Splinter in Portland

So nice to be somewhere that is not in the woods!

I have really been missing Aloe on the trail and have been looking forward to seeing my friends from Newberg so this is going to be a great trail detour! So much has happened in the last few weeks, I need a break from hiking.

After a tearful goodbye with Aloe in Ashland I started off, determined to finish the trail as fast as possible and get back to real life. Unfortunately, my motivation was sapped, I was sad Aloe was gone, and everyone else I was hiking with was also feeling the 2,000 mile blues. I made it to Crater Lake in good time and was just about to get back on the trail when Das Boot and $5 convinced me to go to the dinner buffet with them. I ate so much I puked, it was awesome.

After Crater Lake (beautiful! by the way), I met up with Smokey and Blue and hiked with them for a while. We ended up yellow-blazing (hitchhiking ahead) with Boot and $5 to Shelter cove for pizza and beer. We had a great time, then hiked about 3 miles the next day to Willamette pass Ski area for more pizza. For the next few days everyone felt pretty lazy and it took us forever to get to Sisters.

Sisters was a lot of fun. I saw a lot of people I hadn't seen since Ashland and we squeezed 8 hikers into one tiny hotel room. We saw and movie and did a lot of general lazing around. Surprisingly, I got back on trail pretty early the next day with Smokey and Blue.

The next morning I was awakened by rain. We hiked 13 miles and then decided to hole up for a while, hoping the torrential downpour would pass. We huddled in Smokey's huge tent and played Uno for a few hours, waiting for the rain to stop. I finally decided to keep on and said goodbye and took off by myself. The rain didn't let up the next day, in fact it got worse, and it got cold. I finally decided I couldn't hike any more and set up my tent (which was already soaked) and got in my sleeping bag (also soaked) and tried to battle hypothermia. It was pretty awful.

After a few hours, the rain was still coming down and I didn't know what to do. Finally, Carhartt hiked by and informed me that there was a shelter about 4 miles from where I was! We booked it to the shelter, made a fire and I was very thankful that I didn't die in the Jefferson wilderness.

Took off the next day for Timberline. My feet were killing me, probably had something to do with the fact that my shoes have 1,400 miles on them and are basically worthless at this point. After a painful hike to Timberline (and an amazing lunch buffet) I decided I was done hiking in Oregon and hitchhiked to Portland.

I'm going to be here until Tuesday, visiting friends, watching football and generally being lazy. It is going to be great!

Love all of you,

Splinter