7/29

I began this morning with eight cookies, received with love from across the country, and carried gingerly around Crater Lake. The ensuing burst of energy propelled me through clouds of mosquitoes, and once AC/DC's song TNT came on my radio, I was in full throttle up that ridge. Below Thielson Peak, the lightning rod of the Cascades, I traversed slick fields of snow. At a point in the trees I heard a sound like the fiercest thunder, ripping up the mountain for a minute, and realized there was a rockslide right up the slope. The creek I encountered was the only water I saw today. I had carried water 26 dry miles before then, and packed 17 miles for the dry northbound stretch. The ground is often dry and cracked but mosquitoes arise in swarms, obviously birthed from the pits of hell. Furniture and I drank freeze dried coffee in the afternoon and I had a cheese and dry apricot sandwich to celebrate crossing the highest point in Oregon. And here we are again, ready to repeat the antics tomorrow after 35 miles today. I'm practicing peeing while I walk to thwart mosquitoes.