Tag Archives: Mount Jefferson

Day 107 – Here’s Johnny!

August 17, 2013
28 miles today
Mile 2130

The lure of a breakfast without end sped awakenings and departures. Food, the great motivator of the masses. I forewent any formal breakfast and was the first to begin the climb to temple. The Timberline is located high on the slopes of Mount Hood. Famous as the setting for the film “The Shining” in PCT circles it is much better known for its three daily all you can eats. I zeroed in on the first one, shut off my brain and began grinding upward. A religious fervor undoubtedly shining in my eyes.

Here's Johnny!

Here’s Johnny!


Insert twins and say, "Redrum."

Insert twins and say, “Redrum.”


At first soft pine forests, then, progressively, the terrain turned raw. Great ash canyons carved by glacier melt took over. Stride shortened as I pushed up old ash dunes. Dancing waffles prevented rests. Altitude gave way. Over a rise and there was Mount Hood. It’s snowy peak belching clouds. A pivot and Mount Jefferson and the sisters rising up out of a gray inversion and my past. Volcano row. Where I had come from, where I was going. Around the bend and there she was. The Timberline, built in the depression by hungry craftsmen, before incompetency took over the architectural profession. It was a sight. A pilgrim to His Holy.
Hood with offspring waterfall

Hood with offspring waterfall

Hood with friend on high

Hood with friend on high


I was formally seated in the beamed cascade room despite the varied offenses of my appearance. My waiter long used to PCT refugees was to the point, “Please begin,” and I did. The beauty was it tasted better than my limited imagination had imagined. After two hours I threw in the napkin. Veggie, Orbit and Greenleaf soon thereafter waived their white napkins in surrender. Our waiter fist-bumped us in effort appreciation. A running group noticed our starvation and offered bags of leftover sandwiches. We gratefully accepted. Lunch secured, it was time for a waddle around the Lodge to look for moments of Shining.

Came upon the Waylo Room. Ping-pong table and piano beckoned. Veggie and I had it out on the table, while Orbit played a series of concertos for background. The game halted when she consented to play one of her original works written when she was forteen. It captured the angst and magic of that time like nothing I had ever heard. More waddling. Raided the abundant hiker box. Took an aperitif in the attic bar. Stalling. Finally ended up on the front patio adjacent to a 40-year class reunion. Seated in Adirondack of procrastination, we prepared for yet another goodbye. Veggie’s mother and sister will arrive tomorrow and he will take a few days of rest with them. Good hugs and off, but not. A sympathetic reunionite brought over two boxes and said “cram as much as you can in them from our private buffet.” I love the timberline meal plan. Happy 40th, you’re all looking good.

Makeshift bridge

Makeshift bridge

Mount Hood up close and personal

Mount Hood up close and personal


Loaded down with meals, our leaden waddles moved us slowly north, the path thick with day hikers. Ant skiers moved about the distant slopes in August. The PCT at this point was part of a 40-mile circumnavigation pilgrimage of Mount Hood. It followed a mountain base pattern of knife cut topography up a ridge, down the canyon and across a glacial melt till it chose to drop away. There we turned our backs on hood and headed down. A detour to Ramona Falls and her allure then a long slog up to a new ridgeline fueled by the 40-year lunch. If you’re up you must go down, as the PCT is never static. By the bottom my knees sounded like jake brakes on an 18-wheeler.
Ramona Falls

Ramona Falls

The final act in the timberline meal plan was held by a pass, Forest Road, in the unrealized hope that a passing motorist would be providing beverages. If it is a pass, dessert will involve ascent. Early in it we passed under massive power lines that crackled with effort. As a kid once I had carried a fluorescent tube under such lines and watched it light up. Stopped to photograph Hood in Alpine glow and then moved on quickly, a cancerous Pac-Man in hot pursuit.

Hood chute

Hood chute

The sky blackened, the terrain turned steep and flat campsites turned into an Iraq WMD search. The hike marched past its 9:30 deadline. Tired and slipping concentration brought on the stumbles. A known campsite lay an hour away. Gave up looking as each side forest search took the headlamp away from the path, resulting in slowing or stumbling. At 10:30 we joined a community of four others clustered on a cold ridgeline. Perhaps asleep before rolling out the bedroll.

Main tentpole in timberline

Main tentpole in timberline

Steve Halteman
On the Pacific Crest Trail
Hiking the PCT for the Kids of Escuela Verde

If you’d like to help out and donate, please click here!

Day 104 – Goal: Border by my birthday!

August 14, 2013
33 miles
Mile 2040

Our remote camping spot proved unremote. Within 100 feet lay trail junctions and parking lots. Passing early hikers, intent on the trail, conducted conversations at alarm bell levels. Thus, we did wait. Nearby was a magic catch. I scored a root beer and a Mountain Dew to accompany my oatmeal. A passing trail angel in a robe generously offered to get us high. I decided to stick with oatmeal and sugar water for breakfast. I packed up and reviewed our night conversation to see if it made sense in the daylight of intelligence.

Mount Jefferson

Mount Jefferson


Numerology has entered the picture. Its denial would be troublesome. Its obeisance a challenge. I’ll lay it out. My lucky number is three. Always. Every team jersey I wore was number three. Orbit’s lucky number is three. We both started on May 3. We both would like to finish the trail in four months or one third of the year. That would allow Orbit to surpass her Appalachian Trail finishing time of four months and two days. Four months would be September 3. Which happens to be the day that I turn 50 on this earth. To get to the end of the trail and Canada by September 3 and my birthday would require us to walk an average of, you guessed it, 33 miles per day. Three countries, three states. Who could ignore this? We can’t, won’t and are going for it. Wish us luck.
Orbit's treehouse

Orbit’s treehouse


Three-Fingered Jack

Three-Fingered Jack


The path climbed through dead forests that provided no oxygen. Sad, but gifting a perspective of geology that would otherwise be obscured. Around a dog leg and the haunted crags of Three Fingered Jack Mountain. There is that three again. We passed under the shadows of his mangled hand. The power of a snow year obvious from the crushed trees at the bottom of avalanche chutes. A most beautiful of mountains.
Dead line

Dead line


The day cool. The past bipolar in it’s confusion between both long stretches of water absence and excess. Lunch was at the serene Rockpile Lake. The sight of water brings out my appetite. The absence also. Perhaps I have something in common with the path. Nineteen miles to work for after lunch. NPR assisted. Massacres in Egypt and plans to halt global warming by injecting sulfuric acid into the stratosphere were equally disturbing. Soon I returned my attention to the forest.

A long downhill was fueled by handfuls of picked wild blueberries. I approached a well-stocked camp with horses. Closer inspection revealed the horses to be morphing into lamas. I paid for the diversion of eyes with a severe stumble. The campers grinned. To cover up my indignity, I inquired about the availability of a gin and tonic. Unfortunately their mixologist was on break. However, one camper advised me that the upcoming stream was dangerous to cross. He suggested I would need water shoes. I look down at my only shoes and shrugged..
Oregon skyline without the trail

Oregon skyline without the trail


Orbit and the dark caught up at the same time. She hadn’t heard the beast that stomped and snorted through the previous night. It had woken me. I guessed a bear or elk or something from mythology. Still thinking about it when we came to Russell Creek and it’s milky glacial melt. The current was nasty and aggressive. The darkness pitched in an ominous bent. Upstream and downstream were searched. Patience rewarded with a doable rock hot. Happy for dry feet I immediately plunged into a deep mud puddle.

Packs heavy with lugged water we passed stream after stream unmarked on our maps. Pushing to possibly meet a friend of Orbit’s at a distant trail juncture, we ran into the demands of sleep, this time by a highway of water. Soothed, I reached for war, but my hand never made it.

Steve Halteman
On the Pacific Crest Trail
Hiking the PCT for the Kids of Escuela Verde

If you’d like to help out and donate, please click here!