Miles hiked: 24.6. Plus 1 mile off trail to Mazama.
The nice night wind died around midnight and the mosquitoes found me and it got to warm to stay fully inside my sleeping bag, so after swatting and not sleeping for a while I got up and set up the bug net in the rocky ground. Then I was pretty awake so did some reading and eventually got back to sleep around 1. So I ended up having a slow morning and wasn't hiking until a bit before 6.
The ridge I had climbed up onto and camped on narrowed, with steep cirques along the east slope and rocky peaks that the trail had to skirt around the side of. I passed Devil's Peak, which seems to be the high point along the ridge, and is a fantastic combination of at least 3 different types of rock. I crossed a saddle with great long views north toward more and more cone-shaped peaks sticking up into the smokey haze from the broad green forest, then descended steeply down into a bowl with the last water before the 20 mile dry stretch in to Mazama Village in Crater Lake National Park.
I was only 5-6 miles in to the day by had my granola brunch along this little babbling stream so I didn't have to carry more water to make the milk. A small group of Gray Jays moved through the forest trying to eat blueberries, but they were to big to perch on the spindly bushes and too big to hover-glean them, so they had to perch on a nearby tree and scope out the berry they wanted then do a sort of fly-by picking. Shortly after leaving the water I ran into an older woman section hiker with a dog. She had an old beat up '70's era frame pack and a wool shirt and as a classic mountain woman and said she had hiked the whole trail before with a llama and does several sections each summer and just can't get enough of it. She schooled me in the pros and cons of hiking with llamas, and I commented that it was probably sort of tough to hitchhike into town when you have a llama. Really cool woman to meet.
After that the trail dropped down into another several hours of flat walking through dense forest. However my enthusiasm for such hiking was bumped up somewhat when I saw what I eventually concluded was and American Three-toed Woodpecker (notes on field marks below), which is a pretty doggone nifty bird to see. There were occasional Lon views when the trail passed through burn areas and briefly traversed a ridge, but otherwise it was a long flat fast hike to Mazama.
Pretty much the only thing that can make a thru hiker hike faster into town, other than the prospect of real food and ice cream and beer and showers and maybe laundry, is the opportunity to pass day hikers. If you can do it on a climb it's even better because they'll probably be out of breath and you probably won't be, but flats and downhill are fine too. It's also best if they don't notice you coming and you can just sort of say a quiet "howdy" once your right behind them and ease on past with your little pack now empty of food and disappear around the bend. A tip for those of you who might try this: be sure to double check whether or not you have to pee before making the pass, because you don't want to have to stop just after and have them catch you again. It's petty and obnoxious, I know, but right now hiking fast is what we do best, and we can't help it.
Did he mile of road walking and got in to Mazama Village, which is really just a general store, restaurant and campground, around 5 and set about taking care of my town chores. First was ice cream and beer, then plugging in my phone and spare battery, taking a shower, sorting my new food, scoring a whole brand new salami out of he hiker box, then finally heading to the restaurant for a burger. I ate with Apache, someone I've seen off and through the trip but never talked with; turns out he surfs and is missing it as much as I am so we spent most of the meal commiserating and talking about places we've surfed.
Got another ice cream and phoned my parents and Libby then found the hiker camping area and laid out my bed and read a little then fell asleep before I could see any meteors.
Birds:
Common Nighthawk
Clark's Nutcracker
Cassin's Finch
Oregon Junco
Gray Jay
American Robin
Steller's Jay
Northern Flicker
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Western Tanager
American Three-toed Woodpecker - irregular barring on back, separated from whit spots on pp by solid black ss and ss covs. Irregular barring on flanks. Apparently dark forehead. Narrow/indistinct supercillium. Flaking bark.
Hermit Thrush
Mountain Chickadee
Turkey Vulture
Great job sussing out the ATTW! Hopefully you get to see some more.
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