Day 103

Mile 1597 to 1611, 14 miles

Cost: camped, free

I woke up at 5:30, plugged in my phone to charge in the socket on the pillar, put earplugs in and went back to sleep. When I woke up at 7am, everyone had left except Tapatio and KC – I didn’t even hear the others leave! Once my phone had charged, I lay on my mat on the concrete ground in my sleeping bag and did my REI order of food and gear to be delivered to Ashland – Injinji liners, mountain house dehydrated meals, new tent pegs and exofficio underwear. The one thing I really needed that they didn’t have was my shoes!! (Starts to panic).

In the park I had my first breakfast of brown cow yoghurt that I’d bought last night at the supermarket. Then I went to meet KC & Tapatio at Bob’s cafe for a second breakfast. The food was great and the berry pie was amazing!

From Bob’s we went to the coffee shop and it was here I tried to find my shoes on eBay, Moose Jaw, gearex, Amazon and lots of other sites. I managed to buy the one and only pair on Amazon sold by a private seller at a higher than usual rate and the bright orange ones – watch this space for a photo of how cool I’m gonna look! The one problem was that the shoes couldn’t be delivered to Ashland in time so they’re being delivered to Crater Lake which means they need to last another 200 miles! The other problem is that one pair won’t last me 900 miles, so if anyone reading this happens to have this shoe and would like to sell me one or two pairs, please let me know!

• Brooks Cascadia version 9
• Mens size 9.5
• Don’t mind what colour, that’s how desperate I am!
• Thank you!

Outside the coffee shop we bumped into Desert Hang who told us the local pizzeria was closing down today and were offering $2 slices of pizza. Because it was hot and we were once again trying to delay (by any means) going back to the trail, we headed over to eat some pizza. I also tried an Etna brewery root beer here:

While we were sitting in the pizzeria, a man called Eric came in and offered us a ride back to the trail. Tapatio, KC, Cloudrider and I gratefully accepted, thank you Eric!

The climb up the hill back on the trail looked like it was going to be a hard one but actually I hardly noticed it was a hill and we had a lovely cool breeze the whole time we were hiking.

Just before we found a campsite KC and I were getting water from a spring and I was playing her a Beyoncé song called ‘I was here.’ From out of nowhere a deer appeared and started to walk right up to us – it obviously liked the song too!

We found a campsite perfect for three tents (Tapatio, KC and myself) and were racing against the fading light to set them up. As it got dark we started hearing noises very close to where we were sat eating dinner and when we pointed our headlamps towards the noises we saw eyes staring back at us… Which caused quite a few screams! Luckily they belonged to deers and not a mountain lion but it was still scary in the dark and we all jumped into our tents as quickly as we could pack up our stoves and food bags! Considering we started hiking today at 3pm, I’m fine with only hiking 14 miles!