This morning was our last morning in Oregon. It was nice. For hundreds of miles we had been hearing about the bugs in Oregon and so far, they hadn’t been a problem. Last night was no exception.
We wanted to get to town as early as possible; but one thing would slow us down. The solar eclipse. A southbound hiker told us there was a huge open area with views of multiple Washington volcanoes, so that’s where we headed. We got there about half an hour before the eclipse and ate food while we waited.
The spot was pretty great, but windy. We layered up and waited. Luckily, we all had eclipse glasses but heard afterwards that pop tarts wrappers worked as well. Every good thru hiker has pop tarts with them. I got my glasses from a box someone left for hikers.
We weren’t in the totality, but we were pretty close. The darkness was a bit eerie, but it actually made the surrounding mountains look even cooler. After the eclipse reached its maximum we hiked on. As we passed under the trees you could see little miniature projections of the eclipse.
Our last stop in Oregon is Cascade Locks. It’s at the bottom of the Columbia River Gorge so we had to walk down over 4000 vertical feet. It was brutal but we got great views of the river and mountains.
There’s an ale house that gives thru hikers a free beer so we headed straight there. It was closed! Their sign said they were doing trail magic at the park. By the time we got there they were out of food, but they did give us a free beer.
We headed to Thunder Island Brewing where a woman bought us a beer and we got dinner. It was a great way to celebrate finishing our second state. We went to the grocery store to get food for the next section then pitched our tents in the park.
Tomorrow, I cross the bridge of the gods. That’s the bridge that Cheryl Strayed stopped at in Wild.