Volcanoes Getting Closer!
- Samuel Emigrant
- Aug 19, 2018
- 2 min read
Day 6! I could sense the mountains in the distance and knew each day was bringing me closer. Especially today, with one of my longer hikes planned at 12.7 miles, ultimately 14 miles. Ironman left first at 6am, with Boston right behind him. I had a feeling I had seen the last of them. The good news today is water would be more plentiful going forward with a big lake half way to today's destination lake.
The hike today would be tough with a 1350 ft elevation gain over the first 4 miles. As I may have mentioned before, unlike the Sierras where steep switchbacks are commonly used to tackle elevation gain over shorter distances, Oregon climbs tends to be gradual and relentless and today was no different. Once I passed the 4 mile mark, the hike into Charlton Lake was an easy one. Now that I had seen Charlton, I wish I could have pushed the extra miles yesterday as Charlton was beautiful with a couple of nice campsites on the lake. Unfortunately that would have meant an extra 7.5 miles and 17 miles was currently outside my comfort zone. After lunch and a rest at Charlton, I hit the next climb that took me through a significant amount of burned out forest. There were new trees sprouting up everywhere which meant this was an older burn zone (Pics 1-3). I can't believe the number of downed trees and debris on the forest floors. The presence of all this fuel makes for catastrophic fires that bigger trees cannot survive. The good news about the burn zones is I had views I might not have had otherwise (Pic 4 & 5). Those mountains in the background are South and Middle Sister. They looked so far away, I couldn't believe I would be there in a couple of days.
I hit my first destination, Taylor Lake but my campsite was in a burn out area. Bummer! I was tired but this meant I needed to push a bit further. At the north end of Taylor was Irish Lake, and a 4 wheel drive road ran east-west between them. Right at the road was the trail head into Three Sisters Wilderness. Access to the big volcanoes were now becoming a reality. I found a campsite right on Irish Lake (Pic 6-8). I was treated to some fresh home made cookies by my neighbor campers who were up here to do some exploring by Kayak. I sought out their advice whether as a solo PCT hiker I was ok to camp in these car campsites. They assured me I was fine but I had one 4-wheeler enter my site only to move on when they saw my dinky tent. I felt bad but I was too tired to move.
After retiring to my tent, I heard the birds and critters start to raise a fuss, I heard some steps in the woods behind my tent. I didn't have my rain fly on and poked my head up in time to get a picture of a big doe walking through my camp (Pic 9). Whew! Not a bear. I enter Three Sisters Wilderness tomorrow!
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