I guess this will be our strongest memory from Oregon.
While we were in Ashland, there were thunder ang lightning storms every night.
What started as few fires at the north of the state few days before we arrived Ashland, developed to countless fires on the south, caused by those storms.
Before going back to trail we made a call to the park ranger to make sure the trail is safe to walk. It was.
We went back on trail after another great breakfast at Morning Glory (best breakfast on trail so far), but it didn't take long before the fire smell and the smoky air overpowered and the breakfast was quickly forgotten...
We tried to stay optimistic and kept going. We had a "short" day of only about 24 miles to a nice campground with water and showers. How can you not stay optimstic with such conditions? :)
We woke up to another smoky day, where we could hardly see something from a distance. But I guess it wasn't so bad, because there was nothing much to see. Most of the day we walked in a forest, and when we had two minutes of view between the trees it was boring anyway... 'Stay positive', I kept thinking to myself...
We hiked 31 miles, with the weirdest sun color we've ever seen. It was redish the entire day because of the smoky air.
In some sections we walked on lava fields and with the red sun it felt like a scene from a movie. I tried to look at the beauty of this moment...
Oregon didn't feel different from north Cal so far - hot, almost no water on the trail and boring like the section between Burney Falls to Mt. Shasta.
'Stay positive', I kept thinking to myself... 'We still have a way to go here in Oregon'.
But another voice inside of me kept asking 'Why? Why are we doing it to ourselves?'. I didn't share my thoughts with Roi, yet.
It was on the next day that finally the blues took over completely. Oregon sucked the last piece of energy from us. It was smoky still, few fires along the way, lots of mosquitos (the worst so far on the trail!!!), no water, no people, no views, just walking in a long green tunnel, and sometimes it wasn't even green, but burned forest :(
Somewhere that day we passed the 1800 miles mark. I was trying to feel happy... Really... We decided to take a lunch break over there and that was the first moment we spoke about what we knew for few days now... We don't want to hike on the PCT anymore.
Few miles later we suddenly noticed a strange movement on the ground. Hundreds of tiny frogs were hoping on the trail. We probably smashed few while walking, they didn't leave us any choise... It was one of the most disgusting experiences we had on the trail. Yuk!
At that point I wasn't trying to stay positive anymore...
After hiking 30 miles we bumped into 3 fire fighters that were on their way to check some small fires in the area. They told us this is pretty much what we should expect for entire Oregon. Great! :(
We finished the day after walking 34 miles. We were sad, tired, exhausted.
Next morning we woke up and felt more relax after knowing this is our last day on the trail. We only had about 14 miles to walk to Crater Lake and we decided to take our time and enjoy long breaks.
We picked our resupply package from the store at Crater lake, and after resting for a while we went to see what is this Crater Lake all about...
Oh, it was beautiful! I even dare to say, the most beautiful lake on the trail!
So big, so blue, so surrounded by yellowish mountains... Wow!
For a second we were thinking about hiking all the way to Canada...
But then a rain and thunder storm started and lasted the entire night.
'We are definitely going to stop tomorrow!', was the last thing we said before falling asleep.
The next morning we hitched to a town called Klamath Falls, took the Amtrek to another city and then took a bus to Bend.
If I thought Ashland was a cool city, Bend was even more! There are 12 micro breweries in town, which made this place heaven for Roi :)
We started the day by going to the fanciest hairdressing salon, where Roi had his haircut. Why fancy? They give you beer on tap while you sitting there... :) fancy or not?
We visited 6 different breweries in less than 24 hours, drinking like crazy, enjoying ourselves. It felt like every beer giving us back the energy we lost on the trail. There was even a farmers market that day in town, and we enjoyed homemade pastries, which were perfect!
At the last brewery for that day we sat next to 2 nice couples, and had a chat with both of them. One of the couples were from L.A. and apparently their daughter is in Israel for few months. They were jewish. It's funny how we keep bumping into jewish people on our journey. We had a great time talking with them and before they left they decided to pay for our dinner. Just like that, without telling us. It took us by surprise and I started to wonder whether there's a reason for all those nice experiences in Bend...
We also got a huge package from Chad, a fellow hiker which went off trail, with lots of food and a note which says: 'No quitting!'. It made us laugh... And then it made us wonder... 'Are we really ready to quit?'
Before going to sleep we decided to see some videos about the PCT section in Washington. We loved what we saw, and that's how we quickly changed our mind about the PCT and decided we are going to keep walking to Canada. Or maybe it had to do with the amount of alcohol in our blood... ;)
Anyway, we woke up the next morning and started preparing all the resupply packages for WA, mailed everything and enjoyed our last night in the town.
From Bend you can see all the volcano peaks we were supposed to walk by, if we were on the trail. It was nice seeing that, but we decided we going to skip the rest of Oregon, and start walking from the OR-WA border. If we still have the energy to walk, we prefer it would be in WA, which supposed to be more beautiful.
We took a bus to Portland, a city in the north west of Oregon, from where we planned to continue.
On the way we passed Mt. Hood, which we decided we should come back after the trail to explore more closely.
We spent a night and few hours in the morning in Portland, which is another cool city. We really like the towns and cities in Oregon. I guess more than we like the PCT in Oregon :)
We got a ride to Cascade Locks from a trail angel guy who lives in Portland.
Cascade Locks is where the trail ends in Oregon.
We decided to day hike to the famous Tunnel Falls, which we skipped, and are very close to the town. It was only 12 miles walk, so we did it very quickly and on the way met some fellow hikers which we hven't seen since the Sierras...
It was fun catching up with everybody :)
We felt like we made the right decision!
We skipped 300 miles of the trail, but we are going to come back after we finish the trail to see all the highlights we missed in Oregon (which are not a lot...).
Washington, here we come!
