8 Miles
It started to rain during the night and we also woke up to the strong smell of smoke. Enough to where Marie got out of the tent to check if the fire sending smoke over The Husband had jumped the ridge. It hadn’t, but sure smelled a lot closer. By morning the rain had settled to more of a mist since we were now in the cloud, making for a soggy tear down. We got moving with full rain gear on to try to stay dry and warm on our way down to the highway. Hiking over the lava rocks was fascinating because it seemed like another planet. We made our way down to Matthieu Lake where we got water that was surprisingly warm. Expecting to carry enough to Big Lake Youth Camp, we packed enough for 16 miles. The rain stopped and the wind picked up the rest of the 4 miles to McKenzie Pass. We got a short section of lava rock right before the road and the footing was rough as expected. The trail is just a route through fields of rocks, which makes for slow and painful walking. The Dee Wright Observatory is right next to where the PCT crosses the highway at McKenzie Pass so we walked over to check it out. The views of Little Belknap and the surrounding mountains were great, especially since the observatory had a viewing platform and port holes with them all labeled. Rambler, an older hiker we had met just before taking the alternate to Whitefish Horse Camp, was hanging out inside out of the wind. He was waiting on a trail angel to pick him up and take him into Bend. We were still planning to keep hiking, but when we got down from the platform and went to put on extra layers we decided to try hitching into town as well. The allure of getting into town a day early and not hiking in the cold wind over miles of lava rock was too much. I walked back up to Rambler to see if there was room in the car for his ride to town and while talking to him a tourist had overheard us and asked where I was trying to get to. I explained what we were doing and he said they’d be going to Sisters eventually and we could ride in the back of their truck. So I went back down to tell Marie and we went and talked to the guy a bit before hopping in the back of his truck. He and his friends were out sight-seeing and didn’t mind taking us after they drove “about 12 more miles” up the road. That turned into a 2-hour ride all the way around the McKenzie-Santiam Pass loop. A nice drive, for sure, but a lot longer than we were expecting and a long time to be in the back of a truck flying down the highway. We got to Sisters though. We hit up their gear shop because we heard they had free beer for PCT hikers and I needed more stove fuel. We caught the bus from there down to Bend and got checked into our hotel. Our room didn’t have a shower curtain so we requested one before heading to grab late lunch and a beer at Silver Moon Brewing. When we got back we still didn’t have a curtain so we went back to the desk to ask about it. On the way down, we ran into Brook who we haven’t seen since the Ostrich Farm. Using trail registers, he and Kira knew they were getting close to catching us and were only a day or two behind. They had hitched into Bend from Elk Lake, which we passed two days before. We swapped dealing-with-fires stories and then got our shower curtain. It felt great to finally get cleaned up. Although late, around 10pm, Lucy’s Taco Shop across the street was still open so we got some dinner and ate it back in the room.
PCT Hike 