Day 119: 50 Mile Challenge

PCT Start Mile: 2045.6

PCT End Mile: 2096.9

PCT Mileage for Day: 51.3

Total PCT Mileage: 2096.9

The Highlights: hiking a very long way to eat a very big breakfast

Today we woke up even earlier than usual to tackle the 50 mile challenge. Because that sounded like a good idea. 😆

For those that follow the blog, you may remember that we had originally planned to do a 24-hour challenge out of Ashland, but ended up 86ing this idea in favor of a bit more rest. I was not sad about this. However, as we made our way through Oregon, we encountered a problem. How to make it to Timberline Lodge for the famously best AYCE breakfast on the trail? Normal or even slightly extended daily mileages would put us into Timberline for lunch or dinner. We wanted the BREAKFAST buffet.

There appeared to be only one obvious solution (other than driving): the 50-mile challenge. We would need to stop through Olallie Lake Resort for our last Oregon resupply to Cascade Locks, and this was just over 50 miles to Timberline Lodge. The 50 miles between Olallie and Timberline was also reported to be pretty mellow, a great section to tackle this challenge if you were going to do it.

When Shawn first floated the idea, I was not a happy hiker. I do not like super long miles. I like breaks. I do not like hiking when it’s dark. I like sleeping when it’s dark. My frail little body cannot hack the beating that Shawn’s can. My feet hated me for even thinking about it. This did not sound like something I would like.

But, alas… I was talked into it. Shawn really wanted to do a challenge of some sort in Oregon and I could suck it up for a day and push myself so he could entertain this. It wasthe best time/place to tackle this in Oregon. And we would get to Timberline for breakfast. Bueno.

And so, this is how we found ourselves waking at 4:30am and packing up in the dark, hiking out of Olallie Lake at 5:00am, headlights illuminating the way.

We were only in the dark for about the first hour, as light slowly filtered into the sky. The first several miles included very gradually undulating terrain, and continued to be mellow for the majority of the day, with lots of flat sections and mostly easy cruising uphills and downhills that allowed us to keep up a consistent three mph pace. By lunchtime just after noon, we had about 22 miles in the bag.

The trail for the day was also mostly through shaded forest, which helped quite a bit. That said, it was pretty hot through the afternoon and even into the night.

Despite already having plenty of miles to hike, we also made a short detour off the trail to see Little Crater Lake. The water was a bright blue and completely clear to the bottom, logs visible along the lake floor. Very cool, though hard to get a good picture.

When we did bust out of the forest, most of our views were hazy. While we had a couple of clear smoke-free days after getting through southern Oregon, the past couple days the skies have had a milky white film of smoke again, obscuring all the views.

We hiked through Mount Hood Wilderness and National Park throughout much of the day, though never had any views of the mountain. We did hike along Timothy Lake for a couple miles, which was nice, though the skies were still milky white.

Throughout this long day, there were definite highs and lows. Shawn’s low was around 5:30pm, heading up a hot climb. I was really tired from 6-7:30am-ish, with a fear that I would be groggy all day, and that would really suck. Luckily this was not the case, though I was also in an exhausted lull from about 1-2:30pm-ish, after lunch. We were keeping up our pace, but my head was tired. My real low though was from about 6:30-9:30pm-ish. I was really tired and not in the greatest mood.

This sucked. What a terrible idea. We stopped for dinner around 7:30pm, and while I had hoped some calories would lift my spirits, this did not happen for awhile, and as we hiked into the dark forest at 8:30pm, I was very tired. We had just over 10 miles to go.

Around 9:30pm, the fog cleared from my head and my tiredness faded. We had 7.5 miles to go and I was feeling pretty good. Life was good! We were almost there! We were doing it! This 50 mile challenge was cake!

I cleared the trail of cobwebs with my face and legs and bugs flew into our faces as they flocked toward the light of our headlamps. A bat flew up from a bush next to the trail, startling me as it flew into my arm. Night nature.

Around 10pm, I kept my alertness alive by drinking a Mountain Dew I had packed out for the day. Shawn had a Coke earlier with his dinner, as well as a beer another hiker had offered him, and we were both fairly happy hikers for the number of miles we had under us.

My feet were definitely a bit sore and there were some leg muscle aches and pains, but all this was to be expected for a 50+ mile hike. My head was alert and that was really the most important for keeping up a positive mood as we hiked the last few hours.

At five miles to go, the trail began to climb, the final long climb to Timberline Lodge. The first 3-ish miles was pretty mellow and we hiked quickly up through the dark.

With two miles to go, the trail became a bit more steep, but still easy treading hard-packed gravel.

With about 1.3 miles to go, we hit the steep deep, thick sand we had heard about for the final climb to Timberline Lodge. This was also our 50-mile mark. We had a mini celebration and continued upward through the deep, beach-like sand. As if a steep hike wasn’t enough, it had to be a massive sand dune. The hardest mile of the 50-mile challenge would be the last 1.3 miles after the 50 mile mark. 😆

It was 12:30am when we hiked into the hiker camping area, keeping our headlamps low as we tried not to wake up others in their tents. We eventually found a subpar spot where we wouldn’t bother too many others to set up, but decided the space was better suited for cowboy camping and didn’t bother with the tent.

We quickly set up our sleeping pads and bag and snuggled in, exhausted from the long day, but happy we had tackled the challenge. Our reward would be breakfast with unlimited cups of coffee in the morning. But first… sleeeeeeep.

Despite being exhausted, my body wasn’t ready to sleep. I lay awake, massaging my sore legs while I stargazed. Eventually drifting off. Less than 100 miles to get through Oregon.