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.

A Song of Ice and Fire - PCT Section P Part 2 (Porcupine Lake to Etna Summit)

Pacific Crest Trail - Section P Part 2: Porcupine Lake to Etna Summit

Porcupine Lake, CA, Etna Summit, CA
Note: Stats below are totals for Section P
Distance: (One Way)  98.5 mi.
Total Elevation Gain: 17,594 ft.
Total Elevation Loss: 13,770 ft
Highest Elevation: 7,300 ft.
Dogs: Allowed, but logistically difficult
Difficulty: Moderate

Chris grabbed the headlamp and shined it on his backpack. Sitting on top, bold as brass, was the most enormous black rat. The rat looked at Chris with his headlamp, with an expression that seemed to say "What?! Come at me bro!"

Chris here. Allison's school work load has been quite high, so we decided I would author the rest of this post.

Back to the rat. Now you might think that the sudden explosion of light from the LEDs would be enough to frighten most wild animals. Well it wasn't. After a combination of smacking the side of the tent, the light and us shoeing it away verbally, the rat finally dismounted my backpack and disappeared into the night. The relief we felt was quite fleeting. Quick sidebar, Allison and I have the REI half dome 2 standard length tent and while it has served us well, it has always been a bit too short for yours truly. This means that at some point during the night most nights either my head or my feet end up touching the wall of the tent. Within seconds the rat traversed to the other side of the tent and I shit you not, ran straight into my head. This kind of behavior from an animal in the wild is the last thing I would have expected. At this point I was pretty sure we were both going to be eaten alive. We also decided that if this rat was brazen enough to headbutt me through the tent, it was probably not going to leave our stuff alone until it was fully satisfied that there was nothing left to eat or destroy. After coming to this conclusion I decided that we should move our packs into the tent. We ended up laying across the back of the tent and ended up attempting to sleep with our feet on top of them. Even after all of this, the rat kept moving around outside. Finally Allison's half asleep brain decided the only thing that was going to make it go away was to hiss at it like a cat. Surprisingly, this worked like a charm and the rat finally left for the rest of the night.

Doing something like the PCT is very trying, both physically and mentally. Most people, even those who aren't hikers have some understanding of this. More than a few people voiced concerns about how Allison and I would hold up, relationship wise, to the daily stressors of the trail. As most of you know, she and I have done plenty of outdoor adventuring in the past and were not really worried about relationship problems. This assumption proved true for 99+ percent of the hike. The morning after the rat incident was one of the exceptions. Our notes for this particular morning simply refer to it as fight morning. Looking back on it I'm pretty sure the fight mostly had to do with the fact that most normal human beings require a certain amount of sleep in order to get along well with other human beings and when both concerned parties don't get adequate sleep disagreements are almost inevitable. Allison, if you are reading this I just want to let you know that I'm not trying to have a fight about the fight! For most of my adult life I have, traditionally, been a morning person. I am also usually interested in breaking camp quickly and getting my hiking day started, especially when there is a certain mileage goal as was the case most days on the PCT. This was the case on fight morning except because of my lack of sleep I was also in a bad mood. This caused me to get frustrated when Allison wasn't getting ready fast enough because she wasn't feeling well. The discourse that followed lead us to both be in a bad mood as we left camp. As we got further down the trail, the argument evolved from being about breaking camp to being about how I was so interested in getting miles under our belt that it was like we were on a forced march. In our sleep deprived minds, I didn't care about taking any side trips off the trail to relax, see the sights or explore, and Allison didn't care about getting mileage in even though we had a limited amount of time in which to finish the hike. Of course, neither of these things were true, but as with many arguments, there wasn't much logic involved.

The argument was finally diffused when we ran into another hiker, “Yurt Man.” We ended up having a rather long, for us, conversation with him. During the course of the conversation we found out that he used to live blocks away from one of our old apartments in Seattle. We both actually remembered our respective residences. We also found out that he was one of the trail stewards for Washington.

Up until this point we had run into very few hikers going either direction. Thus, it is worth mentioning that, including Yurt Man, we ran into four other hikers in the span of about 20 minutes. One of the other gentlemen actually startled us. He was taking a break off the trail in the shade of a tree. We must have gotten within 10 feet of him before we noticed and tried to save face. He was a quite old, heavyset man who told us that he was not only planning to do the PCT, but also the CDT, and a trail neither of us had heard of, the Pacific Northwest Trail, which runs from Olympic national park to Glacier national park. Doing any one of these trails, much less all three back to back, is ambitious even for someone in peak physical condition. I think we both immediately had thoughts like, “man, is he going to make it without dying?” Shortly after this encounter we reached the highest point we would hike through in Northern California. It sat at approximately 7500'. This was also where we ran into our first snow of the trip. Allison and I decided to take a break before the first snow field to see if we had cellphone reception. While we were trying to figure this out, the older gentlemen passed us and started to traverse the snow fields. It was immediately evident that he was having a lot of trouble. It seemed that every few feet he would lose his balance and almost fall. It was painful and nerve-racking to watch. We were both thinking that at any moment, we might have to go into rescue mode. Luckily he made it across the first 200' long snow field successfully, but the journey took him approximately 20 minutes. When we finally got completely ahead of him a few minutes later we had a conversation about how we hoped he'd make it safely threw the trail going forward. We asked several Northbound hikers who passed us later in the trail about him, but no one had any information. We hope he is alright!

As the day wore on we passed Deadfall lakes and the Parks Creek trailhead.  We decided that this would be a great place to camp with friends or family sometime when we weren't through hiking.  Due to the the close proximity to several roads of we saw quite a few more hikers than usual on this day, including several couples who passed us while we were trying to eat cold rehydrated dehydrated mixed vegetables. Allison had been having some pretty big issues with her appetite throughout the beginning of the hike. We had been discussing what might be the culprit for a while at this point. We had almost certainly narrowed it down to the dehydrated vegetable mixture that we had spent so much time making. Initially we had planned to add some of this mixture to everyone of our dinners. On this day we decided that we would try to re-hydrate the vegetable mixture and eat it on its own to determine if Allison would have a better appetite for just the dinner on its own sans veges. It was immediately clear that cold re-hydrated veggies were terrible. We choked down as much as we could and then decided we would start trying to use them only in meals where they were less obtrusive like the beefy noodle bowl. Shortly after this, Allison's appetite got better much to our combined relief.

At 12.5 miles we were both done for the day and decided to stop when we reached this really cool rock prominence called Cement Bluff.  After eating a dinner while trying to keep ants out of or meal, we hit the sack.  In the morning I woke up to the sound of a huge animal that was obviously running in our general direction.  Oh god, it must be a bear.  Since we slept without the rain fly that night, I immediately popped my head up to see the upper part of a jogger bolt past us about 50 ft. from camp.  How one skinny jogger could make that much noise, I'll never know, but then again it could just have been my mind making me think every little sound a bear.  Later in the trip we actually would have a bear encounter in our camp.

After the bear/jogger, we walked out to the edge of the bluff to eat our breakfast with a huge 360 degree view.  After that we started making tracks for the morning.  While we were packing up, Allison had noticed that our liquid soap had leaked all over the hip strap support (near your butt) on the back of her bag.  Without a large amount of water at our disposal we just had to pack up and find the first water source where we could finally try to get rid of some of the soap.  Let me stop here for a quick trail etiquette lesson.  Even if your soap is biodegradable you should never wash anything with soap directly in any water source, as even biodegradable soap can get people and animals down stream sick. Anyway, a few miles later we got to the water source.  By this time the soap had irritated Allison's sweaty back and gotten all over her shirt and shorts.  Time for one of many couples bonding moments that you might only experience if you do through hiking and even then only when your soap gets rubbed into your back for a few hours.  Allison stripped off her pants and shirt in the middle of the trail, you lose all modesty a few days in, threw on her sweater (maybe not all modesty) and started washing her clothes and herself, but couldn't quite reach without getting her sweater all wet. I proceeded to do my manly duty which involved retrieving multiple 32 oz buckets from the stream, bringing them to Allison who was a safe distance away, and trying to wash the soap off her butt.

That evening we camped at edge of the meadow which had a dry spring.  This wasn't a problem because we had planned accordingly and carried extra water from a source several miles before camp.   At this camp we finished the first book of the trail..  The next morning Allison realized that we might be short on food because had been going a bit slower than planned.  No matter how well you plan, food shortages are a fact of life on the trail.  We learned pretty quickly that the faster you go, the less food you have to carry.  The food shortage ended up not being a big problem.  I think we skipped one meal and rationed out the rest of the food and snacks so we weren't miserable for the rest of the section.

As we started our uphill approach to highway 3 it started to get really hot.  This heat would change to thunderstorms and hail in a matter of hours, but more on that later.  As we continued to ascend, we ran into a notable phenomenon that neither of us had seen before, tons of frogs along the trail at 7200'.  The only thing I can guess is that we just walked through at the perfect time and during the fall-spring months it is probably much too cold at that elevation for them to survive.  During the beginning of summer most of the snow has melted so there is both fresh water and milder temperatures.  

After the frogs, we landed one of my favorite yet scariest campsites of the whole trip.  It was a semi exposed ridge with only a few trees and a great view of Shasta.  After setting up camp we found a spot out of the wind to cook and then ate dinner looking at the view in the top image of this post.  It was a pretty cool place to be.  As we sat eating our improvised "Taco Bell in a Bag" meal and enjoying the view with few clouds and blue skies, we had absolutely no idea what weather was in store for us in a few hours.

The beginning of our night was relaxing.  Then as night fell it began to rain.  Then the rain turned into a full on thunderstorm.  We were on the top of an exposed ridge and the thunder and lightning was getting closer and closer.  I was sure any second we were going to get fried like a mountain frog.  Allison and I held onto each other and counted the intervals between lightning and thunder to determine the distance of the storm.  According to one of our measurements, there was one lightning strike within a mile of our location.  Just when we thought it couldn't get any more interesting, it started to hail.  It was small at first but soon got larger.  Luckily it had been so windy up on the ridge when we were setting up camp that we decided to use eight `2"x`8" pieces of wood to stake down the tent and it held fast.  When we awoke in the morning much of the hail was still there.  We even found a few patches down the trail at 10 a.m. that were still the size of small marbles.

It got really cold that afternoon and started raining.  There were also tons of fallen trees over the trail which we had to navigate.  Multitudes of downed trees ended up being one of the banes of our existence in multiple sections of the hike.  The toll this exercise takes on your speed and morale is enormous.  As the day got increasingly nastier, we decided to call it a day and bushcamp for a short 11 mile day.

The next morning the weather seemed to be clearing, but there was still lots of fog.  The days hike contained lots of uphill through forests that had been completely obliterated by fire several years ago. These types of areas really look like another planet and remind you how powerful nature is.  Later in the day we ran into three north bound hikers, Magic Man, Bigfoot and Tin Tin.  They were coming from the Mexican border and thus already in good shape.  At the time they passed us they were doing 20-25 miles a day.  They wouldn't have been notable except that we were destined to run into all three of them in separate places later in our journey.

We were supposed to do 15 miles but only ended up doing 13.  We were wiped out and both my knee and foot were yelling at me to stop.  We found a nice flat campsite close to a stream and setup camp.  Earlier in the trip we had been having some trouble with our rain fly leaking.  Our solution was to put our emergency blanket between the tent and the rain fly.  While this sort of worked for rain, it was also really loud.  So, between being kept up a lot of the night and my knee and foot being injured, we decided to take a zero day.  Allison read almost all day as it was too cold to do anything outside of the tent.

In the morning it was partly cloudy but trying to clear up. For the last few weeks I had been having problems being to cold at night and this morning I finally gave in and determined I needed a warmer sleeping bag.   I can't say enough about REI's service.  This is why we almost exclusively buy our big ticket items from them.  Allison called REI from the top of the hill. The REI lady was really nice considering their system was crashing and shipped us a warmer sleeping bag to our next stop, fully refunded my used/stinky bag, honors our 20% percent discount and a gave Allison free shipping on a fathers day gift.  It costs you a little more to shop at REI, but they really treat you like their #1 customer everytime.  Later in the day we crossed over the road that leads to the town of Etna.  From here you can hitch a ride to resupply, but we decided we were going to be ok despite the food shortage.  The summit of the actual mountain is very pretty.  So pretty, in fact that we didn't notice that there was a 12.5 mile dry stretch, luckily we made it through just fine.