300 Mile Hike Day 1

Thursday, July 13 2017

One of my primary arguments defending my backpacking addiction to Erin is that it's a priceworthy way to spend awesome time with CJ (and occasionally Colin when he can fit it into his football training schedule).  But each year as CJ has gotten older,  our trips have gotten increasingly longer and more remote.  It's to the point where we've worn our welcome out with friends who are willing to spend a day or more of their life driving to drop us off at a trailhead in the middle of nowhere. So this morning we found ourselves at the Greyhound station in Sacramento waiting to board a bus to get to Ashland, Oregon. TheGreyhound waiting area was Freak City. It was a culture shock for CJ.

The girl who sat in front of us on the bus to Ashland was very nice. Completely crazy though.  Completely. Crazy. She was on her way to Idaho for a custody hearing related to her three kids... who live there with her mom... who she really doesn't speak to because they each have a baby but the same man... who was crazy-girl's boyfriend first.  And that was just a small part of the life story I'm glad CJ got to hear. He needs to be a little less sheltered. She said she couldn't bring the kids to Fresno where she lives now because she couldn't bring them out of state... due to a divorce agreement... but that didn't add up for me based on her answers to questions.  I think it's a CPS issue and I don't think she will be successful.  She asked me if I ever dealt with CPS. I had to shade my response in order to avoid blowing my vagabond backpacker undercover status haha.

We arrived in Ashland at 4:30 thinking we had a ride arranged to the trailhead. The ride wasn't available until 6pm. We had hoped to get on trail earlier than that in order to get to a campsite 6.5 miles and 2000' vertical feet from the road. Camping options near the road weren't abundant. Luckily the Greyhound station in Ashland is the parking lot of the Safeway grocery store.  So we ate fresh food from the deli while we waited.  The last fresh fruit we are gonna see for a few weeks.

Our ride, a lady named Mary who helps out Pacific Crest Trail hikers like this, arrived at 6 and got us to the trail by 6:30. We were a little worried by how late we got there but it worked out fine. In the past we've always averaged 2 miles per hour under loaded backpacks in steep terrain. But we've gotten our loads dialed down to the bare essentials so we rolled right up that 2000' climb and were at the campsite right as it became time to need headlamps.

We made a quick dinner we call salmon chowder out of dehydrated cream of Potato soup,  multi-grain minute rice, and salmon. It simmered while we made our bed. We decided not to set up tents since there were no bugs at all so we just put our ground cloths down,  sleeping pads and then slept really well under our quilts and the stars.

Total up: 2097'
Total down: -479'
Total miles: 6.5

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