Saturday, July 07, 2018 – 14.60 miles

More confusing trail today through deadfall and soft grey dust. I lost the trail in a burn area where footprints made a path going in the wrong direction (worsened by my footprints, sorry about perpetuating the problem). Later I met other hikers who had lost the trail in the same place. Throughout the area, the PCT was marked by orange ribbons tied to tree branches. Very Heysen-esque, and losing the trail was Heysen-esque as well.

The 2008 fire in this area was called the Lonesome Complex Fire, but a more recent fire must have reduced my planned campsite to rubble, since the photos in eTrails showed greenery. I looked for somewhere random to camp. When I search on this luxurious library computer for distributed camping requirements in Crater Lake National Park, it states that one must be out of sight from trails, but when I checked my phone on the PCT I thought I saw a requirement stating one mile from trails, so I was determined to find a campsite before the park to evade that rule. Eventually I did find a nice site and settled in for the night.

I have a new hobby. I read food wrappers and find things to criticize about them. Putting aside the question of whether I’ve gained insight into the minds of keyboard warriors, Lays describes their chips as being made from ‘farm-grown potatoes’. Are there non-farm grown potatoes? Snickers provides contact info and says ‘we value your questions or comments’ but those comments are definitely going straight to the dustbin like the computer printouts in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. And why don’t we have a daily recommended value for sugar yet? Is it so these companies won’t have to say ‘contains 250% of your daily recommended amount of sugar’? How powerful is the sugar lobby? What is the sugar lobby hiding from us?