20240731 Truckee to Crater Lake (mile 1824)
We had met Big Shrimpin' back when he was called Cameron, at Mandy and Diego's place in Wrightwood. This had also been where we met Windwalker and Wonder Woman, and where we were reunited with the Frenchies who we had not seen since Scout & Frodo's place in San Diego. The world of trail names is confusing and was not something I looked forward before starting the PCT. Grown adults calling themselves things like 'gumball' or 'storm' seemed highly cringe, and I put it down as another American eccentricity to be tolerated like tipping or baseball. Big Shrimpin' had got his name the way both Grace (Lady Pilgrim) and I (Ranch) had got ours, which was by having someone shout it at us enough times that it eventually stuck.
Over eggs in Truckee we swapped stories and caught up with Shrimpin', and discussed the best way ahead with our plan to skip entirely around the patchwork of forest fires that had begun to close sections of trail throughout NorCal. The most straightforward skip would be directly to Ashland, right on the California/Oregon border. Mama Shrimpin' lived not far from there and we be able to stay at her place while we got our resupply in order for the 100 mile stretch to Crater Lake. It was far from perfect, as fires north of Crater Lake would mean we would have to figure out another reroute from there, but it would get us back on track for now.
Once we had made that decision things moved quickly. Heading straight out of town towards the freeway, we stopped only briefly at the post office to send our bear cans back to the rental company we had borrowed them from. The feeling of being finally rid of them is impossible to truly describe. Scrabbling up the side of the interstate under a chain link fence, we soon hitched a ride with a roofer headed in the direction of Reno. As he swerved in and out of lanes, texting and taking calls, he preached to us about the importance of learning a trade. I sat back and focused on the road, and was relieved to see the signs welcoming us to Nevada - the implication being that California was now well and truly behind us.
In Reno we rented a car and set off on the road towards Oregon. I hadn't driven in the US before, and it was also my first time behind the wheel in an automatic. Fortunately Grace was kind enough to remind me frequently how erratically I was positioning myself on the road ("I'm never getting in a car with you in America again.") Once we got to the border Shrimpin' took over, and the rest of the drive went by staring out the window. Oregon began to take shape in a blur of orange afternoon, and the occasional long stretch of burnt woodland.
In Oregon we were greeted by Shrimpin's mum and his dog Spur. While both of them doubtless excited to see him, Spur scored highest for pure enthusiasm. Grace and I showered for the first time in a week, and slept in a real bed in an air conditioned room. The Donner Ski Ranch mulch piles seemed a long, long time ago.
Our introduction to Oregon had been good and only got better. We were staying in a nice town of brick buildings surrounded by vineyards and orchards. The next day we pottered about with Shrimpin' as he made the rounds and said hello to the neighborhood. He took us for lunch (a salad bar, with real vegetables) and to our first ever Dutch Bros. The highlight was discovering Winco, a 24hr hiker resupply paradise, complete with bulk food section selling things like dehydrated milk powder by weight. The options in California had been terrible in comparison, invariably shit or expensive and more often both. Winco on the other hand had it all, and, as we were also to discover, zero sales tax. Yes, Oregon was shaping up nicely.
We got back on trail the next day at Callahan's Lodge with some trepidation. At Shrimpin's mum's place the evening before, as we sat enjoying the last moments of peace before heading back out into the wild, the sky had taken on a dusty orange hue and the night air tasted resinous. Wind had blown smoke from elsewhere into the state into the town, and though it didn't pose any immediate risk it was sobering. It was difficult not to question our decision to skip ahead of the fires in NorCal, only to come to Oregon, a state that is itself famous for going up in flames every year.
More than the fire though, it was sad to think of everyone we had ever known on trail being left behind in California. For months we had hiked around a sea of familiar faces, many of whom we weren't certain we would ever see again. To make matters worse, those who we were going to meet would be a new cohort; either those who started at the same time as us and hiked faster, or those who had started earlier. The more advanced shapeshifting T-1000s to our Schwarzenegger-shaped T-800 hiking machines, and therefore they were bound to think of us as frauds. Thankfully this was proven wrong about twenty minutes into the day by the first person we met, Rat King, who cheerfully told us that he had just skipped up around fires too and that everyone was doing it. That evening we camped around a group of half a dozen others, many of whom had skipped from somewhere or other.
While the people we met were all similar but different, then the trail was incomparable. Gone were the dry exposed ridges. Oregon is a woodland state, comparatively flat, and with endless trees hanging with thick skeins of lichen and moss. Water sources were less reliable than ever, and when we did find them they were warm or discoloured, and everywhere there was the suggestion of volcanic geology. It was not long before we came across our first lava fields, beautiful to look at but painful underfoot, and always on the horizon some kind of enormous conical mountain just waiting for the right time to blow. Also present in Oregon for the first time were ripe berries, particularly the small purple huckleberries with their strange musky taste.
We made the 100 or so miles to Crater Lake in good time. For the first time in a while it felt like there was room to breathe a little; the miles were less tiresome and the elevation less extreme. The afternoons were still hot, but usually shaded, and we had time for a couple of side quests; one to bag the Devil's Peak, and another to hitch into the Fish Lake resort for burgers (weird tension with the staff there, mid food, 10/10 root beer floats). This was also the first time I had managed to get my resupply dead on, arriving in town having just finished my last energy bar. The final miles themselves were appallingly bleak, having burned intensely a few years ago, and with subsequent storms blowing down many of the dead or dying trees near the path. Picking a way through was exhausting, and without the shade of the canopy it was a hot and dusty business. But make it we did, and to our pleasant surprise we were met at Mazama Village by Shrimpin's folks again who brought us lunch and took us up to the rim of Crater Lake to get the best view of the incredible volcanic crater for which the National Park got its name.
