The day dawned dark and gloomy, with a thick band of clouds sitting on the mountains. Radek set off before daybreak and I followed once the pale grey light grew bright enough to see by. I soon entered the Obsidian Limited Entry Area, a specially protected resource area within the Three Sisters Wilderness. Large deposits of the shiny black rock bordering the trail helped me understand why this area required a special permit to enter. I then came upon a waterfall flowing over a short cliff made entirely of obsidian. I stood there watching the cascade for a long time, awestruck by the simple beauty of water and rock.
Following the magical creek upstream I passed a couple of small lakes shrouded in ghostly fog. What had been a serene, enjoyable morning swiftly took a downward turn as the wind began to pick up and it became very cold. Mist soaked my light jacket and by the time I caught up with Radek at South Matthieu Lake I was shivering and miserable. An increasingly heavy rain made my attempt to shelter beneath some stunted trees utterly futile. The lunch I had been looking forward to became an exercise in pain as I bumbled around my pack with frozen fingers, clumsily putting a tortilla sandwich together and blowing on my hands in a vain effort to warm them.
I had planned to continue hiking with Radek to Ollalie Lake where we would rent a cabin and celebrate my birthday, but the intense cold and wet overwhelmed my sense of anticipation and I decided to head to the town of Sisters to dry out when we reached the highway at Mackenzie Pass that afternoon. The path down to the highway led through a field of sharp lava rocks, adding to my torment. I caught a ride into town in a Jeep with a man and his dog and met another hiker at the Sisters Inn to split a room. After buying myself a birthday dinner and giant margarita at a Mexican restaurant I passed out on top of the motel bedspread, exhausted but warm.
Russell on the Road 