Pacific Crest Trail : Elk Lake to Detroit

Miles this section : 58
Miles completed : 2008

Glorious walking in the Three Sisters Wilderness.

Elk lake isn't much of a place, basically a bar and campsite next to the eponymous lake.  The store has beer, candy, and not a lot else, but no matter, my box of food, some good stuff from the hiker box, plus a pound of cheese bought from kitchen, will keep me going.  The bar has a printout of the website regarding the fires, though no actual web access.  Seems there's a thirty mile detour from here to the east, to the small town of Sisters, but from there the site says no good detour exists around the bigger closure to the north.  The fact is though, Americans simply cannot handle the idea of walking on highways, which if need be I will do - in fact I have a week-old copy of the PCT water report, which has details of a detour which is basically 'walk the highway'.  So, looks like around one hundred and seventeen miles of detour, missing eighty-seven miles of trail, I can handle that, getting back to the trail in time for the eclipse is not really feasible though.  But in fact, the detour crosses the line of maximum totality around the settlement of Detroit (Oregon, not Michigan) so my plan now is to be there.

I eat a second burger at Elk Lake, for lunch, plus an unfeasible amount of sweet potato fries.  Pocket Rocket, a Swiss hiker I've seen several times before, is here, and I ran into Vampire Hunter (from Holland) last night, nice to see familiar faces. I can't stay longer though, it's Detroit or bust, so, five road miles, no problem with that, then a steep 'climbers trail', hot work and my pack feels very heavy, but I can cope.  Then some glorious walking, with fine views of the Sisters mountains (there are, I gather, three of them), and beautiful glacial lakes, I rather like this detour.

Plume of smoke from the Milli Fire.

There are a lot of day hikers about, so many that when, late in the day, I pass through the Green Lakes area, all the 'designated campsites' are full, so I have to keep walking and of course camp just past the area boundary.  Next morning I see signs on the detour saying to go even further east, it soon becomes clear why, as a massive smoke plume from a nearby fire fills the sky on my left.  Slow moving planes drone overhead carrying water to the fire, as I walk a minor road towards Sisters, then cut north on roads that may be closed, I'm not entirely sure.  Lots of cars pass me with lights flashing, some from the fire service and at least one sheriff, they all ignore me, then as I come to the last half mile of my route towards the highway, I meet some English guys on an exchange program, with the local police I guess, they say I have to go northeast to the highway.  OK fine, I get there, some fire service guys are stopping traffic, the highway is closed to the east it seems, but yes, I can walk gravel roads to the north, they also give me a gatorade, and even let me walk half a mile east to join my planned route.  From there I head north and put a few more miles between me and the fire before camping.

Red sunset.

There seems to be less smoke next day, and anyway I'm walking away from the fire, northwest, my GPS map shows lots of roads this way, and I should be able to get back to the trail around fifteen miles north of the highway.  In the event this works well, I get through the private community (complete with golf course) without incurring the threatened one thousand dollar fine, and then find a mile or two of road made impassable by fallen trees, necessitating a bit of bushwhacking, otherwise it's all cool.  I rejoin the PCT near the Big Lake youth camp, there are forest rangers here, stopping people going south but I am OK to go north, and it is very good to be back on the trail - for a whole four miles...  After that I reach another highway, 20, I'm expecting to walk it, but no, the trail is open for nine more miles or so, then a detour will take me west, and then the it will be the highway to Detroit.  The last bit of PCT for a while is a stiff climb, but worth it for a campsite with views of an amazing red sunset over smoky mountains.  Lots of people are up here, ready for the eclipse, I wonder if I should stay?  But I don't really want to hang around for a whole day, and I do need to get on anyway.

Total eclipse!

There's not much PCT left to walk the next morning, I meet another ranger at the Minto Pass trail junction, off to the west I go.  There are a lot of deadfall trees for the first mile or so, then it's easy downhill, and then thirteen miles of Highway 22, simple if dull walking with a wide gravel shoulder - marked by hiker footprints.  Most will be hitching I know, the average hiker seems to really hate road walking, don't understand the problem myself.  I make camp in the woods by the road, having passed a campground or two which were full of eclipse watchers - and indeed wanted fifteen dollars for essentially, also, camping in the woods.

Just a few miles more and I'm in Detroit, a nice little town whose main attraction is a lake, as seems common in this part of Oregon.  I get some breakfast, then hike around the lake for half a mile or so to watch the moon pass in front of the sun, it's so smoky I can't see the other side of the lake, but the sun shines through without a problem, and unlike the last time I tried to watch an eclipse there are no clouds!  I'm prepared with eclipse glasses from trail magic, and wear them as the sun shrinks down to a crescent, this is pretty weird, though all still looks normal with the glasses off.  Then all of a sudden I'm in near darkness, looking at the amazing diamond ring effect, I then spend two minutes or so gawping at the corona, and then it's done.  Totally worth two thousand miles of walking.

Photos to go with this post can be found here and here.