Pacific Crest Trail - Day 144 - Sky Lakes Wilderness

Start: Mile 1783.4 - Backcountry campsite
End: Mile 1808.4 - Backcountry campsite

A backpacking PB&J with fresh huckleberrie. 💯. We soon improved these in both caloric density and deliciousness with mayonnaise. It’s hilarious both what you can eat and what you can get away with eating (anything. everything.) out here.

We started this trek by packing out mostly dehydrated foods but have since moved to packing out things we actually look forward to eating. This probably looks bland if you just had In-N-Out, but 50 miles into the backcountry, this is a feast. I think it’s probably that same thing where baby food tastes bland and disgusting to us and we blame it on babies’ taste buds being sensitive instead of our mass consumption of high sugar, high salt foods engineered for our dopamine sensors as much as our taste buds.

These flowers made me think of candy canes and Christmas - I’m not sure why exactly, they look nothing like a Nintendo 64.

Klamath Lake out there in the distance.

A cool rocky stretch of trail.

Mt Thielsen back there. The mountains in the foreground are the various peaks surrounding Crater Lake, which used to be a massive volcano called Mazama.

Fluffy puff air puffed sugar delights.

Trees vs. Rocks - round 26,789,619,002

Trees are always a heavy favorite in these battles.

Mt. McLoughlin back there. The Cascades are really just a series of huge volcanoes with minor very large volcanic foothills in between. We’re hardly into Oregon and sense a pattern emerging here.

Up and over the high point for the day in Sky Lakes Wilderness.

There markers are getting lazier and lazier and coming faster and faster.

Again, it’s probably our turn to make one. I think I’ll save it for the last prime number under 2655 or something.

This stream had hundreds of tiny frogs jumping around nearby.

The primary campsites around this area mentioned a “psycho deer” and one of the sites had a very strange ring of stacked branches around a tent pad, presumably as some sort of neurotic last resort deer defense. We hiked a mile or so up the hill to find a spot a bit less frequented by hikers and aggressive deer.