Took the Eagle Creek alternate and made it to Cascade Locks. Eagle Creek is a very pretty trail with Tunnel Falls, a waterfall with a trail passing through a cave behind it. Lots of other falls and bowls carved out of the stone along the trail as well. Pretty much every alternate to the PCT in Oregon is said to be more scenic than the PCT itself, which makes me wonder why the PCT was routed how it is.
The trail eventually became a road walk entering the town of Cascade Locks (at sea level). A guy at a fruit stand gave me a peach. Good sign. I walked to the trail angel place with free camping. Ran into Silent Bob there, who gave an understated, "holy shit" when I told him who I was. Haven't seen him in months. Got dinner and drinks with the Optimist. He and I have been hiking around each other for a few days. We like to shit talk about hikers who have skipped large parts of the trail, especially the ones who are cagey about it, though honestly it doesn't bother me. HYOH. We've concluded though that many southerbounders can't be trusted. The burger, crostini, salmon chowder, and strawberry cider were all very good.
The next day I found out one of my packages was missing. While I waited behind the bar to see if my it had been misrouted there, Ambulance was frantically trying to sort out her phone service. Her British mobile plan was inexplicably shut off yesterday, and so the bartender from the place we ate at yesterday was going to give her a ride to Troutdale to get her a new plan. My package had my warm layers. I really needed them, so I decided to join them and make it to whatever sporting goods store Troutdale had. While there I got a call saying they found it. It was with a camp host at the RV park, who had been holding onto it for the last four days instead of giving it to the office. Unbelievable.
The bartender was awesome. I couldn't believe someone would just go out of their way to help hikers like that. She's been stocking the hiker box in the back room with condoms and pregnancy tests, which disappear pretty quickly. We ended up going to REI to pick up some stuff for Optimist and stopped at Chick-fil-a, which I have been craving for months.
Got back in the afternoon. Took down my campsite and loaded my pack for an hour and set off to cross the Bridge of the Gods. Crossing it has less fanfare than entering Kennedy Meadows, it's just you plus cars, but it did feel pretty great knowing I just walked across a whole state. Now I am camped 5 miles into Washington.
With the addition of my warm clothes and an 84 mile food supply, I'm really feeling the weight of my pack. I'm beginning to think double wall shelters are just overkill for thru-hiking. 2.5 lb/person for a shelter is a lot, plus the tent, rainfly, and poles take up a ton of pack space. Starting over, I would definitely shell out the $500+ for a ZPacks cuben fiber shelter. They pack up tiny and are around a pound. Grass is always greener though. When it's dry out I love having just a mesh tent where I can see the stars. When it's wet, I wish I had my TarpTent with the pre-attached rainfly. When I'm walking, I just want the lightest damn shelter out there. Mostly I am walking.
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