Three Sisters Without Three Brothers

Day 30. July 24.

I walked to the Shuttle Oregon starting point. It was a modern van with one other passenger and a great driver. We stopped in Sisters to pick up another passenger and within an hour, we arrived at the trailhead. I chugged a couple bottles of water and grabbed some fruit the Shuttle offered. The van left. I was alone. It felt wrong to be hiking without my three trail brothers, but I put on my heavy pack and headed towards Three Sisters.

As the day warmed up, the trail started off meandering around forested areas. There was a water source at a religious youth camp. It was closed for remodeling, making the most out of the covid situation. Hiking along the dirt road leading to the camp, a man in a camp chair outside a camper yelled out to me "This road dead ends!" He was trying to be helpful, but it only ended for motorized vehicles.

Getting water from a hose at an empty youth camp felt eerie. I called out several times but heard nothing. I saw cars. No people.

Furthering the sense of apocalypse was a stretch of burned forest.

The real show was about to begin. I entered a huge field of lava rock. The trail had been chiseled through the sharp, rough lava. Sometimes the trail was boot-sized chunks of lava rock, sometimes smaller sized. Lava rock is challenging to walk on because of the odd shapes and sharp texture. On a hot cloudless day, it definitely had an other-worldly feel.

By the end of the day islands of trees started appearing. This broke up some of the drudgery and lifted my hopes of finding a tentsite.

I crossed a two lane highway. Some well-meaning person had made a sign showing the mileage from that point to both Mexico and Canada. While the craftsman with a big heart had great intentions, their compass skills were wanting….the sign was posted backwards pointing north to Mexico and south to Canada.

Near sunset, I found a level spot between two large sharp lava rocks. A nice cooling breeze kicked in as I ate my dinner and watched the world darken. I had hiked almost 20 miles. I had passed about 10 northbound hikers and one southbounder. I felt good and I felt tired.