This summer and last, I've been chipping away at the Oregon PCT, one weekend at a time. One of the easiest to get to sections that I hadn't been on before was between 3FJ and North Sister.
So on the Saturday 20th at about 4 AM I left for the Santiam Pass trailhead off of hwy 20. I got there about 630, and was hiking by about 7, if memory serves. From Hwy 20, my original intention was to hike to Lava Lake, camp there and return on Sunday. (approx 19 miles each way). I settled on this "plan" because there isn't any water between Lava Lake and Big Lake (approx 12 miles north of there). I ended up only going to hwy 242 before turning around, and cut those 4 miles off my hike for reasons I'll describe later. The PCT mileage at Santiam pass on hwy 20 is 2001, and 1984 at hwy 242, so for my project of sectioning it, I am counting those as the book ends of this trip.
The first roughly 5 miles from Hwy 20 down to the Big Lake area were pretty smooth quick miles and unremarkable. The mosquitoes were out for about 15 minutes, then disappeared. It was all relatively flat with gradual ups and downs. There was some swampy sections of trail still from where snowmelt had sogged it up.
Just south of the Big Lake Youth Camp cutoff trail, where you start gaining some elevation skirting around Mt Washington. Trail was still in pretty good condition. There were a few fallen logs, but probably less than a dozen. Between miles 1994 and 1991, there were a lot of snowbanks on Mt Washington, but very few posed any difficulty navigating, or keeping on the trail. However, it definitely started slowing down progress, trying to slog through snow as I gained elevation. The weather was sunny, and there were great views of all the surrounding mountains, blue skies, and it everything was feeling great.
The next few miles wound around Mt Washington towards the lava field, and were perfectly clear and made great time, but it was just sort of a barren dead forest from whichever fire had come through there. I stopped to have lunch around mile 1989 at the north end of the lava, at about 12. It started misting and raining on me at this point. But I was warm, and it wasn't bad at all, but it started obscuring the views. As I climbed up Belknap, the clouds got closer until I was basically walking in fog. I could see about 200-300 ft by the time I was halfway up. This is also where the snowpack started. I spent an hour or so trying to follow the trail and circle back around to find it. If I had been here before, I probably would have been less cautious, but as it was my first time, and I hadn't seen anyone else on trail since the parking lot at hwy 20, I figured I'd try not to get lost. As I kept gaining elevation, the snow pack kept getting heavier and reacquiring the trail kept becoming more difficult. Without visibility, prior knowledge, or a trail, I spent about 2 hours covering the 2.5ish miles up the lava on the north side of Belknap.
In this ascent, I debated just turning around, and heading back to the car today, as I didn't know how much further I was from anything. I hadn't seen anyone all day, and I had been rained on for 2-3 hours, in the fog, in the snow, without a trail. As luck would have it while I was making my own trail, I stopped to take a piss in the snow. And in that 15 seconds, a father and son hiked around a tree about 100 feet from me. I quickly turned away, but I am sure they had no doubt about what I was doing. After finishing my business, I chatted with them briefly, and they said the snow only continued for another 15-20 minutes and was pretty level behind them. Being reassured and motivated by seeing other people, that I decided to push on and not give up and turn around. I was standing on actual trail between little belknap and belknap crater about 10 minutes later, and saw about 15 people in the next 10 minutes.
As I headed down towards 242, I decided to adjust my itinerary. I still had about 1 liter of water left, and with how much snowmelt and rain there was, I wasn't too worried about making it to lava lake to refill and camp. So I decided to call it at 242, sat down in the parking lot, stretched out my toes, and munched on some snacks.
Heading back up, I kept hoping the clouds would break, and the sun would come out again. But it stayed grey and misty. It was never a full downpour, but it was never dry. I made better time back down the north side of belknap than I had made up it, knowing roughly where I needed to go, and remember certain landmarks. I stopped for a break at the edge of the lava flow where I had lunch, at about 530 PM. A quicker snack, and I kept moving. Shortly thereafter, it started raining heavier, and as it was getting cool, I decided it was time to get my rain jacket out. Perhaps I should have pulled it out earlier and once youre soaked is the wrong time, but eh. The next few miles on the south side of Mt Washington were the burned/blowdown forest that I didnt want to stop in, as it seemed like a dangerous place to camp. I kept pushing a few more miles out, and ended up camping sometime after the trees started again and there was a relatively level spot. I think this was around mile 1992. It was about 7:30, and it was time to set up camp.
Setting up camp in the rain when youre soaked is never fun, but once I had a dry spot to unfurl my sleeping bag, I crawled in, and started eating and reading, until about 9 PM when I decided it was time to go to bed. All my clothes were damp and my pack was soaked, so I wasn't looking forward to putting them on in the morning, but I didn't have a lot of options. It kept raining until 2 or 3 in the morning, I kept waking up every hour or so, thinking about going out to go pee, then rolling over and going back to bed. I am a very warm sleeper, and very warm in general, so I was never cold or shivery, or anything, and I slept with my sleeping bag unzipped most of the night, despite it getting down to the 40s or so.
At about 6 AM, I finally decided I needed to take care of my business, but by then it wasn't raining anymore. Everything outside was soaked, but at least it wasn't still raining. I packed up my tent, slipped into my sloshy shoes, and started down towards the car. I figured I had about 9 miles to go, so I wasn't in any rush as I knew I'd be back to my car by 10 or 11 even with some dillydallying. I refilled my water bottles in the morning from a spring/pond on the side of the trail about 10 minutes from where I camped, and I had water again, so I could drink with reckless abandon. There was a great view from my campsite in the morning looking west towards whatever was west of me, hills and lava and lakes.
The miles on Sunday morning flew by, and while backtracking is never my favorite part of a hike, the reassurance of every step getting closer to my car, and dry clothes, and hot food, kept me moving. I saw 4 or 5 people near Big Lake with large packs on who said they were going to try to summit the mountain, so I wished them well, and kept moving. I ended up stopping twice that morning, once for a snack, and once to put bugspray on, they were bothersome again for 1 or 2 miles just north of Big Lake but unnoticeable the rest of the time. I got back to my car a little before 10. The weather held nice all morning, and I was entirely dry by the time I got back to the car, shoes, pack, clothes, everything. Minus the sweat.
I have started keeping a change of clothes, a towel, and a gallon jug of water in my car for when I get back from hiking, so I can make myself feel about 100% more human with about 5 minutes of cleaning, chugging and changing. Best estimate is that on day 1, I hiked about 25 miles on Saturday, and about 9 on Sunday. Roughly 3300 ft of elevation gain & 3300 ft of loss over the hike based on my simple math. In the end - No blisters, no cuts, no sunburn. No soreness on Monday either which was great, as going back to work when you want a day off to recover, never feels fair.
Bonus Album if you want any more less curated pictures https://photos.app.goo.gl/sL7RaCdLPTGuaG8G9