300 Mile Hike Day 5

Monday, July 17 2017

With the temporary addition of the guy from Michigan to our group, we went to sleep as 4 guys sleeping on a very narrow mountain ridge that only had enough flat space for three. We woke up as 5 guys sleeping in the same space. The fifth guy, who came in after the rest of us were asleep, was from Texas and he had the look of former military so he was fine sleeping on a bed of nails, which is about what he did. When we broke camp at 7a.m., Texas and Michigan headed north while we headed south.

Paul had town food on his mind. He flew. CJ and I tried to work our way down the mountain without touching any poison oak. Time will tell how successful we were.  We used Technu so we have hope. Our goal for the day was the town of Seiad Valley... in the State of Jefferson. (That's a joke. Google State of Jefferson if you don't get it.) 

The first part of this hike has been the dirtiest I have been on a hike in my adult life.  Usually CJ and I swim or find a stream to clean up in EVERY DAY. We don't go to bed filthy dirty when we hike. It didn't work out these past few days. Only the one spring I wrote about a few days ago gave us enough flow to actually clean our bodies.  When we stepped off the trail and turned left on the road to Seiad Valley, we were ripe. Before we hit the restaurant, CJ and I found Seiad Creek and went swimming. Turns out we didn't need to be so concerned about how we smelled. When we got to the restaurant we learned plenty of people in the State of Jefferson go to the restaurant before they take a shower. 

This is where hard working people live and the food reflected it. Amazing. The tiny little cafe has actually been awarded the 3rd best place in the nation to pig out by Food Network.  If you can eat a full plate of their pancakes, your meal is free.  We opted for bacon cheeseburgers with fries and blackberry milkshakes. I didn't expect to be excited by the food. I hadn't been thinking about food all week while we hiked but when this food hit the table in front of me, oh man... no talking.  We were eating aggressively. 

Next to the cafe, there's an RV park that used to be packed by people dredge-mining in the Klamath River and loggers working in the surrounding forests.  Then came spotted owls and dredging was criminalized. The State of Jefferson movement grew significantly. Nowadays the RV Park owner rents space to hikers passing through. For $15 per person, you can stay the night and use the showers and laundry. We were also able to mail packages to ourselves here a couple weeks in advance.  So right now we are laying under shade trees with hikers from all over the world sorting through the the stuff we sent ourselves, deciding what we really need for the next ten days. The shower was nice. We washed clothes too. 

The restaurant closed at 2pm so we can't go back for dinner. CJ is eating a tub of ice cream from the store by himself.  Paul and I will probably have salami and crackers. We are debating if we want to have a couple beers. Tomorrow is going to be a very tough day. We don't want to make it harder. Over the next couple days, we have to climb back to higher elevation than we were at before we came down into Seiad. The next two days, every step will be higher than the last.  

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