Friday morning Dad made us a big breakfast at Fish Lake. We packed up and drove up the road a couple miles to the trailhead. The area Jon and I will be hiking in is the Sky Lakes Wilderness.
The PCT stays along the ridges but there were plenty of side trails to lakes in the area. Jon and I took one to Island Lake, which had an island, but yielded no fish.
We continued on the side trail past Red Lake, fighting through low brush and fallen trees much of the way, until it looped back to the PCT. We took another trail down to Deer Lake where we camped for the night. Section hikers Rob and Barb walked by after a little while and camped nearby. Despite racking up over 18 miles of hiking, Jon still had the energy to walk around the lake and catch a few brook trout that evening after dinner.
On Saturday we climbed over a pass next to Devil's Peak. We had a good view of Mt McLoughlin behind us and the rim of Crater Lake in front and a very faint Mt Thielsen.
We took another side trail over to Cliff Lake and each caught a few fish. Again we found ourselves camped near Rob and Barb in a small patch of live trees in the edge of a large burned area. There was a spring a half-mile down the hill but we had enough for dinner and didn't go down that evening. The next morning I went down to get both of us water while Jon relaxed. We hiked out to where he left his car at a trailhead by early afternoon. We drove down to a restaurant at Mazama Village below Crater Lake for some pizza and fries. The next section from Crater Lake to Odell Lake starts out with a long dry section so Jon offered to drop a jug of water where the trail crosses the highway southeast of Diamond Lake. He headed home and I hiked a couple miles more, going partway up the climb to the Crater Lake rim.
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