Drawing Blood

BEND, Oregon

As psyched as I was to be in Oregon for the first couple of days, that energy has waned a bit in the last few days. That's not to say that this section of southern Oregon is fantastic, it's to say that I'm not here at the ideal time. This year was a record snow year, and there is still snow around, even approaching August! This means that when it melts, there are puddles abound. These puddles are breeding grounds of mosquitos. Mosquitos love human blood. I"m a human, and I hate mosquitos. Recipe for torture. The past 3 days have probably shown me the worst swarms of these creatures that I've seen in my life. They don't just come out at night, it's an all day onslaught. It sucks stopping to take a break and they find a way to bite you on that 1/2" of exposed skin between pants and sock. They sneak under your headnet when you swear that there was nowhere they could get in. Then you are forced to take off the headnet to get the bastard out of there, when more mosquitos start buzzing around your face, which would get trapped inside when you replace the headnet. My solution?: just squash the little guys against my face, trapping them between skin and netting. I have daydreams of getting a good picture of myself with mosquitos and blood splattered on my face due to this practice, but the guys I'm hiking with have yet to tell me that I've got tons of mosquitos everywhere on my face. Hopefully sometime to show these 'war wounds'.

I hiked about 3 consective days of 40+ miles, leaving Sweetfish and Truant behind in pursuit of burning off this excessive energy I've had built up for a while. I'm not sure how much longer I could have kept pushing myself on those big days, and on the 4th day, a planned 50 miler, I was happy to meet back up with good good friends Disco and Princess of Darkness as they were packing up in their tent. The previous night I had camped under the north side of Mt Thielsen, by far the coolest mtn I've seen on the trip, after a bit of nighthiking of course. Those guys were so excited to see me, and I to see them. We hadn't seen each other in over 2 months, not since a week or so before entering the High Sierra. We've been hiking the past 3 days together since that day.

These guys are absolutely hilarious, and it has been fantastic hiking with them again. They got me to slow down, down to 25-30 mile days. We take breaks, despite the heinous bug situation, cracking jokes the whole time.

Even though the mosquitos have been trying to ruin this section of trail, it has been strikingly beautiful. The woods here are pretty lush and green, the greenest I've seen since hiking the AT. Lots of trees are covered with moss, at least down to where the snow line occurs. They get this weird, old, Dr Seuss appearance to them that I really enjoy. There are lakes and ponds EVERYWHERE. This is also making the mosquitos, but i"m sure in August this would be an amazing place to camp, in constantly wonderful weather. Speaking of weather, it has been flawless, every day is 70, but just not quite enough breeze to keep the mosquitoes at bay.

Now I'm in Bend, at Jess and Traeja's house...friends of POD and Disco from the C.D.T. Great great guys, in a really cool city, with a car to drive around the city. We are taking 2 zero days here, going to a shooting range later to shoot a gun for the first time in my life, and then to the Deschutes Brewery for some brew and good dining. This is going to be a good town stop for sure. I'm in BEND! and these guys have a hammock that has a view of the Three Sisters Wilderness, capped in glaciers...right in the backyard. Life doesn't get much better. Can't wait to get back on the trail, to hike around these huge snow-capped mtns and the sinister lava flows that exist in the area. Next stop is Cascade Locks and the Columbia River at the WA border for sure.