Day 52: Union Creek Campground on Lake Philips to Dayville Or

Last night we had planned to climb 3 passes the next day, 93 miles total. Mark claimed the 3 climbs weren’t that hard but the map said they were 1000 feet each. My alarm went off at 6:30 but it was way too cold to do anything so we built up the fire and lingered around until it got slightly warmer. The first climb was the steepest but since it was still cool and early the steepness wasn’t a problem (aka fresh legs was the term apparently). The second climb was a lot easier and it had lots of mini descent were we could race each other. I passed Evan once and thought I came close to catching Mark and Jolee. All of a sudden they grinned and sped off. I think they were leading me on when I came close to passing them. Evan passed me again on the uphill and I didn’t give chase. At the Austin Junction (30 miles in) we stopped and everyone but me got food. I had a ton of cliff bars weighting me down that needed eating. I opted for ice cream instead. During the third pass I ran into two brothers from Norway (or Sweden? Idk they were from a Slovak country). They were fun to talk to as we climbed up the third hill. I was really surprised when we reached the top! On the way down we ran into a giant covered wagon. I was hoping there would be oxen to pull us into town but they seemed to have run off. We cruised into town (John Day) and I ate more ice cream at Dairy Queen.

For our final 30 miles the wind picked up again and it almost seemed routine at this point. Why did the wind have to be the worst at the end of the day? Although it was flat I was definitely feeling the last 60 miles. There was nothing to do but keep going and I was relieved to finally make it into town. I was the last one and with no phone service I had no idea where everyone else was. A helpful gardener pointed me in the right direction. Our home was the church at Dayville. Once again simple things like a shower and laundry felt like luxury. The church had a full kitchen nobody felt like cooking so we just picked up things for ourselves. Although I had bought stuff I didn’t realize the church had pancake mix which was way more appetizing than whatever microwave thing I had. Once I made pancakes everyone else in my group abandoned their food to make pancakes. (in which I mean they made pancakes in addition to whatever they were eating. The Norwegian brothers showed up along with another girl who was just biking across Oregon to visit some friends. Evan and I stayed up way too late talking to them, talking about things we had seen and done along the trail. Before long I called it a night because tomorrow we decided to climb two major passes. I didn’t have a very good feeling about doing this because last time we did a lot of passes it turned out to be a bad idea. However looking at the map it was either do both of them at once or split it into two short days. I knew at the point that it might make for a long day but I had seen worse days over the past 51 days. We could handle it.