The Spaces In Between

A thru-hike is really a series of weeklong trips, joined together by resupply points. If the effort of the hike itself is primarily in the miles and miles of walking on trail, the resupply points are the spaces in between. The gaps, the rests, long or short, they can be a couple hours or a couple days. Just as important as the making progress on the trail, the resupply points offer a cadence of destinations to both look forward to, and take stock of how things are going. Here’s my PCT section hike from that point of view.

Snoqualmie Pass, WA 5 days, 64 miles
My first resupply stop, and I was definitely looking forward to it. There is a very small ski area here, but not much is open during the summer. It’s pretty much a small patio, one food truck, and a chairlift to the top for tourists that want to see the views. I was lucky and the food truck was open when I arrived. I ordered a Caeser salad, and enjoyed it so much I had a second one while waiting for my phone and spare battery to recharge. I walked a quarter mile down the road to a Chevron station to pick up my resupply box with the next 6 days of food. The owner or manager charges hikers $8 to receive and hold their boxes for them, which although some hikers complain about it, was fine with me as he’s providing a valuable service. He had a couple floor to ceiling shelves in a back room dedicated to hiker boxes, and mine was numbered and waiting. I collected it, spread out on a picnic table back at the food truck patio, and organized my pack for the next section. A family took the table next to me, and it turned out to be a pair of doctors with two young kids. They were very curious about long distance hiking, and we chatted for quite a while. I saw only one other hiker at this stop, as I was still a bit north of the northbound hikers, and I was ahead of the main southbound crowd as I’d jumped in 200 miles south of the northern terminus in order to avoid some dangerous, snow covered hillsides. I ate, rested, chatted, and eventually headed back out after about a four hour break.
Favorite part: definitely the food
Least favorite: not much going on!

Whilte Pass, WA 6 days, 103 miles
White Pass was just as small as Snoqualmie, in terms of services. Just a tiny store on a mountain pass for most travelers. A former gas station now operates as a convenience store and is very hiker friendly. They accept resupply boxes without charge, allow camping on a strip of grass behind the building, and offer showers and access to laundry machines. I arrived around 9am, and the place was packed with hikers. I’d finally reached the lead hikers heading north. I also met a couple groups of southbound hikers that I would bump into a couple more times in the weeks ahead. I ordered a couple breakfast burritos (yum!), got my package, and headed back out after my electronics were charged. There was lots of climbing ahead, as I was heading into the Goat Rocks Wilderness.
Favorite part: meeting so many hikers
Least favorite: being unsure about the etiquette of competing for electrical outlets for charging. There were way more hikers than outlets!

Trout Lake, WA 3 days, 56 miles
Trout Lake is a crossroads community that actively seeks out hiker visits each summer. With about 500 residents, a post office, church, general store, a diner and a food truck, hikers represent a decent chunk of their summer business. The town had a very relaxed, very welcoming feel. I stayed on the back lawn of a church with about 20 other hikers. It had a covered picnic area with 4 tables, a couple outlets for charging, a pair of porta-potties, even a hand-washing station. The general store was well stocked with the types of dried and instant foods hikers like, and they also offered laundry and limited camping on their side lawn. I picked up my box at the post office, enjoyed a goat meat and bean burrito dinner from the food truck, and showered at the campground down the road. Groups of hikers gathered and socialized at the tables by the food truck, around the general store, and at the covered patio area at the church. Trout Lake was slammed with hikers while I was there, and the few business owners were struggling to keep pace with the demand, while also wondering what it meant for their overall summer business. Because fires had closed hundreds of miles of trail in Northern California, hikers had to evacuate those areas and ended up concentrated at a few good starting points in northern Oregon and southern Washington. Farther south, at a crossroads diner in Northern Cal, I heard the owner lamenting that her business was definitely down as hikers were forced out of that area by the fire closures, and bills were going to be tougher to meet in the slow winter months. In the morning I waited for my clothes from a shared laundry load, and then caught a ride back to the trail, about 20 miles away. The local retired guys post a schedule of their pickup truck shuttles to and from the trail. Trout Lake made for a very nice overnight stop.
Favorite part: socializing with other hikers at dinner and breakfast
Least favorite: the crowded trail heading in - I counted over 170 hikers that day!

The group camping area at Cascade Locks

Cascade Locks, OR 5 days, 82 miles
Cascade Locks was the first actual city I reached, and I took two rest days there. I had some swelling and soreness above one ankle and decided it would be better to give it a good rest as the hike out of town is a long, strenuous uphill. Cascade Locks has a small campground just a short walk from downtown, and lets hikers cluster on a grassy lawn toward the end. On each of the 3 nights I spent there, I think there were 20 to 30 other tents there also. The town is very scenic, as it sits right on the Columbia River, with mountains rising to both the north and south. There’s a coffee shop and a couple restaurants with good food that are very hiker friendly, plus a good social scene with so many hikers passing through. The only disadvantage to Cascade Locks? It’s at only 77 feet elevation; you have to hike down from over 7000 feet elevation on the Washington side, and then right back up to 6000 feet on the Oregon side. It’s no wonder that valley is called the Columbia River Gorge.
Favorite part: Lots to like here - the scenery, the food, the social scene
Least favorite part: The trail down from the north, by far. It was long, horribly rocky, and mostly sun exposed, quite the unexpected slog after the super well maintained trails down into Snoqualmie and White Pass. I was pretty grumpy and trudging on unhappy feet as I rolled into town. On the positive side, there were tons of fresh, wild blackberries along the last couple miles.

Timberline Lodge, OR 3 days, 50 miles
Three short days later I arrived at Timberline lodge in the late afternoon. It’s a beautiful old wooden ski lodge at 6000 feet on Mt. Hood, with large, long, wooden beams spanning out from a central post. Even in mid-August they still had one well-groomed run open for skiers. I mailed a box there, and paid for it at the gift shop after a bit of hunting around on their part. Camping was available just a couple hundred yards uphill under some trees, and I spent the night and stayed through the morning breakfast buffet. I shared a table with a couple other hikers, one doing the full northbound trek, and one driving around and picking day hikes. Hikers rave about the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet, and I can see why. It does have a large selection, and of course, hungry hikers love an all-you-can-eat buffet!
Favorite part: The big leather chairs in little nooks made for very comfortable rest spots.
Least favorite: Nothing much to dislike, here!

Big Lake Youth Camp, OR 6 days, 104 miles
Big Lake Youth Camp is a Christian Youth Camp a mile or so off trail, and a generous patron donated a building specifically designed and built for thru-hikers. Hikers can stay all day if they’d like, but they cannot sleep in the building or camp on the grounds. The building had a large common area with central tables and chairs along both walls, a washer/dryer set, and two bathrooms with showers. I met and chatted with about ten other hikers there, half from the US and half from Europe. I stayed for two meals, lunch and dinner, took a shower, did laundry, and then hiked out after dinner and camped a few miles down trail. At dinner I sat with a hiker from Germany also named Arne. He wasn’t nearly as enthusiastic about the coincidence as I was :)
Favorite part: the group meals at the staff tables
Least favorite: again, nothing not to like, here

Campground Store at Shelter Cove

Shelter Cove, OR 5 days, 102 miles
I arrived at Shelter Cove early in the morning 5 days later, and as the day prior was hot, dry, and with lots of climbing, I was looking forward to this stop. Shelter Cove is a small, private lakeside resort catering mostly to fishermen, but they also accept hiker boxes and have a small general store. I spent a morning here at a lakeside picnic table, charging my electronics, sorting my resupply, and just enjoying sitting in the shade. I arrived at around 8am, and probably headed out around 11 for a mostly uphill walk to that night’s campsite. There were half a dozen or so hikers when I arrived; they’d each arrived the evening before, and all but two were heading north.
Favorite part: Coffee at a picnic table in the shade!
Least favorite: Other hikers left messes at the picnic tables. There’s no excuse for that. They should be spotless.

Mazama, OR 3days, 75 miles
Mazama is a small private campground area with a gas station, general store, and restaurant about 5 miles outside Crater Lake. I hiked along the rim of Crater Lake first thing in the morning(stunning, and worth a visit!), and headed down a creek trail to Mazama mid-day. Oof, the trail down was steep! No time or interest in designing in switchbacks for that section, I guess. I chatted with a man from Bend about the local forest and health of the trees(lots of stressed ones), met a young woman from Russia who was carrying the biggest backpack I think I’ve ever seen, and shared a long lunch in the restaurant with three other hikers, one from Australia and one from Sri Lanka. MaryJean had included some homemade Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies in the resupply box, and I share them with some very happy lunchmates. By late afternoon I had repacked from my resupply box, and I headed back out on trail just behind the kid from Sri Lanka. We’d see each other a couple of times over the next day before he finally gapped me.
Favorite part: Lunch with the three other hikers in an air conditioned restaurant
Least favorite: The steep trail in, again

Ashland, OR 5 days, 99 miles
This was the third of three, 100-mile carries on this trip, and I was quite happy to reach town and get a shower and a bed. I had mailed a box to a lodge that was right off trail, but their restaurant wasn’t open that day and they didn’t have rooms available yet, so after picking up the box I got a ride the 5 miles or so into town from a trail angel. Turned out the driver was also retired, and among other things, was a once and former mayor of Sonoma, California. We talked about the Sonoma and Napa valleys, and the minor league baseball team in Sonoma(one of the only teams to have women on it’s roster). I found a small hotel that was hiker-friendly close to terrific grocery store, washed my clothes at a local laundromat, and rested through the afternoon. Ashland would be a terrific place to take a couple rest days, but at this point I was trying to get ahead of schedule, so I hiked on out of town after having breakfast(twice!) the next morning.
Favorite part: The wonderful breakfast places in town
Least favorite: The heat wave with 100+ degree temperatures on the day before reaching town

Etna, CA 6 days, 119 miles
Six hot and dry days later, I arrived in Etna, a tiny town in the mountains of Northern California. A local retired lady shuttles hikers from the trailhead about 10 miles outside of town. She gave me a tour of the small town, a rundown of the current gossip, and dropped me off downtown. From her updates I learned about the negative effect AirBnB is having on the town. The few available houses were being snapped up as investment properties and run as short-term rentals through AirBnB, creating a shortage for locals looking for long term rentals or an affordable place to buy. I chose to stay at an old, turn-of-the-century wooden boarding house. I met and chatted with the owner for a while, with three women hikers from Eastern Europe, and finally with a young forest ranger who had just taken a job there and moved to town. Other hikers in town told me that there were two to three weeks of terrible, fire scared terrain ahead, still covered with a fine, powdery ash that stained gear and made it difficult to breathe. After a quick call to the friend who had planned to join me in Etna, we decided to not to hike through the recent fire areas. That made Etna the end for me on this trip, and hopefully it’ll make just as nice a start on a future trip.
Favorite part: Staying at the old boarding house, eating at the terrific bakery
Least favorite: None, again, great little place!