Section C is 72 miles long and runs from Fish Lake to Highway 138, near Mount Thielsen. August 18th - 20th.
Day 104, 31.1 miles to Jack Spring Junction.
We did much better about leaving tampon time and hit the trail right at 7. A few miles in we passed Midge who is always one to sleep in. I put on Queens greatest hits, a triple album that would power me through the day and I made it 7.1 miles to Christi's Spring and exactly 2 hours. We filled up water, had second breakfast, and then took off because we were planning for a 30+ mile day. Sea Lion and I stopped again about 2/3 of the way through the 14 mile water carry for another snack. I didn't stick around long because I was determined to hit the "20 by 2" checkpoint. Hiking 20 miles by 2pm is just a solid way to set you up for success on a 30 miler. Freddy Mercury again give me energy to blast out some miles but I was slow down because the skies were finally blue again. So I stopped to take some pictures that dug myself in a hole, 15 minutes to go one mile... uphill. I started racing, blew past Moose who is a speedy hiker, and hit the marker with one minute to spare. I went a little further to Devil's Peak where I took a break to climb a nearby feature. Then I went to last mile to the water for everybody was taking a siesta. it was a 21 mile carry to crater Lake and would be a dry camp so we wait it out the heat of the day, cooked an early dinner, and cameled up with 3L of water. The last 10 miles per pretty harsh, I was dead tired for some reason, what's the landscape was pretty fascinating. We soon and third a huge burns own that still smelled like a campfire and had grey ash covering the ground. New trees for emerging among the black and charred dead ones and the smoke had crept back in. we got to camp minutes before the Sun doc below the horizon and I got a couple pictures of the ominous red dot disappearing between the silhouette of burned trees.
Fuzzy Tree.
Devil's Peak.
Day 105, 12 miles to Mazama Village.
We got an early start with excitement to finally arrive at the majestic Crater Lake. Sea Lion and I hiked together through the burn zone and chatted about living the van life and our ideal layouts. We arrived at Highway 62 where we got a hitch into Mazama Village where we planned to grab lunch and then continue on to the Rim Trail. We met Moose, Midge, and Twizzler, got our lunch, got our food resupply, and started to hang out for a bit. When we were starting to pack up, Pickle Pacer arrived and mentioned that he heard there was cliff diving somewhere in Crater Lake...this changes everything! I got overly excited and started to look up some details. The spot is at the end of the Cleetwood Cove Trail which is along the North rim and is the only access to the lake. It was too late in the day to make it there so we decided to camp at the village and then have a more relaxing day tomorrow to hike the Rim Trail and then hitch over to the docks. A few other hikers joined in and we got a sweet spot in the campgrounds which was populated with big RVs and car campers. It was comical to see a bunch of us toss our sleeping mats on the ground and sleep in the dirt like some savages next door to $300k houses on wheels. We scavenged firewood and made a big fire, sipped on beers, and had a jolly good time.
Day 106, 12ish miles to Grouse Hill Camp.
Some of us had to go to the post office so we agreed to reconvene at the Crater Lake Lodge up on top of the rim. The smoke wasn't as bad as it's been but it was still thick enough that you couldn't see the other side of the crater. We did have some good views of Wizard Island and I was loving the steep rocky outcrops along the edge. We took a lot of breaks and made some slow progress. It was going to be an on-trail nero day for sure. There were none of us so we had to split up to get hitches along Rim Drive to the parking lot for Cleetwood Cove. It was a mile long hike down to the bottom and we went flying passed all the day hikers and tourists. There were fearless chimpmunks at the cliffs so we had to keep guard over our packs so the little bastards wouldn't chew holes in them. We got started jumping and had an absolute blast! The water was pretty chilly but also so blue and pure it looked fake. I wished I had filmed some underwater shots but I guess I'll just have to do that next time I'm in town. We all jumped at least once and then cooked some dinner before trekking back up to the parking lot. The number of vehicles kept declining as people drove off with no room for hitchhikers and things started to look grim. It was a five mile road walk back to the trail. Twizzler convinced some fellow Germans to stuff a few of us in their car and then other drivers followed suit. We got back to the trail and hiked a few miles to the first campsite.
First view of Wizard Island.
Water level guage shack, Cleetwood Cove.
Taken with my 16-50mm lens without it zoomed in.
Finally back on trail.