Day 103, 29.2 miles!!

This morning was another real cold one! I once again slept in and didn’t leave until around 7:15am. (This is becoming a routine, haha). The morning was nice although there were a lot of mosquitos. It seemed a little smoky again, but not as bad as it was near the Oregon/California border.

Something I was really looking forward to today was Summit Lake! It was 11 miles into my day and I timed it so that I hit it just before noon. There was a sweet little peneinsula jutting our from the shore, with a great campsite on the point. I definitely have to come back with Claire to camp here! The water was so clear and blue and refreshing and I swam there for a few minutes! I love this “jumping into a lake everyday” thing I’ve been doing :)

Sweet campsite

Diamond Peak in the middle

Water was so nice!! I didn’t want to swim out too far with my phone, but I did swim out pretty far in general! (Sorry, I was looking right into the sun here)

I hung out on the rocks and dried off. Then I ate A LOT of my remaindimg food. I had been planning on getting within 5 miles of Shelter Cove and then meeting Claire there tomorrow morning. But the more I thought of food from an actual restaurant, the more I really wanted to push a big day and get there for dinner tonight!

Shelter Cove was still 17 miles away and it was already noon by the time I was ready to leave the lake. I knew the restaurant closed at 7pm, and 17 miles in less than 7 hours is a tall order, but I had made up my mind! Challenge accepted!! I figured the worst case scenario is that I’d get there late and just eat my standard hiking dinner of bean and rice burrito.

See the ducks?

Beautiful high country

Prime mosquito breeding conditions...

I started up a “huge” hill (huge relative to Oregon’s tame grade). There were lots of mosquitos on the way up because of a lot of small, shallow, stagnant ponds. Near the top there were really cool high country views of some dramatic cliffs speckled with snow patches. On the way back down there were more mosquitos and ponds and lakes, but also lots of wild huckleberries!! 

1900 miles!!

Camp horses

So many huckleberries!!

I flew down the hill at lightning speeds with my very light pack. (It always feels great a day or two out of town when there’s less food weight.) When I hit the road junction and the train tracks I ran into Tumbleweed and Vortex!!

Tumbleweed and Vortex

It was only 5:20pm when I rolled into Shelter Cove! I had hiked the 17 miles to the road and 1.5 on the road in under 5 1/2 hours!! When I got there I saw a bunch of familiar faces, and I was stoked to see Daddy, Doobie, and Clean Turkey among them.

Doobie and Daddy

I got a big burger for dinner and a bunch of people had ordered HUGE pizzas and most people couldn’t finish them, so I had a lot of pizza too. Shelter Cove is such a cool place! They had large beers (as pictured above), for just $5. I might’ve had 3 :) They also had checkers, giant connect four, ladder toss, badminton, cornhole, WiFi, a hiker tent with hiker boxes, and a giant fire pit! All of this on a nice beautiful lake. 

My dessert... fresh berries I had picked!

I was thinking I’d just hike into the bushes a bit and stealth camp at the end of the night, instead of paying $11 to camp in the campground. I had so much fun playing badminton into the night, drinking, and just hanging out with the other hikers that at around 11pm Doobie, Clean Turkey and I just cowboy camped in the hiker hut near the picnic tables. 

It’s been a really fun afternoon night, and tomorrow I’m going to meet Claire here around 10am! I’m so excited to see her and take a rest day! 

Thanks for reading!!