PCT Section 3: Crater Lake to Shelter Cove
After spending some time the last few weeks writing about this fall in Colorado, I wanted to get back to detailing my adventures on the PCT this summer. I left off with my time in Crater Lake National Park!
After arriving in Crater Lake, my hiking buddies and I had to figure out how best to get through this stretch, and we ended up taking a zero day in the process. There are two options for hikers going through Crater Lake: the actual PCT, which mainly goes through a burned area for 15 miles and doesn’t have any views of the lake, or the Rim Trail, which follows the rim of Crater Lake for nine miles before dropping back down to the PCT. Most hikers choose to hike the Rim Trail. The complication that we needed to deal with was snow around Watchman Peak, which closed that section of the Rim Trail. This required a two mile stretch of road walking to get around. That’s what we ended up deciding to do, and thankfully we didn’t have any issues on the road! The Rim Trail was beautiful, and we got to fully take in this incredible place.
One thing I struggled with at Crater Lake was how to take a unique image of a place that everyone has seen so many pictures of. This was an abstract shot of the lake that I loved. It captures the light and shadow, as well as the pattern of the ripples from the wind blowing across the lake. It gives an impression of yin and yang to me, with the shadow on the left side of the frame being cast by Wizard Island.
Another approach I ended up taking to fully capture the beauty of this place was panoramas. Because my camera lens didn’t allow me to fully capture the scale of the lake, I decided that panoramic images would work best! This image is made of five separate vertical images that I stitched together in Lightroom (the main editing software I use).
I love this image of Topper, taken from the north side of Crater Lake.
After passing through Crater Lake, we continued north into the Mount Thielsen Wilderness. Mount Thielsen is a lesser known volcanic peak that the PCT passes right beneath. As was becoming a theme in Oregon, hiking this part of the trail required a lot of hiking on snow.
I took this image of Mount Thielsen at sunset! I just love the glow from the setting sun lighting up the west side of this peak. This shot required a little bit of extra work for me; this location was about 0.5 miles before where I camped, so I ended up hiking about an extra mile round trip to capture this scene with the best light. The following morning, Pablo, Topper, and I crossed the high point of Oregon and Washington on the PCT! While that wasn’t the best view I saw on trail, we really felt like we earned it after two tough miles of hiking and navigating across almost continuous snowfields. After hitting the highpoint, the hiking got a little easier and was mainly downhill.
An early morning in the woods. I took this image while starting my day hiking with Pablo. I think he was confused why I stopped at this spot to take a picture, but I loved the side lighting and the diagonal line created by the tree in the center of the frame!
As we continued hiking north, it was really cool to be able to look back and see the progress we were making. Mount Thielsen is the prominent peak on the right side of the frame! This was taken just a day and a half after the closer shots of Thielsen I showed earlier in this post.
This stretch of trail is where I made some new friends! In addition to Topper and Pablo who I was already hiking with, I met Rachel, Melissa, and Olivia around Mount Thielsen. I love this shot of the three of them, featuring Melissa’s mosquito net and the twig sticking out of the top of Olivia’s bright red pack.
This spot was one of my favorite campsites from my entire hike on the PCT. Located high on a ridge with great views to the north and west, I was able to get some really special images as the sun set. This particular shot is looking northwest to Diamond Peak, where we would be hiking the next day.
Another shot from camp, high on the ridge. Not pictured are the hordes of mosquitoes that were swarming around us as we watched the last light of the day.
The following day was through Diamond Peak Wilderness. It was beautiful, but also really challenging hiking because of the amount of snow still on the ground. I didn’t get any good shots during the day, but I did take this shot from camp that night! This is looking north towards South and Middle Sister, the next significant volcanoes we would be hiking past. On the last day we did a nearo (near zero) day into Shelter Cove resort, the halfway point of Oregon! I was so excited to resupply and get some fresh food, but on arrival we learned that the restaurant there was closed because the cook had quit. It was one of the biggest letdowns I experienced on trail, and instead of taking a zero day, I ended up continuing hiking the day after.