Fri. Oct. 7       Miles today:??? Don’t know–no guidebook     No. CA Section R

Well, it was great to be able to SEE this morning!  We were up on a mountaintop instead of in a dark canyon, so we were able to get up earlier.  Last night, a cloud came over us, then left again, so it was a clear morning when we first got up.  The sunrise was very pretty!  But what really surprised us were the large fog banks moving over some of the ridges.  It looked just like back at home when the ocean fog rolls in like a white tidal wave. 

We started off along the trail, and as soon as we had a good “sunpatch”, BEFORE we had to walk into the fog, we stopped for a quick, cold breakfast.  No mochas today–we needed to save every minute, and every drop of water!  We got to a very confusing trail junction where we weren’t sure which was the PCT, till we finally spotted a PCT emblem on a tree, but facing where only a SOBO would see it.  Grrrr!  Then we met a hunter.  Yikes!  I quickly put my red bandanna back on top of my pack!  Only ten minutes later, we hit ANOTHER junction, and this one was really tough to figure out.  There were no signs or emblems to indicate which direction of the “Y” was the PCT, and both directions looked well-travelled.  One was slightly blocked by a rockslide and headed downhill and northwest.  The other ws blocked by a stone wall with a cute green “garden gate.”  It went northeast. 

We stood around debating what to do, and finally chose the gated trail, since we knew the PCT here did generally go northeast.  But 15 minutes of happily charging down the hill, past a pretty lake, on a trail tread sparkling with mica bits, turned into dismay and frustration.  The trail ended, and there was the hunter’s truck.  Beyond it was a mishmash of dirt roads, and not a sign of the PCT.  We assumed we’d chosen the wong trail, and climbed sadly back up, through the green gate, and onto the other trail.

But 20 minutes of very steep downhill, in an increasingly wrong direction, with ever worse trail tread had me so uneasy that I said to Bill, “This CAN’T be right.  I think we should go back to the hunter’s truck and just roadwalk over to Cook  & Green Pass.  Then we’ll find th PCT again.”  Bill agreed, and slowly climbed all the way back up the hill, with me following him, very worried because I could see that he was rapidly becoming very tired.  Back through the green gate, down to the truck, and we started to walk northeast along one of the roads.  And guess what?  Not far from the truck, around a bend of the rough dirt road, there was that sneaky PCT!!!  We HAD been right to choose the gated trail!  Hooray!  Now we were on track again.

Later on, we met another confusing junction, but I told Bill to just rest while I took a quick trip alone down the “probably wrong” trail to confirm that it was NOT the PCT.  The guy in the store at Seiad Valley must not have had very good information if he thought the PCT was “well marked”.  We wished very fervently that there were more PCT emblems AND that the emblems were placed in such a way that it’s clear which trail is which.  Putting an emblem right in the middle of a “Y” junction is mildly reassuring (At least we know we’re CLOSE to the PCT) but it is no help in deciding which way to go.  I began a little bit of inward fretting over all the delay we were having because of the poorly marked trail, then kicking myself and saying, “Stop it!  You managed to find the trail every time, and if it means a delay, well, just trust God that His timing is right!”

As we continued on, Bill and I talked about water.  We had no idea where the next spring or creek might be.  And just then, along came another backpacker, heading south.  He said there was a spring only a few miles beyond the next pass.  Good!  A nice long, easy downhill to the pass (and great mountain views along the way) and…surprise!  There was a whole crowd of people at the road!  A trail crew!  When I asked for some water, they practically had a shoving match over who would share some of their water with us!  I ended up with a FULL load in my 2-liter Platypus!  Wonderful!  And Bill and I were both awed at God’s care for us once again.

We began the climb up frm the pass, enjoying the fall foliage of the bushes along the trail, then stopped for a great lunch with a view that stretched for miles.  It was very cloudy and chilly–I had to put on my jacket.  Thoughts of “big storm coming” were flitting across my mind, but I pushed them away.  After lunch, the PCT turned into an enormous roller coaster, going up and down along the crest.  We reached the spring the other hiker had told us about, and yuck! It was all tramped by cows and full of gross slimy stuff.  Good thing we’d been able to get water from the trail crew!  But my 2 liters pretty much got used up by lunch plus hiking, and Bill’s water was running low.  We figured all we could do was just keep walking and trust God to provide.

At 3:00, we stopped for a candy bar, and along came 2 hunters with a dog.  Even the dog was wearing an orange vest!  They advised us to go to Reeve’s Spring, almost a mile offtrail up ahead.  Sigh.  Well, at least we knew where to go.  We were just finishing up our candy, when along came 2 more hunters.  We asked them about Reeve’s Spring, and they shook their heads.  “You don’t want to go there.  Somebody shot it up real bad and busted it all to heck, and it’s WAY off your PCT trail.  You come with us to our camp–we’ve got plenty of water.”  And so that’s what we did! Talk about perfect timing!  Now I knew why God let us get muddled and delayed this morning–so we’d be at exactly the right place at the right time to meet the hunters and get water! 

Well, the camp turned out to be really something.  It was just off the PCT.  All the hunters were there, and gladly gave us all the water we needed, plus a beer, which we drank with them and exchanged stories of our hiking and their hunting.  It was a very wonderful time, and for us a time of EXTREME gratefulness to God for HIs care and provision.  When we finally had to leave, the hunters told us, “Just walk straight up that little ridge there, and you’ll hit the PCT.”  So we did, and kept on walking till sundown (6:30 pm!  We don’t get much daylight anymore!) where we found a nice quiet (we thought!!) campsite deep in the woods.  We’d just finished setting up the tarp, when only a little ways away, a hunter truck went by!  We had no idea that a road was so close. 

But we figured we were safe under our white tarp, and watched the clouds rolling in and blotting out the stars. It was very cold, and we were all bundled up with lots of layers inside our sleeping bags.  We were not sure where we were, without a proper map, but hopefully we were at least halfway to Ashland!  What an incredible day it’s been!  God is awesome!

Thurs. Oct. 6      Miles today: 18.4 plus ?? miles         No. CA Section Q          Seiad Valley

Last night by Grider Creek was the DARKEST night we’ve had on the whole PCT!  When I turned off my headlamp after writing journal notes, it was pitch black.  And I do mean it–I literally could not see my hand right in front of my face!  I tried to figure out WHY, and came to the conclusion that it was a combination of being deep in a forested canyon, with thick clouds overhead and no moon.

This morning it was so dark that we had to wait till almost 6:30 to get up.  We hurried across the bridge in the still-dim light and set out along Grider Creek, aiming for the campground 3 miles away, where we planned to eat breakfast.  The creek was really pretty, with lots of rocks and cascades and of course trees–many showing some fall color.  We enjoyed sitting at a TABLE for breakfast, and then it was time for several miles of roadwalking into Seiad Valley.  We really enjoyed that walk!  It was a cool, clear autumn morning, with great scenery, and we only had a few “dog problems”, easily solved by brandishing our trek sticks until the dogs got the message.  We reached the rushing Klamath River and enjoyed even the long walk around to the bridge.  Some PCTers complain about this “annoying detour” and even brave crossing the river to avoid it, but we found the walk very pretty and relaxing. 

Finally we got to the bridge and there we saw a sign warning drivers on the highway to look out for HORSES on the bridge.  Our reaction was, “Horses?  Hey, what about us HIKERS?”  The town of Seiad Valley turned out to be small but very pretty.  Each house has a large yard and many had gardens.  Of course we headed straight for the  “Pancake Challenge” cafe!  We didn’t even dare try to beat the challenge of eating five  1-lb pancakes within 2 hours, and when I ordered the “short stack” of two pancakes, the owner/cook shook his head and said, “You’d better make that ONE pancake.”  So I agreed, thinking, “I can always order another one,” and began happily sippng an awesome blackberry milkshake while reading the pCT hiker register, plus adding an entry for us. 

Well, the “one” pancake arrived.  It filled the plate, and was 1 inch thick!  I managed to eat 3/4 of it, along with 4 sausages.  Wow!!!  Bill couldn’t finish his, either.  Then we got our box from the State of Jefferson post office, and I started a little bit of laundry (just enough to get us to Ashland) at the very PCT hiker-friendly RV park next door.  Bill and I discussed how much food to take on this last leg of our journey.  Normally, at our 22 miles a day basic pace, it would be 2 1/2 days, but Bill is having such a hard time with even easy uphills that we decided to make it “3 plus” days.  I inventoried and sorted food and wrote a shopping list, while Bill lay down to rest in the shade, knowing we have a killer 4,000 foot climb out of here.  I was a bit concerned, because there were no maps of the PCT from here to Ashland in our resupply box.  With all the muddle when we “flipped” up to Oregon from Tehachapi, somehow they must have been misplaced.  I hoped maybe the store would have some sort of map I could buy or copy.

Before I went to the store, I put our bit of laundry (socks and shirts) in the dryer, and went off to do my shopping and to check the store hiker box.  But alas!  There was no hiker box–the store guy said he thought all the PCT hikers were done for the year, and he had thrown everything away.  “Do you have any trail map I could buy?”  I asked.  Nope, he didn’t.  I asked him about the PCT up north and he assured me that the trail was well marked and easy to follow. And when he heard that Bill and I were headed for Ashland, he said, “Well, you’d better hurry!  There’s another big storm due in on Saturday.”  Yikes!  That was the day after tomorrow!  Very sober, I finished shopping, loaded our food bags, then went to get the laundry.

Another lady who had been in the laundromat washing her clothes saw me when I came in, and said, “Uh, something’s gone wrong with the dryer.  It sort of wrecked your clothes.”  To my horror, even though I’d set the dryer for medium LOW, it had MELTED all but one sock, and melted holes all over Bill’s shirt.  My shirt ws intact, but had shrunk quite a bit, and my fleece gloves were semi-melted but still usable.  The melted socks had literally turned into blobs of plastic stuff stuck to the dryer.  We went and got the RV park owner, and he went to work on trying to pry the “blobs” off the dryer drum.  This meant that I was down to only the socks I was wearing, plus the ones I wear at night, with maybe 3 days of hiking yet to go.  I asked the helpful lady if I could buy a pair of her socks, and she insisted on GIVING me a pair.  That was a help, but it meant that from now to the finish I’ll be walking with no liner socks.  I hoped I wouldn’t get a bunch of blisters!  Bill surveyed his now “motheaten” shirt and decided to just wear it, holes and all.  I put on my shrunken shirt, and it was also still wearable, but the sleeves only came partway down my arm and didn’t reach my wrists anymore.  All I could think was, “Whew!   I’m sure glad this waited to happen till we were almost done with the trail, and not hundreds of miles ago!”

It was now well into the afternoon, and it was a warm one–temperatures in the 80’s–when Bill and I hoisted our packs to begin the LAST leg of our PCT journey.  We felt excited (“We’re almost done!”) but concerned (“What about that big storm that’s coming in?”).  It was a pleasant roadwalk down the highway to where PCT trail resumes.  We said to each other, “Well, here goes–the BIIIIIIG slog!  And of course, we can’t break our tradition of always doing big slogs in the afternoon, when the weather is the hottest!”   I told Bill to go in front, since uphills are so hard on him, and to my delight, he just began chugging right up the hill.  I guess the good rest at the RV park and the good food at the cafe must have really helped!  (Or maybe it was still the “good day/bad day” pattern?)

Our goal was to at least get to the top of the first big climb, and we did it–past Lower Devil’s Peak and on over the Upper Peak.  The only map we had was the “section summary” map that gave us the general picture of where the trail went, along with major landmarks.  It looked pretty straightforward, but our one big worry was WATER. Without the guidebook, data book, and detailed maps, we had no idea where to find water along the trail.  We would literally have to trust God to supply that need.  Finding a campsite in the area of Upper Devil’s Peak turned out to be tough.  I finally ended up using my little orange trowel to level off a spot of ground for us.  And Bill was feeling OK!  He was able to hike steadily on up to here, and he was not feeling totally wasted.  So I went to bed thinking, “If we can just beat that storm, we are doing great!  Thankyou, Lord!”