After spending two days off trail with driving to portland and back, shopping, drinking wine, having a lot of showers and buying a 9 day resupply Fabienne and I were back on trail.

The weather was amazing, it had rained two days ago when we were off-trail so the air is cleared from the smoke and the trail is dust-free.

 

Perfect conditions if the beginning wouldn’t have been a 6 mile uphill section, a tough start for Fabienne.

Two hours into the hike and half of the climb was done and we deserved our lunchbreak.

 

The top of the mountain was easily reached and we continued a short time downhill untill we reached a good campsite where we set up the tent and went inside without having dinner. We ended up eating just a lot of snacks 🙂

 

 

The quilt-system is diffrent to a normal sleeping bag and it may take a few attempts before one gets used to it… so her first night was mainly cold and windy…

 

 

 

We were on trail at 9am because we had to wait for the sun to dry the tent before we packed everything in our backpacks and started walking.

 

We have such a huge variety on food because we have a long townless stretch before us and we share everything. For second breakfast we have beagles, bread or tortillas with peanutbutter, jam or nutella!

When I hike alone I have one of each…

The views kept beeing amazing because the weather was still perfect.

 

 

We only had to walk 12 miles a day to arrive at the Timberline Lodge when I booked a room for us next week. That means a late start, lots of small pauses and an early camp set up.

I am used to the views and had more amazing ones back in the sierras but for her everything is new and exciting so we stop every now and then to enjoy beeing out here 🙂

 

 

There was a 1,5 mile stretch where we were not allowed to camp, so we walked trough it and pitched the tent just after it ended in a nice and wide space with good wind protection.

Today we had dinner in the tent and I took more time to et her sleeping system installed correctly so that noone needs to freeze at night.

 

 

 

 

No rush in the morning means getting up late and out of tent even later. We only need to cover 12 miles which is 6 hours of walking. There is no need to start walking at 7 or even 8 am.

After the first 4 miles were downhill and we had second breakfast sitting on a log on trail the rest of the day would only be uphill again.

 

 

The first few hours were through a burned area, which means no shade and beeing exposed to the heat of the sun.

 

There were a few small creeks along the trail and we decided to have lunch next to one of them.

 

The afternoon was covered by a lot of small breaks in between the hiking parts because it was hot and the trail was not easy to walk.

 

 

The last 2 miles however were very exposed to the wind which made them cold and we had some trouble finding a protected spot from the wind to pitch our tent.

 

Aparently the day was not exhausting enough because we went for a little walk with snacks after we had set up the tent and had dinner. The views were just too gorgeous to get into the tent too early.

 

But as soon as the sun goes down it gets cold and so we went straight to bed into the warm quilts for a warm sleep.

 

 

 

 

We woke up because it started to rain at 8am. We hurried to pack everything together before it would be completely soaked.

 

 

Luckily the rain was not as bad as it sounded, but the tent was still drippin wet when we folded it to put it in its stuffsack. But with the rainclothes we didn’t got wet at all.

After half an hour we finished the mountain we started to climb yesterday and it would be going down to the Olallie resort where we wanted to camp tonight.

 

A lot of clouds and the wind made it very cold and we had to keep our raingaer on for a long time.

 

This is mount Hood were we gonna be in a few days to sleep at the Timberline Lodge.

 

An early start means an early second breakfast and an early lunch too. Both of them were short because it was still cold, even in the afternoon.

 

We arrived at the resort at 3pm where we got trailmagic and bought coke, beer and wine at their shop.

 

We spend the whole afternoon in our tent watching netflix and enjoying the warmth of the sleeping bags 🙂

 

 

Getting out for dinner was hard, even tough it has gotten a little warmer due to some sun lighting through the clouds.

 

After we finished Mac&Cheese with the bottle of wine, Fabienne enjoyed the ducks in the lake and I had a chat with a few old friends who just arrived and had some snacks with the trailangel.

 

We went to sleep late around 9pm knowing that we could get pancakes in the morning 🙂

 

 

 

 

Long before we got out of the tent we heard people laughing and eating pancakes nearby but it was just to comfortable to get up early.

We got normal pancakes, pancakes with bananas, vegan pancakes and chocolat chip pancakes. All of them were delicious 🙂

We spent almost an hour with the trailangel and some hikers before we headed out on the trail again.

 

 

There was no need of a second breakfast because we had so many pancakes. We just walked for 3 hours straight before we sattt down fot lunch on a few logs next to a dirt road.

 

While walking in the afternoon we decided to go further than planned to get closer to the Timberline Lodge and have two breakfasts there instead of only one.

 

The trail was good to walk and this section is very flat, so we managed to walk 17 miles before we set up our tent still at a reasonable 18h. We were the first at the camp but there were two more hikers who arrived when it was already dark.

 

 

 

We got up late again and just saw Danger leave when we got out of our tent.

We soon realized that one of the drybags laying around our tent was not ours and that he had forgotten it. There would have been no way to catch up with him but I have his facebook and I would be able to text him in the afternoon.

But before I was able to text him, we saw him again at a creek and we could give him his bag back. He obviously was super thankfull because everything we hikers carry is highly needed and noot ment to be lost somewhere.

 

 

After another 15 minutes of chatting with him he told us that he will visit us if he will be in Luxemburg and that we should text him when we are going to be in Brazil. Even if we don’t go to Sao Paulo where he lives, we wanted to organise a few things for us 🙂

 

The long day yesterday left some scars and we had to take a few more breaks then the days before. But we still managed to keep a good pace and made enough miles.

 

Just before reaching the tentsite we got on-trail-magic but there were only a few sweets left. Not that we were sad about the sweets, but she started with beer and coke this morning which we’d missed.

 

 

We arrived earlier then usual and so we had some time to enjoy the lakeside view from our tent. No swim tough because the water was too cold. We’ll get a shower in 3 days!

 

After dinner we crawled into our tent to watch some netflix and a few dayhikers came to sit next to our tent and watch the sunset.

 

 

One knows that one is close to trailheads and parking lots if dayhikers without equipment are among the people you see on trail.

 

After they left it way quiet enough to find some sleep 🙂

 

 

 

The morning was quite cold and foggy because we were so close to the lake but we still managed to be on trail just after 8h30.

 

 

Another 3 miles along the lake, half a mile trough the forest and we reached little crater lake. A small pond sized lake which is cristal clear, 15 meters deep and yearround 1 °C cold.

 

 

It feels like looking into an optical illusion seeing the logs that deep in the water.

 

 

5 more miles and we reached a highway next to whom we set up our tent. Even tough it was only 14h we had done enough miles because of the early start and we have 11 more left to the Timberline Lodge.

 

I ran to the gas-station 3km away in an astonishing fast 12 minutes to buy some beer, coke and juice for the rest of the day and tomorrow morning.

 

 

The way back to the tent took me 45 minutes… there was no way to run with all the weight I had to carry in only a bag…

 

We spent the rest of the afternoon in the tent drinking beer and watching netflix 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

The night was warmer then the last ones ao we did not had any problems to get up fast and so left early.

 

The trail knew only one direction, uphill.

 

 

2700 feet in total, about 820 meter in evelation made hiking harder then the last days.

 

Beeing in the forest to avoid the head made it better, but soon after we had lunch we fot over the treeline and we were exposed to the sun.

 

The sand on the trail only made things worse and for every 2 steps forward we slithered 1 back down the mountain.

 

 

I ended up carrying two backpacks for a short because Fabienne’s knee gave up on the soft surface.

 

Luckily this part was only 2km long and we soon reached the lodge.

 

It was their busiest day of the year, labor day and they had a music festival going on. Good for me that I booked a room 3 weeks ago because the hotel was completely booked.

 

We had a second lunch before getting into our room and had the well deserved shower after 8 days on trail.

 

 

We spent a few hours laying in bed waiting for the laundry to be done before going out for dinner.

 

The food was delicious and the view from our table was more than extraordinairy 🙂

 

 

We fell into our bed right after we came back from dinner, well saturated and ready for the most famous breakfast buffet on the whole trail!