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.
.

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.

Chris is NOT scared of bears - PCT California Section Q (Etna to Seiad Valley)

Pacific Crest Trail - Section Q: Etna Summit to Seiad Valley

June 4th-June 8th

Etna Summit, CA to Seiad Valley, CA
Distance: 56.2 mi.
Total Elevation Gain: 9,141 ft.
Total Elevation Loss: 13,746 ft.
Highest Elevation: 6,950 ft.
Dogs: Allowed, but logistically difficult
Difficulty: Moderate

After crossing the highway that turns toward the town of Etna we entered Marble Mountain Wilderness. Initially we planned on going 15 miles the first day in this section but the rocks AKA softball sized hunks of torture were ruining my feet. We ended up camping at the saddle, it was windy and a little rainy but otherwise our campsite was pretty nice with good shelter.

The next morning as we were breaking camp we ran into this guy who told us that he had been forced to stop hiking because he had torn his Achilles tendon. I'm not sure whether it was a full or partial tear, but I'm guessing it was only partial because he had only been back on the trail a couple of days and was doing 20 miles a day. Why you ask? Good question. Chris and I were pretty baffled.

As we got started hiking we felt great. Like really great. The rocks were not nearly as awful as they had been the day before, we were cruising through the mileage. We did four miles in an hour and forty minutes, which may not sound that amazing on paper, but is a pretty stellar pace when you're hiking through rough terrain with 30-40 lbs of gear on your back. We stopped to refill water and eat some breakfast... and somehow Chris' ankle breaks. Ok, that's maybe a little hyperbolic. It didn't break, but something went wrong. Looking back on it we decided that the main cause was that we had been walking on a trail that was pretty sloped, putting pressure on the downhill ankle, and that it had been sloped in that direction for a few days. At this point we're 4 miles into a 16 mile day and if we don't get the mileage done we will end up short on food. Chris ended up powering through this day, but it was pretty damn miserable. The terrain was pretty rough and the last mile or two was especially challenging. The one upside was that we had lunch at this lake and there were tons of salamanders!! Later we discovered that this was not unique, that most of these high mountain lakes were freaking full of salamanders. Dozens of them. Just swimming along and being adorable. As we bedded down that evening, we were pretty apprehensive, we had 16 miles to do the next day and Chris had been miserable all day. What were we going to do if his ankle didn't feel better?

When we woke up the next morning Chris' ankle initially seemed okay, but after walking a couple hundred feet to go get the bear bag the pain was back. With a vengeance, I saw him making his way back and he could hardly walk. Luckily, that day the terrain changed. The trail wasn't sloped and didn't have the death rocks at all. After a few hours the pain started to ease. We got to Marble Mountain itself, and some really gorgeous meadows. It's also the first day that it feels warm enough that having a wash is pleasant and really refreshing. We had lunch at Paradise Lake, which was incredibly beautiful nestled among green cliff faces. Again, tons of salamanders. There was also this chipmunk that was harassing us. After lunch we did a big uphill climb, but it was surprisingly easy and we felt great. We camped under this big tree (which was actually three trees that had grown together), which I called the Menoa tree, cause I'm a nerd. We read, watched the sun set as we filled up water in a spring in the middle of a meadow. We fell asleep happy and content, but it was not to last.

Chris woke me up that night, by loudly whispering.
"Baby... baby... BABY! There's a bear outside the tent."
I listened, and sure enough there was a bear outside our tent. I could hear him cruising around in our campsite. We discovered the next morning that we were basically camped in his house. On the downhill side of the tree there were several beds that had been pawed out of the ground and wide game trails coming towards them. Before the bear had arrived I also had happened to pee in one of these beds. Officially making us the worst house guests ever. In my mind the bear took this situation in and thought to himself: They have dishonored my home. Now I must keep them awake and scare them all night as retribution!
However, I didn't know any of this yet.
"What do you want me to do about it?"
As I've said before in a previous post, I'm not really phased by animals, but it worries Chris. As far as I'm concerned we're fine, we hung our food far away, he might be curious about how freaking awful we smell, but he doesn't seem to be doing anything predatory.
"Baby, I don't know what to do. I don't know the in-tent bear protocols"
Literally. That. Is. What. He. Said. To be fair to Chris, he is generally really knowledgable about dealing with wildlife and wilderness survival.
I laughed at this point, which Chris didn't seem to appreciate.
"This is serious baby! Let me see the phone so I can look it up."
I didn't think we were going to have service, but I handed him the phone anyway. Sure enough, no service.
Ha! Internet cannot save you, puny hooomans!
"Honey, just go back to sleep. It'll be okay."
I promptly took my own advice, but Chris did not. The bear left, but returned after a little while.
"Baby... baby... BABY! The bear is back! ....can you yell at it for me?"
"Okay... BEAR! FUCK OFF!"
The bear did not fuck off. But I figured I'd done my duty and went back to sleep. The bear comes back, and this time Chris yelled
"Go away bear!!!"
The bear did not go away. Despite his lack of fear, the bear became bored with terrifying Chris.
I will go, but Bird, you know what I suffer take up my cause! Keep them awake till dawn!
Bird: MWWROOOOOOOOP. 
The bird was half-true to his word and kept Chris awake till dawn.
The end.

No not really. The next morning the down hill began. SO MUCH DOWNHILL. We ran into some people who warned us about the ascent out of Seiad (pronounced Sigh-Ad) and the heat. The also let us know that the river valley that will take us into Seiad is completely burnt and there won't be any cover, which I guess is good information to have, but there wasn't really anything we could do about it. We seriously were killing the downhill, but it is definitely starting to get hot. We came into the burnt section, there were a couple of burnt bridges so we had to ford the creeks. Backpacks seem like a burden many times during adventures like this.  On this day Chris' backpack saved him for a serious injury that possibly would have ended the trip.  During one of our creek crossings Chris stepped on a moss covered rock and slipped.  I don't mean slipped like stumbled, I mean slipped like something from a cartoon where the character goes from standing upright in one frame to having their feet above their head in the next frame.  Not only did he fall, but he landed with the center of his back right on a large rock.  Luckily, he landed on his backpack and it absorbed the majority of the impact.  Unfortunately, the adventure was not over yet.  We were walking along the side of a very steep incline after crossing the first creek. This is a spot that the fire didn't get to, because there are still trees and it's pretty shady. All of a sudden I heard this rattle sound right next to my head, given that the only thing next to my head is dirt from the uphill side of the hill I just assumed it was a bug (there are bugs that make rattle-y noises). So I said "Stupid bug!" and kept right on going. Chris, who was behind me, said "Baby, that is NOT a bug." It was, of course, a rattlesnake. Now we were separated me on one side, Chris on the other, pissed off rattlesnake in the middle. Chris found a stick, initially planning to flip the snake out of his hole under some tree roots so that he could pass. I told him I didn't want him to flip the snake, and he said he didn't want to either. This ended up being a REALLY good decision, since the trail switchbacked almost immediately and we probably just would have had a very, very angry snake to deal with. Instead, Chris pins the snake's head down with the stick and cautiously circumnavigates him. We continued on, as the heat continued to increase.

HOLY FUCK THIS PART OF THE WORLD IS VERY, VERY HOT.

There is no cover, the valley is like an oven, slowly roasting us to death. We are about 2 miles to the campground we're planning on stopping at for the night and we're starting to get low on water. We knew there would be a trail junction marking when we only had half a mile left to go, but either the marker had been burnt or we suffered from incredibly short-term blindness and missed it because we never saw it. As a result I was starting to get a little nervous about the water situation, when we arrived at Grider creek. We were so happy to be there, we didn't even go set up camp, we just went down to the creek. Stripped down and went swimming. The water was really cold, but that was a huge relief after how hot it had been all day. I felt so nasty after almost two weeks without a proper shower, and my hair was so greasy that I thought smearing a bunch of clay-based mud might take away some of the nasty. So I made myself into a river monster, which, while obviously frightening, was not effective.

After swimming we set up camp. It was so hot I didn't want to eat, and for the first time I convinced Chris to sleep with the fly off the tent and both of us slept on top of our sleeping bags.

The next morning we woke up early for the 6.5 mile road walk into Seiad Valley. It was pretty uneventful, aside from just generally being unpleasant. We crossed the Klamath  river which was very pretty and walked into the very small town of Seiad.