August 11

Distance: 18.3 miles | Ascent: 2710′ | Descent: 2210′

Mile marker: 764.7

Lunch: J – spaghetti (A-), A – chili with rice (B+)

Dinner: J – mac n cheese (B), A – apple cinnamon oatmeal (A)

We spent the morning trying to figure out what to do with Jason’s old broken pack. No outgoing mail service at Shelter Cove. No printer to even print the return label. Osprey’s customer support team apparently have an all-hands Monday mornings at 9am and therefore unreachable until later in the morning. Eventually, after several phone calls on the spotty wifi, Jason got an email from Osprey that said to slash the pack in a few places and send pictures. I guess they’re concerned about reselling the pack or giving away packs for free. I get it, but why bother with the whole shipping it back if destruction was an option? Anyway, we cut apart the pack, salvaged some pieces, sent the photos, and went on trail.

During this ordeal, Alex found some brand new insoles in the hiker box! Someone must have gotten new shoes and immediately replaced the insoles with something more to their liking. Their discards were very much to Alex’s liking. The mystery donor of these insoles had considerably larger feet than Alex, but by tracing the outline of her own, smooshed insoles on these new ones, she was able to roughly cut them to size with a pocket knife. Her shoes are on their last hundred miles (replacements are waiting at Crater Lake!), so hopefully this find helps make that last stretch a little more gentle on the feet.

By the time the pack was destroyed, it was already after 10am, and the day was getting hot. So, we accepted a ride to the trailhead from one of the RV campers at the resort. Unfortunately, they dropped us off at the northbound trailhead and we had to backtrack 1.2 miles back to the junction we took to get to Shelter Cove. It still maybe saved us a bit of time and a little climb. We got the same view of the lake again.

We had a climb in the midday heat. It was tiring, but we made decent time considering. We passed the marker for 1900 miles (remaining, not completed).

The views weren’t as spectacular as we’ve had before, but still pleasant. The severity of the blowdowns were over blown by the northbound hikers (they don’t know about that Washington section yet). We crossed our last snow patch, probably.

Then, just as we finished our sweaty climb, we found the most refreshing water all trail. It was a crisp 38° and mush appreciated after our hit afternoon climb.

Lots of little ponds were on our descent to the lake for the evening. That’s when the mosquitoes returned, but not quite as bad as those early days in Washington.