Category: PCT CA Section Q

Yet again, a late night was followed by a sleepy morning. I was on the trail before 8:30. I messaged Sole Saver when I got a cell signal 3 miles from the trailhead about getting picked up. And again at 1.4 miles from the trailhead. I arrived at Etna Summit before 10am.

Someone was dropping off a hiker here and offered to carry me down. The hiker (Blender) handed me a half melted snickers ice cream bar in passing and then the driver (Kate) said that he had planned to be driven to the trail by Sole Saver but she was having car trouble. So I took her offer of a ride into town.

She dropped me at the Etna Motel, but they had no vacancies, nor did the nearby Collier Hotel, so I paid the city 5 dollars (online) to let me camp in the park and then went to Ray’s (for limes and root beer) and Dollar General (for the rest of my resupply, which I packed up right outside the store while polishing off my six pack of mini A&W root beers.

I relocated to the park only to find that the shower there did not run on quarters but tokens sold at Ray’s. I went back and paid 5 dollars for the shower (including towel) and returned to the park to find that with the power outlet the shower would eat the tokens and not turn on at all. So I made my own shower by putting my water bag on the shower rack and using the provided shampoo and towel to get clean. I didn’t mind the lack of hot water. Down there in the valley, it was already 98F outside, so I would have opted for a cooler shower anyway.

I left all my stuff in the shower cabin, which was its own separate single stall building, and carried my dirty laundry to the laundromat. In the spirit of things not working, the detergent dispenser was broken, so I had to go to the nearby gas station to buy a small bottle of detergent. The next hour was pretty uneventful, just waiting for clothes to wash and dry. I took my laundry back to the shower to change and put the unused detergent and the shower card (which had a 7 dollar balance–enough for 3 more people to do laundry, as the minimum amount you can put on them is 9 dollars) in the hiker box next to it.

It was late afternoon by this point, so I walked over to the Etna Brewing Company for dinner (along with the other two hikers who were staying in the park with me, though we sat separately).

Over dinner (scotch egg, rib sandwich with root beer barbecue sauce, salad) and drinks (six small pours of their brews and their root beer–the stand-outs were the blackberry blonde, the Triple IPA, and the blackberry sour), I watched a TV show with a friend back home, uploaded a few blog posts, and made some phone calls and texts arranging upcoming hiking logistics.

Finally, around 7:30, I returned to the park to remove my things from the shower and set up my tent, then immediately get inside to flee from the bugs. As it was going to be a relatively warm night, I folded back my vestibules completely for optimal airflow. I basically never do that. Then I messed around on my phone for a few hours as the light faded.

I did, at some point during the day, arrange for Sole Saver to carry me back to the trail in the morning, so it seemed like I wouldn’t be trapped in town after all.

Trail miles: 3.8

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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.

Trail miles: 16.6

Distance to Etna: 3.8 miles

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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.

Trail miles: 17.6

Distance to Etna: 20.6 miles

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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

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(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.