Day 96, Zero Day!!

Ahhhhhhh!! A zero day! A day to sleep in! A day to eat legitimately around 7 times if you count the occasional almost meal-sized snacking. I had such a good time just hanging out with my Mom and Byron and Maggie. There are soooooo many fires around Grants Pass that everything is just super super smoky and down in the town it is very very hot! 

Too many fires!! I’ll be hitting Crater Lake in about 4 days. That’s the small blue circle on the top relight section of the map, just under the Timber Crater 6 Fire... I’m expecting lots o smoke in that area from all the fires just west of there!

We went down to the church where mom works and I got to meet Larry, the one who has been giving her homemade beef jerky to send to me! It was cool to meet such a nice guy and of course he had more goods for me! We also went to WinCo and picked up a lot of bulk food and other goodies for the upcoming sections!

Bulk for daaaaaaays! (And this is just the candy section.. well, a 1/4 of it..)

I turned all this food..

And all these bars...

Into three 100 mile boxes!! Not too bad!

Aside from all that exciting stuff and eating a LOT, that’s really all that went on today. And I loved it! I was also finally able to catch up with my blogs and get them all posted. Tomorrow Byron will take me back to Callahan’s in the morning and I’m headed off back to the trail!

Thanks for reading!!

Day 95, 13.8 miles

I slept in this morning and it felt great! Mom was set to meet me around 3pm at Callahan’s, so I didn’t want to get there too early. The morning was actually pretty clear from way up high. There was a crazy cool view that I hit pretty early on where I could see the very top of Shasta poking out of the haze.

See Shasta?!

I was so pumped to get down and meet mom that I FLEW down the trail! As I said, the smoke seemed to not be as bad up high, and I was in really good spirits. 

The air is semi clear up here!

Even my shoes are getting hiker hunger...

There was a certain point where I got around a ridge onto the next one lower and all of a sudden it seemed to get really smokey again. This made sense and I wasn’t too surprised, but I was selfishly hoping that all the smoke had just magically gone away!

Still hazy, but sort of blue!

Still so stoked that I’m in Oregon!

I got down to spur trail leading towards Callahan’s, and soon I was there! I saw Verde and some other hikers hanging out in a nice little grassy area with a small waterfall nearby. I said hey and then went straight in to get some food! It was still only 11:45am so I had a few hours/plates to kill. I had my first ever Monte Cristo sandwich and MAN was it good!!

I ate with 5 other hikers I had just met that morning, two of them who had tried to thru-hike in 2017. They had made it through the Sierra despite record-breaking snowfall and snowpack, but had not been able to finish because of all the fires in NorCal Oregon and Washington that year. Now they are finishing up the pieces they missed! The only names I remember are Karma, Bronco, and Long Stride.

After lunch I hung out in the lobby area and talked to Claire for awhile. The staff at Callahan’s were so nice and just let me hang out for a couple hours. Oh, I forgot to mention, but with lunch I got a free beer for being a PCT hiker! :) Just before 3:00pm, I saw my mom walk in. I ran over and tried to surprise her but I don’t think it worked, haha. I was so excited to see her!

She brought me a great gift!! 

We tried to find hikers that needed a ride to Ashland, (just up I-5 from Callahan’s), but it seemed like everyone I was eating with either had a ride already planned or were successful hitching. My mom brought a bunch of watermelon to share with hikers just in case, but I ended up eating most of it!

On the way to Grant’s Pass, we stopped in Medford at an electronics store that works with Apple. I really just wanted to see if the problem I was having with my camera could be identified and what the possibilities for repair were. 

The people there were really nice and did a free diagnostic test. It looks like it’s a camera hardware malfunction. I could wait until their tech came in on Moday and get the phone back later in the week and pay for a camera unit replacement. I knew I didn’t want to stick around that long, and also knew that if they worked on it and I were to take it to Apple later, that it would void my eligibility for free replacement or repair from Apple itself. So long story short, I decided just to wait until I get back to Portland. We tried! 

When we got to their house I had an excited dog waiting for me! 

Maggie

It felt great to shower and wash my hair, and tonight I’ll be sleeping in a real bed! Byron (my mom’s husband), cooked some really good loaf for dinner and everything was just so great. Some family friends of my mom’s, Barry and Caroline, used the sunset photo that Pants took of me to make a cool mock National Geographic cover!

I like it :)

Well, I’m with family, I’m safe, I’m full and I’m so happy! Tomorrow I take a well-deserved zero and relax!

Thanks for reading!!

Day 94 27.7 miles!

This morning I could really feel the smoke in the air. It’s a little nerve-wracking, but it seems like everything is still pretty safe and I feel extra confident that I’m hiking in a group. I woke up today safely instead of last night with an encroaching fire right? That’s already a plus! Haha

Today I realized that I have less than 1000 miles left to go on the whole trail! I actually passed that point two days ago, but I didn’t really think about it until now. On top of all this, I had some really really great news today.. I checked if I had service about a mile after leaving camp, and I was able to refresh the PCTA’s fire closure information page:

The PCT is open again!!

Wow, how crazy is that huh? The evening before we were about to do the alternate and the trail opens back up!! This feels great and just solidifies the idea that I made the right choice by not skipping, and now, I don’t even have to do an alternate!!

This made for some good energy in the morning, and I flew ahead of Jelly and Verde, barreling towards the border. There was some pieces of ash blowing by me in the morning breeze, which was a little disconcerting. I still planned on waiting at the border until the other two caught up before proceeding.

HUGE fungus

Sun rays in the smoke

The morning was beautiful although hazy. It was actually quite a cool, temperate morning! A little less than a mile from the border, the trail passed by and old abandoned cabin. It is currently being restored and is actually pretty neat inside. I signed the register and ate a clif bar on the porch, taking a nice 10 minute break.

The Donomore Cabin

Soon, it was time to hit the trail again! I started up a pretty steep climb, chuckling to myself that of course California has to give me one more super steep hill to climb before letting me fully escape out of its grasps! I love California but DANG it’s been a very long walk! With some of my favorite reggae blasting in my earphone pushing me up the hill, I came around the corner and saw it!

Sweet sweet Oregon!!!

Can you tell how exhausted I am? Haha

Finally!! Getting back to Oregon! One state down, two more to go! I must admit I was way more excited for this benchmark than the midway point of the PCT. Oregon is only 450 miles and Washington is only 520, I’m coming into the home stretch baby!! So stoked! I set out my sleeping pad in some shade and ate my first snack on trail on the Oregon side. About half an hour later Jelly and Verde also made it to the border.

The boys!!

——-Edit——-

Alright people, I have some cool stats I’ve discovered from crunching a few numbers and wanted to share them with you! So, from Tuolumne (Yosemite) Mile 942, to Callahan’s (Oregon) Mile 1717, it’s 775 miles. I hiked that stretch with no zeros, in 31 days... That comes out to EXACTLY 25 miles a day! That’s including townstops, which means I hiked over 25 most days and then a 15 here or there to resupply/spend a night in town. In order to do the whole trail in 150 days I need to average 17.67 miles a day, and I just blew that out of the water for Northern California!! I’m excited to see what I can do in Oregon!!

——-Edit End——-

We all felt rejuvenated and excited having finally done it! We continued out fast pace way up the hill and then the trail flattened out a bit and we just rolled up and down for a while. Verde wanted to push a 30, but since we cut 6 miles out of our original plan by not having to do the extra miles on the fire alternate, I was not quite as ambitious. I still hiked until around 7:30pm, but found a nice campsite in the trees near a water source. 27.7 miles is good enough for me! 

So smokey!

Jelly decided to stop at the same campsite and Verde pushed on about 5 more miles to the top of the big climb. It seemed apparent that the fire danger was minimal and that the trail was safe, so the three of us decided it was ok to split. Tomorrow we will get to Callahan’s Lodge, mike 1717, where I will meet my mom and take my first zero in 775 miles!!!

Thanks for reading! 

Day 93, 26.7 miles

Today I got to sleep in for an extra half hour. It was only 6 miles to Seiad Valley, and it was all on a road! I don’t mind dirt or gravel roads too much as they’re basically just really wide trails, but concrete or asphalt really kill my feet/knees, and this one was about 4.5 miles of paved road! There was some construction requiring a leading car to take other vehicles back and forth, and although it was pretty loud, it was also kind of fun to talk to all of the workers as I walked into town. On top of that, there were blackberries galore!!

Only about 1/2 ripe

Jackpot!!

Blackberry fingers!

Just some goats doing their thing...

I stopped into town with a tummy full of berries, and it was at the cafe that I saw Sunny and Little Bites and Old Timer. I also saw Hobbit and Cribbage, and it turns out that Hobbit had been the one to leave the Root Beers and the watermelon for us last night! (She and Cribbage were camping nearby.)

I soon saw Verde who I haven’t seen for about a week. I ate breakfast with him and we discussed our plans for the upcoming section.

A California omelet with hasbrowns and a chocolate peanut butter milkshake! And a verde!

It turns out that Verde was planning on doing the fire alternate too, and had just found some sweet printed detailed paper maps regarding the closure. There was also a hiker there named Jelly there that I met, and he was in too! During breakfast, I saw Daddy, Drippy, Calamity, and a few others roll in. There wasn’t too much time to chat however as Jelly and Verde were about ready to head out! 

Every other hiker that was there was planning on hitching a ride all the way up to Ashland, skipping the whole 55 mile section of trail even though only 13 miles were actually closed. This was a little surprising to me! The alternate only adds 6 more miles to what we would’ve hiked, it’s all on forest roads (dirt), and there were supposedly plenty of reliable water sources along the way! At the end of the day though, I don’t judge anyone else’s decision as everyone is hiking their own hike, it just surprised me a little.

I went next door to the store and picked up my package from mom. It was the perfect amount of food to get me up to Callahan’s where I’ll meet her in a few days! Sooner than I knew, we were off onto the road at 11am, beginning our long steep climb out of Seiad Valley! Verde and I charged up in the heat, with Jelly close behind. 

It was VERY VERY hot, and we were hitting the trail at high noon. I had never sweated so much before in my life! The hot heat and dry dust and heavy smoke was a real challenge for me. There were some back to back 5 mile water carries, and at the second one here were the most wasps I’ve ever seen in one place! It was almost impossible not to step on them, but luckily none of us got bit as we tried to stay out of their way as much as possible.

Wasp spring!

There’s not much else to say about the day except that it was long and hot and tough and smokey and tiring! We passed Cribbage chilling near the next water source, and he said Hobbit might be at  a dirt road crossing a little ways up the trail. She was, and she gave us beer! Cribbage is planning to hike to the border of Oregon/California tomorrow and then hike back south to a road and have Hobbit shuttle him around the fire. That’s so cool!

We still had 5.5 miles left to get to camp. It was already getting late and I haven’t really been hiking past 7:30pm so it was a new experience for me. It was actually a really nice temperature and I’ve decided when it’s so hot like this I’d like to start hiking later into the day. 

Part of what energized me forward in these last few miles was my excitement to get past this fire, into Oregon, and be able to see my mom! I haven’t seen her for so long, and she’s been so supportive of me on trail, I can’t wait to hang out and take a day or two to relax!

The smoke was getting really thick which made for great colors in the sky! The thick smoke made it so you could look at the sun and instead of burning your eyes out, it was just a hazy orange orb in the sky. I was ahead of Verde and Jelly, so I didn’t quite get to see it turn bliss red for sunset as I was over a hill at that point, but Verde said it got really really red and it was super cool!

Well, even though today was tough, I feel pretty awesome! I was still able to do almost 27 miles today and that’s WITH a 2.5 hr break at Seiad and THEN a huge hill in the heat of the day! Tomorrow is the Oregon border and then the fire alternate!

Thanks for reading! 

Day 92, 25.7 miles

What a pleasant day! :) Alright, so first thing that happened this morning, was I found this giant zucchini near my tent! I had seen it last night but didn’t want to get out of my tent to investigate. I’m surprised the deer didn’t get it!

If I wasn’t Two-pack I’d be “Large-Produce-Item-Finder”... Nah, doesn’t have the same ring!

I left the giant zucchini on trail for some other hungry hikers. But then of course while I was still pondering its origins, I took a wrong turn and didn’t realize until 0.7 down a steep trail! Oh no! I had to turn around and slog back up it. The only thing worse than steep miles in the morning are steep EXTRA miles in the morning that don’t count! Hahaha. After my 1.4 mile detour, I was back on track!

Oops!!

I climbed a huuuuuuuuge hill in the morning! Very tiring and steep for sure, but not the WORST. I actually quite enjoyed getting to the top and then taking a nice shade break under a large tree!

Part of the climb, lots of flowers at least!

A crazy triple tree! (Not the tree I took a break at, but an honorable mention!)

Butterflies!

For daaaaays!!

Yes, although there wasn’t much to to see in the larger you scenery around, today was a day for all the small things! Butterflies, grasshoppers, fuzzy caterpillars, snail shells, bees, weird flies, and thimbleberries!

Yay thimbleberries!!

I ate a lot...

Like a TON...

There was no escaping it (who’d want to?), there were wild berries covering the trail for miles! I obviously had not choice but to walk through reaaaaaal slow and pick all the perfect, ripe, way out of the way ones that normal sized people just can’t reach :) 

At lunch, I re-met Sunny and Small Bites. They are a couple from Vermont who are super super cool! They have been together for 6 years and are getting married after the trail. They remind me of Claire and I alot! We talked about the feeling you get when you just know when you’ve met that special one, and what a relief it is to not have to worry about that big aspect of life (finding a partner) anymore because you’ve already got one! 

Peanut butter banana English muffins for lunch!

Giant flies (luckily this one didn’t bite...)

As I was wrapping up lunch I met a hiker named Tray and hiked out with him. We talked a lot about different stuff, I’ve been meeting such cool people recently! On the way down towards Seiad Valley there was poison oak all over! This is the most I’ve seen yet... I’m almost certain that some touched me at some point, since it was so unavoidable for about 5 miles!

The entire right side of the trail overgrown with poison oak.. Sometimes it would be hiding low underneath other plants that my shin would hit..

Well, I guess with thimbleberries and blackberries also come poison oak! The trail followed a river for awhile, and around 5pm I came across the perfect swimming hole! It was semi-late in the day but I only had 4 miles left to camp, and I was feeling VERY gross just thinking about all the poison oak oils I had probably just received on my legs, so I decided to go for a swim! The water was cold but not take-your-breath-away cold; I was actually able to stay in it and swim around on the nice sand-bottom.

It was perfect!

Not too cold!!

My fury little friend on the river bank.

I sat on the shore to let my feet dry and started writing today’s blog. That might be in part why it’s so lengthy and detailed today. I really do like writing on breaks or early in the day when all details are still semi-fresh in my mind. It doesn’t seem to happen a lot though as I’m usually busy eating while I’m on a break!

Snail shell!

Getting smokey!!

I got to camp and found Sunny, Little Bites, Tray, and Old Timer. Old Timer is 72 years old and started the trail two days after I did! He is so cool. Last year he hiked across the United States from East to West! Before sitting down for some food I went to explore some possible campsites and found a box with three root beers in it! I brought them to the picnic table where everyone was and shared them. We all had dinner around said table and talked about our favorite Disney movies, reciting the songs and acting out our favorite parts. 

Sunny and Little Bites. These two are the best! 

After dinner and saying goodnight to everyone, I was walking over to where I was planning to camp, when I saw something on the table where I had found the root beers earlier.

Whaa?!

Watermelon!!

Someone had left sodas that I had grabbed, and then, while we were eating about 100 feet away, they came back and ninja’d half a watermelon to leave as well! Who was this mystery trail angel!?! I ran back over to where the others were with my new discovery, and we all ate watermelon together and then said goodnight for real. What a good day!! Tomorrow I only have ~6 miles to Seiad Valley, where I’ll decide what to do about this fire and alternate coming up!

Thanks for reading!!