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!!