Etna Hiker Hut: 6am. NOT time to get up. We actually slept in until 8am, then turned on CNN to watch more horrible footage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Morning breakfast consisted of coffee and loads of English muffins we toasted and added butter and jam. After breakfast we bicycled to town (took a minute and a half) and dropped off the movie we rented, then biked to the PO to mail bump boxes to Portland and Seattle. Back at the Hiker Hut we made several phone calls, including a logistics call to Ashley in Portland to book bus reservations for Tuesday next week from Medford, OR to Portland. Our plan is coming together to skip up to Canada next week, then hike south to avoid the early fall rain and snow in the Northern Cascades.
Dave, the owner of the Hiker Hut and B&B, shuttled us back to the trail around 10:45am. We thanked him for his hospitality and the ride (we both wanted to take a zero mile day, but knew we couldn’t) and at 11:15 resumed hiking. We climbed out of the gap at the road, then began a series of undulating ascents and descents as the afternoon progressed. Views of valleys and distant ranges greeted us in open, brushy terrain and the hours passed quickly.
Around 3pm Tabasco suggested we listen to some music while hiking and I agreed. He turned on his Ipod Shuffle and I wired myself with my Sony Walkman and hiked to music for the next couple hours. Around 7pm we reached a trail junction with a side trail to some springs and “ample” campsites. The quarter mile stated in the data book was actually more than a half mile and a few hundred feet down. We reached the springs flowing through a meadow and met three PCT section hikers setting up for the evening in the only apparent flat spot to camp. Not again! We had seen no humans all day, except Bugaboo, another NOBO, who Tabasco had spent some time hiking with a few hundred miles back.
Now our precious campsite was already occupied. So we filtered water, then Tabasco scouted around and found a superior camping spot about 100 yards up the mountain from our section hiking friends. We set up at dusk, ate quickly, then enjoyed some Merlot and went to bed before 9pm. We managed to get out of town successfully and keep on schedule with our plan to get to Ashland, OR by Labor Day.
Today’s weather: sunny; low 45, high 85. Today’s mileage: 20.5. Cumulative 1214.7.
