Day 101 - Friday, August 6

Cowboy camping near a dirt road (mile 1750.6). Walked 20.5 miles today.

We started getting ready this morning and right after Frank finished her breakfast, she had a sharp pain in her stomach area. She lay down and I attempted to comfort her for the next 4 or so hours while the pain disappated. Finally, she felt well enough to hike and we started hiking about 10:30 am. We hiked along without much smoke, mostly through the trees but the trees would occasionally open up to views of the valley below.

We came across our first southbound thru hikers of the trip today and there were quite a few of them.

At one point, I was hiking along behind Frank with my headphones on, listening to music when suddenly, I hear a loud buzzing sound. Frank ran forward and I ran back. We had started a fairly good sized rattlesnake which slithered out of the brush and across the trail. I took my headphones out after that, so as to better to hear any more potential danger.

We kept hiking and ran into Forest Witch, a hiker who Frank met on day 1 but hadn't seen since. Crazy how the trail separates and reunites people.

We reached a footbridge over a small stream and ate lunch there. We were joined by Hueveos, who we met just after Quincy. He had gotten off trail for a wedding which had allowed us to catch him since he usually does huge miles. He's also dealing with shin splints, so Frank gave him some advice to help with those.

We hiked on and pushed several more miles past the turnoff for Hyatt Lake Resort (which we decided to skip). We could see the lake through the trees and it's so low, I'm not sure it can be classified as more than a large puddle at this point.

We crossed several dirt and gravel roads and eventually made it to our campsite, only to find trail magic set up on the road right next to it. We stopped in and got some fruit, veggies, and good conversation with the other hikers before retreating to the campsite to go to bed.

In other news, Frank has an upcoming "glamping" (glamorous camping) trip that she does every year with her friends. She invited me to come along, so we've been making plans to try to get off trail for a few days to attend that. I got some cell service as we hiked today and learned that my cousin in Eugene could come pick us up and bring us to town so we could make it to the glamping trip. We wanted to make Highway 58 at Willamette Pass so it would be easy for him to get us. This plan involves hiking nearly 160 miles over the next 4.5 days, so we'll plan to do some crazy miles to make it: 40 tomorrow followed by 30, followed by 40, followed by another 30, and then finishing off with a 17 into the pass. I'm a little nervous but we'll see how it goes. There are a lot of unknown, particularly the smoke, which descended on our campsite as the sun set this evening.