Thursday 30th June
Start & End: Mazama Village
Miles: 0
My feet are overjoyed today – zero miles! And a bed. And a shower. No 5:30am alarm call.
After 4 days of no phone signal and contact with the outside world, we took the opportunity to check emails, the news, and catch up with messages to friends and family. It felt good to hear from people. Mostly it was amazing to Skype my mum, albeit for a short time as a power outage in the village cut the call short!
Sitting in the darkness of our cabin, we worked on our plan for the next section. Up until now our focus had just been getting here. We now need a plan. We want to push on, but the next section starting around Crater Lake’s rim trail has a massive 26 mile stretch without any water sources. Except maybe snow! That’s a bit scary for us novices.
After sorting out our food resupply box and donating surpluses to the hiker box, we sat outside the store talking with the other hikers. One lady and her dad were waiting for a very expensive taxi to arrive to take them back to Klamath Falls. They have had enough. Jessie, the guy we met briefly at Hyatt Lake pulled up in a car – he had skipped from Fish Lake. There is still no sign of Brandon and Maya. I do worry about them.
Whilst enjoying not needing to be in a rush for a change I took some time to reflect on what I have learnt in the last 10 days…
- I mustn’t wear a retractable penknife on the outside of my pack in the future unless I want to stab myself (again)!
- Carry more deet
- And more water
- A kindle is not an essential piece of hiking equipment
- Mosquitos are evil
- But people are very kind
a life to wander 