I am exhausted. Therefore only quickly. The early start at 5 had one benefit – we were even too early for the lazy mosquitoes 💪
Today we had to cross Mt. Thielsen. A lot of snow again and millions of mosquitoes which made it unpleasant in some stretches. Even though I have refused to wear a long sleeve shirt for hiking so far I think I am ready now. Bug net and long sleeve shirt in the next town for me!
It took us 14.5h today to do 27 miles 😳 The snow slowed us down massively! Sliding and navigating takes a lot of time and is tiring. And on top you can never just stop or you will be eaten alive by the mosquitoes.
Mt. Thielsen though is a beauty. An almost completely eroded volcano crater. Climbing around was not really complicated.
But when we came to the creek which is supposed to be a reliable water source we found this. Still completely covered in snow.
We already had no water for over 20 miles and the next creek was another 16 away. We had a bit more then 1l left but not enough for the next 16 miles. I was sure that there was water running underneath. But how to get to it? Maybe a hike somewhere? I started listening and was very certain to hear running water in the distance. So I climbed up the creek bed into the bowl above and after about 400m there was a drop in the creek and the snow had already disappeared. And that’s were the water came up to the surface. What a relief! Unfortunately I was stupid enough to explore without taking our containers. So I had to walk back to get them, back up and down again. As if we wouldn’t do enough walking already… 🙈
Highest point in Oregon and Washington. Funnily the 15m radius around the sign was snow free – different to the 10 miles around it all day long…
Kaylee just complained that we apparently have done 375 miles since Shasta without a day off and she said that she will go on strike if we don’t take one soon… 😂😂😂 I guess she is the only reasonable person in our hiking group making sure we don’t kill ourselves.
