Do you remember when I mentioned that before starting the trail, hikers must choose which direction to go? Clockwise (CW) or counterclockwise (CCW)? Almost every advocate of CCW had mentioned that if you choose to go CW you are in for a horrible climb back up to the lodge.
Now I want you to also remember when I said that sometimes you have to do something hard, before doing something harder. Our third day was hard, but it prepared us mentally for the fourth. That climb loomed in our heads all morning, but we had also done hard and we had kicked its butt, so what was another hard climb? Nothing. We could do this.
Both of us were well rested from sleeping well and we were packed up and ready to go just before 7am. We knew the weather would be hot and wanted to beat the heat. We had a gentle climb up to Heather Canyon falls where we filled our water for the last time before we dropped back down to rock skip across Clark Creek (a nonevent).
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| A view of Gnarl Ridge headed away from Newton Creek |
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| Heather Canyon Falls |
Then it was into the trees and across Mount Hood Meadows. We passed under the Shooting Star Express and Vista Express lifts, both completely stagnant during their off-season. It felt odd being in the presence of man-made structures again after three days surrounded by only nature. It was actually startling.
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| Shooting Star lift |
I joked with Joe how apocalyptic it felt seeing them completely stationary and empty of riders as if we were the last two left in the world who just happen to come across them. My brain immediately conjured up an image of their rusty skeletons still dangling over the meadows thousands of years from now, empty and abandoned. Clearly, I've read too many zombie survivalist novels. We took a quick bathroom break before descending down to the White River.
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| The last view we would see with purple lupine |
The White River carves through a vast sandy canyon that made me feel so incredibly small. Once you cross, you immediately realize that immediately you then have to ascend out of the sand and back to the lodge.
We ran across a hiker and stopped for a chat, sharing fun tidbits of both our journeys. When he brought up the Muddy Fork crossing with the trees I had to remind myself, wow that was only two days ago? Has it really only been two days? We parted ways and I prepared myself for the task at hand.
I had a strategy in place, one I used often when I was training for marathons. Podcasts. Podcasts were going to be my salvation here. I pulled out my earbuds, stuck them in my ears with my favorite murder mystery podcast, the sun hood got pulled over my head, and up the hill I trudged. It was brutally sandy, for every step forward I felt like I sank back for half of it. But I just kept moving, left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot...
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| Slowly making our way out of the sandy White River canyon |
It was hard, it was a struggle, but it also wasn't the hardest thing I had done. Based on what people had said I was expecting for it to take us half a day to complete the two miles, but before I knew it the lodge and our car was in sight.
At this point we started running into day hikers, I've never smelled people so clean and it was actually a little overpowering. After walking through fields of the most wonderful-smelling wildflowers, perfume and cologne was a shock to the senses. I can only imagine what they must have thought I smelled like having not showered for four days and dripping with sweat.
I came across a day hiker and we stopped to chat for a bit. We both stared over the vast expanse of the White River and he had commented how small it made him feel. You have no idea pal, the entire trip around Mount Hood made me feel absolutely minuscule.
He congratulated us on our success at finishing the trail, the first and only other hiker to do so, and it sounds stupid but that felt like the perfect thing for someone to say. It finally sunk in when he said that, Joe and I had successfully completed our thru-hike of the 40-mile (and some change) Timberline Trail.
It's not exactly the PCT, but it's the longest trail we've done to date. We learned a lot about what we can handle and how to work together as a team. I truly am blessed to have Joe as my partner in life.
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| Back in the parking lot |
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| Freshly showered post-trail reward |
Until the next time, adieu!
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