May 20, 2026
- Start: Mt. McLoughlin TH (PCT mile 1778.8)
- End: Telephone utility road (PCT mile 1794.2)
- Distance: 16.4 miles (15.4 PCT miles + 1 mile on Mt. McLoughlin Trail )
When Poledork needed to go to the ER for stitches, my 2023 plans to hike the Oregon section of the PCT crashed and burned.
I’d started that summer with the expectation of hiking the entire 455 miles of the PCT through Oregon. The idea was to hike the southernmost 130 miles with Poledork (so she could fill in her gap from the California border to Crater Lake), and then continue solo for the remaining 325 miles north to Bridge of the Gods
Our plans went awry early, though. The first problem was that 2023 was a very high snow year. We hit snow within the first hour of departing the California border, and we lost the trail (for the first time) before we even hit mile 5. Once we passed Mt. Ashland, the snow was mostly gone, and it didn’t hamper us too much on our southernmost 80 miles. However, we knew that the situation would change drastically once we hiked farther past Fish Lake and the elevation increased again.
According to the comments in FarOut from the handful of hikers ahead of us, there was still a ton of snow in the Sky Lakes Wilderness, just north of Highway 140. Most of the water sources were still frozen over — even at the end of June. Continuing to the next 60-mile leg on our original schedule seemed silly. Especially when we could go home and wait a few more weeks for the snow to melt out.
Unfortunately, the longer we remained at home letting the snow thaw, the more we struggled to find a window when we’d both be free to pick the trail back up together. I’d left my entire month of July and into early August open to hike the PCT, but Poledork’s summer schedule was much fuller than mine.
By the time we crossed into mid-July, I was itching to get back on the trail. Sitting at home for weeks was killing me, but I knew Poledork wouldn’t be free until late July. So I skipped ahead and hiked the 80-mile section from Crater Lake’s rim to Odell Lake as part of my solo NOBO adventure. We would return to the 50-ish miles we were both missing in the Sky Lakes Wilderness on July 23rd, once her schedule opened back up.
If you’ve read my prior journal entries, you know what happened next. Poledork and I met up the morning of July 23rd. We staged a car at a trailhead on either end of this section, and then we began our SOBO section hike from the rim of Crater Lake down toward Fish Lake.
Disaster struck on the morning of day two. We’d agreed to take a detour onto the Stuart Falls Trail for water and found ourselves on a non-existent trail in a crazy burn scar at the national park’s southern boundary. Poledork was hiking in the lead when she fell, and the trip was over in an instant. We had to backtrack 10 miles to Crater Lake to get her to an ER so she could get a dozen stitches in her leg.
I wasn’t injured, so I could have returned to the PCT that summer to continue hiking solo. But each time I considered heading to the PCT, it felt like a weird betrayal of my promise to hike those miles with Poledork. I pivoted to other adventures in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness in Montana, and then to Scotland to hike the West Highland Way that summer instead. And before I knew it, several more summers had flown by without me returning to finish the Oregon section of the PCT.
MT. McLOUGHLIN TRAIL
I knew I’d eventually get back my beloved PCT, though. After a 3-year hiatus filled with other trails and thru-hikes, including the Colorado Trail and the Tour du Mont Blanc, the PCT was calling my name. I had unfinished business to attend to and 2026 would be the year.
Picking up my missing miles in the Sky Lakes Wilderness miles was the first priority on the list. I’d have to do it without Poledork, who was recovering from recent hip surgery. So, I decided to head out early in the season. This year was the opposite of 2023. It was a very low snow year, so I didn’t want to wait too long to begin and have to deal with scarce water or wildfires.
My eagerness to get hiking might have pushed me to start too early again. I was headed to the PCT in late May, nearly a full week before Memorial Day and a solid 6-8 weeks before most PCT thru-hikers would cross into Oregon on their northbound hikes.
As I gave Keith directions down to the trailhead in Southern Oregon, I didn’t have him drop me at the Summit Sno-Park Trailhead, where the PCT crosses Highway 140 near Fish Lake. Instead, I had him drive me up a bumpy dirt access road to the Mt. McLoughlin Trailhead about three miles farther north.
I wasn’t skipping miles with this detour. In 2024, I’d come down to climb Mt. McLoughlin as part of my Oregon CoHP quest, so I’d already hiked the three PCT miles between the highway and the Mt. McLoughlin Trail during that prior trip. There was no need to re-hike the miles all over again this morning.
This alternate trailhead would take me a mile onto the Mt. McLoughlin Trail before I reached the junction with the PCT, but it was still shorter than re-hiking those three PCT miles northbound. And it seemed like a no-brainer after we’d spent several hours this morning driving to the trail itself.
Unfortunately for me, there was one unavoidable downside to beginning at the Mt. McLoughlin trailhead. Just beyond the parking area, the McLoughlin Trail crosses a raging 20-foot-wide creek. The water is 4-5 feet below the steep banks, and the bridge that once took hikers over to the opposite side is long gone. The only way for me to get across was to “walk the plank” atop a long log perched above the water.
If you know me, you know I despise all river crossings that use logs. Ever since I thru-hiked the AT in 2019 with all of its slick bog boards, I’ve developed an irrational fear of falling off a wet log and breaking my neck. The water rushing below me gives me vertigo, and my full pack was almost certain to affect my balance.
As luck would have it, there was a hiker with a pack standing on the opposite bank when I arrived. He was paused at the edge of the log, looking down at his phone, so I had no clue whether he’d just crossed over or whether he was getting ready to come to my side.
I stood there for more than a minute staring at him and trying to figure out what he intended to do. He was so engrossed in his phone that he had no clue I was even waiting. As one minute ticked by and then a second one, he finally looked up and saw me. We stared at each other for a few more brief moments while I waited to see his intention. Was he crossing or not?
The answer was yes. He took a step onto the log and side-stepped his way across without the assistance of poles and slowly made his way to my side of the creek. With the path finally free, I could now make my way across, too.
MT. McLoughlin
Once I made it safely to the far side of the creek, I followed the trail west through the forest toward the junction with the PCT. Signs beside the trail announced I was now entering the Sky Lakes Wilderness and provided hikers with advice about the route up Mt. McLoughlin — a prominent 9,500’ stratovolcano still covered with snow.
After a mile, the McLoughlin Trail merged with the northbound PCT, and the two trails overlapped for a while. The forest was shaded by trees, but it was far warmer than I’d been expecting. I’d grabbed my pants for this section hike because I’d woken up to 40-degree weather this morning, and I didn’t know how crazy the infamous PCT mosquitoes would be at this point in the hiking season. But now that I was on the trail, I was second-guessing my attire. It was definitely warmer in May than I’d anticipated.
As I climbed in elevation through the Sky Lakes Wilderness, my right knee began misbehaving and complaining. This is my first real backpacking trip of 2026. And while I’d spent the prior few weeks peakbagging in Arizona and doing some longer (10 to 15-mile) hikes in the mountains, all of those adventures had been with a simple day pack, not a full pack like I was carrying now. My last real backpacking trip was last fall on the Santa Fe to Taos Trail.
About a half mile after my turn onto the PCT, I met another trail junction where I said goodbye to the Mt. McLoughlin Trail. The mountain trail broke off to the west toward Mt. McLoughlin’s snowy slopes, while I continued north on the PCT. I was finally beginning my first steps on a new section of the PCT that I’d yet to hike.
Sky Lakes Wilderness
The morning’s miles were mostly filled with nice, cruisy trail, punctuated by plenty of downed trees to hurdle over or detour around. I’d expected this, though. It was still early in the hiking season, and weeks before any of the trail crews would get out here to help clear the PCT for northbound thru-hikers.
Of course, there’s also a chance the PCT will still be in the same crummy condition by July or August. God knows the US Forest Service has less funding and fewer employees this summer, thanks to the absurd DOGE cuts to all our federal agencies. Our public lands and the people who protect them do not seem to be a priority to the current administration. But that’s another issue that I wasn’t going to solve on this trail today.
Hiking north through the green tunnel and up to the ridge was surrounded by absolute quiet. There didn’t seem to be any other hikers out here, other than the one I’d met at the creek crossing. I’d expected to be alone on a Wednesday in May, but the forest felt eerily quiet. No car noise, no wind, not even any birds singing as I passed by a watering hole.
After a few hours of hiking, I stopped for lunch at an elevated spot with excellent views of Four Mile Lake. There was just enough breeze to keep the mosquitoes away, while plenty of bees circled around pollinating the manzanita blooms beside the trail.
My post-lunch PCT miles were more of the same until I reached the sign for Christi’s Spring about halfway to my destination. This was the last water source for the next 11 miles. I was hoping to hike for another 7 or 8 miles this afternoon and make a dry camp. So I’d made sure to tank up here — guzzling a liter of water — then grabbing several more liters for my afternoon, dinner, and tomorrow morning.
Christi’s Spring was about 0.1 miles off the trail and looked more like a shallow seep than a flowing spring. As I bent down to find the deepest spot, I wished I’d packed some sort of scoop. All I had was my 2-liter CNOC bladder, which has a wide mouth but isn’t great at scooping water from something this superficial.
Thanks to my quiet surroundings, I could hear a faint trickle nearby and found a spot under a tree where the water was falling in a slight drop. I shoved my open CNOC bladder under the water drop and waited as it slowly filled over the next four minutes while 50 mosquitoes tried to simultaneously land on me and create their misery.
Afterward, my pack felt unbelievably heavy as I hoisted it back onto my shoulders with 2+ liters of freshly filtered water weighing me down. It was time to get back to the PCT, though, where there were plenty more downed trees to hurdle.
I eventually hit my first patches of snow just beyond the spring, at 6,250 feet in elevation. The piles were negligible and didn’t require more than one or two steps to get beyond. But I wondered how much more snow might lie ahead. Hurdling all the fallen trees on dry ground was far easier than it would be with snow.
Epic Views
After a few more hours of forest hiking, the afternoon slipped away. It was still warm and bright out, but the early evening hour was the official sign for the mosquitoes to come out and play. Even with my skin covered with long pants and a sun hoodie, they seemed to know exactly where to land to cause maximum annoyance with their bites.
I eventually made it to 6,600 feet, the day’s highest elevation. This stretch of trail offered rewarding views of Upper Klamath Lake in the distance and wildflowers blooming along the way for my final mile of the day. Sights like this are why I prefer the Western US trails to the Appalachian Trail. The panoramic views don’t seem to arrive on the East Coast until you get to New Hampshire’s White Mountains or Maine. Out here, they are far more commonplace.
Just a bit further up the trail, I reached my destination for the evening. There was an established campsite in the woods just ahead, big enough for several tents. However, I’d read comments on FarOut describing this side trail to the vista with some excellent cowboy camping spots.
If I followed the small side trail west, it should lead to a flat spot where I could camp on the rocky ledges. I didn’t intend to cowboy camp with these evening mosquitoes buzzing around me. I was 100% pitching a tent tonight. As I trod down the path, I silently wondered if the stealthy viewpoint would support my tent, or if it was just a flat rock ledge with excellent views.
As it turns out, there were plenty of flat spots between the trail and the ledge that would work, and I pitched my camp in a cozy spot that was ideal for a small tent. What’s more, I even had one bar of cell service and checked in with Keith to let him know I’d reached my campsite for the night! He was busy fishing and camping up at Lemolo Lake for the next few days, while I hiked back north to Crater Lake.
As I settled in and made dinner, I reviewed the day’s efforts. My knee was feeling fine. I didn’t have any blisters. And I was happy with my mileage. I didn’t need to bust out super big days through the Sky Lakes Wilderness. I had 3 full days available for this 48-mile section to Mazama Campground at the south end of Crater Lake.
My biggest worry now is the snow. I’m supposed to head up to 7,500 feet to the ominously-named Lucifer Peak and Devils Peak tomorrow morning. If the snowline begins at 6,250 feet, I’m worried there could be many places where the PCT could get quite sketchy. Fingers crossed it won’t be too bad.
