24 miles
My alarm goes off at 5am, and I lay there for a few minutes, waiting to see if Barrel is already up. Usually he's the one that signals the start of the day, but today I reach behind my head and pull out the stopper from my sleeping pad. The air rushes out in whooshes and whistles, as I slowly sink to the ground. Barrel says, "Hey, that's my job!" And I say, "time to get up, we have a buffet to kill!"
It's 4 miles to the first road, and we get there in an hour and a half, surprised when we get there that it wasn't actually miles closer. The trail has fairly little elevation gain or loss, so we make amazing time. It's still early in the morning, the midst creeping its tendrils around the forest floor beneath us, and we get our first real glimpse of Mt. Hood in the distance--this is our ultimate destination for lunch.
By 9:30am we've already done 9 miles, and Barrel and I joke that usually by this time we've probably only done 3 miles, and marvel at what "real" hiking is like. :) Around the 7 mile mark my right shin starts aching, and I slow down a bit, hoping it's just one of those aches and pains that comes in and out through out the day. When we take our 9 mile break, I limp over to the boys and after telling them about my shin pain, they immediately say "shin splint". Crap.
Barrel tells me to take it easy for the next 6 miles, and that he'll slow down and stay with me, but I tell him to go at his own speed, and to save me some food. With 7 hikers headed to this buffet, and 6 of them guys, I'm actually a little concerned that they might run out of food.
I'm in a fair amount of pain when I go downhill, and slightly less on the climbs. Lucky for me that the last 5 miles are 2,000 ft of pure gain. It starts out easy enough, and I'm still making pretty good time, but then the trail turns into a vertical path of deep, beach-like sand. It's like slogging through an uphill sand volleyball pit. But, at least we great a great view of Mt. Hood!
I make it to Timberline at 11:30--just 15 or so minutes behind Barrel, even though I was trying to take it a bit slower. Food is, apparently, my biggest motivating factor. We organize ourselves, Barrel gets his resupply box, and then we make a run on the buffet. It's me, Barrel, Ninja Tank, Rock Steady, Crusher, Juicy (who I met very early on in the trail, and who I'm surprised to have caught up to), and one other hiker who is still working on getting here. We pile massive amounts of food and desserts on our plates, and each one of us orders a coke. The waiter brings us pitcher after pitcher of coke (trying to fill us up on liquid, no doubt), and we plow through it all. By the end of lunch we are all in near comatose states, and if anyone had been planning to do a significant number of miles this afternoon, that soon goes out the window. I sit motionless in a chair as I charge my phone and call my mom. Barrel goes through his resupply box and offers me first pick from all of his extra candy. I rarely have as much candy as I want, so I go crazy picking out Reeses Cups, Mike and Ikes, Kit Kats, and Hershey bars with Almonds. Best. Day. Ever.
Apparently the outside of the Timberline Lodge was used in The Shining, and they have an official movie ax, that we take turns posing with.
I would be afraid of this face.
We finally leave, still painfully full, at 4:30pm. It takes us almost as long to do 8 more miles as it did for us to do the 15 this morning, and we end the evening full and happy. Another day well done, I'd say.
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