Crushing It

Last week marked our final week of hiking on the PCT for this season. While you can rest assured that the adventure (and blogging) will continue next week when we head off to eastern Europe, we were sad to see the end of another crazy, amazing hiking season.

Our final week was a microcosm of our whole summer experience. We changed plans due to weather, hiked in areas we hadn’t planned on at the beginning, had interesting experiences with wild animals,  met wonderful people, and were offered help by amazing strangers. Amidst it all we were blessed with beautiful scenery and strong legs, both of which helped us make it through the more difficult hiking of this last week.

South-bound from Ashland, OR: After almost two full weeks of storms (during which we backpacked along the CA coast and visited Aunt Carol in Florence, OR), we finally had a window of good weather to continue hiking, and we were ready to go. We drove down from Eugene, OR and spent the night in Yreka, giving us the best access to the trail in the morning to continue hiking north from where we’d left off. And then we checked the weather one last time. Storms. Right where we were going to begin again. Well, shit. By this time we were almost used to weathering these disappointments and were able to make a quick change of plans. In 10 minutes time we were driving north back toward Ashland, OR to hike “backwards,” or south-bound, from there… in the clear weather we were promised by the good people at the Medford meteorology office.

The vast majority of PCT thru-hikers (those trying to hike the entire trail in one, long hike of usually 5 months or so) walk from south to north. This makes hiking south-bound quite a different experience aside from the fact that we were still continuing the same activity as before. One must  read all maps and guidebooks backwards (they’re all written for north-bound hikers) as well as all directions to off-trail water sources and other notes of interest. Changes in elevation are also reversed, and we mentally prepped for some long, slow climbs and quick, steep descents. We also passed many more hikers than if we had been hiking north, enjoying many more social encounters.

And, what joyful hikers they were! You see, we passed many of them near one of just a few true markers of progress along the trail: the Oregon/California border. So happy is the thru-hiker that has completed the 1,700 mile stretch of the PCT through California and finally entered Oregon that the air is electric with their presence and energy. While the border did not mark quite as major a milestone for us, we enjoyed conversations with other hikers and took the requisite photos. Truthfully, the actual border crossing is one of the less majestic places along this section. But, perhaps to the thru-hiker, nothing is more beautiful than seeing “Welcome to Oregon” etched simply in a wooden sign.

Please, no more cowbell: Cowbell. That musical “instrument” we just can’t seem to get enough of… well, we’ve had more than enough cowbell. Our cowbell incident began shortly after sunset as the last rays of light were dying and we were tucked snuggly in our sleeping bags, reading our book. We heard the distant clanging of the bells and smiled to each other. We’d heard them periodically all day, and they reminded us of wind chimes. Then we heard them getting closer… and closer… and closer until a cacophony of bells resounded in our ears. We bounded out of our tent (ball point pens in hand) in case we needed to take cover behind something sturdier than nylon. In the dimming light we could make out shadows of the massive bovine in a semicircular pattern around us. We hoped the herd would continue moving on as quickly as they seemed to approach. But the bells told us we would not be so lucky. We quickly learned that we’d pitched our tent in a nice little forested area right next to their dessert meadow. That’s right, at 9:30 pm, half an hour past “hiker midnight,” 30+ cows were bowing their heads to feast in the meadow next to our tent, tinny clangs ringing out with each movement.

While they seemed harmless enough, cowbell isn’t exactly on the list of sleep-inducing nature sounds. We had to get rid of them. We threw the rain fly over our tent to make it more visible, stood next to it, and raised our arms high and wide to make ourselves appear the larger animal. The cows that noticed us scared easily enough and began running. And once a few of them go, well, herd mentality and all. We successfully created a small stampede of fearful bovine. We watched them scamper off while listening to the lovely sound of receding cowbells.

The bells resounded faintly in the distance for the remainder of the night while we, with earplugs firmly embedded, slept like babies… until about 4:45am when an increasing clanging drew us from our slumber. Yeah, we thought that would be the end of our cowbell experience too. But no. They were back for breakfast and approaching fast…. okay, not fast, but fast enough that we broke camp in record time and set off for the day at a light jog to try to keep ahead of them. You see, they also use the trail, and following 30 cows for who-knows-how-many miles was a little more cowbell and cow pie than we were ready for. We hiked a full six miles before we could pause without hearing  bells.

We made amazing time that day, hiking 14 miles before lunch and 22 total (our longest day). Turns out nothing motivates quite like cowbell. The next day, we had a short, steep descent into the tiny town of Seiad Valley, CA. We pitied the north-bound hikers we passed who had to hike up the trail: it climbs (or descends in our case) about 5,000 feet of elevation in under seven miles, mostly through exposed, burned out forest. Of course, we would soon have our own insane climb of 5,000+ feet over ~20 miles… not quite as steep, but an entire day of exhausting climbing nonetheless. Thankfully, Seiad Valley provided a shady respite between the descents and climbs. We relaxed and filled our bellies with BLT’s, milkshakes, popsicles and other treats – everything the hiker body loves.

The beginning of our climb out was also dotted with treats and marked our second foraging experience on the trail: blackberry picking! (Our first experience was thimbleberry picking after a couple locals told us they were edible and ate a few in front of us. Quite tasty!) We scoured the bushes for ripe berries and filled the little remaining space in our tummies with the delicious fruit. Maybe not the best climbing fuel, but it sure fueled our spirits!

Marble Madness:  Completing our climb out of Seiad Valley, we then hiked over the Marble Mountains. It was incredibly rugged and incredibly beautiful.

And, unfortunately for us, turning incredibly stormy…

We were not supposed to get storms during our last few days, but as we know and has been drilled into us this summer, the only thing constant is changing weather. We avoided the worst of the storms that night, though thunder kept us in a grove of trees for awhile earlier in the evening. Of course, this unexpected change put us on our guard. Was this a fluke? Would the weather get worse? Would our trip be cut short by weather just two days before its official end? The answers to those questions are: No, Yes, and Sort of.

The next day we asked everyone we passed if they knew what weather we could expect as they would have gotten a more recent report than we had. Almost every person knew, and each one had a different forecast; “perfectly sunny!”, “20% chance of storms but only this afternoon”, and “take shelter for the entire afternoon and most of tomorrow” are a few we heard. Of course, as we hiked we watched another set of clouds roll in ahead of us. By noon, the first claps of distant thunder could be heard over one  hiker’s weather report: “Naw, I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to storm at all.”

The trail finally crossed a road that day, and the increasingly frequent claps of thunder told us it was time to leave the trail again. We caught a hitch into the town of Etna and debated our next move over some pizza. We did not want our first post-entire-PCT-hike meal to be filled with the disappointment we felt being driven off the trail early by weather (we were honestly drowning our disappointment in pizza). We wanted to end the hike on our own terms.

Crushing it: We scoured the PCT weather reports for an area with clear skies, and strangely enough, back up near Ashland in southern Oregon (where we’d hiked south from and where our car was conveniently located), everything looked peachy. We were extremely lucky and found a hitch who drove us from Etna all the way up to Ashland. From there, we hiked north-bound for our last two days to Hyatt Reservoir. This put us at just over 500 PCT miles for the summer – a figure we’re pretty pleased with (especially considering all the storms that kept us off the trail for many days) – and allowed us to end the trip with a strong feeling of accomplishment. We crushed it!

Our PCT adventures for the summer have come to a close, but we’re excited to take off on a flight to Krakow, Poland on August 4th  to continue this year of adventure on a different continent. To all our family and friends, thank you for all the love and support – we couldn’t be doing this without you!