15 miles to the Oregon/Washington border
There is an alternate trail that most hikers take for this section, called the Eagle Creek Trail, which bypasses 16 miles of the PCT on a 15 mile alternate loop that is filled with waterfalls. There is a section called Punch Bowl falls, which Barrel has been talking about for days, where there is cliff jumping (which I won't do) and swimming holes (which I'm very much looking forward to).
I'm ready to leave in the morning a little before Barrel, so I head on my way, veering off from the PCT. This alternate trail has a much steeper descent than the PCT would allow, and I slide down the dirt and pine needle trail a couple of times. My knees and right shin are throbbing by the time I make it down the first couple of miles. As I'm taking a stretching break, Barrel catches up to me, and we both pat each other on the back for not having had any serious accidents on the way down. I would hate to be a SOBO hiker trying to climb UP that trail. The rest of the day is an easy hike, filled with numerous falls, as we walk alongside Eagle Creek.
Our ultimate reason for taking this alternate route is to see Tunnel Falls, which is exactly what it sounds like: A tunnel behind a waterfall. When we finally reach the waterfall, it's so tall that i have to do a panoramic shot just to capture it.
Tunnel Falls
It is spectacular, and proves to be yet another time where pictures fail to capture just how magical it is. We stand staring at it for a while, before walking over and through the tunnel.
It's another few miles to get to Punch Bowl Falls, and they go by quickly as we marvel at how lovely everything is. It's a warm day today, and by the time we get to the side trail that leads down to the Punch Bowls, I am hot and ready for a swim. Barrel decides to do some cliff jumping when we get there, and I'm more than happy to stand back and snap some pictures.
The water is practically freezing, and it takes me a solid 15 minutes to finally get all the way in. It's clear and beautiful, but so cold that I only stay in for a couple minutes. Barrel has been in the water for much longer, and when we get out he says he thinks he might have gotten mild hypothermia. He's slurring his speech and shivering uncontrollably, and we lay on the sun soaked boulders, waiting to recover. Now I understand why hordes of people are chilling out on the boulders, and only a few brave souls are swimming around.
I had gotten in touch with an old high school friend, Lindsey, who now lives in the Portland area, and am planning to stay with her and her wife, Kura, today and tomorrow while I wait for my Uncle to pick me up. I invited them both to join us at the falls, but haven't had service for a few days, and have no idea if they were planning to come or not. We leave the falls around 3pm, and get to the bottom of the trail at 3:30. Just in time for me to get Lindsey's texts saying they were both able to come and join us at the punch bowls, and will meet us there around 3:30. I feel bad that we had already been there and that they came all this way for some hiking, so tell the girls I'll hike back up there with them.
Barrel and I have a brief goodbye, a sort of "of course we'll see each other again, so we don't need to make a big deal of it" kind of thing. But really, who knows if we'll be able to meet back up on the trail; trail planning is so difficult to coordinate. And then it's over.
These days of hiking together, which have felt more like weeks, are suddenly at an end. It reminds me of those intense camp relationships you make during your tweenage summers; the tears when you have to say goodbye and go back to school and the real world, the deep feeling of loss. But somehow the world keeps turning, and soon new people enter and leave your life, and you are still the same you, with only the memories of those people who felt like they were changing your life. Or maybe they were just the witnesses to the changes that were happening within yourself. Forever in each other's memories, but just a blip in each other's lives.
I drive away from Cascade Locks and the Bridge of the Gods, a place I have been waiting all this time to reach, as we head to Portland and my week-long vacation from the trail. In some ways it feels like I'm done with the trail, and I have to remind myself that there are still hundreds of miles to finish. I wonder if it will be an exercise in will to get back on, or if I'll be anxious for the freedom of the wild again.
We get huge cheeseburgers and malts (at my request) for dinner, after they let me take a lovely shower and borrow clothes, so I don't look as much like hiker trash anymore. I put the shirt on backwards without realizing it, and decide that when all you have to wear is one shirt for months at a time, you start to forget how to wear other clothes.
Lindsey and I posing at the drive in. I'm not sure what to do with my clean, short hair, not having the grime and sweat of the trail maintaining my hiker coif.
We stay up late talking, and catching up on the last 10 years (OMG has it been ten years?!) and they give me shin and shoulder massages, and put various salves and ointments on my injuries (Lindsey massages horses and Kura is an herbalist), and I feel like I couldn't have lucked out more getting to stay with them. THANK YOU, LADIES! :)
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