PCT Day 112-117

Reaching mile 2,000 leaves me speechless. It is hard to comprehend that I have been on the trail almost 4 months and have hiked this many miles. Knock on wood, but I have had no blisters, no injuries and all my gear has been perfect! Unfortunately, I did get E. Coli coming into Bend, Oregon but I won't go into details on that.....

Coming out of Bend I hiked 18 miles and then had to hitch around the next fire closure. In order to do this I had to get 4 hitches. 1. Santiam Pass to Camp Sherman 2. Camp Sherman to Sisters 3. Sisters to Redmond 4. Redmond to Frog Lake. This whole adventure took about 4 hours just to get around 20 miles of closed trail. Even more frustrating is that the PCTA opened this closed section days after I skipped it! I will be back Oregon!!!

Following this closure, was the famous Timberline Lodge. This is where shots from the movie, The Shining, was filmed. They even have a replica axe from the movie. PCT hikers love it for the all you can eat buffet for breakfast or lunch. It was delicious!! It took us about 3 hours of sitting on the couches in the lobby to recover.

After Timberline Lodge, it was only a few days until Cascade Locks which sits on the Oregon/Washington border, but first Tunnel Falls! This incredible waterfall is 160 feet of cascading water. What makes it even cooler is you can walk behind the falls in a tunnel that was drilled out. Just looking at the entrance and exit of the tunnel gives perspective to how massive this waterfall really is.

Cascade Locks is also famous because every year the town hosts PCT Days, a two day long festival for PCT hikers and members of the outdoor community in the PNW. I was most excited for this event because I knew I would get to see hikers I hadn't seen since the start! Many hikers, if they are not at Cascade Locks during the festival, will get a ride from wherever they are for the 2 days then get a ride back. There are TONS of outdoor vendors, games, raffles, and presentations.

During the final night, they had a huge raffle with 10,000$ worth of giveaways. I bought 2 tickets so I was not expecting to win anything. After about an hour of hearing them call out numbers I started to not pay attention. Suddenly, my friends were yelling at me I won! I was so confused! How could out of thousands of tickets, one of my two tickets be picked. What did I win?

I won the heaviest, most useless item they were giving away. It was a stationary pivoting lamp made for mechanics that weighed over 1.5 lbs. But I won!! I felt a little like the dad from A Christmas Story, ha! I was so happy I carried it out that night. Following the raffle, we set off to cross the Bridge of the Gods into Washington.

One more state left! See you soon Canada!

-Pickle

P.S. The day after I won the lamp, I was already tired of carrying the weight around. I ran into some day hikers and immediately asked them if they wanted it. They said yes! R.I.P. my only raffle prize I've ever won.