Outdoor Adventures with Ancient Brit
PCT 2002 - August 12th
Day 111: Monday 12th August Upper Snow Lakes – Trail 1,078
I left at 7am in the morning and was soon lost. “Lost” is probably the wrong term
since I knew where I was on the map, but the PCT wasn’t where it was shown on the
map, nor described in the guidebook. I had wasted about 30 minutes before I decided
that I was right and the map and guidebook were wrong. I worked my way up the broad
SE ridge of Shale Butte through thick wood and scree eventually picking up the PCT,
but having wasted a lot of energy. The guidebook was accurate for those following the
PCT, but although alternative routes are suggested, they were not necessarily checked
out by the guidebook authors. The maps were at least 20 years old and although the
contours wouldn’t have changed, other details on the maps were often out of date.
The trail slipped past the summits of Lucifer and Devil’s Peak before giving a distant
view towards the “Mazama Volcano” to the north, across a deep valley filled with smoke
from the fires in SW Oregon. Mazama was a massive volcano that started forming
about 500,000 years ago and by 100,000 years ago was 12,000ft high. It exploded about
4900BC in an explosion 40x bigger than Mount St. Helens in 1980. The immediate
landscape was buried under pumice, and ash was scattered over a wide area. All that
was left was the crater rim, which I could now see, at between 7,000 and 8,000ft high,
together with a huge caldera (hole) which had filled over the next 1,000 years to form
Crater Lake.
I now started the 2,000ft descent down to the valley. Fortunately the smoke began to
thin as I headed down. I detoured to Grass Lake hoping for a swim and drinking water,
but was disappointed to find a shallow lake with a marshy shoreline and failed in both
my objectives. I stopped for an early lunch at Honeymoon Creek, which was to be my
last water until I reached the Mazama campground store the next morning. Now that I
was suspicious about the water quality, I was taking to most of my drinks in the form of
tea, as I needed to boil the water. Surface water was in short supply since the pumice
thrown out when the volcano exploded was porous and streams tended to flow
underground. I needed to carry 5 litres of water away from the creek.
The trail continued through forest with occasional clearings where the pumice was
too deep for the tree-roots to get down to damper ground below. In places there were
large “flats” of bare pumice. By the time I camped the smoke had returned having
lifted out of the valley.
Day 111: 22.6 miles 8.39 hours Camp: Trail 1,078
I left at 7am in the morning and was soon lost. “Lost” is probably the wrong term
since I knew where I was on the map, but the PCT wasn’t where it was shown on the
map, nor described in the guidebook. I had wasted about 30 minutes before I decided
that I was right and the map and guidebook were wrong. I worked my way up the broad
SE ridge of Shale Butte through thick wood and scree eventually picking up the PCT,
but having wasted a lot of energy. The guidebook was accurate for those following the
PCT, but although alternative routes are suggested, they were not necessarily checked
out by the guidebook authors. The maps were at least 20 years old and although the
contours wouldn’t have changed, other details on the maps were often out of date.
The trail slipped past the summits of Lucifer and Devil’s Peak before giving a distant
view towards the “Mazama Volcano” to the north, across a deep valley filled with smoke
from the fires in SW Oregon. Mazama was a massive volcano that started forming
about 500,000 years ago and by 100,000 years ago was 12,000ft high. It exploded about
4900BC in an explosion 40x bigger than Mount St. Helens in 1980. The immediate
landscape was buried under pumice, and ash was scattered over a wide area. All that
was left was the crater rim, which I could now see, at between 7,000 and 8,000ft high,
together with a huge caldera (hole) which had filled over the next 1,000 years to form
Crater Lake.
I now started the 2,000ft descent down to the valley. Fortunately the smoke began to
thin as I headed down. I detoured to Grass Lake hoping for a swim and drinking water,
but was disappointed to find a shallow lake with a marshy shoreline and failed in both
my objectives. I stopped for an early lunch at Honeymoon Creek, which was to be my
last water until I reached the Mazama campground store the next morning. Now that I
was suspicious about the water quality, I was taking to most of my drinks in the form of
tea, as I needed to boil the water. Surface water was in short supply since the pumice
thrown out when the volcano exploded was porous and streams tended to flow
underground. I needed to carry 5 litres of water away from the creek.
The trail continued through forest with occasional clearings where the pumice was
too deep for the tree-roots to get down to damper ground below. In places there were
large “flats” of bare pumice. By the time I camped the smoke had returned having
lifted out of the valley.
Day 111: 22.6 miles 8.39 hours Camp: Trail 1,078
Mount McLoughlin
Devil's Peak
Mazama Volcano
N ridge, Devil's Peak
 |  |
| |