I slept again. I had a short way to go and a long time to get there, and no reason not to turn over and let the sun come up a bit more and warm things up. Even so, I hiked out at 9:20 with my fingers frozen. There was just too much shade to get warm.
After a brief climb, I came out onto the exposed, rocky south face of Copper Butte where I had views for miles. And quite a few bars of Verizon LTE. I sent Mikella a text. She expected to arrive at Cook and Green Pass at noon.
I came down the 2 mile climb to the pass carefully but quickly, podcast in my ears. I passed another thru-hiker right off who had put in late from Sierra City and was planning to do the southern end southbound like I did. Her name was Sprint because she hiked fast. But she seemed to be going a pretty normal speed coming up to me.
I reached the pass at 11, so I found a number of ways to pass an hour. I collected a couple of liters from the nearby spring, then went back for more. I played a game on my phone. I tried to watch a downloaded store on Netflix but it refused to play as they always do. I checked for cell service to try to get news–nothing. I ate some snacks. I found a place to sit in the sun. I had the whole pass to myself for two hours. Then an SUV arrived from the wrong direction at 1pm. Was it Mikella? No. A man by himself. Moments later an engine coming up the pass from the correct direction. An ATV. And there she was in a round silver helmet behind a rather fat and grizzled man.
She offered him money. He asked for a hug instead. He seemed very nice. Mikella told me he was a total creeper as soon as she got away from him. But he did get her to the place. When he left, we had lunch in the one sunny spot, then got ourselves together to hike out up the hill.
I let Mikella lead and set the pace. She hasn’t been hiking much and needed frequent breaks on the climb. It was a 2.2 mile continuous climb and we spent about that many hours doing it. There were plenty of views to see along the way of course. At the top, we stopped to eat a snack, and continued on along the ridge. There was a bit more climbing, but it saw more of an up and down sort of thing.
Eventually, we passed through a thick grove of trees and when we came out, there was a big pond below us. It was about supper time, so I suggested we have supper down there next to it. Soon, we came to a junction with a trail that went down to it and turned aside. We posted up on some rocks overlooking the pond, close enough to listen to the frogs’ chorus. Brekekekex koax koax! they sang while I boiled water for both our evening meals and we sipped our marionberry ciders. Lily Pad Lake was easily the highlight of the day.
It was also where we encountered the first mosquitos of my trip this year. I guess I have more of that to look forward to soon. Luckily, Mikella had a bottle of DEET spray.
At 7, we hiked back up the trail. Mikella had a potential bathroom emergency on her mind, and it did, in fact, arise less than a mile later. Although a bear does it in the woods often and with ease, it was a bit of a learning experience for her, this being her first overnight backpacking trip ever. She indicated she needed a bit more practice with the process if she was going to keep backpacking going forward.
We continued for another fifteen minutes or so down to the Kangaroo Springs area, the last relatively flat area for miles. It was after 8, so we started scouting for campsites. There was nothing perfect in terms of flat and clear sites out of the wind, so I picked a spot that was relatively flat between a rock and some brush that might serve as a windbreak. It was still going to be a cold night, so we both put together every bit of protection from the cold we had available. Mikella’s sleeping bag seemed to be far lighter weight than mine, so I was worried about her, but she had a liner for it and a good wool sweater that might work.
Getting her tent (my old tent) set up was a bit of a kerfuffle, and she was still getting situated long after I was in my bag and down for the night. And that was how the sun went down on our first day together.
Trail miles: 8.3
Distance to Seiad Valley: 9.9 miles
Hi! Mikella here! Popping in for a guest blog about the two days I spent with David on the trail. I was in Montana prior to meeting up with him, so my story actually starts there.
On Monday, June 14th, I was leaving Bozeman in the early evening and planning to land in Oregon at 7:40pm. Unfortunately, the flight was delayed due to heat. That has never happened to me in Atlanta but somehow happened in a place where snow is still on the ground. Go figure. I finally got out about an hour later and landed in Portland, Oregon at about 9pm. Another unfortunate thing that had happened was that the Bozeman airport had made me check my bag because it contained hiking poles. So, this meant I also had to go through baggage claim. I had originally planned to be driving away from the airport by 8, but didn’t even make it to Avis for my rental until 9:30. The 6 hour drive I had to where David was hiking began to feel daunting. I ultimately decided to do 4.5 hours to Medford and call it a night. I slept in a pretty rundown Motel 6 because it was right off the interstate and reasonably priced.
The next morning, I did the last 1.5 hours to David and arrived in Seiad Valley at 11pm. It was a tiny spot with a total of three businesses. Barely even a town. I had told David I would meet him by noon, so I thought I was right on time. Wrong. Turns out the in-town chores of a hiker are very much dependent on the right people being available to help at a given time. My first stop was the general store where a man named Rick explained where to leave my car and how to meet up with the fellow he had arranged to shuttle me up to the pass where David and I would meet. The next stop was at the local mini storage to leave my car overnight. The owner lived right across the street so I headed to her house first. She was in the driver’s seat of a pickup with a livestock trailer attached and I told her I needed to store my car. She asked, “Are you in a hurry?” I told her no and she told me she had to drop a load of cattle off in a pasture and she’d be right back to get me set up. She went on to say that the cattle had never been in a trailer because “they come wherever you want if you shake a bucket of oats, but that won’t work to get em down to the other pasture”. Well, I certainly wasn’t going to interrupt the process. I waited in her driveway while she did her errand. When she came back, she introduced me to her three dogs- Katie, Penny, and BoyDog. We went inside, signed a contract, and I walked back to the store and just past it was an RV park and a man named Art. Prior to arriving, I had arranged for Art to drive me up to where David was waiting on his ATV. When I met him, I quickly realized he was an, ummm, interesting guy (creepy perv). He insisted I talk to him for a while before we left and he repeatedly told me he wanted to kidnap me (wut?) then we loaded up my bag on the front of the ATV and me on the back. I insisted on holding my hiking poles just in case he tried anything. Though, I did feel he was “all talk”. An hour later, we made it to David who was waiting under a tree. It was 1pm. I was an hour late, but I am a newbie so I was forgiven.
We took off hiking UP. Soooo much up. I had hiked in the Georgia mountains just a month earlier and would have told you I’d be fine but a few factors were at play- I wasn’t used to wearing my fully stuffed pack and I wasn’t used to mountains THIS high. We hiked for five hours, but only went about 2.5miles. We stopped for dinner at a really beautiful spot called “Lily Pond Lake”. It was, as described, a lake completely covered in lily pads. It looked like it could be a painting. The mosquitoes came out so we had to bug spray up then we cooked and ate. I had noodles and chicken. David had a beef stir fry packaged meal. David surprised me with a blackberry cider that he had packed in. I asked how often he hiked with cans, he told me never. He knows how to make a gal feel special.
After dinner, we didn’t hike much longer. A passerby told us we were approaching a camping area with a fire pit and everything. I am thinking that’s rare on the PCT. We arrived at it, found the least windy spot available and pitched our tents. I told David I could hike more, but he said that once you get closer to the ridge line of the mountains the camping spots become few and far between. Okay then! It was pretty windy so we both jumped in our tents and tried to warm up. The night remained cold and although we both slept some, I don’t think either of us would say it was a great night of sleep. I woke up several times due to my cold feet. I also had a stuffy nose from the cold and woke up a couple of times because I was mouth breathing and drooling. Oh, how glamorous! I have no idea what time I fell asleep or how long my wakings were, but I told David I thought I got about 4 good hours of sleep.
One reply on “Day 38: Lily Pad Lake”
This was a fun post. I love that little guest blogger!