PCT Day 115
August 23, 2021
Mile: 2119.7 to 2145.0 (25.3 miles)
Start: Salvation Springs tentsite
Finish: Secret deer meadow next to Columbia River highway
We woke up in the morning to find that everyone had already cleared out of the damp and somewhat miserable Salvation Springs campsite. I mean I wouldn’t want to hang out for a long time in this damp little nook next to a muddy spring but it was the only place on trail for many miles that had reliable water. Shannon and I cooked breakfast of oatmeal, grits, coffee and tea with a sprinkling of foraged huckleberries. I scooped some more water out of the shallow muddy pools in the spring and chatted briefly with an older couple who were just starting out their hike of the Oregon section of the PCT and were very excited. Oh to be starting a hike again all fresh, bright-eyed and bushy tailed – their enthusiasm was so cute!
We packed up and headed out after doing our morning chores of cleaning, packing, bathroom time, brushing our teeth, and finishing breakfast. Back on the trail we were in the thick woods again and it was still pretty foggy and eerie just like the day before. The dense clouds became patchy and it looked promising that the fog would soon burn off and we would see some sun this afternoon. We’ve only been in Oregon a couple of days but the Pacific Northwest was living up to the stereotypes of wet weather.
But before we could enjoy some of our first fog-free views of the mountains of Oregon, we found out that we were really going to have to earn those views. The PCT quickly presented us with several arduous miles of blown-over trees and giant uprooted logs blocking the trail. Being “vertically challenged” as some members of my family like to call a normal height of 5’4”, I soon had scratches and cuts decorating my legs like war trophies from this sadistic obstacle course of fallen trees. Trickles of dark red blood ran down my calves, staining my socks and shoes as I scrambled over massive pine trees the thickness of a refrigerator with splintered limbs dangling over a several hundred foot cliff. At least my hiking shoes were already maroon colored so the blood blended in nicely. Hopefully I could rinse out my bloody shoes and socks before we went to sleep tonight so the scent didn’t attract animals to our campsite!
Meanwhile, Shannon’s just leaping and stepping over these massive trees like it’s no big deal since he’s a bit taller and longer legged than me. This section of PCT reminded me of the times I’ve been the shortest person in our hiking groups, especially on the Appalachian Trail when we had a mile of 6 foot tall boulder scrambling in Mahoosuc Notch in Maine. Today was no different from back then with the tall guys effortlessly leaping from rock to rock with their long legs and arms while I’m scrambling behind them trying my hardest to keep up with two of my steps equaling one of theirs. On the AT in the treacherous Mahoosuc Notch when I fell behind, the guys held their hands above my head and joked that, “You must be this tall to ride this part of the trail.” Shannon smiled and said exactly the same thing again to me on this section of the PCT, essentially teasing me that I was too short to hike this section of trail. Arghhh! I was not going to be beat by these giant logs in my way or get teased by tall people and so I let my anger propel me over this twisted jungle gym.
After a couple hours of log scrambling in the wet mist on the side of a mountain, we were both trying not to get frustrated at all the blowdowns. The locals we had met told us that most of the fallen trees had been cleared off the trail over the summer and there was only a few miles of log hopping in store for us. It was a little scary sometimes because you had to carefully pick your way over the giant tree trunks without falling down steep cliffs and simultaneously bushwhacking your way through the woods. We were momentarily distracted by coming across our old friend Mighty from Hawaii and another sweet hiker named Twilight who had to backtrack to the tiny water source barely trickling out of the rocks below the trail. It was nice to commiserate on the crappy trail conditions with other hikers and we laughed with them because what else could you do at this point? You were going to have to hike the trail regardless so you might as well try to keep a positive attitude about it.
As we scrambled over the 30th or 40th fallen tree, we met a very excitable and very verbal older guy who was swearing up a storm at all the “f***in’ logs” that he had to climb over. He was hilarious! Every other word was him cursing at the fallen trees and I couldn’t help imagining how perfectly he would fit in with people in Boston. We laughed with “Sweary McGee” as we secretly dubbed his trail name and couldn’t help but feel a comraderie with him as perfectly he summed up our frustrations at the trail conditions with curse words. Apparently the blowdowns had been on the trail for almost a year from a windstorm last September but the US Forestry Service was short on trail maintainers or funding so they hadn’t quite reached this section of trail yet. Hence the sh*tty obstacle course and bruised and bloody legs from jumping over trees. Sweary McGee was hiking the opposite way from us and brought us good news that we only had about a mile left of fallen trees. He also left us with some new colorful phrases to add to our curse word dictionary and we were a bit sad to see him go since he was so entertaining.
With only a couple miles of hiking taking us the entire freakin’ morning because of all of the fallen tree obstacle courses and trail blockades, we were getting a little bit tired mentally and physically on what should’ve been a nice flat ridgewalk. Add on the blood sacrifices we were giving to the mountain by eating sh*t from falling over the trees and getting cut up while bushwhacking around the downed trees and both of us were a bit exhausted and mad. What do you do when you’re mad? You eat!! Shannon and I expressed our emotions through chowing down, spending almost an hour wolfing down handful after handful of giant juicy purple-black huckleberries and tart little alpine blueberries. These juicy “Gushers of the woods” were absolutely delicious and definitely made me feel not so angry. Even picking the berries put us in a zenlike trance and we tried to make a competition out of our foraging to see who could eat the most berries the fastest.
As we emotionally ate away our frustrations, our hands became stained a deep purple, our lips turned a hypothermic blue and our legs were crimson from huckleberry juice mixed with blood from jumping over trees with a 30lb backpack. I watched in horror and admiration as Shannon decided that hands were unnecessary for berry picking and he started hoovering up the berries straight off the branches with his mouth like some sort of backwoods vacuum cleaner! It was like he had turned into a black bear and was ripping berries off the branches with his teeth, chewing on stems and leaves for “extra fiber.” Oh boy… I wasn’t too much classier in my berry picking adventures as I trekked deep into the thickets snatching huckleberries off the branches with two hands. Shannon later pulled some large strands of hanging moss and twigs out of my hair after our berry picking snack break and just shook his head. Basically at this point we were both hot messes and the dictionary definition of the phrase “Hiker Trash.” But hey, at least with full bellies we had emotionally eaten our anger away!
Later on in the morning, the sun burned off the thick fog surrounding the ridges and we were finally able to see the stunning peaks of Mount Hood off in the distance. The dormant glacier-clad volcano rose dramatically out of the low-lying pine forests and cloud sea like a massive island. After being hemmed in by clouds for days, it was an understatement to say that Mount Hood was striking as it rose out of the lowlands. The largest mountain in the state of Oregon was absolutely magnificent and we definitely spent some time oohing and ahhing at the peak as we picked even more huckleberries in the sunshine. The snow-covered volcano jetted straight into the sky like a rocky pyramid and almost looked like a giant fist was holding up the heavens. The mountain was all by its lonesome out here in the rolling hills of Oregon and we loved seeing the snow from the previous winter streaked along the flanks.
When the temperature finally warmed up around noon, the fog completely disappeared and the log hurdles became few and far between, allowing us to finally be able to enjoy some smooth sailing on the trail. It’s really the little things in life that you take for granted until they’re gone and after jumping over logs for the better part of the morning, this relatively log free and pine needle covered part of the PCT made us so grateful for the trail maintainers who make it possible to hike the 2,650 miles from Mexico to Canada. The mileage came quickly as the sun heated up the forest and even when we came across several boulder fields made from volcanic rocks we were still able to keep up a good pace. The trail switchbacked up the mountainsides and we carefully picked our way across the sharp rocks, trying our best not to roll an ankle or fall and break an arm. Luckily the now-copious sunshine had dried out the damp mist-covered rocks so we kept ploughing through this section of trail without too much worrying about falling on slippery scree.
The trail opened up into wine-colored meadows with wild blueberry bushes covering big swaths of the hillsides and were already turning dark red and purples with autumn soon approaching. The maple trees are already changing into oranges and golds and even the hardy mountain ash was bright with speckles of color with the onslaught of fall. This afternoon we were so excited to be taking an alternate trail that parallels the PCT but is too rocky for horses so it isn’t an official part of the trail (although the majority of hikers we’ve talked to think it should be). The alternate trail was filled with gorgeous waterfalls that you could hike under, crystal clear streams and dramatic fern-clad gorges that plunged hundreds of feet down that looked like something straight out of a fairy tale. The normal PCT was nondescript pine forest with a couple of campsites so of course given the chance (and with the mileage being about the same either way), we took the Tunnel Falls alternate trail.
At the intersection of the PCT and the side trail, we ran into a bunch of hikers coming the opposite way and joked around with them before we headed north on the trail and they continued on south. We did not envy these southbounders and the log obstacle course ahead of them but did inform the hikers that we thought that we had left some huckleberries and blueberries behind for them. Shannon and I sunned ourselves on a picnic table, chowing down on granola bars and beef jerky while pumping ourselves up for the afternoon. The trail was dry here but we were thankfully good on water, despite passing a crisp looking puddle called Indian Spring. I thought that Oregon would have better water sources but maybe it’s this section of trail that has fewer than anticipated. After the stress of the drought-ridden California deserts, it was nice to kind of not have to plan your whole next couple days around water sources but you couldn’t entirely leave everything up to chance as we were finding.
The side trail descended through a severely burned area instantly and the lush green forests of the morning were history as we walked through crispy black columns of charred widowmakers. The sandy soil was loose and dusty from the tree roots dying and lack of rain up here so we had to space out a bit or the person in the back would be constantly choking on dust clouds. Each footstep you had to be careful of where you stepped because of how eroded the steep hills were now that the roots had died and let go of the earth. Electric pink fronds of Fireweed shot straight out of the ground, their jeweled flower heads nodding high and proud in the faint breeze. These tall plants are some of the first to colonize an area after a wildfire and their shocking magenta and fuchsia shimmered like handfuls of rubies against the twisted dark ebony planks of the hollowed out burned trees. Another sign that fall was right around the corner was that some of the Fireweed was already going to seed as curly tufts of white shooting stars erupted from the long pink seed ponds, the flashy fronds shimmering so gorgeously in the afternoon light.
The charred trail wasn’t so scarred and ugly as it first appeared and I was so thankful that the going was a little bit slow because it allowed you more time to observe your surroundings. If you looked closer, dozens of types of wildflowers bloomed in what I had originally thought was barren wasteland. Hooded bells of the poisonous violet-hued foxglove nodded alluringly in the soft winds. Elegant electric green stems of Solomon’s plume terminated in dark scarlet and white-gold speckled clusters of globular berries. Pale lavender fans of lupine colonies shaded the parched ground as the plant took in nitrogen from the air and chemically “fixed it” back to the soil, making the earth more nutritious for other plants to recolonize the area. It was absolutely gorgeous to see the rebirth of the forest happening after such terrible wildfire burns a few years ago. From afar, the mountainside flanks around us looked like a forest of blackened matchsticks sticking straight up and it looked as though every living thing in the area had been wiped out. Up close, you could witness life being reborn as lush green regrowth sprouted out of the shadows of the dead trees.
Shannon had to use the backwoods bathroom at a campsite so I collected water at a small waterfall, sitting on a rock while reading my digital library book and chowing down on a snack. Shannon soon regrouped with me and after sitting at the falls for about 20 or 30 minutes, a girl popped out of the woods from up above the trail and we had no idea she was there the entire time lounging in the sun. It was kind of funny to think about all of the people or animals who we’ve passed on the trail without realizing it.
We continued on down the dusty mountain, the Fireweed fronds thick and taller than both of our heads here. Soon we were spit out onto a section of trail that had been dynamited out of the cliffs, creating a curved alcove in the rocks just large enough for people to walk on and definitely not big enough for pack animals. Sticking out of the rocky cliffside were evenly spaced curved rebar poles with a thick braided steel cable running through the rebar needle eyes for hikers to grab onto. On the other side of the trail was a steep dropoff several hundred feet into a waterfall filled chasm. Torrents of rushing water echoed out of the canyon below and one slip on the jagged lava rocks would mean certain injury or death. It was a good incentive to hold onto those steel cables, especially with large packs on our backs!
Shannon and I stopped at the top of a two-tiered waterfall that spilled several hundred feet off the cliffside for a snack break. The water level was low from the droughts on the west coast so the dried up river now had some nice smooth rock to sit on away from the stream. We briefly chatted with this young couple in their late teens/early 20s who kind of bragged about how they snuck onto a trail in southern Oregon that they had heard was going to be closing in the next hour due to severe wildfire danger. They sneakily avoided the rangers who were rushing around the woods, evacuating hikers out of the area because the fire was out of control and mandatory evacuation orders were being enforced in the surrounding towns. These idiots were sick of having to skip around all the wildfires and decided that it probably wasn’t that bad.
Well, I can safely say that despite being very nice, these were not the smartest people we had ever met and that they truly are lucky to be alive. This naive couple talked about how smoky the trail became to the point where they could barely see their hands in front of them and how they couldn’t stop coughing from all the smoke. At night from their tent they could see the bright orange flames from the out-of-control wildfire spreading quickly down the hillside across from their campsite. Despite being close enough to see the flames, feel the heat of the fire and getting rained on by ash all day and night, the couple didn’t think that they should hurry to get out of there. The next day, they realized that they had made a mistake entering into a wildfire evac zone as huge clumps of fiery ash fell on them, stinging their eyes, burning their skin and forcing them to hike wearing the N95 masks they had with them for Covid. I was floored by their foolhardiness and stupidity. We asked them if they realized that wildfires can spread 20, 30 or even 40 miles in a day and if they knew how lucky they were to not have been burned up in the fire. We just got back blank stares. Sometimes I don’t know how some of these people are even able to put their own pants on, let alone go on a 2,000-mile-long hiking trip.
After the idiotic firewalking couple left, we took out the drone and got some really cool shots of descending into the canyon where the waterfall below us spilled into. We continued on the trail, using the rebar and steel cables in places to balance on the cliffsides and after hiking past several smaller waterfalls we arrived at the crown jewel of the side trail: the glorious Tunnel Falls. We were so excited! Here the trail had been carved out of the rock behind the dramatic waterfall, forming a tunnel that kept you completely dry as you walked behind the torrent of falling water. The trail here was slick and slippery from the spray of the falls with a steep drop off of about 80 feet below. Luckily, we had rebar and cables to hold onto as we carefully navigated the rock hazards. The tunnel itself was absolutely marvelous with a large cavern carved straight through the bedrock behind the falls which was truly a feat of engineering. Pouring over the tunnel was a sheer wall of water dropping 172 feet from high up in the mountains above us, the roar of which could be felt rattling our rib cages as we neared the falls. Rainbows shimmered across the sheets of water and dazzling mist which was quite stunning but also quite dangerous with how mesmerizing the natural spectacle was. One unfocused step was all it would take to tumble head first over the cliffs and be smashed into pieces on the sharp rocks below.
Carefully we entered into the tunnels, smiles of pure joy stretched wide across our faces. We giggled and screamed like little kids as we were dusted with a fine sheen of spray, the thundering torrents drowning out our words as hundreds of gallons of water fell next to us. Inside the dynamited rock, the cavelike sanctuary muted the roar of the falls and we stood in silence to admire the drops of moisture collecting on the roof of the cavern sparkling like little flecks of iridescent pearls all over the walls. Emerging from the darkness of the tunnel, a gorgeous forest of vibrant green moss and fern fronds waved to and fro in the spray of the falls, welcoming us back to the above ground world with dazzling gold afternoon light. What was even more magical was that we had the whole place to ourselves so we were able to admire the beauty of the area for as long as we wanted. We were definitely glad to have taken the alternative trail!
We think that one of the main reasons that the Tunnel Falls trail was an alternate to the PCT instead of being officially designated as the trail was because the PCT has to be able to accommodate pack animals like horses and mules. It would be hard to imagine a skittish horse or stubborn mule being willing to cross under a waterfall in a tunnel or next to the steep carved out trail with the rebar and cables. I’m glad that we’re hiking the trail without a pack animal because we would’ve had to miss out on this alternative trail with all of the waterfalls.
After all of our side trips to the waterfalls and cliffs, it was getting later in the day with the shadows lengthening across the trail as a sign that we should get moving. Despite the long slog of log hopping earlier and the distractions from the waterfalls, we were still making good miles and were pretty sure we could make it to the town of Cascade Locks, Oregon if we really put our mind to it. We had heard that the tenting situation at the local town campground was right next to busy train tracks that were super loud with trains going by at all hours of the night. That didn’t sound too fun and so we decided that we were just going to camp a few miles outside of town in a random spot on the trail. Since we didn’t have to push to get a ton of miles done, we continued lingering at some of the falls where normally PCT hikers would pass them by quickly.
On a particularly narrow part of the trail where cables were bolted into the rock on one side and a couple of footsteps later the path fell away into a hundred foot ravine, we ran into what looked like a quasi-professional film crew. It turns out it was some YouTube guy who was filming a video out in front of another waterfall with his whole posse. One of our friends said he knew of this YouTube celebrity and said that he was pretty sure the guy took one philosophy class in college and now acted like he was a modern-day Socrates for YouTube likes and TikTok views. The film crew was blocking the entire trail as we turned the corner and we stopped short since it was super precarious here. The film crew ignored us and continued filming – no one even moved. Shannon and I looked at each other, our feet planted firmly two steps over from the cliff edge. One of the guys who was clearly dressed like he had never been in the woods before and told us to go sneak by right behind this guy who was filming this self-proclaimed Socrates. We looked at the cameraman that we were told to sneak behind and there was maybe 3 or 4 inches of space for us to go through before we accidentally knocked him and the dbag YouTuber off the cliff. It was a PCT stalemate.
Finally, we got sick of waiting for the film guy taking his sweet time to move over and decided with the sun starting to get low in the sky that we had to keep moving. Carefully we walked forward purposefully as we tried to not commit an accidental murder by knocking Philosophy 101 and his city boys off the cliff. It was tempting as the YouTuber guy continued to whine about Kim Kardashian without missing a beat, even when he had to skirt sideways to allow us through. Luckily we didn’t commit accidental murder and hiked on, running into this local guy who told us that the US-Canadian border was finally open again after over a year of Covid restrictions. He suggested that we might be able to hike all the way to Canada. With our hopes up, we found out that this info was false because you have to go through an official port of entry and crossing through the backwoods of Washington state into British Columbia is not a port of entry. It is more like where Sasquatch and his cousin live in their caves.
As the sun started to go down, we continued on the still quite busy Eagle Creek trail, looking for campsites on the side of the trail. With it being a weekday, the trail was pretty busy so I didn’t really feel comfortable camping a few steps away from the trail. Turns out it’s actually illegal to camp on the Eagle Creek trail but we didn’t find that out til later – oopsies! We left Eagle Creek Trail, spilling out into a busy parking lot. The lot was bordered by a dried up creek with signs posted that it was a salmon breeding territory and to not walk in the river because you might squish the salmon eggs or fry in the shallows. Hopefully it’ll rain soon so the massive 30 or 50 lb salmon that swim up the river to spawn will actually be able to make it all the way upriver because the water was just puddles at points.
As the evening turned to twilight, we continued on hiking stopping at a fee campground that required you to pay $15 to stay overnight. With Shannon‘s military disability Access Pass for the US National Parks, we’d get half off the fee and it would only be $7 to stay. I seriously considered stopping at the fee campground next to the highway but the noise from the interstate traffic in the Columbia River Gorge was really loud and we figured that if we’re going to hear the highway anyway we might as well just not pay money. At the paid campground, I stopped in at the bathroom which was super nice and topped off with some extra water from the faucet for cooking tonight. Just as the day started to get dark, we checked the topographic map and just past the paid campsites seemed to be a very flat section of trail like maybe a field or marsh. It looked like a good place to camp so we aimed for that just 2 miles outside of town. Cascade Locks was a tiny town with not a whole lot going on which meant that most of the businesses would be closed by the time Shannon and I would get to town. We didn’t want to essentially waste money to stay in a crappy motel or next to a noisy train track in a tent in the dark so our little field idea was a good second option to stealth camp.
When we got to the field it was definitely not a place that many PCT hikers had stopped at to camp so we found a cute hidden spot in the tall grass, our tent sandwiched between some small saplings for cover. We cooked a nice dinner as it got dark and watched the stars come out like sprinkles in the clear night sky. As we waited for our fancy hiker meal to cook, we listened to the symphony of the nearby highway with the bass of the 18-wheeler engine brakes, the zippy horn interludes and the whirs and squeals of old rust buckets thrumming next to us. The orchestra of car traffic rushing by at 85 miles an hour was strangely enough to lull us to sleep in the field of the tall grasses. We camped without incident, only hearing the rustling of a couple deer walking through the field near us and got away with stealth camping somewhere we probably shouldn’t have been.
