Thru-Camping

Day 124-August 15th
Destination: 3.5 Miles North of Indian Springs
Miles: 10
Cumulative Miles: 1817.5

No rush this morning. We laid in our tents as two hikers walked past at 6:30am. Generally only thru-hikers are moving at that hour, so we figured they were such, and later learned it was probably "Yeti" (who we met in Sierra City) and "Captain Obvious" (who we met at Pooh Corner.

We started hiking around 10am, finishing our walk along the Bull Run Watershed. Not long after that, we dropped down to Indian Springs. Just before doing so, we were given a terrific view of Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Adams, and Mt. Rainier, as well as a deep gorge through the hills which is probably the Columbia River. We will cross the Columbia when we hike from Oregon into Washington in a few days. We plan to rest in our home town of Portland first.

At Indian Springs we made lunch and played dice while our water filtered. The gravity filter is a nice addition to our gear as it allows our hands to do other things while water is filtering. It is slower, however. When we left Indian Springs we took the Eagle Creek trail, which was viciously steep for the first mile and a half. It eventually flattened out to more easily managed terrain.

We found a nice campsite a couple hundred feet from a creek. While Pseudo-Gnome was gathering fire wood, he found a better off trail campsite with benches for sitting on, and more room for laying out tents. We lounged away the afternoon playing games and making two dinners.

Tomorrow, on our hike out, we plan on meeting Psycho's old boss who is hiking up to meet us. We will hike out to Cascade Locks with him, and then head into Portland for our first "Zero Day" since July 17th.
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