1:25am. Something or someone was making a lot of noise outside the front door of my tarp tent. (Just for clarification, my “front door” is a mesh netting with a zipper). I was barely awake from my slumber, but I quickly realized it might NOT be Tabasco. So I called out for Tabasco and asked if he was awake. I got a muted response from him about 20 yards away. But it wasn’t where the noise was coming from. Next, the large animal at my front door made a grunting sound, then bolted through brushy woods with terrific force and the woods sounded as if they were being annihilated. Ah hah. Finally, a large bear comes to visit Rabbit in the middle of the night, hoping for a snack. Didn’t happen. I was on top of it, and he went running off in the dark night to some other place to find his dessert. I quickly drifted off to sleep again, but not before bringing my backpack in the tarp tent, just in case my furry friend decided to return later in the night.
At 6:07 Tabasco woke me up. I was in the middle of a dream in which I was at some festival and was talking with Charlotte Mayor, Pat McCrory. What? How could I be on the trail in CA having a dream with the mayor of Charlotte in it? How bizarre. So I packed up and Tabasco and I left camp at 6:15am. I happened to notice on the way out of the campsite a lot of fresh bear scat, our friend must pay regular visits to the area nightly.
We had a couple miles out of camp of bumpy trail, followed by a significant 1000 foot climb. Next we descended, but not without lots of continuing undulations just to give our legs a good workout. We saw lots of deer this morning, bounding away from us as we cruised down the trail. Around mid-morning we met a trail crew of about 20 college age kids who were finishing up trail work, after spending five straight weeks out doing trail maintenance. We walked with them down the trail to their trail camp, where they kindly shared some water with us and we took some pics of them before moving on.
The next 800 foot climb kicked my butt as it was very steep and relentless. Thankfully the top appeared, but I was about a quarter mile behind Tabasco at that point. We cruised another three miles along gorgeous ridgeline with outstanding wildflowers filling the open meadows on the ridge. Lunch was held under a massive three pronged pine tree next to Buckhorn Spring.
Fifteen miles were behind us at 12:00pm, so we relaxed for two hours and took advantage of cell phone reception to make some calls to Portland and Seattle. Hiking resumed at 2pm and thankfully was virtually all descending trail. More hours passed as we hiked onward, with a slower pace than normal, thanks to fresh heel blisters on Tabasco’s feet; the first he has had the entire trail. During late afternoon hiking we passed four SOBO’s, two who were thru-hiking and actually have more miles left to hike than I do (finally, someone with more miles left than me!), and two section hikers.
Both of us were tired of hiking this afternoon and we had extensive conversations about the grind of hiking 12 to 13 hours a day and how taxing that is, both physically and mentally. The truth is, we both could use a day off and will have to wait until we travel north, after reaching Ashland. Like a job, hiking sunup to sundown, day after day, is tiring and we need breaks too. Despite the fact we would have liked to stop at mile 23 today, we pushed on, knowing that tomorrow we face a tough 5000 foot climb out of Seiad Valley, and we needed to get as many miles of easy downhill hiking behind us as possible to take the pressure off of tomorrow’s hike.
We arrived at Grider Creek Campground (which was empty) at 6:50pm and immediately we both headed to the Grider Creek to wash off two days of dirt and grime. I laundered two pairs of socks, turned black and smelly from big miles on dusty trail and washed off my hiker tan. We had a nice campsite by the river with a picnic table to eat dinner on and Tabasco made us a fire to eat by (we had our Merlot leftover wine, as well). Since dinner was completed I have been at the picnic table with headlamp on, completing the last two days of journaling. Thankfully I’m caught up, once again, with the daunting task of hiking all day, then writing at night, despite fatigue and a desire to sit and relax without having to journal. 9:55pm. Time for bed!!!
Today’s weather: sunny, low 51, high 90. Today’s miles: 28.8. Cumulative miles: 1243.5.
