300 Mile Hike Day 6

CJ and Paul crossing the Klamath River as the sun rises

Tuesday, July 18 2017

(Better late than never... this entry has been delayed because it got locked up in my phone. )

I wasn't looking forward to the town stop in Seiad Valley. The trail went directly through town so we had no choice but to go there. Dropping from 6200' to 1300' elevation was the part I was most unhappy about.  We earned that 6200'and then as soon as we were at cruising altitude the trail made us give it all back.  We had been hearing from hikers going north, who were coming up out of Seiad as we were heading in,  that it was 105 degrees in the afternoons. So that, and taking on the new load for the next ten day stretch was what had me cringing.

As it turned out, the temp never really got higher than 90 and the people we interacted with from all over the world made it a good day.  We met a guy from Brazil, 36 years old, professional photographer, who had flown to California in April, spent two long days in REI in San Diego buying everything he needed for a long distance backpacking trip. When he was done shopping,  he got a ride to the place where the Pacific Crest Trail meets the border of Mexico, turned north and started walking. His photographs were amazing and to call the guy hilarious would be understatement. He had a thing going in his head where he was thinking in two languages and the words bouncing around in there combined with his intelligence and creativity and came out in an incredibly funny way. My stomach hurt from laughing when we went to bed.

Cocoa, Cj and Paul. 

We left Seiad at 7am and started the day with 6 miles of "road walk". Other hikers said it was miserable. They told us we should get the retired guy who lives in the RV Park to give us a ride.  (I met him.  He seems to truly live to help hikers. ) But we didn't listen.  We walked the road for six miles and I'm glad we did.  It was peaceful and we went by some outback homesteads that looked amazing.  State of Jefferson residents live WAY MORE sustainably than they get credit for from the people in California's big cities. Many of the places we passed looked like Mother Earth News cover photos with big vegetable gardens, chickens, compost piles, and solar panels. Beautiful places.

After a couple hours,  the road walk ended and the trail started. If you told me we were hiking in Auburn Ravine, I would have had a hard time arguing.  Oaks and a river, Girder Creek is the name of it but it's nearly big enough to be called a river.  Poison oak galore too, so that stressed me greatly, but we used Technu and swam several times. Our fingers are crossed.

On the last rest stop of the day, we were under a bridge soaking our feet.  CJ stood straight up not realizing their wasn't room for him to do that under the bridge and hit his head really hard.  Luckily he had his lucky hat on. The sharp steel of the bridge bracket cut his head open but only barely.  If he hadn't had that hat on it might have been much worse.  He got a bump and a headache but the bleeding was easily handled.  And he's been taking Tylenol for the headache.  These pictures show where and how it occurred. 

After a hard day dodging poison oak and dealing with CJ's head injury, we finally found a campsite that seems to have some fang schwee. CJ told me that's how you spell it :-) It's right on a creek. The sound of flowing water is constant.  The deer are eating less than 10' from me at this moment. No dirt camping tonight.  We are as clean as a person could possibly be after walking 80 miles.

This video takes a minute to load but it's fun.. shows how we enjoyed this day... 

At this point, we are loaded to stay out 10 days. Our packs weigh about 45 pounds. So the next few days are going to be tough.

Total miles: 14.3
Total up: 3536'
Total down: -1709