Link to pic­tures from the last 300 miles:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152983720020628&type=1&l=02af151eb6

Link to Pep­per’s blog entry from Ash­land, OR:

http://www.shawnforry.com/Margin_Walker…A_Hikers_Chronicles/Blog/Entries/2014/12/8_A_sense_of_normality.html

We are now at Fish Lake Resort in south­ern OR. After tak­ing two rest days at Dia­mond Lake Resort a lot of our nag­ging aches and pains have dis­ap­peared and healed. We made good time the last few days and were even able to bust out some 20+ mile days in snow­shoes and with short day­light. As we sit here just a lit­tle off the trail there is basi­cal­ly no snow on the ground. It seems like we have hit a dry area and should make some decent time on the next stretch too, and maybe get a few miles in with­out our snow­shoes on!
Two days until our next town stop in Ash­land. We are excit­ed to get there as the CA bor­der is just around the cor­ner. Pic­tures to come once we get to Ashland.

We are over 800 miles down now and and just north of Crater Lake Nation­al Park. We head to the rim tomor­row for the Oregon/Washington high point.
The last few days have been a mixed bag of soak­ing rain with snow on the ground and slop­py, wet going and then chang­ing over and drop­ping a foot and a half of fresh snow to trudge through. Looks like more storms on the way too.…..

We are back in Bend, OR from the orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed spot on the PCT, San­ti­am Pass. Here’s the link to a blog post from Pep­per about the last sec­tion of the trip: www.shawnforry.com then go to blog from 11/19/14, ‘The Times, They Are A Changin’.

We made it to Bend but not as planned. We had planned on com­ing into town from San­ti­am Pass, where the PCT cross­es the road. With the snow­storm a few days ago drop­ping one to two feet of fresh snow and an ice/rain crust on top of it the trav­el has been real­ly slow. In the same num­ber of hours we are hik­ing 30–35 miles, we have only been able to cov­er 10–15 miles and about a mile an hour. About 2/3 of the way through the sec­tion we knew we did­n’t have enough food and were unpre­pared. We had mailed our snow­shoes from south­ern Wash­ing­ton to Bend since we weren’t using them. The snow­storm hit and we were slog­ging and need­ed taller gaiters to keep our feet warm. We made the call to post­hole out on a side road to the high­way. Our hik­ing friends here have been very hos­pitable. We are tak­ing a day off regroup­ing and will head back or to recon­nect that sec­tion tomorrow.

We made it past Mt Hood last night in a howl­ing wind. A friend picked us up and brought us into Port­land for resup­ply, a warm night, and to get orga­nized for the next sec­tions. It was pret­ty nasty around Hood with 45 mph sus­tained winds and gusts over 65. Need­less to say, the wind was near­ly blow­ing us off our feet! Plus the tem­per­a­ture was 18 degrees with wind chill val­ues of — 8. It’s start­ing to feel a lot like win­ter and the fore­cast is call­ing for two feet of snow tonight and tomor­row too!
558 miles down now. Head­ed to Bend for the next resupply.
Link to some pho­tos from the first 550 miles here: www.facebook.com/shawn.forry.5/media_set?set=a10152927192520628&type=1&pnref=story
(copy text into Web browser) 

Quote of the trip so far from the toll lady at the Bridge of the Gods cross­ing into Ore­gon over the Colum­bia River:
‘sir, that’s going to be 50 cents for a pedes­tri­an to cross the bridge.’
‘Even if we are hik­ing the PCT? ’
‘you can’t be hik­ing the PCT now. are you real­ly? You GOTTA be kid­ding me!’

We made it through Wash­ing­ton and crossed the Bridge of the Gods into Ore­gon today. A bit over 500 miles down now, and about 2100 to go. The weath­er through Wash­ing­ton end­ed just as it start­ed, with a soak­ing rain. We did have two sun­ny, nice days before that though. Those were the only two dry days in near­ly three weeks. It was great to final­ly get some views and see all of the peaks around the area. Onward tomor­row and up to Mt. Hood. It’s sup­posed to get cold with temps in the 20s and teens, and wind chills of below zero on Tues­day at Tim­ber­line Lodge. Here comes winter!

We made it to Sno­qualmie Pass, WA this after­noon, about 250 miles into the hike.  To say it’s been wet is an under­state­ment. It has rained or snowed, or both every day. The last few days the trail has been a riv­er of run­ning water, since the snow that had pre­vi­ous­ly fall­en over 5000 get ele­va­tion has been melt­ing with the rain.
We are stay­ing the night at a hotel to dry every­thing out, resup­ply, and get some good food before head­ing out again tomor­row back into the rain.

You’ll be able to fol­low along on the trip here once we start next week and I start updat­ing our posi­tion (prob­a­bly once a day or once every few days depend­ing on how long the bat­tery ends up lasting)

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