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!
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