I wanted to sleep in this morning because of the late finish the previous night, and the fact that the sun rose behind a mountain peak relative to my campsite seemed like it would help with that. But I also knew it would be a hot one, that I needed to collect some water, and that I also had to get back to the trail before I could even make progress on the day. So with that thought, I forced myself to start getting up.
Even so, the sun was hitting my camp before I left, and it was around 8:30 by the time I had climbed back up to the PCT proper.
I was definitely right about it being a hot one. The heat was already kicking in, and the first thing I had was a very sweaty steep climb. And there was little respite from the sun where the trail went. It seemed to always be on the sunny side of the ridge all day, and in the middle of the day and later, it went through burned forest where there were very few leaves for shade (but plenty of dead snags to climb over). When I first started this section of the PCT, it was so cool each day that I was overhydrated even though I was hardly drinking. That was certainly no longer true. I was going through a lot of water recently, on this day especially.
Luckily, there was plenty of water along the trail for most of the day. At one point in the morning, the trail worked its way across a hillside where there was so much water coming down from above that channels had been built around the trail to keep it from eroding. Every few feet, a tiny waterfall tumbled down to the trail’s edge. I stood next to one of these while an entire troop of older women in backpacks passed by. All but one were wearing Dirty Girls. This section made me especially glad to be in waterproof boots.
I had lunch near one of two tiny lakes the trail passed in front of. I had a shady spot where someone had placed a flat rock next to a boulder in just the right way to turn it into a recliner. It was hard to get up to do things like collect and filter water, even though it needed to be done. Both because I didn’t want to leave the shade or be on my feet and because I didn’t want to disturb the butterfly that kept landing on my belly or my pack.
I took dinner halfway down the trail to Cub Bear Spring, mostly because it was on the shady side of the ridge, though once I was there, I decided to collect some water too. It was the last convenient water source before Etna Summit, so grabbing some extra water for breakfast meant I could drink more right then, and it had been in the high 80s in the mountains that day. I spent much of the dinner hour sitting on a log watching the insects, in particular one bee that was fascinated by my gaiters, the top of my Nalgene, my bear can. I don’t know what bees are looking for, but my best guess is anything that reflects more UV light than its surroundings.
It was 8pm by the time I hiked out again. I knew it would be two hours until I reached the next reasonable camping area, but the light lasts so long up there that I wouldn’t need a headlamp until I arrived.
It was well after 11pm by the time I was in my tent and sleep-ready, but I was looking forward to an easy morning to the trailhead and a ride into town.
It was a pretty long day. I was so sleepy when I first woke I wanted to sleep in some more. I started getting ready a bit after six, but for a number of reasons, including repairing a hole in my left sun glove, I didn’t get packed up and out until after 8.
And even then, it took another five minutes to get to the trail. The road I had camped on was actually way down the hill from the trail. Although it eventually met the trail if I continued along it, it would require a two mile detour before it got there, skipping a section of the trail less than a mile long. So I started my day by climbing straight up a wooded hillside. Then, I followed a doe and her newborn fawn up the hill until I got to the Cold Springs Trailhead.
I don’t know why it’s called the Cold Springs Trailhead because Cold Springs was more than 15 miles away from it and way off the trail. But there was a comment for it on Guthook that said “Prepare to bushwhack for about 10 miles.” Right after beginning up the hill, I met a hiker coming the other way dressed in a khaki costume that said “park ranger without the patches.” He said there was no bushwhack ahead, the trail was good except for occasional blowdowns and there was a ton of good scenery. So the comment must have been about the trail north of that point, referring to the bushwhack I had already done the previous day, which had not lasted anywhere close to ten miles. What a pleasant surprise.
That wasn’t the last hiker I saw that day. There were a dozen or more. Some of them I spoke to and some I just mumbled pleasantries to in passing. All in all, it was the most other hikers I have seen in a day since in 2021.
Shortly after my morning snack break (a notable occasion because a critical balance strap which had been taking a lot of weight and slowly coming apart finally snapped as I loaded up to great out), I was startled by a bird, some kind of pheasant or grouse I think, suddenly jumping down into the trail and doing an intimidating display, running past me, and doing the same thing on the other side, before stalking back and forth around me for several minutes. I recorded what followed.
There was also plenty of water on trail. Every mile or so, there was a stream flowing right over the trail. Sometimes there was a stream flowing along the trail. Sometimes, the trail was a giant pool with water coming in and out at different places. One time, on a rocky outcropping under a melting glacier, water ran into caves cut by previous snowmelt and under the trail. Once, late in the day, a stream flowed through a steep meadow filled with thousands of centipedes. No matter where I was on this hillside, I could stop and look in any direction and see a centipede.
So I arranged my day around the water. I stopped for lunch in a shady grove in the middle of the longest dry stretch. I took my afternoon snack on the shore of Paradise Lake and collected water from the spring that fed it. I had supper on a rock on a hillside next to a pair of streams.
But with the late start and all the ups and downs, by the time I ate supper I had gone less than thirteen miles. I committed then to making it to Cold Springs, another nearly five miles away, no matter how late I got there. I walked into Marble Valley, where some hikers who had passed me earlier were already encamped, then climbed right out the other side. I stopped on the centipede hill to take off my hat and sunglasses as the sun was sinking, but by nine the sun had just set and there was plenty of light. I stopped on top of the next ridge that had cell service just long enough to download a podcast I couldn’t wait for.
It was close to ten when I finally stopped to put on my headlamp and have an after dinner snack. While I sat, a bat swooped past me a couple of times, gliding rather than doing the traditional wild chase trajectory, so I got a really good look. The darkness also brought out to play the most enormous toad I’ve ever seen in the wild.
When I reached the Cold Springs Trail junction, there was a tent set up nearby, but I didn’t bother the occupant. I took the trail all the way down to the spring and past it to a long established campsite. Always best to use an established cleared and leveled site to avoid further impact to the wilderness. It was already 11 by the time I was in my tent and ready for bed.
The few moments I had had cell service had been enough to get in a notification that in two days, the nearby valleys would have a heat wave putting their temperatures at well over a hundred degrees. I was glad that temperatures in the mountains above would be several degrees lower, and that I would be spending at least one of the days of the heat wave inside all afternoon if all went to plan. The other I’d figure out how not to hike in the hottest part of the day.
But all those plans would only come to fruition if I got in another pretty big day of hiking. And given my late finish, there was very unlikely to be an early start.
The second alarm went off at 6am and I started getting up. Mikella woke up too and I told her my previous goal of 6:30 no longer seemed realistic. With only six hours of sleep, I just wasn’t moving fast enough. Coffee would help, so I went to the breakfast room at the lobby and got some coffee for both of us and a few breakfast snacks to go with the yogurt I had bought at the grocery store the night before. Then I took another hour doing some clean up things that are hard or impossible to do on the trail. I was ready to go at 8am.
It took well over an hour to get back to Seiad Valley. There was a construction crew working all along the only 2 lane road through the Klamath River Valley. Good thing I had podcasts downloaded for when the conversation ran out. But when we finally got there, I bought Mikella a tank of gas to repay her for the hotel stay (for some reason this lonely credit card pump in the middle of this tiny nowhere town had gas for way cheaper than anything in Yreka, which sat on an actual interstate highway) then grabbed one last food item from the Seiad Store, along with some chocolate milk and a fried pie to give me a burst of hiking energy (none of which were close to as cheap as they would be in Yreka).
We drove out of Seiad Valley and up the road that hikers had to walk along (passing a couple of said hikers along the way) all the way to the actual trailhead. Another long boring roadwalk successfully skipped. We took a selfie together, then Mikella drove off to see Crater Lake while I started hiking up Grider Creek. It was 10am. So the night in Yreka had cost me maybe two hours of hiking time, but I can’t even be sure I wouldn’t have lost that much time anyway given how late I would’ve gotten in.
The trail followed Grider Creek, but was rarely close to it. It stayed up on the side of the ridge above it (and there was a bit of a bushwhack to get up there). There were a few places where the creek got narrow and the trail crossed it on a heavy duty steel bridge. These places were miles apart. The trail condition wasn’t perfect. It felt like a section untouched by trail crews in at least a year. Overgrown sections and lots of deadfalls over the trail.
There was plenty of shade for most of the section, but it didn’t help much. It got up to 90 degrees in the valley that day and stayed super muggy. In fact, even before lunch, I found my sombrero sweatband could not absorb all the sweat from my head, and streams were running down my face and over my sunglasses. I took it off and pulled up my Buff over my head instead like I had done last year.
I ate lunch in an area where a tree happened to be casting a shadow, and somehow summoned every ant in the area, big and small. I had to do a thorough inspection and brushing off before I could hike out.
I didn’t stop again for three hours, in which I only managed to go five miles. It was all uphill and the steady supply of deadfalls to get over and around only seemed to increase in frequency. But when I did, it was at the last bridge, right before the trail climbed out of the river canyon following a minor tributary. So of course I took a break by the water and a quick dip in the deep, slow moving water under the bridge. It seemed like it was the most water I was likely to see in one place for days.
After following the tributary for a bit, the trail switchbacked and started climbing up the hill to some old little used forest roads, and this is where the trail really went to pot. Completely overgrown with tall brush and downed trees crisscrossing or covering the trail every hundred feet at most. It took a lot longer than it should have to do the last quarter mile up to where the roads started, but from there it got much easier. It was still all uphill and hot, but not so overgrown.
I made it to the dead end road/tentsite where I had intended to stop for dinner about 7pm, but soon found I had drunk up nearly all my water and didn’t have enough for supper. So I took the road east, parallel to but below the trail, until it intersected a brook that ran right under it. I collected and filtered water from the stream and immediately made supper from it.
By the time I finished, it was well past eight, so I just left my bear can and stove and took everything else a bit further up the road until it leveled out. I pitched my tent right there. It was well past dark by the time I got to sleep, but a million times warmer than it had been in the mountain two nights before, so it was much easier sleeping. I knew I had a long, hot, grueling, annoying day ahead, so I wanted a perfect rest to bank some energy for it. But that’s a story for the next post.
Trail miles: 18 (6.6 by car)
Distance to Etna: 38.5 miles
I think the general takeaway from this gallery should be how bright it was and therefore how hot.
(And now concludes the Mikella version)
The next morning was coffee, breakfast, finding the trailhead, hugs, and sending David back on his way. What a whirlwind.
This was my first backpacking trip and I left with multiple bruises and some great memories. I also learned how to be better prepared on the trail as well as how to take better care of my hydration and nutrition needs. I also now know that I will be heading to REI soon for a hiking boot fitting. Having your foot slip around in your shoe for 8 miles of downhill is highly unpleasant. I also left with a much better sense of what it really is for David to be out on these trails alone. The second day of hiking, we did not see a single soul. Self-sufficiency is a must and that requires good decision making and preparation. David really has it dialed. When setting up and taking down his camp, he is like a well-oiled machine. His backpack is organized thoughtfully. He plans each day’s meal and how much water and food he needs to carry meticulously. It’s fascinating and I admire it very much. Growing up, David had a “ding bat” streak, but I don’t think anyone watching him in the wilderness would ever guess that. I am thankful that despite being an expert David takes the time to teach beginners like me.
I woke up before Mikella and had changed and packed up everything inside my tent before she heard me moving around and started packing herself. Factoring in my walking back up to the water pool we had passed to grab a couple more liters of water and filtering it, we finished packing at the same time. I asked Mikella if she had enough water. She said she had a liter, which she thought would be enough to make it to the next water source at least. Based on the coolness of the previous day and the “I need the sun” coldness of that exact moment, this was not an unreasonable guess, but it was a fateful one.
We climbed 2 miles out of the Kangaroo Mountain’s “pouch” to the top of the Devil’s Peaks ridges, along which we would descend. We stopped here for a break just out of the wind.
I called a stop a little way down from there for my morning break, but it was windy and Mikella chose to keep going. I caught up to her a few minutes later when I had finished.
Generally speaking, she is a very careful downhill walker, which put her downhill pace at not much quicker than her uphill pace. It managed to be faster by dint of involving fewer breaks, but it seemed like a very slow walking pace. I had to kind of drag my feet and take small steps to stay far enough behind her.
Near Lower Devil’s Peak, Mikella decided to take a break. As we descended, it steadily got hotter, and she She had drunk through her liter already. I knew we were near Lookout Spring here, so I took a look at the map and saw it was 0.2 miles away. I said I was going ahead and stopping once I got to the spring and left her there, dealing with foot pain related to the constant descent and shoes that probably didn’t fit right.
Halfway down the hill, I realized I had misread the app, and we had passed the spring already, so I stopped on the hillside to wait for her to come down. I started up a podcast and then, noticing there was cell service, a TV show. Nearly twenty minutes later, she still hadn’t arrived. Finally, I heard her yelling for me and called her over. It took another ten minutes for her to make it down the hill to me.
It turned out she had accidentally gone off trail toward the lookout tower at Lower Devil’s Peak at the end of a ridge that I had previously told her we weren’t going down involving far more climbing than I thought she would willingly take on after I had told her we had begun the descent into Seiad Valley. She kept going down it even after it turned into rather a mess of a trail, which left her a bit weak and panicky for a bit, but I’ll leave it to her to describe the ordeal.
When she caught me, I gave her half of my water in lieu of the spring, another liter, then left to go down to a flatter, clearer spot we could see from there to have lunch. I had nearly finished lunch by the time she came down to join me, so I packed up and relocated to the shady spot she had picked. I also gave her the last cider to drink with her lunch. It was still as cold as if it had just come out of the fridge. It had water and calories in it, so I figured it would help her keep going in the heat.
We had another 4 miles of descent, much of it hot and exposed by a forest fire, to reach the next spring, and she quickly ran out of water again. She refused to take more of mine, and also wasn’t eating. She had a very small snack when we stopped at a shady spot. I started another TV show here and was halfway through by the time she picked herself up and walked on past. She said she wanted to just fall asleep. (She had slept very poorly with the cold and not being able to find a comfortable position–maybe four hours.) I stayed to finish the episode, then caught up to her very quickly further down the hill.
At some point even after we’d reached a section low enough to have occasional shade (which is when I started standing in the shade waiting for her to get as fast as the next shade, then walk my normal fast pace to that spot so as to spend less time in the hot sun), Mikella was suddenly overcome by all the symptoms of dehydration and threw herself to the pinestraw unable to go on. She sent me ahead, saying she was sure she could make it the last 0.4 miles to the spring on her own.
So I went down to the spring only to find the pipe wasn’t flowing. I could hear water running through a metal culvert under the trail, so I followed the pipe up into a mess of ferns and made some adjustments allowing water to pool and flow into the pipe. Finally, I could collect some at the end and begin filtering it. Mikella arrived just as I was getting the filtration started. She said she was very happy to see me. She soaked her bandana in the spring water and used it to cool off, then reclined next to the spring box.
After some water and forcing her to eat something with simple carbs to get her going again, she seemed mostly recovered from the dehydration and somewhat regretful of refusing my offer of water earlier. She said she was fine to go the last mile to the road if I would take the keys and some cash and go ahead to buy a cold soda and pick her up at the trailhead.
It didn’t take too long to get to the road, and I started walking east along it. I was accosted from across the road by a lady who made me come over and tell my story. Apparently she was the new operator of the Wildwood Tavern and was planning to reopen it at the end of the month. I told her I was off to get the truck to pick up my sister, but still it took her getting an important call before she would let me go.
So I got to the truck, took it to the store, bought a ton of drinks at the store, picked Mikella up. She had only been waiting five minutes or so. She drove us to get gas and then to pay the lady who had rented her a parking spot the previous day. Then we decided to drive east toward bigger towns and better food.
As soon as we left the Klamath River Valley, we had cell service again, and I found a nice Italian restaurant in Yreka since we had our hearts set on a cold fresh salad after the heat of the day. Once we found it and put on less smelly shirts to go inside, we got a table and a tall glass each of ice water, which turned out to be better than any of the drinks we were imagining.
We added to that an iced tea each and an order each of the bottomless Minestrone soup, salad, and bread. It was all very good (after a bit of salt and pepper). I finished mine off with a perfect tiramisu.
The whole time we had planned that Mikella would take me back to Seiad Valley that night, drop me off, and then go… somewhere. That was a considerable part of the discussion before and during dinner. She had a campsite paid for in Crater Lake, but couldn’t reach it before 1:30am, and I was worried that would mean drowsy driving. The hotels in Medford weren’t much closer and were strangely expensive. I suggested she just car camp in Seiad Valley where she dropped me off. Eventually, we decided to share a much cheaper hotel room in Yreka, which would mean we could go to bed at a reasonable hour, put me back on the trail at about the time I would hike out if I did camp in Seiad Valley, and put her in Crater Lake somewhat later, which was fine since she had lost interest in hiking after the day’s events.
So we swung by the grocery store and Dollar General to get me enough resupply to get to Etna, and then to the Best Western for cold showers (the place was booked solid for a convention and the other guests had used all the hot water) and a night’s sleep, if not necessarily a full one, sharing a king bed. The plan was to get out bright and early the next morning with maybe a bit of the hotel breakfast in our bellies.
Trail miles: 10
(The Mikella version continues:)
The next morning, we woke up, packed, and were out by 7:40am. David had a breakfast shake. I couldn’t get myself interested in food. After 30 minutes of hiking, I felt more interested and stopped for a granola bar that wasn’t fulfilling to me. Shortly thereafter, I told David I’d need more water soon (I was an idiot and didn’t fill up that morning) and he told me that there was a spring 0.2 miles away. We hiked on. We got up to the ridgeline and I stopped for a break, but David didn’t need one so I told him to go ahead to the spring and I’d catch up soon. Well, I happened to send him ahead at the exact place a trail split. He began his descent and I hiked up towards a lookout spot. David had told me that the PCT is mostly well marked and easy terrain. The area I was on seemed treacherous to me. It was right on the edge of a steep decline with a lot of rubble. But it also sort of looked right…
It was not right.
I got all the way up, peed, panicked a little, saw a snake, and panicked a little more. I had no water, I couldn’t find David, and I was totally off the trail. I yelled his name with no reply. I decided to retrace my steps back to the last place we’d been together. As I came down, I noticed the trail splitting and decided to go the other way. I kept calling David’s name as I went and finally got a reply about 15 min later. He was sitting in a little clearing just totally chilling. He also informed me that the spring was not there. By this point, it was noon and he pointed to a larger clearing below us where we’d have lunch. I told him I needed a quick rest, but would meet him down there. He went ahead. The area we were hiking through at this point had shoulder height (on me) brush and it made the footwork slightly tricky since you couldn’t see your feet at all. It was not my favorite.
We got down to the clearing, ate lunch, had another blackberry cider, and rested for a minute. We also stretched some against a tree. From there forward, it was all downhill. Which may sound like a pleasant reprieve from the uphill of the night before but it was sort of worse. David and I realized that my shoes probably are not the right size which was affecting my foot comfort. I realized that I have absolutely no calf strength which is important for downhills. Also, the sun was now high in the sky and the further you go down into the valley, the hotter it gets. By 1pm, I was starting to get cranky. David had given me some water from his bag after lunch and I was sucking it down pretty fast. I ran out and I was still pretty far from the next water source. David told me to let him know if I needed to drink out of his but I was feeling weird like not really interested in food or water but sorta gross. As it turns out, feeling gross is pretty much the definition of dehydration. My stomach felt a little queasy and I had probably only eaten about 500 calories across the whole day. Yet, I just couldn’t even consider food or water. It was affecting my mood and my hiking ability as well. We were close to a water source and I told David I was resting but to go ahead. He went down, repaired a pipe that was supposed to be a water source, collected water, and started filtering all before I got down. When I arrived the water was close to ready and I wet my bandanna, cooled myself off in the cold water, and relaxed under a tree. I told David how I was feeling and he was like “yep, that’s dehydration! Have you at least eaten?” Well, of course not! He instructed me to eat something while I waited on my water. I pulled out beef jerky and he told me that I probably needed something with sugar/carbs and gave me some Starburst.
I instantly felt better.
We had about another mile to get out of the woods. David hiked ahead so that he could keep going straight to pick up the car and bring it back to the trailhead. It took me about 45 minutes to finish up. In total, the second day of hiking was about 9 miles and it took me about 9 hours. Normal people hike at least twice that speed. Oops. David told me repeatedly that the way to be fast on a downhill is to “be more reckless” but I watched him walk recklessly downhill and I know for a fact I would have fallen a bunch more times. I had already fallen twice on this journey while hiking carefully. I couldn’t risk more! Over the course of the two days, I learned some stuff. For one, David knows a lot of songs! Like at least four by heart and one is in French. I learned that David’s pack is normally under 50lbs but may have gotten over 60lb at some points when he did the AT. I learned that the PCT is the easiest terrain out of the three “triple crown” trails (sometimes called the “piece of cake”), but that the AT has the most support for hikers. I learned that the CDT has both the hardest terrain and the least support. I learned that you can trade Darn Tough socks in for free for another pair. I learned that if you don’t want to eat you should just force it.
Anyways, the hike was done.
David had gone to get the car, picked us up some sodas, and came back to scoop me up at the trailhead. I was fully lounging against my backpack. We left Seiad Valley having completed 14 total miles over the course of ooohhh a million hours. Sorry for the slow down, David! We went to the nearest neighboring city called Yreka. I had told David that after the hike I’d take him wherever he needed to go for a resupply and that we would do dinner. I had planned to get out of Seiad Valley by early afternoon and thought I’d be able to head back up into Oregon to camp near Crater Lake, but when we didn’t get out of the woods til 5, I began to revise my plan. I looked at a couple of different options but ultimately figured I might just take David back to the trailhead then go back and stay in Yreka. I figured I’d mull it over during dinner.
While I drove, David googled various restaurants and read them out to me. I had already told him I wanted a salad after a hot, hot day so when he found a little hole-in-the-wall Italian place, we knew it was perfect. We were worried we looked to disgusting for an Italian restaurant, but we walked in to see a super casual crowd and knew we were fine. We feasted on salad, bread, minestrone soup, and cold iced tea split with lemonade. David had tiramisu and we discussed my plans for the night. David did not think it was a good idea at all to try to get to Crater Lake and we discussed the staying in Yreka thing. When I mentioned it, he was like “well, I can just stay too and then you can take me back to the trail in the morning instead of tonight”. NICE! I was excited because after filling my belly, the sleepiness had quickly come. I wanted a shower and to get horizontal. I made an online hotel reservation and secured the plan. We still had to grab some of David’s resupply so we went to a nearby shopping center then made it into the hotel room around 9pm just in time for showers and bed.
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.
It was a very cold morning and I was very cozy except for the pain in my lower back. And since I didn’t have to hike all that far, I slept in. I got up to go out on the porch of the cabin and pee, and the cold wind blowing across the meadow cut right through me. I ran back to my sleeping bag. The wind sneaked through the cracks in the walls and under windows and doors so it was nearly as cold inside. Eventually, though, I had to get up, put on a coat, and start getting ready. I didn’t hike out until about 9.
The whole morning and into the early afternoon was overcast and frequently foggy. I could watch the clouds falling out of the sky which loomed oppressively like a low ceiling and dissipate as they approached the ground. The sun peaked through around the edges in places, but most of the views I could see from the many openings along the ridgeline were half clouds.
It generally stayed so cool and shady all day that I didn’t want to stop on account of how quickly my temperature would drop to “annoyingly cold”. It’s such a contrast to go from hiking in New Mexico where I wanted to stop and lie in the shade for hours on end while constantly wishing for the clouds to come over and the wind to blow harder to hiking in a place where I am actively seeking out direct sunlight and rarely need to drink to stay hydrated. As a result, I only made five stops of any length all day.
The first was at a spring where I collected 2 liters of water and ate snacks while waiting on it to filter. There was no sun to be found and I didn’t want to make the effort to get out my jacket only to have to put it up before leaving again, so I just sat there and froze.
The second was lunch on a rock on an exposed ridgeline. I managed to get some sunlight here only lightly filtered by clouds. It was not so cold and windy as it had been in the morning, although it was cold enough that I wanted to get hiking and lunch didn’t last long. The section after this was the shadiest and coolest of the day with frequent snow patches crossing the trail.
The third was an afternoon snack break where I made a hydration drink. I hadn’t been drinking much since I finished my breakfast. I was surrounded by water from the sky all day and hadn’t been sweating at all. I forced myself to make the drink and drink it just because it seemed like it was time. It also gave me an excuse to take my pack off for a few minutes. But not more than ten. I was eager to get hiking.
The fourth was just to go investigate a spring that was just off trail. I didn’t really need the water, but I was curious what it looked like and how well it was flowing. This wasn’t really a break since I didn’t sit down, but it gave me a chance to stretch my back muscles which were starting to get too used to my slightly bent forward posture.
The last was dinner, taken at 6. It was getting cool again because the sun was low and hidden behind a peak (since the ridge ran east/west. So I ate before my rice was fully cooked just to put the warmth in me, then wandered up to the top of the ridgeline to drink my dessert just to find one of the handful of small patches of remaining sunlight to stand in. It didn’t help much.
I met a man hiking the other way after dinner who didn’t seem to think much of my hat but also thought I was crazy enough to hike another at least 15 miles down into the valley that night. We discussed the availability of campsites on the sections behind us and parted ways.
I went another 2 miles or so, passing into a section of hillside that had somewhat recently burned. I came to a saddle filled with bumpy ridges, fallen and burned tree corpses. I cleared a bunch of debris out of the one relatively level spot I found that was big enough to fit my tent and set up. The sun sets much later at this longitude (relative to its time zone) than where I had been in New Mexico, so it was still easy to see at 9 by the time I was getting my boots off and crawling into my tent. But the moment the sun set, the temperature started rapidly dropping. It got cold enough that I was getting chills even in my sleeping bag with my coat on just a half hour later. The birds all went dead silent at sunset, probably snuggled together in nests themselves. Thankfully, there was no wind. Altogether, it was a perfectly silent night.
But nothing happens in Grants in the morning, so… half of it would just be lying around.
It started with a miserable effort to make percolator coffee on the stove–the trucker lady who’d stayed in the room next door after I went to bed had cleared out by the time I left my room. (Actually, it started with getting a few more days ahead on this blog while still in bed, but that didn’t take long.)
Anyway, the percolator produced nothing more than slightly brown hot water in the hour I left it on the stove, so Ranger Ross came in and tried again, and this time something almost coffee-like, though very weak, appeared. He left to go on patrol shortly thereafter.
So I gathered up all my party foods from the fridge and carried them up to the dorm house to catch up on my shoes on the roku TV until noon. During this time, a free-spirited wanderer of a guest came in declaring he didn’t know how long he was staying or where he was going as he didn’t like to make any plans. But he absolutely had to have a public space like a coffee shop or library to work on his laptop. He left to do that and I never saw him again.
Early in the afternoon, I put the rest of my clothes in the wash and took a bike uptown to visit the Cibola Arts Council, a gallery of local artists with a small exhibit of historical photos and artifacts from the area, mostly documenting the time from the 19th Century through the 70s. I think I was the first visitor in half a month.
As the winery next door was closed, I returned to the hostel to hang up my laundry, then pedaled out to Elkins Brewery at the far edge of town. I arrived just after it opened but it already had half a dozen people in it. I spoke extensively with a very interesting man who worked there for most of the time I was there enjoying my flight. He was a vet and operated a professional photography company, having operated his own company as a school and event photographer, as well as doing events for Getty and set lighting and continuity photography for a number of films. He had gotten a server license on a whim and had been a bartender at both breweries in town. He was also a serious biker and had grown up in the area.
After an hour or so there, I made a mistake by going to Pizza 9 to dine in. The pizza they mistakenly referred to as a Chicago-style deep dish was actually quite good. I ordered too much for me to eat though (an entire medium) and ate it all. I was basically ignored by my server and had to fight to get service. There was a graduation party in the other room and the DJs were actually spinning some great tracks, though it might have distracted the servers from their other customers. They also had a drive through window and deliveries. But the servers seemed to just stand around, so maybe they were doing okay staffing-wise and just needed better training and management.
Anyway, the reason that was a mistake is that I went to Junkyard on 66 Brewery next and, since they didn’t do flights, I could only try one beer before I was completely full. It was a cool place and they had barbecue for sale, so I should have just gone there to begin with. I left after the one beer with an intention to return after I had digested some and maybe try the sour or the guest stout, but it didn’t really happen.
I lay in bed in my room listening to a podcast and making one call, and by the time I felt like I had room in my stomach, I was sleepy and the brewery would be closing soon after I could get there anyway. So I got packed, then took a quick shower to try to cool off (after a couple of girls started to move into the next room, changed their minds, and left, all without saying a word to me even as they walked right past me) and went to bed nude because it was just so hot in my room.
Lava Flow hostel
Elkins Brewery interior
Junkyard Brewery interior
Junkyard Brewery interior
Day 35: Albuquerque
Since I was already packed, all I had to do before my ride arrived was put my linens and towels in the wash, clean the bathroom, and generally tidy up what I dirtied. All part of the hostel experience.
When Margaret and her daughter Anne Grace arrived a bit after 8, I was sitting outside at the picnic table with my cherries and a last root beer while one of the hostel cats investigated all of my things.
What I can say about the ~1 hour trip to Albuquerque is that I did not really have to put in any effort to keep up my end of the conversation. Margaret had more than enough stories to fill a ride to anywhere, and even the simplest question could draw one out that would eventually make a related point. I can’t possibly remember everything I learned about life in rural New Mexico, but I came away with the impression that it is very different from the life I’m used to.
We parked at the corner of Old Town long before much of it had opened and started wandering around poking into shops full of native jewelry, pottery, and bolo ties. We were probably the first to buy ice cream that morning. I also tried the most incredible green chile corn muffin.
After a few hours of wandering past the three century old adobe buildings and seeing the area slowly come to life, we decided to visit the Albuquerque Museum, which had both an art gallery (mixing every style and medium together in one connected space) and a local history and culture gallery. Possibly Anna was not particularly enthralled with all the things we saw, but she remained remarkably tractable and well-behaved for the entire hour and change we spent there. It was clear that she was flagging a bit by the end, but then, so was I.
So I led the way to Ponderosa Brewing Company where Margaret and I had the most enormous deconstructed chef’s salads and Anna picked apart some burgers and fries. It was a nice little respite from the heat with some very tasty cold brews.
After lunch, we still had enough time for something fun, so we walked backed into Old Town to visit the Rattlesnake Museum, which was a tiny little space brimming with an immense collection of reptiles in small cages, mostly rattlesnakes. Some of them were huge and some were tiny. Many of the snakes had rare colorings or patterns. Most of them were species I had never seen, including one variety discovered only as recently as 1999 that biologists have not yet decided whether to classify as a new species or a subspecies of an existing one. It was definitely worth the visit.
After that, we had just enough time for Anna to explore a flower garden before we needed to get me to the airport. I said my goodbyes in the car just after 3, checked my backpack, recalled it, put my knife in it, then sent it back again. Security was a breeze, so I spent most of 2 hours sitting at the gate.
Then it was a brief hop from ABQ to SLC, where I had a three hour layover until my connection to MFR. In other words, my travel for the day involved more time spent in airports than on airplanes. I’m sure Umesh Vazirani would say I’m spending too much time in airports.
I spent the first hour and a half of my wait in a pub having dinner (jambalaya with a brownie for dessert plus coffee to keep me awake until I could finally make it to my hotel that night). Then I went to my gate and spent the next hour talking to a fellow traveler who was raised in New Mexico but was going to school for computer science in Ashland. Very engaging and a great way to pass the remaining time.
Finally, it was a short 1.5 hour hop to Medford. The airport shuttle came and picked me up after a short wait and I was delivered to my hotel about midnight. As soon as I got to my room I was getting ready for bed. If not for the coffee I had during my layover, I probably would have fallen asleep on the shuttle ride over. As it was, I managed to stay awake just long enough to take in my hotel room to the fullest. It was just fine for a cheap hotel. All the amenities I could want…
Low Rider
ABQ terminal
Day 36: Medford
…The most important of which would be a grocery store a hundred yards away.
I slept in as much as I could. My watch told me to get up at 5, but I easily got back to sleep after that. My eyes told me to get up at 6–there was sunlight leaking around the blackout curtains. I found that harder to ignore, but I tried, and got a handful more winks before getting up a bit after 7.
After showering and everything, I went to the breakfast room for the grab and go breakfast. The same stuff as the Burbank Quality Inn, which is to say not much of a breakfast. But hey, it was included. So I took a couple of pastries sealed in plastic, a couple of yogurt cups, a banana, and a coffee in the tiniest disposable cup.
I ate in my room then walked over to the grocery store. An hour later I came back with everything I would need for a few days on the trail and more. After putting it all in my pack along with my full bag of water, I left my room 15 minutes before checkout time with a pack weighing only 2.5 tons to weight at the lobby for my Uber to REI.
It was only five minutes or so away and I was in and trying on boots by a bit after eleven. I acquired new boots, an extra pair of socks, new shorts, new calf sleeves, a new long-handled spoon, a couple of fancy dried dinners (since I had avoided buying dinners at the grocery store just to make room for some of that delicious pad Thai in a pouch), and a whole bunch of Nuun. After signing the PCT log book and spending another 15 minutes fitting everything else in my pack, I walked out wearing my new shorts, calf sleeves, and boots to wait for my Lyft just after noon.
I shot Matt a message letting him know when I would arrive in Talent and he okayed. You remember Matt? He is the one that rescued me off the trail in the middle of the snow back in November. And he was actually excited to take me back up.
I got to the Ray’s Food Place 5 minutes before him, so I went inside to the deli counter to buy some proper lunch. The trip up to the trail would take at least an hour, and the flimsy hotel breakfast was already wearing off. I got a fried chicken breast and some potato wedges and a Powerade to start getting hydrated. Matt plus one showed up in his big gray F-350 while I was eating.
It turned out one of his daughters wanted to come along. She turned out to be just as excited as he was. They went inside to get snacks for the trip while I tossed my pack in the bed. The truck was a crew cab, so there was more than enough room for us all.
Once we got started up that long dirt road into the mountains, there was plenty to talk about. The weather. (It had been in the hundreds in the valley a week ago and might be getting up there again, but also a heavy rain a few days before had fallen as snow up in the mountains.) Why he hadn’t brought the Jeep. (The stereo amplifier was busted.) Why one of his twin daughters came along. (She was the nature lover like him; the other took after her mom and had no interest in it.) How the valley was recovering from the Alameda fire. (Great for him, though he was getting tired of doing nothing but putting back together everything he had lost, but there were still plenty of people in hotels or FEMA shelters or living in encampments along the bike path in Medford. These latter would be a fine way to let the huge numbers of newly homeless make the best of a bad situation if they could keep the camps clean and stop setting poorly contained fires during exactly the sorts of conditions that led to two cities getting burned down just half a year before. Also, many people with property couldn’t afford to rebuild with the price of lumber having inflated to nine times its previous price.) He also volunteered which of his relatives are good for nothing, or on trial for murder, and that the friend who had gone rolling in Jeeps with him that day last November had an alcohol problem. I have never felt so plugged in to the rumor mill.
We ended up going up by a completely different road than we came down by last year, and everything looked completely different anyway without all the snow. Neither of us, in fact, had been up to Wrangle Camp in the summer, so we stopped there to take a look at it in less-white conditions. I also learned there was a small cabin of sorts just a tiny bit further down the road. I wonder if I could have spent the night there instead of the privy if I had known it existed.
Anyway, we drove the rest of the way up to the pass and took a picture before he and his daughter took the truck down a different road to spend the rest of the day exploring. Matt refused any sort of compensation and I never got his daughter’s name. As we parted, we looked up at the handful of heavy black clouds dotting the sky, and Matt said, “I think it’s going to rain tomorrow.”
Anyway, I was finally hiking again. Three days in town was plenty enough for me. And it was a lovely little bit of trail indeed. It frequently came out onto exposed hillsides with incredible views.
After a little over 3 miles of slowly climbing along a hillside, I reached the high point for the day, crossed a road, and stopped for a break. I made an immunity nuun drink, but I couldn’t finish it.
In fact, I found that I was basically overhydrated. It was both cooler and more humid than what I was used to in New Mexico, so I was losing hardly any water through sweat. I was peeing more often and it was coming out as clear and uncolored as a fresh spring.
Speaking of springs, I passed a ton of them as I began my descent from that mountain. Every quarter mile or so, there was water flowing over the trail. At one point, there was a huge pond just down the hill from me. Combine that with how hydrated I was staying without drinking more and it was clear that I was carrying the weight of a full water bag for absolutely no reason. I’m going to have to adjust to carrying less water for a while. It’s such a contrast to where I just left, where a full bag is often not enough by itself and I was always thirsty.
I also encountered my first snow on the trail on the north side of Observation Peak, including a huge drift that I had to kick steps into to get on top of. I had a lot more of that to look forward to.
I stopped for dinner in a meadow at the California/Oregon border. By this time, the clouds had joined forces into one large raincloud except at the horizon where blue sky was visible. Just as I was finishing up, it started lightly sprinkling on me. I had enough time to pack up and get my Packa on before it got heavy.
In fact, it was still only a light rain when I reached the border marker a half mile later (the trail just runs right along the border for a half a mile before the “official” crossing where it turns straight down the hill into California). There are only two state border crossings on the PCT, and this was the only one on land. It was also the first one true northbounders would see. There was a log book, and I found some names I recognized in it from last year. Also, I was only the third one to sign it that day even though it had very few signatures over the last few months. When it rains it pours, I guess.
Speaking of rain, I hurriedly closed the border box to keep the book from getting soaked and hiked another half mile downhill to the Donomoe Cabin, which had been restored in recent years enough to provide hikers some shelter. As soon as I was high and dry under the tin roof, the rain really picked up. Thanks for waiting, clouds.
It was just me and the mice in the cabin that night. I slept on a folding cot–practically a bed right?–and the mice did a fine job of staying out of my stuff. It was quite chilly outside, but it stayed a few degrees warmer inside the cabin.
It wasn’t a long hiking day by any means, but then, I didn’t have far to get. Everything had worked out fine to get me on the trail with time to spare and few miles to go. The trail was mostly smooth and easy, especially compared to the condition I last saw it in, and the next day would be no trouble either.
Trail miles: 7.4
I know exactly one of these names from last year
waiting in the Ray’s parking lot
The privy I stayed in (sans snow)
the fireplace that kept me warm in the storm
Wrangle Pass
this tree brings to mind a certain episode of South Park
I think it’s reasonable that I was in no hurry to leave camp this morning. After all, I knew I was only a few hours from town and there would be plenty of time to get done what needed doing. On top of that, the canyon walls kept me in the shade until well after sunrise. It was 8am before I hiked out, continuing to follow the old road bed until I came near an easy place to climb up to the new road.
Somewhere between where I left it the previous night and where I rejoined it this morning, it had switched from gravel to paved. Ick. At least the traffic remained pretty light. I wondered if I shouldn’t have stayed on the cow track on the old road even though it was on the sunny side of the canyon and went through private property.
Not that there was much shade on the side of the new road. The canyon walls were getting shorter and shorter–or else I was rising to meet them. Regardless, as soon as the city came into sight–and sound–I called Mama. We had business to discuss and I needed distraction from the heat as I walked a paved road through a neighborhood on the outskirts of Grants for nearly five miles.
We had it somewhat worked out by the time I reached the bridge over the interstate and turned onto Route 66, so I hung up and crossed the road to get lunch at a Mexican eatery, the kind obviously adapted from a fast food place. I had a chicken fajita (which only came with one tortilla for some reason, but there was avocado so who could mind) and a couple of A&Ws because the Barqs I had had at Ice Cave just left me wanting–nothing is as good as A&W. But the real star of the show was the life-changing Cucumber Lime Agua Fresca I got to go.
It was actually interesting to walk through downtown Grants. It’s a very neat town for having peaked in the 60s and been on the decline since the arrival of the interstate made Route 66 redundant and all the mining operations shut down. It seems very likely to become the next Moab given a couple of decades.
I found my way to the Lava Flow Hostel, where I had booked a room while in Pie Town. There was no front desk–it worked like an AirBnB (and is listed there too). You can walk right in using the door code you’re emailed. My room in the back cottage was ready when I arrived.
And Banshee was in the shower. In the only bathroom. Which I desperately needed. Thank goodness he was quick about it.
Anyway, after I got a shower of my own, I got my dirty laundry together and went up to the dorm house to put it in. Banshee was in there watching TV and waiting on the linens in the washer. He indicated he intended to hike out that very afternoon since he’d already been there a couple of days. I asked him to drop my stuff in the washer when his was done and headed off to the grocery store to buy party foods on one of the loaner bikes.
I got a ton of stuff. Lots of drinks. Chips and dip. Cheese sticks and cookies and pastries and a ton of fresh fruit. And somehow I managed to get it all in my small daypack and the basket of the bike.
When I returned, Banshee was hanging the linens on the drying line, so I got him to have some dip and a bit of watermelon before he walked out and told him I’d take in the wash. Then I settled down in the living room to catch up with friends online.
I brought in the linens for the room Banshee stayed in, but the one wash hadn’t really gotten my clothes as clean as I wanted. I threw in a couple of different kinds of detergent and set the washer for a more intense cycle, then went back to my room.
While passing an hour on YouTube, Ranger Ross, the proprietor, returned in his ranger uniform. I introduced myself and soon went out to hang up my wash. He was doing all kinds of maintenance on the cottage the whole time. He disassembled, repaired, and deep cleaned the stove. Later, he painted labels on the doors of the guest rooms. He probably did a ton of other stuff, all while drinking Diet Coke with ice from an enormous glass he carried to every work location. For most of the evening, I was working on stuff for my blog on the cottage desktop computer while he was working nearby, telling me interesting stuff about the area. Super nice guy with some sharp thoughts.
It was well after 9 by the time I got all my blog posts scheduled and I could go to bed knowing I was free and clear the next day to just hang out and explore anything interesting the town had to offer. Or even just lie around and do nothing for hours. So I went to bed, leaving Ross to keep working out in the common area.
Speaking of the next day, there will be no hiking happening for the next two days, so no normal posts either. There will still be posts, but it won’t be this sort of post. I’ll cover the highlights of the next three days… three days from now.
Trail miles: 6.2
still looks like a proper canyon
I was amused to see a Phillips 66 standing on the highway it was named for
self-feeding radiator stove that requires no power
entrance to back cottage (and swamp cooler) and dorm house at Lava Flow Hostel
