September 22, 2008 Pacific Crest Trail

Destination: Mazama, WA., near Winthrop, WA.
Miles: 0

Adrian: I woke up early with the sound of freezing rain hitting the tarp, no worries though, it soon turned to snow. What a bummer! Then I noticed the wet spot inside the tarp under my pillow, which is also my clothing bag.

We all broke camp and piled our stuff into the bathroom to assess the situation. My clothing and sleeping bag were dry, so I was safe. So was Danger Prone. The weather was looking pretty bad, still snowing quite hard, so we took the ride down to Mazama, a town 12 miles to the east.

On the way down to town we ran across a motorist who rolled his Subaru on the pass, thankfully he was OK. He had a place near Mazama so we gave him a ride to it and he offered us a place to stay to wait out the weather. Strangers helping strangers...magical.

Tomorrow the weather looks better but then it gets bad again till the end. Oh well, looks like Washington is not letting us off the hook quite yet. We leave for the pass at 7 a.m., and the final push, come hell or high water, for the Canadian border.

Stay tuned, this might yet get interesting...

Kirsten: This has been the weirdest day yet on the trail. It started out with an early morning mouse wake-up call and is ending with a night in a Mazama cabin.


We woke up to rain turning to slush. It wasn't stopping, at least not anytime soon. So we packed up and put our stuff in the bathrooms nearby. The trail angels from the night before sort of gathered around and they told us their plans to leave. Some of us in the group had wet gear, namely sleeping bags, and we all started discussing a hitch into Mazama or Winthrop. The trail angels, of course, offered us a ride and decided to go in two shifts.

As we drove out to the highway we all spotted this guy waving us down with jeans, a cotton sweatshirt and a small backpack. He asked for a ride and Catch 23 said yes, "But this round is full, I'll be going down to Mazama again." That's when he mentioned a rollover accident. Adrian quickly jumped out and over the next 30 minutes Catch 23, Hoffa, Caterpillar and myself heard how Reid had hit some slush, spun out and rolled three times into a ditch. I saw the car and I'm not entirely sure how he managed to walk away unscathed.

As we told him about the storm and our plans to stay at the Mazama Inn, he countered. He insisted we stay at his place because, he argued several cars had passed without stopping to help. We hesitated at first, namely because this guy had just narrowly missed an untimely death. He pressed and we finally accepted.

Reid went to the hospital and was completely checked over. He’s fine. Meanwhile, all seven of us were in his house. We tried to stay busy without actually touching anything. So some napped, others read, Hoffa and I took on the ultimate mind numbing challenge: to complete a 1,000-piece Thomas Kincaid puzzle.

Later we bought and cooked Reid dinner. He spent much of night returning phone calls to concerned friends. It is safe to say that his day was slightly weirder than mine.