Hike On

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 sw...

Sunday, July 16 2017 The sun is going down as I write this on our 4th day.  Thank God.  Bye bye sun! Not gonna miss you for awhile. I felt like I was walking ON THE SUN today. The area we walked through burned several years ago and there was barely a speck of shade anywhere.  Felt like it was all rocks. Killed my feet.  We slept at 6200' elevation last night.  CJ and I cowboy camped again to see the stars.  They were mind blowing.  But it got cold and things got dewy and we got wet.  Not really a big deal.  I just wasn't expecting that.  We packed our wet stuff and carried it all day.  Mt. Shasta continued to appear in the distance as we hiked. I did a count of all the other hikers.  Not including us, we saw 13 men and 11 women hiking today. There are a lot more women than I think people would realize.  Also a high percentage of foreign hikers.  Yesterday met a guy from Israel who had served in the Is...

Saturday, July 15 2017 The day started at 6am with an amazing view to the southeast of our campsite.  It's the sunrise photo I've tried to attach.  When we awoke,  we found a new hiker inhabiting our campsite but there wasn't time to get to know them as we were all getting ready to roll and the new hiker was headed northbound while we are going against the norm and heading southbound. Just about the time we planned to take our first break at the border of Oregon/California, we came to a place where the Pacific Crest Trail crosses a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. Two twenty-something year old girls who had hiked the trail in previous years had set up the hiking equivalent of an ultra marathon aid  station. They'd been camped there for a couple days handing out sodas to hikers.  In the long distance hiking community,  is not called an aid station.  It's called "Trail Magic". It's VERY popular along the Appalachian Trail on the east coast. I...

Friday, July 14 2017 Long distance hiking isn't like camping in a campground.  In a campground, campsites are considered to belong to the occupant. On long distance trails in the back-country,  campsites become community gathering places. We woke up to find we were sharing the campsite with a 60 year old guy from Southern California and a 24 year old girl from Finland. We ended up spending a lot of the day with them since we seemed to have similar hiking paces and tended to stop every couple hours at the same places to take a break.  Finland girl had already been all over the world.  She taught English at a girl's school in India, climbed Mt Fuji in Japan, been to Nepal.. among many other interesting trips.  The 60 year old guy was hiking in sandals so that led to conversation as well.  Hiking in sandals is like yoga in that it enhances the mind body link.  They had been on the trail for several weeks already so their endurance was greate...

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...