Day 8 (August 24)

We're up early heading south, looking for the trail closure point, which should be in about 16 miles.  Good spirits, except I seem to have misplaced the big bottle of sunscreen.  We have a tiny tube left, it'll have to last us. Hot today.

We're just about at Triangle Lake, where we expect the closure sign, when we're overtaken by another southbound hiker, Big Time from Virginia.  He's the only southbound through hiker we've seen -- meaning that he's attempting to complete the entire trail, from Canada to Mexico, in one trip. Due to the usual weather patterns in the Washington Cascades and the High Sierra in California, this is a more difficult approach than a northbound through hike, and has to be done quickly in a very narrow window.

[I've got my own less stringent ideas about what a "through" hike is -- basically, I think that if you're getting someplace, rather than just ending up back at your house or car, then that's a through hike.  But on the PCT Deb & I are classified, by those who care (and there are many!), as section hikers, not through hikers.]

Heed that ribbon!

The three of us continue south together, looking for the big official trail closure and never finding it. A small ribbon hanging on the sign to the Triangle Lake Horse Camp is the closest thing we'd seen, so after a mile of backtracking we follow this trail to the road and find a handwritten note to wait for the shuttle. A very subtle closure; I wonder how many southbound hikers went straight through into the fire zone.

Big Time is ahead of us and luckily flags the shuttle truck. Our driver is the friendly W.W., a botanist with the Mt. Hood division of the Forest Service. The ride south to Breitenbush Campground is long, bumpy, and smokey.  Forest Service firefighters are rushing by in 4x4's and huge all-terrain firetrucks; a few recently extinguished patches attest to their efforts. Helicopters buzz overhead. Passing Ollalie Lake campground, we see the empty tents and folding chairs of campers who were evacuated in a rush.

Our hero, scanning the
horizon for danger

Along the way, W.W. elaborates on the bark beetle problem. The huge acreage of dead lodgepole pines makes these fires very difficult to put out, since there's so much standing dry deadwood. The beetles are native to the area, but their population used to be kept in check by frequent cold snaps, which have been less common over the last decade. They've pretty much come to expect these fires every August, and fight them the best they can. The Ollalie Lake fire has been stubbornly spreading to new spots, and the radio blares with news of a flare up near Pyramid Butte. On a cheerier note, he tells of plans for combining selective timber harvesting in the Warm Springs Reservation with a huckleberry planting program. Everybody loves huckleberries!

We're dropped off at the PCT crossing near Breitenbush Lake and proceed south, looking to camp soon. In the fracas we've unfortunately failed to get water for the night, and we pass dry gully after dry gully.  Finally I spot a small snow bank a little offtrail -- that will do! We tuck in for the night in a lovely little meadow in the foothills of Mt. Jefferson, with a beautiful smokey sunset to the west.