Soho and I checked into the Rodeway Inn yesterday and will be staying today as well.    I was thinking about a hiker-based Michelin star rating.   I’m thinking:  

*   Has a roof
**  Includes toilet
*** Somewhat clean bed

It was a 3-star for the first night.    Ironman and ‘Taters called me up in the morning and said they were heading to Ashland.     I gave up my bed for them and slept on the ground which knocked a star off. 

Twigsy, Soho, and I wondered around Ashland most of the day buying a bit of gear and resupplying.    Nice town, lots of semi-homeless hippies.    We fit right in.   

It was good catching up with my German friends when they turned up.    Their plan now is to hike North into Canada, stay a couple days, get their Visa re-stamped, and finish up the High Sierras in September.   I gave them my daughter’s number in Portland and they might ring me when they get to Mammoth.   Hopefully I’ll see them again before they go back to Europe. 

Turns out that Ironman has a couple of motorcycles as well.   We seem to have many shared interests.   I need to stay in touch with that guy.  

Soho and I were debating our next steps.    It seems that Oregon is burning down.    The buzz on Facebook is that folks are being rerouted South of Crater lake (around 1800) and that the Jefferson forest is basically closed after 2000.    The routes around are 40 mile walks on narrow highways.  These routes are East of the fires which means it will be days of smoke-filled sadness.    

I came to the conclusion there is no point in going through this.   250 miles of smoke, walking on tar, and seeing nothing but brown haze sounds miserable.    Messing around for 15 days waiting on the eclipse also seems a waste of time.   

The plan now is to jump off the trail at Fish Lake, mile 1770.   We will bounce to Portland to hang with my daughter for a couple days, then somehow get down to Kennedy Meadows at mile 700 and do the High Sierras.   We will (hopefully) end the hike at Donner Pass.  

I’ll section hike the rest of the trail over the next couple of years starting from 1770 to finish up.   

While reviewing the scuttlebutt on the trail North of here, I ran into a post about Tree.   Tree was one of the first gals I met when I started the trail back at Scissors Crossing (mile 77).    She was a Chinese national hiking the trail on her own.   Super girl.  Very positive, independent, considerate.     Our paths crossed many times until I began outpacing her North of Big Bear.   

Well it turns out that she was declared missing in the High Sierras North of Tuolumne Meadows on July 30th.   They found her body shortly after at Rancheria Creek in Kerrick Canyon (mile 980).   She had left a group she was with and hiked it alone.   Most figure she was swept away during a river crossing.  

There have been 3 Asian gals who have died on the trail this year.   Why?   I have a theory.    The Eastern countries still have a bit of a male domination thing going on and I think these young ladies spent most of their lives fighting it.    When they get on the trail they push their independence beyond prudence and get into trouble.  

The world is a sadder place without Tree in it.   She had so much more to contribute and now that has been taken away.   It really hurts to write about it.  

 

Tomorrow Ironman will give us a ride to the trail head in his rental.  

This morning, I thought I should share a picture of my feet after 55 miles of hiking.   You may share this with your friends.

Hiking was a piece of cake today.   Just little ups and downs.  We are sticking together this morning and I’m crushing it. 

We hit the junction to Callahan’s Lodge at 9 ish.   Another 1 mile down a side trail and we were in a nice cafe ordering a copious breakfast.   The place has a special.   PCT hikers get their first beer for free.   We finished breakfast, 3 or 4 cups of coffee, then redeemed our ticket for some craft brews.   All before 11.

A gal named IPA showed up and chatted with us for a while.   Her father in law’s girlfriend later showed up to give her a ride.   She invited Twig (but not us) to come along.   I was like, hey what about us.   She felt all guilty as I was following her through the lobby.   The lady with the car was freaked out cuz there was no way we would fit.   Oh well.  It was fun guilting them.    We got a hitch 30 seconds after that.    

Going to zero tomorrow in Ashland.   Time to get some food and rest. 

 

 

 

  

Full night’s sleep helped.   All three of us were feeling chipper.   Goal today is to get close to Ashland so tomorrow can be a chill 5 mile hike in for breakfast.

Passed some busted up cabin that PCT’ers sometime sleep in.   I’ll stick with my tent.   

Made it to the border at 9.  There was a little welcoming party there.  Soho, Twigsy, and a German couple Keeper and Torpedo.   

Before crossing, I called across the border to see how the weather was over there.   They said it was 65 and cloudy.   Lied to again.   

This was a big moment for me.   When I started this hike I figured it was 50/50 that I’d make it out of California.   Well here I am…..Oregon. 

After munching on some brunch, it was back on the trail.   Twigsy and Soho took off ahead.   The views are not as good here.  Partly it is a little less rugged and partly due to smoke from other fires.   

So I’m not sure why, but as soon as we got into Oregon, the trail mellowed out.   It no longer is constantly routing us over the top of every damn hill.   Maybe the trail designers in Oregon prefer relaxing walks rather than peak bagging.   I like these people 🙂

Passed Soho sitting under a tree with his feet airing out.   Later he caught up to Twig and me at a stream for lunch.   My lunch sucked.  Stupid peanut butter on a tortilla.    I found a packet of mustard and another of pickle relish.   Added that in.   It was somehow better.

Back at Seiad valley this British guy gave us some of his resupply which he couldn’t carry.   So I’ve been eating some kind of fruitcake tasting energy bars with my meals plus something called a “mint cake”.    Didn’t have anymore mustard to put on the mint cake. 

Soho is getting ready to doze off.   Time for me to leave.  I got the fire back in me!  Mint Cake.   I was ahead of the guys for the rest of the day. 

Finally found some trail magic at the last big climb.   This was simply awesome. 

I plopped down in the chair and sucked down a 90 degree Orange Soda.   It was awesome.   Got Mobile service and gave Alice a quick call.  While we were talking a stuffed a Ginger Ale in my pack and headed out.

Passed through a bunch of wetland areas on the way down.   Huge meadows of wildflowers.   Really pretty. 

I decided these clumps were for Alice.   

Rest of the hike was chill.   I grabbed 3 liters from a stream for camping.    Figured it was going to be a dry camp since the owner of some water faucet on the trail was chasing off PCT’ers who tried to camp there.  

Got into the camp site.   Soho and Twigsy showed up a few minutes later.  They were almost dry, so I shared my water and we all had enough for dinner.  I had my nice, hot Ginger Ale to round it out.

Back up to high mileage today.   Did 25 and feeling good.   Thanks Oregon.

   

Twigsy, Soho, and the other 2 guys camping there got up at 6:30 and were all gone by 7:15.   I managed to crawl out of my tent by then.   Was not going to be a early start for me.    Finally made it on the trail a little before 8.  

This is definitely not a good place to get water.   

Walking along I got passed by three guys who had camped on a ridge line a few miles back.   They were in tight formation and hauling ass.  We hooked up again at the next stream to get water.    Also ran into a couple guys (Kyle and Derek) who I chatted with at Seiad valley the day before.   They are section hiking from here to Canada.   Unfortunately they still have some things to learn about through hiking and, unfortunately, are surrounded by folks like me who have already done a 1000+ miles.   It will be hard on them. 

I filled up an got ready to leave.    Told the 3 formation hikers that they looked like a NASCAR team drafting each other up the trail.   Since I was leaving ahead of them that they should not rear-end the pace car.       

Half an hour later NASCAR was on top of me again.   I pulled over and let them tear it up. 

Our plan was to do about 20 miles today.   There is about 4k of climbing up/down.   Usually that would be a normal day, but I was dragging today.   Heat was part of the problem.  It was 90-ish most of the day even at this altitude.

Here was a nice 1k climb in the hot sun.  

I took a few pictures looking South.   You can see where the trail dropped down and the current climb began.   All that “mist” in the background is smoke from that fire we were watching last night.

 Lots of meadows with wild flowers up here.

I grabbed one and stuck it in my pack strap.   Gotta have some style out here on the trail. 

The day kept grinding on.   I caught up to and passed Soho and Twigsy taking a break.   I just kept hiking.   We are all going pretty slow today.   

Finally got to the campsite at 7:30.  

It was a long day.   We were sitting around the campsite trying to figure out why we were going so slow today.   I did the math and suggested it was like doing a 30 mile day with 10k of elevation gain over 24 hours.   Harsh.   

The day ended with a ~21 miler at 1685.  Tomorrow we immigrate to Oregon.   

     

Spent the morning eating.   Then spent the afternoon eating.   Here is Soho preparing to clear a couple plates with his buddies.

Got to learn more about the Great State of Jefferson.   The revolution is coming!

 

It is soooo hot here.   105 degrees right now.   We figure we will start late evening and night hike the first 6 to 10 miles to a higher elevation.    Next stop is Ashland. 

UPDATE

Twigsy, Soho, and I sat around watching the thermometer until 7:30.  When it broke into the double digits we decided it was time to leave.   Last I checked it was a cool 98.    

There was a 1+ mile road walk out to the trail.   Along the way we passed a road that some folks were taking as an alternate to the top.    Seemed sketchy, especially at night.

I somehow got volunteered to be in the lead so we started climbing together.   After about an hour of climbing we ran into a French dude with a couple of gals setting up camp.   He told us there was spa and hotel at the top.   Ok, dude.  

I managed to keep a decent pace for the first 2 thousand feet.   Dusk was approaching so I put on my headlamp.   Left it off since I could still see the trail.   I hit a turn near and heard a loud buzzying sound.  Oh boy.   I turned on my headlamp and there he was.   A damn rattlesnake sitting on the side of the trail.  

Soho and I were looking at him, but he wasn’t moving.   Threw a couple sticks at him which backed him up a bit.   He was a little guy, I figured he couldn’t strike very far.   So I edged to opposite side of the trail and jumped across.  Soho said the thing tried to strike at me but was way off.   Guess that bummed him out, he slithered up into the brush and let the other guys pass.   After that bit of excitement, it was headlamp on for the rest of the night except at rest stops.  

The next big stop was Lookout spring at 1659.   Probably around 11pm.   By then we had climbed about 3500 feet.   This was a pitiful little thing, with a trickle coming out of some pipe stuck into the hillside.   It took a couple minutes to get a liter out of this thing.    We were standing on the hillside with our lights off and could see a big fire blazing in the distance to the South.   It was a little surreal, blobs of orange with little flare-ups here and there.

It was now time to relinquish the lead.    On long climbs I have a rhythm that most don’t like.   I’ll climb for a while until my legs start to burn, then I’ll stop for a minute and wait for my heart rate to go down.    It seems to be the best method to keep going for a long period.

Soho and Twigsy tore off ahead and I’d catch up when they paused for a bit.   Ran into tents and cowboy campers scattered along the ridge line.   They didn’t seem to bother with picking out good spots, just some place flat to flop down.

Our goal was to clear the top and get to a camp spot around Kangaroo Spring about 10 miles in.   I was trying to convince Soho and Twigsy that we should just hike all night.   Soho thought that a stupid idea.   Oh well.  

Made camp around 1:30.   There were a couple of tents already setup there together with a doe who ran over to lap up Soho’s piss.   I could here her licking away as I dozed off.

It was a hard, hot climb, but at least it is over.   We climbed almost 5k that night and camped at 1664.