We woke up in Bend with the trail on our mind. Today, we would complete the final leg of our detour around the fire closures in the Three Sisters and Mt. Jefferson Wildernesses.

Bedazzled, Duces, Pascal, and myself set up our sleeping bags on the ground floor of the shelter the previous night and left the sleeping loft to the southbounders who were already setup when we arrived.

A slight mist hung over Summit Lake as I peaked over my sleeping bag. I laid back and breathed in the damp air. It smelled of moss and dirt. True smells. Natural smells.

We woke up in our forested camp with tall moss covered trees standing high overhead. Little pockets of gray sky peaked through the branches and pine needles. Not a great spot to view the eclipse.

We were woken up by some inexperienced day campers returning to their tent site. I couldn’t make out everything that was going on, but I did here one guy ask, “didn’t you cover the food?”

Bedazzled, Tramper, and I woke up at 5:30 in our improvised camp. We had only gotten 4.4 miles into the detour before we gave up on road walking. This morning, we got back on that road. Excited? We were not.

I awoke on the edge of a misty meadow amidst a forest as old as our country, perhaps even older. The trees stood by silently and the sun still hid below the horizon.

The days are starting to get noticeably shorter, and it is now dark at our usual wake up time of 5:30.
As my alarm went off, I struggled to find my watch.

Bedazzled’s and my stay in Ashland, Oregon turned out to be one of our best town stops yet. Besides being a funky college town that is known for its months long Shakespeare Festival, it was home to some of the friendliest and most helpful people we have met on trail.

As we gazed at the night sky, just .2 miles over the border into Oregon, we saw two shooting stars. The Perseid Meteor Shower was going on, and we were lucky enough to be in an area with dark skies.

From searing sun and dry creek beds to ranging rivers and snow covered mountains, California presented it’s fair share of challenges.

As I lay in my tent with the rain pitter pattering outside and occasional thunder rolling off in the distance, I couldn’t help but recall the podcast I listened to earlier in the day.