Day 89

July 10, 2021 PCT mile 1799.3 - 1821.7 PCT miles 22.4 + 1.6 off trail

Long hike to the Crater Lake campground with no water sources. Wow. The weather was very hot (Rick) and warm (Chris). Hiked through green tunnels and dusty, ashy burn zones. The ash-covered trails are not fun to hike on. The ash is like fine talcum powder that gets on and into everything. It’s also hard to remove. Our faces are streaked black at the end of the day.

We are headed to Annie’s Creek Restaurant in The Village at Crater Lake for water today. We read on Guthook that the restaurant closed at 2:00 and opened again at 5:00. Rick had his heart set on the endless fountain drinks (lemonade) with ice so we hurried and made the 24 miles by about 1:30. As we were making our way there we passed Chai and Workhorse who we met at Kennedy Meadows South! Still amazes us when we run into people we haven’t seen in more than two months.

When we arrived at Annie’s we cleaned up as best we could in the ‘real’ bathrooms in the gift shop area and we both enjoyed three large glasses of lemonade! Delicious. We soon learned they were open until 3:00, not 2:00…Oh well. As the day progressed the smell of a fire burning to the east of Crater Lake increased and made it tough to breathe at points, so the lemonade really hit the spot.

We hoped that there may be an opening at the Crater Lake Lodge up on the rim thinking the nearby fire and smoke may have led to a few cancellations. Both of us needed and wanted a shower. When we heard another hiker’s (Rabbit) wife secured him a room for him that morning, Chris sat on hold for 45 minutes, but no luck - no other cancellations. It was a long shot - Saturday in July.

We picked up our resupply box (woohoo!) and headed to the designated PCT camping area to set up our tent. We again provided tours to the PCT hikers who had never seen such a large tent and then headed to the bathrooms where we continued to wash the dust and ash off as best we could before heading back to the restaurant for dinner. We are dirty hikers.

Met up with Magnet (photographer) and Jigsaw (optometrist). Had dinner with the two and Rabbit stopped by.

We looked carefully at water sources for the next morning and saw a 19 mile section with no water sources that would be tough to cover if smokey. Learned the fire we saw was the Jack Fire - now the Bootleg Fire (?).