Date: August 31, 2017
Miles: 30.2 miles (48.6km), from Sandy River to Benson Camp junction at mile 2,134.1.
Health: Feeling good and motivated. Feels good to be on the trail.

We wake up before the sun rises, pack all our gear and hike the remaining mile to the Ramona Falls. The falls aren’t actually on the PCT but visiting them adds so little extra mileage that it’s well worth the little side trip.

Due to the early start and sleeping so close to the falls, we arrive there so early that we have the falls all to ourselves. We take a ton of photos and pose for our yet-to-be-released album cover under the falls. The falls are gorgeous but we have a full day ahead of us so we march on. We want to reach the city of Cascade Locks by tomorrow and that means we need to do about 30 miles (48.3km) today.

Indigo, LL, and Sam chilling by the Ramona Falls.

Cascade Locks is our last town in Oregon and the gateway to Washington over the Bridge of Gods. Compared to how long it took us to cover California, Oregon has been a breeze. Granted, we’ve had to skip a good portion of the trail due to all the fire closures but still.

The loop trail which gets us back to the PCT from the Ramona Falls is also really pretty. The path feels like we’re in a fairytale as we walk between little mossy hills and old-growth trees. I don’t enjoy walking in a green tunnel that much but this I like!

As the loop trail is much wider than the PCT, we can walk side-by-side and this makes talking within a group so much easier. We talk about weird songs and I soon learn that I have a massive hole in my music knowledge as the girls teach me the lyrics to the Safety Dance by Men Without Hats. How have I not heard about this song before?

We soon join the PCT again and everyone kind of goes back to doing their own thing. I hike mostly alone but catch up to LL and Sam when they’re crossing a river over two fallen trees.

After the exciting morning, the rest of the day feels kind of slow. Some days you feel like you’re not making any progress and today’s one of those. The trail is pretty uneventful and doesn’t have many views other than Mt. Hood occasionally popping up between the trees.

After more time in the forest, I stumble out of the forest on to a forest road and find everyone enjoying some trail magic. We enjoy sitting in chairs and some fresh fruits and vegetables. I also join some of the guys and end up downing a couple of beers – not the greatest decision. As I haven’t had much alcohol in a long time, I get an instant buzz which isn’t so nice when you have a mountain to climb in the mid-day heat.

After the trail magic the trail climbs up and the views get much nicer. Hiking along the top of the mountains on the ridgeline is exactly the kind of hiking I came here to do. My mood gets instantly better and the light buzz I was feeling earlier disappears.

At some point I notice a smoke bloom appear down to the left of the trail, on the opposite side of the valley. From where I’m standing it doesn’t look big until I see the helicopters and see how tiny they are in comparison to the smoke. The fire doesn’t look too bad but, oh boy, what a year it has been.

Trail closure preventing us to from doing the Eagle Creek side-trail.

Soon the trail dips back down to the forest and I find Sam and LL on a snack break by a small lake. The same lake is used by the helicopters to get water to put out the fire I just saw. Indigo soon arrives as well and we eat while watching the helicopters fly back and forth.

We leave as the sun is starting to set and we still have miles to cover. The trail stays lower and we occasionally get a good view of the fire we saw earlier. It has spread a little but looks to be mainly smoldering now. If there’s something positive about all the smoke from the fires it’s that the sunsets are absolutely gorgeous. Again we watch all the yellow and pinkish hues of the sky as the sun slowly drops below the horizon.

We put our headlamps on and keep walking.

After walking so much in the dark we often opt to walk as close to each other as we can. This way we have more light around us and you don’t feel as surrounded by the darkness as you’d feel just by yourself. This also makes for some good storytimes and today is no exception. We hike long into the night and amuse ourselves with all kinds of stories.

Well past midnight we finally reach the 30-mile marker and decide to call it a night. Sadly there aren’t any camp spots close by so after some searching we end up camping right on a small side-trail intersecting with the PCT. As there’s no room to set up anything we all just pile up together on a small flat part of the trail and cowboy camp on the dirt.

Today was a long day but it was well worth it. We had fun and tomorrow we’re done with Oregon. Only one more state left!