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.

Hoh River Trail: Part 2

Con't from Part 1

Bear Scratches

If there were ever four words that instantly killed morale and simultaneously made everybody jittery and anxious it was those four little words.

"Guy's there's a bear." Effffffff.

The bear was not acting aggressively and we were quite far away so we took a second to discuss our options. #1: We could try to scare it off, in the hope that it wouldn't come back later that night. #2. We could try to find an alternate path around the bear and see if there were campsites a reasonable distance from him. #3. We could backtrack and try to find another place to camp. We settled on three, which I think was absolutely the correct decision. We actually found out later that particular bear is a regular at the campsite, and while he has never attacked anybody or gotten into people's food, he's very difficult, if not impossible to scare off.

We had seen a sign for horses a ways back, but couldn't remember whether it was a sign for the horse camp or just a ford. So, we started heading in that direction. The tricky thing about the rain forest and camping is that you are required to camp in established spaces, or on the river bed. Aside from the place we hoped the horse camp was, we knew that the next camping site was 3-4 miles back. So not a great option, for a bunch of kids with tired feet.

After about one mile of back tracking we came to a place that had very easy access to the river and didn't require a lot of walking off the trail. It was the first time we'd been close enough to get to it without walking a long way through the undergrowth. Places like temperate rain forests, alpine meadows, etc. often have very fragile plant life that does not respond well to trail cutting, So rather than hope that is wasa horse camp and not a ford, we decided to head out to the river. This was a good decision, since it was in fact a ford and not a camp.

We dropped our packs and did some exploring of the river bed to try and find a place that was on high ground and sandy rather than rocky. We found a great little spot that was almost at the tree line, and surround on 3 sides by trees, but still river bed. This was crucial, camping next to water, especially if there isn't a wind break can be very cold. Not to mention, that sand sucks body heat away from you really effectively. Despite our concerns, nobody was too cold.

Prior to bedding down Chris and I told everybody that we needed EVERYTHING that had any kind of odor, including toiletries, food etc. 3 of our friends apparently didn't get the message because we were about to go hang the bear can when I asked:
"So is there anything else?"
"Weeeelll I do have a vitamin water, but it isn't opened."
"No, I'm serious guys even if it's sealed, but it has a smell we need it, we just saw a bear!"
Then another friend sheepishly steps forward...
"I've got all this unopened food in my tent."
At this point Chris and I are looking at each other like we must have somehow ended up in an alternate Universe where everybody is stupid AND deaf, but we're trying to be patient cause they're noobs. So we take everybody's stuff and go to hang the bags. Now our friend Koko had accidentally saturated his backpack with aerosol sunscreen we we had wrapped it in some backpack covers and garbage bags and we're just planning on leaving it on the ground next to the bags, but he looks at us with these pleading eyes saying "....but it's very expensive." So we end up hanging his bag as well.

Tent in lower left corner for scale.

After that we went back to the campsite to enjoy our campfire and relax. I made all the boys pee around the perimeter of our camp and we let the fire go into the late hours to help put off any predators. Our precautions weren't necessary, but it was comforting doing them. The most eventful part of the night was that our friend David, who had never camped, backpacked, anything ever, got up in the middle of the night, his tent was right next to Chris and I so we woke up when he started shining his headlamp all over the place.

He went to relieve himself and must have got a little freaked out being in the woods in the middle of the night, he came sprinting back into camp. This was irritating/hilarious for a few reasons, the biggest being that we had spent several minutes explaining that you should never run away from predators because it makes you look like prey. The other being that it was amusing to think about him getting all freaked out by the woods while peeing. But I'm a jerk.

The river bed had been pretty the evening before, but we were maybe too tired and a little to apprehensive to appreciate it. The next morning it was glorious though. The river was beautiful and the sun on the surround mountains was gorgeous. It actually made me really thankful that the bear had been where he was. If he hadn't we would have spent the night in the woods, which while wonderful wouldn't have been nearly as stunning the next day.

The walk back the next day was pretty easy and nothing really of note happened. We were all tired and foot sore. Flat terrain tends to make my feet ache. After the hike we drove back, taking a detour at Hurricane Ridge to show everybody how beautiful the mountains were. Then headed back to Seattle. All in all it was a pretty successful first overnight of the season.

Bonus: I am a banana!! ...slug. 

Hoh River Trail: Part 1

Hoh River Trail - May 9th-11th
Olympic National Park
Mileage: 19.7 round trip
Elevation Gain: 1000 feet

No Dogs Allowed

Our first overnight of the season and it was pretty eventful! We drove out to the peninsula Friday afternoon, stopped for burgers (decent) and shakes (outstanding) at Sully's in Forks. We car camped at the main campsite the first night so we could make a good start in the morning. There was a notice on the bulletin board at the main campsite saying there was an aggressive bull elk that had rolled a couple of tents in the past couple weeks. We had two people who had never been backpacking and one who had never even been car camping before. So that night (somewhat prophetically) we did sort of a brief overview of what to do should we run across wildlife.

Mostly the best thing to do with any animal is keep away from animals, they are not pets, they are not nice fluffy toys, they will fuck your shit up. We discussed getting the fuck out of dodge ASAP when it comes to things like Elk and Moose which are typically aggressive while rutting. They're mostly trying to get you to leave their territory. So you leave. But recently there have been some changes to the protocol with Black Bears. However, if you do run into a black bear (NOTE: This absolutely does not apply to Grizzlies, or more aggressive bears) and they notice you and begin to move toward you, you want to make yourself as big and load and threatening as possible. Previously the recommendation was to just curl up like a ball, to protect your insides, which is in fact the second step if the bear doesn't leave after you make a big ruckus. Then if they don't back off after you've made yourself small you roll over and, literally, punch them in the nose. Anyway, we discussed what to do and then spent some time enjoying the campfire and went to bed.

Next morning there was two elk in our campsite, they weren't aggressive and they moved off as soon as we started to stir. Some of our group was planning on just doing a day hike and then staying at the main campsite and car camping, but 7 of us started off hiking that next morning. Before we took off we stopped at the visitors center where there was an older notice about black bears but we weren't too worried about it, since we felt comfortable that we could get through the situation if it came up and the notice was a month old so...whatever.

The Hoh river trail is gorgeous. Really the only word that accurately describes a temperate rain forest is lush. There are tons of huge trees, which would probably be more impressive if I wasn't from the land of redwoods. Cedars and spruces are big, but they're not behemoths the way redwoods are. Even so, there were some giant cedars, which had recently fallen and been cut up, which made the whole place smell like clean hamster cage, which I really like.The trail stays pretty close to the river the whole time, but it's really the forested areas that are the best.

We had planned to camp about 10 miles in, attentive readers will notice the word planned, about 8 miles in we started to notice a bunch of the birches had bear scratches on them. We pressed on, aware, but not concerned. Bears are a fact of life when it comes to hiking and really the only thing to do is make plenty of noise and try not to startle them.

Everybody was starting to wear down a bit. 10 miles with a full pack is no joke especially for people who haven't ever really backpacked before. So we were pretty excited when we came around a corner and saw the campsites. Right about then Koko said "Guys there's a bear!!" We assumed he was joking... We were wrong. There was, in fact, a bear and he was, in fact, standing directly in the campsite...

Continued in  Part 2 next week!