~~