As the title says, we have officially entered the terrain of the feared Oregon mosquitoes, lovingly referred to as ‘The Mosquito Gauntlet’. The creatures wasted no time and commenced their first assault at dawn, descending upon us in great numbers. Relentlessly, they tried to penetrate the bug spray defense lines and stung through every piece of unprotected skin. For every mosquito slain, 5 more appeared. Some days in the Sierra’s had been worse than this, but the Oregon mosquitoes had one secret skill over their Californian cousins: they could keep up with us, even when walking. My arms, shoulders and legs regularly had to be cleared from any attached winged assailants. During the day they hid from the sun’s light like the cowards they are, only to reappear with the sound of buzzing wings that sent shivers down our spines as soon as the rays of light started to wane.
Besides that, it was a genuinely lovely day! I got to hike once more with the finest people on this trail and some of the views were breathtaking. Now it really felt like we were in a completely different biome. It struck me again just how massive the amount of untouched nature is that I’ve seen these past 105 days. Back home this simply doesn’t exist.
My mom also seemed to be doing slightly better than before, which I am very relieved for.
Also, more joyful reunions today! I’d heard Merman and ID were with us and today I saw them. More unexpected was when I saw Eschi sitting next to the water. That mischievous scoundrel had split with his tramily when they decided to hike the coast trail and he didn’t want to. Good on him, he really hikes his own hike. I guess I panicked in Ashland that we would be with all new people, but it seems I was too fast, plenty of cool people from before here.
At lunch we discussed a potential holiday together after the trail ends. The most logical and simple plan would be a 5 day bender in Seattle with an AirBnB, which sounds like a great plan in my opinion. Hope we can pull it off. One last hurrah with everyone.
We camped at a massive campsite with Merman, ID and Microbe (previously Leah, named by Mermaid for her love of diseases) and I can’t express how happy I am to be here with these exact people at this exact time in my life.