Eagle Creek

day 127 ~ Eagle Creek Alternate [PCT miles 2138.1 - 2155]

The Eagle Creek alternate trail is another one of those things you hear about along the entire trail.  Again, it is difficult to fathom that we've actually come this far!  The trail features dozens of waterfalls; most notably, Tunnel Falls.  The trail was blasted out of the canyon walls.  We walked along the path, a couple of feet wide, with sheer dropoffs to one side, and a hand cable for safety on the other side of the trail.  Tunnel Falls was a spectacular waterfall that rises hundreds of feet high, and the path lead us through a tunnel that was blasted out behind the falls. 

The Eagle Creek trail has been rated as one of the top dayhikes in the country.  Obviously, this is no secret, as we passed literally hundreds of dayhikers on the trail.  On a daily basis, we normally don't see many dayhikers, so the constant stream of people became slightly frustrating.  Some oblivious people spread across the trail in groups of twos and threes, others rudely shoved past.  All of them smelled so fresh.  After living in the woods, unnatural smells are overly apparent, so the scents of laundry detergents and perfumes overwhelmed our sniffers.  I'm sure that our hiker stench overwhelmed them as well, which gave us a strange sense of  humerous satisfaction.

The trail dumped us into a bustling parking lot, where we passed a picnic table of hikers and pizza and cookies.  We were invited to join.  Red Oak and Buttercup were out doing trail magic for our buddy Zissou.  All three of them hiked the Appalachian Trail on 2010, the same year as us, but we didn't meet them then.  We hung out for a few, until heading into the town of Cascade Locks via a paved pedestrian path.

An RV park on the Columbia River permits hikers to camp for free.   We setup and showered, and settled in to relax for the rest of the evening.  We were happy to run into some hikers that we hadn't seen in a while, including Masshole and Midway, and lots of new faces as well.

Thunder Island Brewery and the local watering hole kept us entertained for the evening.  We didn't really accomplish any of our chores, but this is our last Oregon stop...they can wait, we've got some celebrating to do.