Trail Flop

My grand plans to hike a 300 mile section of the Pacific Crest Trail have been stalled by snow, but I still had an adventure.

My father and I were dropped off at Oregon’s Crater Lake with the expectations that we would be hiking south 90 miles together to Hyatt Lake Resort. My mother would pick up my father at the resort and I would continue on to California’s Mt. Shasta. Snow decided that it was not going to happen.

We had already delayed our start date by a day because of a storm. Jill and I left home and drove through the tail end of the storm’s heavy rains on our way into the mountains, but the skies cleared as we climbed into the Cascades. We were surprised when we approached Crater Lake National Park and entered a snow storm. The roads were covered in slush, snow fell from the sky and rested in huge drifts alongside the roads, a thick fog saturated the air, and strong winds gusted all around us. We camped that night at a lower elevation where instead of snowfall we were hit with freezing rain.

The forecast called for sunny days ahead, so we thought we would be fine. Just one night in the cold and the rain. That was fine.

And the next day was sunny, and warm. We started our hike with big smiles masking the nervousness within. The trail began with a bit of snow. It was sure to lessen as we went on, as we dropped in elevation, right?

Wrong.

My dad and I hiked over 8 miles on the PCT before I called it quits. The fields of snow were endless, as were the mosquitos. We could not see the trail. There were no markers in the trees to follow. We walked on the snow for miles, climbed the drifts that were in our path, crawled under and over the downed trees that littered the trail, and we were often so high up on top of the snow that we were pushing though the branches of living trees as we moved onward. My eyes were glued to my GPS just to make sure we were on the right path, but even that was spotty and unreliable. We saw no one else on the PCT and there were no footsteps to follow. We found ourselves off-trail and nearly lost several times. We were not prepared for this.

So we backtracked and took a side trail that lead east toward a highway. The Pumice Flats trail was well marked with arrows in the trees, and as we continued on downhill toward the road we finally began to see dirt again. We could see the trail. The highway was quiet as the sun set behind the trees. We tried to hitch back to the park, but the few cars that passed by ignored us. We decided to make camp in the woods before it was too dark to see.

That next morning we again failed to get a ride, so we walked the several road miles back to Mazama Village. It was a beautiful walk along Annie Creek and the ridge of its canyon. We stayed a couple more days in Crater Lake National Park and made the best of it while we waited for my mother to come and pick us up. We hiked the Annie Creek trail down at the bottom of the canyon. It was gorgeous, but also riddled with mounds of snow and fallen trees. There was a landslide at the end of the trail and we had to climb up the steep canyon slopes by following some elk tracks. The next day we walked down the road a bit to walk along a handicap-accessible trail which went along the top of another canyon, but the snowfall and downed trees were again so prevalent that we lost the wheelchair trail and had to backwoods it back toward the highway.

A ranger had told us that months ago a 100mph wind storm blew through the park and littered the trails with debris before the snow had even fallen. We had also learned of others who were lost in the wilderness and some who were days-delayed on the PCT because of the rough conditions. My father and I did not make our goal, but I’m glad we turned around when we did. We had ourselves an adventure, just not the one we planned, and I’m sure we’ll have the chance to get out there again someday. Now I know hat even late June can be too early to hike through Oregon’s Cascades!