Tomato - Oregon Desert Trail Journal - 2014
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Tomato
City: Portland
State: OR
Begins: May 11, 2014
Direction: Southbound
Daily Summary
Date: Wed, May 7th, 2014
Start: Portland
End: Portland
Daily Distance: 0
Journal Stats
Entry Visits: 3,313
Journal Visits: 15,271
Guestbook Views: 621
Guestbook Entrys: 8
View: 1
2
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The ODT
Almost ready!
Well, after years of promising to do an online trail journal, I'm finally going to do one for the Oregon Desert Trail. It has only previously been done once, last year by Sage Clegg. Lots of hikers I know are interested in hiking the trail, so I will try to balance info helpful to future hikers with my impressions of the trail. I know of 3 other hikers on the trail this year, 2 ahead of me and 1 behind, but there are probably more out there. I am starting on Sunday, May 11. There are some long water-less stretches early on and one at the end, but the other hikers have helpfully put out a few gallons for me when they put theirs out. I think they placed 4 for me, and I am going to drop a few off on Saturday just because they are easy. Without the caches the carries can be up to 90 miles, so that will probably have to be something ironed out for future hikers.The Oregon Desert Trail is (very) approximately 800 miles long, starting east of Bend and curving to the SE before heading back north near the Idaho border. It is definitely not a finished trail like the PCT; it is the idea of one, and will take years of work to finish. The majority is old roads or cross-country. I have a lot of experience with that on the PNT and CDT so I hope that goes well. I usually do pretty good with desert hiking, too; when I was hiking with Freebie on the PCT he would generally just take twice as much water as I took. I am going to keep my capacity to 5 liters, but I could add more in towns if I want.
