Welcome to Oregon, Land of Boredom - PCT California Section R (Seiad Valley, CA to Ashland, OR)

Pacific Crest Trail - Section R - Seiad Valley to Ashland

Jun, 2015

Seiad Valley, CA to Ashland, OR
Distance: 63 mi.
Total Elevation Gain: 13,598 ft.
Total Elevation Loss: 10.701 ft.
Highest Elevation: 2,897 ft.
Dogs: Allowed, but logistically difficult
Difficulty: Moderate

The next morning we got up early because we knew that we had a 6 mile road walk (one of the only long ones on the entire trip) to reach our resupply which was located in the small small, population 300, town of Seiad Valley, CA.  After the blistering heat in the valley the day before, we knew that we definitely didn't want to be walking on a road in similar conditions.  This turned out to be a very good decision as the temperature in Seiad Valley would reach a staggering 104 degrees that day.  The road walk ended up being pretty uneventful.  We basically followed the Kalamath river until we could cross on a road bridge over to the other side to get to the town.

Kalamath River

We were pretty excited about Seiad Valley for a number of reasons.  First, we had lots of goodies that were meeting us at the Seiad Valley post office and also at the general store.  We were expecting a resupply box, a new warmer (I know this sounds absurd with the 104 degree temperature, but I promise it was totally the right decision for the vast majority of the hike) sleeping bag from REI, and a larger dry bag to accommodate the sleeping bag.  We were also very much anticipating the following luxuries: 32oz milk shakes, a general store stocked with junk food, hamburgers, omelettes , etc, you get the idea.  During through hikes, anything food related that isn't the hiking food that you are eating every day starts to become the nectar of the gods in your mind.  We were also looking forward to showers.

As you may or may not remember from the last blog entry, that despite our best efforts to get enough calories, my metabolism was freaking out from the calorie deprivation, and I had been too cold for multiple nights even while wearing all of my clothes in my sleeping bag.  This caused us to call REI and have them ship me a warmer sleeping bag.  We ended up ordering both a sleeping bag and a larger dry bag to accommodate it.  Both of the items where scheduled to arrive in Seiad Valley about when we got there.  The best case scenario would be that they would both be there when we arrived and we would be able to pick them up, get our resupply box, grab a burger and shake at the local diner and continue on our way.  For better or worse, this didn't end up happening.  We arrived to find that our stuff wasn't coming until the next day and that we would have to spend the night at the local RV park which offered a shower, camping, laundry and a cool, temperature-wise, movie/chill room for $15 a night.

We immediately took showers in a nasty, obviously, DIY bathroom shower stall that was just big enough for one person who was smaller than me!  But, we made it work and were happy to not be filthy for a few hours.  We went to lunch at the only restaurant in town, the Seiad Valley Cafe.  We had avocado bacon burgers that were about the diameter of my hand with outstretched fingers and had a whole half of an avocado.  Along with the HUGE burger, we got a 32oz milkshake, each....  Needless to say, huge gut bomb.  Allison put in the notes for this section, "Allison eats too much."  I'm pretty sure we both at too much, though it is impressive, given our size difference, that she was able to eat the same amount of food without rupturing her stomach.  Oh, I forgot to mention the handful of fries, a pickle, and copious amounts of ranch and ketchup!  The sleeping bag ended up arriving that day, but the sack wasn't going to arrive until the next day.

The RV parks owner, Bruce, is a lovable giant.  When you first see him coming your way, he is kind of intimidating.  He probably weights 300+ pounds and is over 6' tall.  Not the dude you want to mess with at the bar!  Anyway, he was awesome, really talkative, and very accommodating.  We watched him play with his dogs who loved jumping and biting and barking at the water coming out of the garden hose as Bruce watered the grass and the dogs simultaneously.  Of course, who wouldn't want to be sprayed with a hose when it was 100+ degrees out?  At the time, it was ludicrous to think that I had just upgraded to a warmer sleeping bag!

Bruce had constructed a hiker hut in the middle of the RV park that had shade, a hiker box with food and gear, a fridge, and electrical outlets to charge all of our electronic gear.  Allison and I hung out here with another hiker for a few hours while we did chores.  At this point were were approximately 1/4 of the way done at ~300 miles and my shoes were definitely worse off from the abuse.  I spent about 1.5 hrs super-gluing and sewing the front of the shoes and my repairs would end up lasting another 300 miles until we got new shoes and Big Lake Lutheran Youth Camp in Oregon.  During this time we also call our parents to check in.  I conveniently forgot to tell Mom about all of our encounters with rattlesnakes and bears!

During the, "real," heat of the day, we retreated into office/chill room to watch movies and cool off, and didn't come out till dark.  That night there were thunderstorms, but nothing too severe.  With the heat and having to have the rain fly on because of the weather, it was not the best night of sleeping.

Seiad Valley and the Kalamath River from above

We awoke the next morning and had breakfast at cafe. They had the best chicken fried steak, one of my breakfast favorites, that I had had in a long time.  Allison also got a pretty good omelet, too.  We waited around at the RV park until UPS arrived.  They finally arrived around five, and we were eager to head out.  The ascent from the valley leaving Seiad represented the hardest, sustained, elevation gain we had done on the whole trip at 10miles and 5000 ft of elevation gain.  We decided to split elevation in two and camp in the middle.  The was a great decision.  We were able to not only cut the really hard part in half, but our timing also allowed us to do the first half in the, relative, cool of the evening, and the second half in the cool of the morning.  We ended up at a not so nice campsite, which was directly under a deadfall.  The deadfall combined with windy conditions meant that we couldn't safely camp in the spot, so we ended up camping on an incline.  Allison and I slide down in the tent all night and didn't get any sleep.  Before we went to bed, we were greeted by some sort of enormous rhinoceros sort of beetle which neither of us had ever seen before.  This thing was so big that we heard it coming through the leaves.  We ended up tossing it in hopes that it would leave and not end up in one of our shoes the next morning!  We didn't see that particular animal before that point and would not see it again for the entire hike.  There was also a bear doing its low, "I'm a Bear and I can hear you, and I'm scared of you," low huffing and puffing about 1/2 a mile off.  We had run into this a lot in California, but it would never cease to put my nerves on end, even-though, logically, I know they are just scared of us and don't want anything to do with us.

We hiked 10 miles next day, but Allison's ankle was hurt so we decided not to go any farther and camped next to road.  There we finished the inheritance cycle which is a great fantasy book series, if you are into that kind of novel.  I'm pretty good at falling asleep through audiobooks or out loud reading of any sort, and this night wasn't any different.  It is actually much easier to fall asleep during just about anything when you are exhausted, go figure.

At the California / Oregon border

Allison felt better next day but my knee was acting up pretty fiercely by the afternoon.  So, we decided to end the day at 12 miles and camped at the top of a hill where we began reading Game of Thrones.  The next day was a little rough.  We hiked 14 miles and gained 2300 feet of elevation all with a hurt knee.  The cool part was that we finally crossed into Oregon.  Seeing that sign and passing into a new state gave us an amazing sense of accomplishment.  That night we camped at Sheep Springs, I decided to hang my backpack outside on a tree and then proceeded to not sleep because I was sure I could hear animals animals eating it all night.
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Old fire lookout

The views were very pretty next day, but to our dismay, we were still seeing Mt. Shasta which made us feel crazy like we had just been hiking in circles for the last 250 miles!  We also found a bit of trail magic.  We turned the corner and found a cool cooler full of fresh fruit, energy bars and water.  We did a 16 mile day, and we were moving fast.  It felt really good to finally be killing the distance without feeling injured for the first time in many days.

Mt. Shasta, why are we still seeing you?

We arrived at Mt. Ashland and the Ashland Wilderness and encountered LOTS of day hikers, we figured that in that one day we saw twice as many people as we had seen on the trail in ALL of CA. We also realized something weird.  We had been, pretty diligently, keeping track of our pace and discovered that, although we normally hiked at an average of 2mph, that we somehow averaged 2.5 mph when going uphill.  Being that this was about as mind boggling as continuing to see Shasta, we decided not to think on it too hard, lest we break our brains.

That night it sounded like someone about 40 to 100 feet away from our camp was snapping a twig ever few minutes.  It was very Blair Witch Projecty... I ended sleeping well, despite being stalked all night and Allison just ignored it and slept well too.  In the morning we awoke to find ourselves having not been abducted by a witch, so I'm guessing the sounds were probably just animals going about their nightly rounds.

We had a scheduled resupply at Callahan's resort in Ashland.  We found the spur trial to Callahan's to be a bit confusing and  kinda funky, which they seem to be aware of since they asked us if we were able to find our way on it OK.

Blair witch's house

We paid for a shower, which was always a Godsend, laundry, camping on their back lawn and unlimited spaghetti.  Oh, and don't forget, nice bathrobes.  After I ate about five pounds of spaghetti and Allison learned that she would have to send her creme brulee back 3 times before Callahan's chef could get it right, we bedded down for the night.  The only problem was that they had huge spotlights shinning on the lawns.  We decided that we would give it until 10pm and then go ask someone to turn them off.  10 came and I went exploring Callahan's to find an employee.  Apparently they had all gone home, which was really weird from a security standpoint, because the whole building, I'm talking front desk, bar, kitchen were all just sitting there with not even a night desk person guarding them.  After failing to find anyone, we tried calling them and just got the answering machine.  Finally we picked up the tent and moved it into the shadow of the building and tried to get some sleep.  We complained the next morning, but they didn't offer us any compensation.  Needless to say the place was mediocre and overpriced and we probably wouldn't go there ever again.
We had a good breakfast with a nice hiker, named Stephan, and then got a ride from the owner of Callahan's to the trailhead and started on our way.