DAY 137: OLALLIE LAKE

miles: 27

The goal?

Reach Olallie Lake Resort by 8:00am and have a steaming hot cup of coffee while admiring Olallie Lake.

We had set ourselves up the night before by camping 3.5 miles from Olallie Lake Resort. We slept in until 6:00am, were rolling by 7:00am, and drinking that beautiful cup of coffee by 8:00am. It. was. magic.

The lakes we breezed past this morning were little gems. Lake after lake after lake after lake after lake.

Olallie Lake Resort is small and intensely rustic. The most hi-tech thing they have in the cabins they rent is a kerosene lamp. The store is heated by wood, and appears to not have electricity. The store is one of the most quaint places I've seen on the trail, sparse and simple, stocked with a little bit of a few things. Coffee around back. The view of Mt. Jefferson is to die for, too bad we couldn't see him this morning.

Olallie Butte loomed above us and I wondered what it'd be like to climb it.

Little tidbit: Olallie means "berry" in Chinook jargon.

Hey Jeff, you're peaking.

Sunrise light.

Olallie Lake Resort sign on the trail targeting hikers.

The view from the front porch of Olallie Lake Resort, Mt. Jefferson on the far left is obscured by clouds. 

Come out Mt. Jefferson.

After spending an hour hanging around on the porch of the Olallie Lake Resort, we gathered ourselves and reluctantly moved on. It was to be a long day. The miles were EASY, fortunately flat and simple. We would move through the Warm Springs Indian Reservation with which the trail passes through, with ease.

Pretty unremarkable trail. Gorgeous in a mundane, familiar way, but overall a pretty "boring" day. No views of Mt. Hood yet, which we assumed we would be staring in the face at this point. Where are you Hood?

Dried up bear grass. 

Wish we would have been in time to see the bear grass in bloom. These are just the remnants of the blossoms.

By evening, we still had 10 miles to go but we plugged into our iPods, turned on This American Life and powered up a climb, over the Warm Springs River and through the woods. We had a goal of 29 miles today and exceeded that goal by a mile. We managed to do 30 miles by 8:30 tonight even with our 1 hour coffee break in the morning and a 2 hour lunch break by a spring. There were plenty of biting flies and yellow jackets by the spring, which made me very uncomfortable and really put me in a bad mood, however, that mood didn't last.

We were officially headed to Timberline Lodge tomorrow and this is what is keeping me going.

Spirits are high.

Bad photo of a cool bridge.