Yesterday, I set an alarm because I thought Bear and Sassy were trying to let us sleep in so they could get ready first. I used Bunny’s phone for the alarm (I don’t have a phone of my own, part of Bunny’s financial cost cutting). I guess another part of her cost cutting involves not charging her phone because the alarm never went off once the phone died.
Today, we had a freshly charged phone but we never turned off the alarm. Since I was suspicious of Bear and Sassy’s intent yesterday, I had set it early for 6:15. Bunny was sleeping on her arms when it went off. This slowed her down because her arms were pinned under her and they had fallen asleep. The alarm did wake us up, but it also alerted Bear and Sassy to the fact that we were on to their game. My suspicions were correct because we all got ready at the same time. The only other explanation might be that Bear and Sassy are getting ready faster in the morning, but I dismiss that possibility due to lack of supporting scientific data.
All night long, we had noticed a prehistoric figure standing guard over the trail. The first task this morning was to pass this ancient guardian of the underworld. Since Bear and I do most of camping work including cooking and water duty, we left it up to the women to fight the demon. Between the two of them fighting and distracting the fiend, we were able to safely pass as a group. Bunny’s new trim trail body made all the difference.
Today was brutal but rewarding. Rewarding for the amazing vistas in all directions. We were walking near the crest of the range all day through recent burn areas. By recent, I just mean all the trees were gone, but far enough in the past that flowers have taken over as the stabilizing ground cover.
The heat began to takes it toll on all of us. As usual, the weakest are the first to fail. No, not me. It was Sassy who almost went down. She made one fatal flaw. She tried to keep up with Bear as he ran up the hills. I rarely saw Bear as he was usually more than a tenth of a mile ahead of me. I only caught up at regularly scheduled water breaks every 2 miles (1 mile on extra hot days). There was no way I was keeping up with anyone.
There are a few wildfires raging in California, not unusual for this time of year. There’s a larger one burning East of Yreka which is due East of us, but not near the trail. It does create a lot of smoke that tends to hang in the valleys where we’re hiking. It almost looks like an inversion hanging over the Seiad Valley.
I do have a dead horse to beat. I was slightly put out (possibly irritated immensely) by the hiker in passing who told us that the only thru-hike that’s not a failure is one that starts at one border (Mexico) and ends at the other (Canada). Yesterday, we probably passed between 15-20 nobos. Today, before we made it to a dirt road crossing that leads to Seiad Valley, we passed 4 maybe 5 Nobo’s. From everything we’ve heard from passing hikers, we can expect at least 15 hikers a day for the next several days. So why didn’t we encounter anyone on the section of trail climbing out of Seiad Valley?
The answer is simple. The majority of “thru-hikers” are skipping this section of trail to get a shorter road walk (saving 3-4 miles of hiking), or worse yet, getting a ride up to the trail entirely skipping 11 miles of trail. So much for honesty and integrity. When we quizzed people about trail conditions, they all quoted Guthook’s comments. When we actually hiked the section in question, it was not nearly like the comments said. This only confirmed our suspicions that people were skipping it.
But let’s not get too high and mighty. We met a hiker about 10 days ago that we were convinced was not actually hiking the trail. We didn’t really care, but we never saw him on trail. He’s a bit overweight and we were being narrow minded in our opinions. We hadn’t seen him since Hyatt Camp. A couple days ago, we saw his name in the register entering California. Today, we passed him taking a break in the heat. He later passed us while we were having lunch. We tried to catch up with him and couldn’t. This guy is the real deal and we publicly owe Get Smart an apology (even though we never called him out or stated our opinions to anyone other than ourselves). We were being hypocritical judging him like other thru-hikers judge us. Get Smart is kicking ass on the trail and doing it solo.
I was never so happy to see a tiny hamlet in my life. We started the day near 7000’ and Seiad Valley sits below 1400’. That means we’ve got to drop over a vertical mile to get into town (and we’ll have to climb a mile on the other side to get out). Nonetheless, it was a vision because it meant our steep descent was nearing its end (not really, we still had 5 miles to go). For comparison sake, this is a larger drop down and climb out than dropping down into the Grand Canyon.
My ankles were killing me. The trail from 7000’ down to 4000’ was loose rock with a slanted trail bed. I’m scared of heights, so I tended to walk with my upper trail foot above the screen cocked at an even steeper angle. This allowed me to keep my downhill foot solidly in the middle of the trail. When there wasn’t a 500+’ drop beside the trail, I would walk with both feet in the trail. That was rare at the upper elevations.
As per typical Bear plans, we did have a bale out option (other than parachutes from 7000’ down into the valley…it’s my understanding that made no higher than option 6 in the plan). There was a spring at 6 miles out that had a very sketchy looking trail leading down to a piped spring. It we got water there, we could camp at 4.7 miles out of town. The spring junction was the make or break point. Since we passed it up before realizing it (only Bunny recognized the trail), we were committed to town.
The final two miles, I was finally able to keep up with the group. I don’t think it was because I was getting stronger. It had more to do with everyone else was starting to fall apart. I had made the observation yesterday that 17 miles seemed to be our limit as a group. That’s not meaning we can’t do more, just that after 17 miles, we start to need longer recovery time. We can knock out 16s pretty consistently, but longer than that and we need a shorter day or even a zero day to recover. This was the 17 mile mark. Everyone else was breaking down to the point I had 5 miles earlier. I had company in my pain.
The thing that kept us going,the thing that always keeps us going, was non-trail food. According to Guthook, the restaurant at Wildwood stays open until 9. Because of Covid, Wildwood is limiting its clientele solely to PCT hikers. We made it to the tavern before 7:30 leaving us plenty of time to eat, shower, have popcorn, celebrate another hiker’s birthday with chocolate cake alamode. During the course of all this eating, I managed to drink a liter of water, 2 diet cokes, and 2 unsweetened iced teas. I didn’t pee before bed nor did I get up at any point in the night to pee. I might be narrowing in on why I felt so crappy today.
EFG
Easy: I have read all your posts since you started in OR. Wish you all the best.
Miles, we wouldn’t have made it without you two. We gained so much knowledge and it kept us going knowing you were there. Thanks for being a part of our journey. We’re not done yet…900 more miles to go.