Day 151: Mt.Hood, waterfall, and tents

Sunday 9/16/12
Miles 2111-2132 (21 miles)
Elevation 4,245'

Weather is weird out here. It is colder in the mornings than it is in the middle of the night. Wtf?!? That seems odd. In Hawaii I've noticed the coldest time of day is around 4am. It is consistently like that. Out here it seems to be around 8am. Weird.

We had some epic views of Mt.Hood today. I took lots of pics. The trail basically went around it so I saw the other side of mt.hood too. Sweet! The trail went by Ramona Falls which was a cool waterfall. Dang there were lots of day hikers today. Where are they all coming from? Must be a road access nearby.

You know what I've noticed in Oregon that is different from California is that out here, people actually use the forest service roads and dirt roads. I'd be in the middle of nowhere and three cars per hour would be driving by on some dirt road that looks unused. Lol! That's pretty cool. Seems like people here access the outdoors areas a lot more. Yay Oregon!

Today's hiking was really epic. It kind of reminded me of Hawaii. The green-ness was a much more lush and bright type of green, more than the typical dark conifer green that we've been doing through for the last 1,000 miles. Plus a lot of it we were up on a ridge so the views were really cool. Only downside of being on a ridge is that there's no water. :( But its not very hot and there's so much shade that I don't need as much water throughout the day like I used to.

I met a day hiker couple who were super cool. The wife said she used to be 70lbs heavier but was inspired to lose the weight so she could go hiking and take photos (she had an expensive looking Canon camera around her neck). Way to go lady! That's so awesome. :)

By the way, I hate my tent. It is pissing me off. It has pissed me off since the day I got it. Not because it's a bad tent. It's a fantastic tent, actually. It just totally absolutely sucks and is completely impractical for thru-hiking. It's a 4-season Stephenson's warmlite tent, which is a small company in New Hampshire that makes ultralight backpacking gear. Probably out of his garage, as most of these companies are. Winter camping in New England is pretty frickin gnarly. So this tent is bullet proof. Which is fine if it's snowing and hailing but sucks in any other kind weather. Why do they call it a 4-season tent anyways? It should be called a Winter Tent. Or a Crappy Weather Tent. Because its ridiculous to use it in any other type of weather. Blah. The only reason I still have the tent is because in norcal, i thought it might rain a lot in Oregon (it didnt). Now i have it still because of the possibility of hitting crappy weather in Washington. Im hoping i dont. Plus it's kinda late in the game to get another tent. Although I would looooove to get a Big Agnes Fly Creek Platinum UL 2. If any of you guys are in the market for an epic backpacking tent, that's the one you want. No wonder half the people on trail have those tents, it's amazing. Well, most people have the regular version, the Platinum one is more epic but retails for about $500. Still. The 2 person version weighs about 2.1 lbs and its practically bulletproof. Hee Haw has that very tent. I'm so jealous. Lol. It is such a perfect tent. The regular version is about half the price and slightly heavier, but not by much. If I were to get a tent that would be it. Except after this trip I won't need a 2 person tent anymore. And I already have my solo Notch tent, which I love. Although if I could do it all over again I would have bought the solo version of the Platinum Fly Creek, because it's lighter than the Notch. And it stands up better in high winds. When I was using my notch, if it was windy I'd have to put extra stakes in. Although usually if it was windy I just wouldn't use the tent at all. Unless it was really cold.

We ended up camping on a ridge. It was windy but just minorly so. Yay! That's awesome because wind = no condensation! Which means I don't a e to spend all morning wiping down the inside of the tent! Yay!!! Lol. Wow you can really hear the wind from up here. It must be howling down in the valley below. Up here it's not too bad.

Kyle and I were just talking about how wind, water, and lots of cars driving by make a similar noise. Last night by the river we were listening to a similar noise all night but coming from river instead of wind.