Day 112

11 Miles

Every mile on a nearo day feels like it takes an hour because you just want to be there already. It seems like I can’t move fast enough to get in so I can drop my pack somewhere and walk around freely. We made it to Mazama Village at Crater Lake around lunchtime and first stopped at the cafe. My burger was lame, but the beer was worth it. Three tables of hikers all grouped together around the available power outlet. Most on their phones, taking advantage of the slow wifi. It happens at every stop in civilization. One of the staff came around to move a table of hikers into our area, fine. Later he came by to ask us all to leave so the tables could be used by other guests. Kinda felt like homeless people being pushed around. Hiker trash, for real. Not sure what to expect, we went to the general store to get our resupply. They actually had some decent options, so we loaded up a basket and made it work for the next 4-day stretch to Shelter Cove. We also got a 6-pack and some snacks since we had all afternoon open. The park has a free hiker/biker area so we found a spot and set up the tent. After buying resupply food you normally take it out of any unnecessary packaging, or transfer it to other containers, so you don’t have to carry around as much trash later on. So we found shade and repacked our food bags. Then we did hobo laundry in the sinks before heading back up to the cafe for dinner. We got two big pizzas and a salad. The leftovers came back with us, which I put in an empty tortilla bag I still had and that would be an excellent meal for tomorrow. The hiker area was packed with tents and more hikers kept rolling in right up to dusk. Thankfully, the hikers and RV campers were quiet at hiker midnight.