After last night I had hoped that my body had slowly adjusted to sleeping on trail. But this night was as most nights, light und disrupted. Also, my morning routine is still the same. I wake up at around 6:30 a.m. and it’s 8:30 a.m. when I start hiking.

Today has a couple of ups and downs in store but nothing major. It is pretty amazing how much the trail has changed since I have crossed the border to Oregon. I have the feeling that the slopes are less steep, the trail is a bit wider, better maintained and more even/level.

Around noon, I take a break in the shade at a spring and talk with other hikers. After 45 minutes, I continue hiking the little uphill section.

My night wasn’t great for several reasons. First there was a cat, that tried very consistently to convince it’s owner to open the door to their RV. But the owner didn’t listen and the cat didn’t stop meowing. Then there were air conditioning units switching on and off, traffic going by and (of course) snoring fellow hikers. All in all a night much louder then on trail

As I decided to not go back on trail, I sleep in until 8:30h. By the time I leave my tent most of the hikers are gone. Still ab bit sleepy I go the the restaurant for breakfast, which was very delicious.

After breakfast I make some calls home. Unfortunately the Wi-Fi gets worse the more hikers find their way to the campground.

As per usual my sleep wasn’t too good but wasn’t too bad either. After having packed up everything and had a breakfast with warm tea I was on trail at around 8:15h and also as per usual the last one leaving the site.

The landscape only changes slowly once I hit the trail. There are a few burn areas but they are only small in size and are followed by healthy trees which provide nice shadows.

On one mountain slope I meet two biologists and I chat with them a bit. They are tasked with identifying moss in this area. When they see moss, they pick it up, look at it /identify it through a magnifying glass and but it back. I ask them how many mosses there are in this area and I am blown away by their answer. They tell me that they already identified around 160 different species but from experience they expect to find around 350 😲 That’s way more then I would have guessed.

My sleep is as all nights on the trail until now. Light and interrupted. When I look out of my tent at 5:45 a.m. I realize that one more tent and mine are the only ones around. The other hikers must really have left at 5:30 a.m. I didn’t feel like starting the day so I turned around and after a short breakfast without a hot tea (to safe some time), I was on trail at 7:40 a.m.

Again it has been a good idea to listen to my body the day before and stop at that tent site. The first few miles to Paynes Lake, where I wanted to set up camp initially, were quite nasty. A lot of downed tree over the trail, elevation gain, burn area and sometimes a lot of stones on trail. Or a combination of the above just to make things really interesting.