Miles: 1699.2 to 1726.5

Mileage: 27.3, plus 1 mile to Callahan’s Lodge

Day: 84

Excited to get to town (where there is Indian food and pizza) we got up at 5:30 a.m. The terrain was gentle. It reminded me of Southern California when the grades of the trail were made for horse packers. 

If this is Oregon, I could get used to it. 

The sky was cloudy. Overnight, we’d gotten some sprinkles on our tent. We were still within the five days of thunderstorms that were predicted, but the temperature was reasonable and we were thinking only of town. 

 

 
Around noon we ran into Steady, the triple crown hiker who had given us trail magic five days earlier with her husband, Steve. We chatted for a few minutes by more trail magic set out by hiker APB. The sodas he left us were just what I wanted. 

From there it was ten more miles of mostly downhill. I listened to Rachel Maddow talk politics to pass the time. 

About five miles from the road, the thunder started. It was just rumbling and far away. But then, seemingly without warning, it was overhead, loud and accompanied by lots of rain. 

First we stopped to put the rain covers on our packs. Within 50 paces I stopped again to put on my rain jacket and pants — and I never hike in rain pants. I keep them around for standing in the rain or keeping the mosquitoes away at dinner. Hiking in them is too hot. 

But the storm dropped the temperatures even more and rain pants wouldn’t hurt, I thought.

We slogged through the water now rushing down the trail. Everything was wet from the humidity or drenched from direct contact with the rain.

 

 
It lasted about 45 minutes and brought along some hail. But we still had a couple more miles to put in. 

 

 
By the time we made it to the road, the sky was blue again. We were not dry, but we were done for the day. 

We walked the extra mile to Callahan’s Lodge, picked up some packages and headed into town for the pizza we couldn’t stop thinking about.