Day 44, Wednesday, August 12. TM 977.6—(16.5 miles)

Our last night in Oregon was a bust. I slept great for the second night in a row and I credit the new CBD potion I bought in Ashland. The bust was not seeing a bear. Allegedly, the giant raccoons do exist in Oregon. One girl we met on the trail claimed to have seen one just outside of Shelter Cove. We missed that one as well. A couple yesterday, Salt and McGyver, said they saw one at Bear Dog Creek which is where we’re headed for our first night in California. 

I look ahead. Not like Bear looks ahead. He routinely falls asleep studying the next day’s map. He’s even been known to drop his phone on his face a time or two. My point being is that there is a pit latrine at an old cabin less than a mile into California. We are camped less than 0.3 miles from the border. I used to make it a week at a time when I was attending Boy Scout camp. I can make a mile to not have to dig a hole. I was the only one who planned ahead today. 

Sassy did give me inspiration for a song when I mentioned that I was the only one with enough bowel control to pull off the multistage brown blaze. 

 🎶 Bowel Control to Major Tom.
  Pit latrine lies just beyond.
  Hold your load until there. 
  There is no filter for brown air. 🎶

An instant trail classic. Even better than 🎶 I kissed a squirrel and I liked it. 🎶

We met a couple of guys, Wrong Way and Savior, at the border who had just the register. They had spent 4 1/2 months making their way through California. The PCT in CA is almost 1700 miles long…California is a huge state in area and population with over 38 million residents (more than the population of Canada). We chatted for a bit, took pictures, and signed the log book. In the spirit of William Shakespeare, inspired by our recent stay in Ashland, I could think of only one thing to say—“Get thee to a privy!”

I ran ahead of the rest. I was under a time crunch. I have a window of opportunity that is only open for so long of a morning and I could feel the window starting to close. I’m all about weight reduction these past few days. Spoiler alert, I made it. All I’ll say is that it was a 3 sided privy with a view up the mountain. It could have had better view orientation, but beggars can’t be choosers. There was a sign on the wall asking hikers to not throw trash in the hole as over 700 people use this outhouse every year. 

It only took an hour for us to cover the first 1.1 miles of the day, but it was an eventful start. It was time to get serious. Bear called for hiking formation and off we went. These next few days don’t make a lo5 of sense to be as we will be heading predominantly West to form a big loop before turning South and then, eventually back East. This is how the PCT makes a 40 mile distance from Mt Shasta into a 200 mile trail experience. 

We had not started the day carrying a lot of water because the Trinity Alp section which we have entered has many more reliable water sources. We verified this by stopping after a couple of miles for a snack and filling up with water. There’s another source in just 3 miles, so we only carried a bit over a liter each. This is how we hiked on the Appalachian Trail. We just carried a liter of water most of the time to save weight. 

Our hiker appetites are starting to grow after nearly 500 miles. Bear and Sassy had already hiked about 300 miles before joining us on the PCT, so Sassy’s appetite has been strong for quite a while. We’re just starting to catch up to her. We stopped for a lunch break at the junction to the next spring. After looking at the water 400’ below us, we decided we could make it another 6 miles with what we had on us. 

There were many more hikers on the trail today. It would appear that we have caught up with and are passing the bubble. In my opinion, most of these hikers are going to be running into snow in the North Cascades before they finish. Most hikers are aware of the risk, but are delaying making any decision to jump north and head back south. There is a big arrogance on the PCT regarding thru-hike purity. Most young hikers out here only accept a continuous hike in all one direction to be a success. On the AT, a thru-hike is defined as hiking the entire trail in a single year regardless of direction, flip flopping, slack packing, what have you. I definitely felt this arrogance last year when we were flipping around in the desert to keep moving because of all of the snow. 

One hiker told us it’s all part of the adventure. If you don’t run the chance of failure, it’s not an adventure. The PCT is not an adventure, it’s a challenge. An adventure is what Lewis and Clark did when they spent two years exploring pristine territory that didn’t have roads and trail. Today’s hikers have a Guthook which tells them everything they need to know, including where all the hard to find water is. We have towns every 50 miles on average to buy supplies. The adventurers were on their own. They might have gotten some help from Native Americans, but they killed their own food. The PCT is difficult. It is challenging. It can be a right of passage. It can be lots of things, but an adventure? All the tools at our disposal and the ability to mitigate risk would kind of reduce its stature as an adventure in the traditional sense of the word. 

By the time we made it to Bear Dog Spring, Bunny and I had been out of water for a couple of miles. If we hadn’t had Guthook to tell us where the water was and, if we weren’t carrying Sawyer water filters, it might have been more of an adventure for us finding water. Instead, we knew there was a water source hiding about 50’ off trail which we would have never found on our own. Now if a Bear had shown up while we were filtering, that would have been a bit of an adventure. Alas, we just had a bit of a challenge today. 

The camp we had set our sights on was less than a mile from the spring. We still try not to camp near water because wildlife relies on the same water we do and if people take over water sources, animals suffer. Although, it might increase our chances of seeing a bear. We rumbled on into camp and we’re trying to pick out tent sites. Bear went into an area in the trees and found a good looking sight, but someone had changed their baby’s diaper and left it on the ground. He went over to give it a little kick only to find it was a rock, but we had all seen a dirty diaper. 

Earlier in the day, we were seeing a lot of cow pies in the trail. Sassy stopped walking and backed up looking through the trees. I looked where she was looking. So did Bunny. We all saw the same thing…a cow standing behind the trees off the trail. We yelled at it, but it didn’t move. We yelled again and looked harder. It was just a downed tree with some white branches that looked like a cow. The mind sees what it wants to see. 

The mosquitoes are gone. We sat outside and ate supper together once again. Bear and Sassy’s tent is starting to fall apart and they are looking at the possibility of buying a new tent. It’s only taken 1000 miles and 120 nights of peeing on their Big Agnes tent, but my urine is finally having the desired effect. We gave them a tour of our new LightHeart tent. If they had a bit less trail dirt on them, we would have invited them in. The tent still has that “new tent” feel and Bunny won’t allow me to take any of the furniture covers off, yet. 

EFG