Hey, Saturday! It’s a weekend and college football is on TV, so let’s take the day off. Ha!! We got up at our usual 6am time and packed up while watching a beautiful sunrise from our perch atop Lower Devil’s Slide peak. It wasn’t as cold as we expected, still at 6:45 we left camp with a thermal layer on, until the almost immediate 800 foot climb warmed us to the point we dropped our packs to remove a layer. Morning hiking was different today than any other day on the PCT; we had a canopy of cloud cover blotting the full rays of the sun. It was a welcome change after an entire trek of sunny days.
Around 10am we dropped down to Cook and Green Pass, a low spot (1400 foot descent) where a dirt road crossed the trail. On the final few feet to the intersection we could see a lone hiker sitting on a log, obviously taking a break. Saunter, a northbound section hiker in his 20th year of doing sections of the PCT, happily chatted with Tabasco about home in Seattle while I searched for the water source about a tenth of a mile off trail. For the record, since our visit to Dunsmuir, we have encountered at least a dozen people who at one time lived in Everett, WA, Tabasco’s hometown. It’s a small world after all, you know!
We sat for a while and exchanged trail information before all donning our packs for the 1400 foot climb out of the pass. Tabasco and I quickly left Saunter behind with our thru-hiker conditioning, though I struggled with another bout of calf strain behind the left leg. Five more miles were hiked before we stopped for lunch at a horrible water source (cow patties in a hole with a spring no longer producing water). We agreed to use my filter and to use Tabasco’s bleach as a double purification on the worst water source I’ve ever seen in all my years of hiking. After retrieving water we ate lunch with a stellar view of Mt. Shasta, from yet another side of the mountain.
Oh yes, I almost forgot…on the climb out of the morning break point we met a large rattlesnake sunning himself (so he hoped) about a foot off to the side of the trail. He was curled in a perfect circle and kindly obliged as we photographed him at a close distance (3 feet) before he got up, stretched, then slithered across the trail to get away from the paparazzi. We saw no other wildlife today, other than a couple Bubbas on 4 wheelers and in pickup trucks with their bows and arrows, making weak attempts to hunt deer. If they would just give us their ammo, we could fill a truck bed full of deer…but they seem content not hiking the trail and prefer to sit on their vehicle waiting for the deer to come to them.
Anyway, Saunter joined us for lunch, then we pushed on, saying goodbye as we knew he won’t catch up to us as we hiked to Ashland, then flip flop to Canada. Afternoon hiking included more hidden climbing not logged in the data book. It was cloudy and cold (52 and breezy). So when we stopped for a break around 4pm we had to bundle up with winter gear, a drastic change from scorching heat yesterday…though we were 6000 feet higher than yesterday at the same time.
At 5:30pm we reached a dirt road which supposedly had “refreshing springs” about a quarter mile off trail. What we found instead were barely trickling springs, which had been trampled by the free range cattle and lots of cow patties everywhere. I was disgusted by the poor quality of water sources in this section…the PCTA really needs to hear from the hikers and I will be writing a letter and sending them a check so they can put up some corral fencing to keep horses and cows out of the water sources. We carefully filtered from a puddle on the dirt road, then used bleach again as a backup. No wonder so many hikers have been sick through this section. Reminds me that I called Happy last night and she and the rest of the gang were still in Etna, now three days behind us, and for the second time since starting the trail, Phantom has had giardia. Bad stuff. And I don’t ever want to get it.
Tabasco and I walked a few hundred yards past the spur dirt road and found a great campsite in an open meadow with perfect views to several layers of mountains with Mt. Shasta behind them. Puffy, cumulus clouds added to the beauty and we leisurely cooked dinner and drank more wine while I tried for 45 minutes, in vain, to make calls on the cell phone with a full signal. That phone drives me crazy when I have a good signal, according to Verizon, but the calls won’t go through. It’s been a constant nagging pain since Mexico, but I’m not willing to give the phone up as it has been a real help many times on the trail and in trail towns.
We watched beautiful colors develop on the mountains, then on the clouds as the sun set. Both of us were bundled up and we retreated to our sleeping bags after dinner and I’m in mine now, have been since beginning today’s journal entry. Autumn is here at 6500 feet, at least tonight it is. We are only 6 miles from the Oregon border tonight and I am very excited about getting to Ashland, OR; the visit to Portland and Seattle, and our hike after the break, through the Washington Cascades. Many miles to go, I’m tired of hiking all day every day, but it’s still my dream to hike the PCT, even if I don’t finish this year. Today’s weather: cloudy (first time); low 51, high 58.
Today’s mileage: 23.7; cumulative mileage: 1280.2.
