Start point
Stock holding area at mile 1801.9
End point
Mazama Village 1821.9
Miles hiked
20 trail miles, 1.2 road to Mazama
Wilderness area
Rogue River National Forest
Winema National Forest
Sky Lakes Wilderness
Crater Lake National Park
People I met
Vibes
Stretch
Peanut
Megan
The day on trail
Talked more with Good Canadian and her crew
I’m so excited to finally enter Crater Lake National Park. To get there, of course, there’s an entire bunch of other wilderness boundary areas to go through.
I slept well, but the morning was super buggy with mosquitoes. Since we were packing up camp, and not staying, we couldn’t build a fire to keep them away.
So I put picaridin on inside my tent, which you can’t do with Deet because it will melt the plastic your tent is made of.
I packed up most of my gear while inside, then hurried outside to finish packing. I said bye to Ranger and Ketchup, as they took off. Ranger was going to stay with some of her Park Ranger friends at the NPS housing, Ketchup and I were going to camp at the hiker sites.
Despite the mozzies it was beautiful this morning. Sunny, just warm enough to feel good but not so warm I was dripping sweat.
There was a burnt out tree right off trail.
And the trail continued over a log that I thought of as another portal.
Blowdowns are more fun when you give them a sci-fi backstory.
But it’s so fun to know today’s a little shorter of a day. 20 miles and change, and a short mile and change to get to Mazama Village for food, beer, and charging stations.
Such a wonderful sign to read. Seeing the coming up National Park that’s such a milestone and the PCT sign. I swear I’ll never tire of seeing those three words on a piece of wood. But this is where I detour off the official trail and take the Crater Lake detour, which is so popular it might as well be the unofficial official trail.
I soon came into a stark burn zone.
Poor Oregon getting hammered by these fires. But you can see the growth coming back. It’ll be so long before trees can be big again, though, and that’s if it doesn’t burn again.
Signs came back after a transition into a forested area again.
And then another burn zone.
But crickets are doing fine.
As are the bees.
I really liked looking at this rock with a sprout below it and all the moss covering it.
There’s so much small life that’s coming back, even when the big organisms die. But to each organism they’re the biggest in their world.
I saw a promising sign, a sign of the literal variety. It signaled that I was entering Crater Lake National Park!
I MADE IT!!!
I’ll be camping in CLNP tonight and hiking around the lake tomorrow. I can’t believe it.
I’m excited. Though I’m a little skeptical because it’s been hyped up so much. How cool can a lake be? But I know that so far I’ve been glad to see everything for myself with my own eyes.
Down the way I found more signs.
And a beautiful mushroom well past its prime.
But you saw the no harvesting sign so I took some photos and continued on in this enchanted section of the earth.
Soon I came to a sign directing me how to get to Mazama Village. Pizza and beer time!
What this means is you can’t go through the entry station. There’s a small side trail off the road that you take to get in. So that’s what I did.
My goodness. I’m so excited to get to a National Park! And Crater Lake!
Not much longer, I got to the village restaurant!
I had a few hours before they closed. I went straight to the restaurant and ran into Ketchup eating with Good Canadian and her crew, Vibes, Peanut, Stretch, and Megan. I heard that Eva and Swiss Cheese were there somewhere. Slaphappy and Yoga Bear were outside enjoying wine.
They gave us the last of their bottle. I ordered a burger and a beer, plugged in my devices to an outlet, and sat down and started talking with everyone.
Too soon it closed and it was time to head to the campsite and set up. Ketchup and I headed to the campsite, and it was a bit of pain to find. The camping area is super sprawling with car camping lots and sites, and the hiker spots are kind of hidden. There were so few spots left, but we managed to find a couple relatively close together and set up. It was dark so we were doing all this by red lights on our headlamps.
Then it was a good 1/3 mile walk to the bathrooms to brush up.
By the time we got back it was dark dark. Headlamps until camp, then red lights.
Going to bed, I’m so exhausted. And I’m so excited to see Crater Lake tomorrow!