Author: Ironhusk

Advice to future hikers:

• Take a photo every night of your campsite. It will greatly help jog your memory.
• Take a screenshot on your phone of your Half-Mile app location!
• Take photos of groups of hikers/strangers, especially early-on like at Kick-off!
• In the High Sierras, skip VVR. Try to push from Kearsarge(Bishop) to Red’s Meadow(Mammoth).
• Carry your ‘bear can’ empty atop your pack. Mail straps with ‘bear can’ to KM in advance. Your pack will ride much nicer against your back without the curvature of the vertical can.
• Lightest gear isn’t always preferable. I wish I’d had a warmer, albeit heavier, down coat.
• Water doesn’t need to boil if you’re making coffee, as you’ll just end up letting it cool.
• Some Intl hikers had SIM cards that could jump between AT&T and Verizon. Ideal.
• I wish I had eaten more! Dump the food you’re not eating and buy something you will. I carried a small bag of instant potatoes for over 500 miles….dumb.
• The wind is fiercer than you’d imagine. Plan on cowboy-camping early and often.
• Consider doing occasional video journals, even if just for your own records.
• Keep anti-chafe products and toothbrush/toothpaste in hip-belt pockets.
• If your main food bag is stowed low in your pack, set lunch aside and keep it at very top.
• Pre-sliced salami, string cheese, and tortilla wraps became my go-to meal, and they can survive several days safely without refrigeration. Also, if you precook Kraft mac & cheese, and then dehydrate it, you can rehydrate it with only a 3 minute boil and then let it sit for 8 minutes. (Saves on fuel.) Other solid leads: Trader Joes’ breakfast trail mix packs, Winco’s Tillamook pepperoni sticks and Starbucks Caramel Latte packs for a special treat.
• When you feel like quitting, consider taking an extended break (3-4 days) at next hostel.

My final numbers for the season (above) were based on Half-Mile’s elevation profiles for the sections I completed: CA Section A-I, and M-Q. I have about 10 days remaining in CA for some future season. (8 days between Sonora Pass and Sierra City, and 2 from Seiad Valley to the Oregon border.) Mileage includes the Eagle Creek alternate I did with Undertaker in March. The Fireman’s Fire Closure alternate out of Lake Hughes was countered by 2 treks over Kearsarge Pass, the long lake route to VVR and my return to Castella.

Some of my most favorite moments with friends in trail towns!

You know ’em, you love ’em… here is some more news about my fellow sojourners. Some are faring better than others, hehe.

Squeeze Me Biscuits (Clint) and I had a great time last week. On our third day of hiking, he surprised me with a spring-chilled can of Guinness, moments after I punctured my air mattress with my manly .6 oz knife (don’t ask). I think we encountered deer every single day, sometimes as close as 5-10 meters away. We reached the Marble Mountains near the end of the week, but unfortunately the trail didn’t spend much time in them. We had two epic night hikes, saw the smoke of a forest fire that felt on the edge of being “too close”, were awoken by timber operations at 6 am, and met a handful of generous, friendly folk in two small towns that reaffirmed our hope for humanity. Thanks for joining me, Clint!

Here is Squeeze Me Biscuits’ photo album if you’d enjoy a gander.

Also, here is a smattering of videos I took from the High Sierras and the desert. You can tell I was having a lot of fun climbing the south side of Seldon Pass in the heat, hehe.

If you still want to see more, here is a series of videos of friends from the first 650 miles of the trail. It mostly features the inimitable talents of Six-2…dancer, bard, conspiracist, sojourner extraordinaire. Our never-before-released footage of the Yucca-man is here, as well footage showing just how dire things get on the trail….Is Six-2 in fact eating a dog turd that he found on the road, or…OR a Clif bar rolled to look like a dog turd? Even with post-processing forensics, it isn’t clear. One thing is certain….we found ways to entertain ourselves through the inhospitable wind of the Mojave. Enjoy!

Well friends, I have decided to stop hiking north this season. A lot of factors influenced this decision, but mostly I’m not interested in hiking alone. My friends are largely spread out and in different locations. I didnt meet a single northbounder the last couple of days on trail, but enjoyed meeting 8 or so southbounders who left Canada in June! We had fun swapping advice on where the free shower stalls are at nearby campgrounds, best eats in various towns, secret wifi passwords for little cafes, etc.

I may still join the Undertaker for a week on trail before the season is finished. I’d like to reach the 1,500 mile mark, although I likely have already with the various side mileage. (One example: I foolishly had Clint and I start at the I-5 exit of Castella, mile 1499, rather than mile 1506 where I’d already hiked to on the alternate route. These 7 mile blunders add up over time.)

I’m grateful for everyone’s support and interest! Hopefully, I can complete the trail in some future season. I hope to update my posts with elevation profiles and processed photos in the weeks ahead. I know I have some terrific shots from the High Sierra that have yet to see the light of day.

Squeeze Me Biscuits and Quack-Quack were kind enough to deliver me to Portland, from where I was able to catch a Bolt Bus to Seattle. I weighed in at 186 lb again, so I’m busy eating and drinking in excess all the things that you’re supposed to consume in moderation, and have been very, very lazy this week.

Hope everyone has had a great summer!

August 15th
Today’s miles: 17
My total mileage: 1475
PCT mile 1649

We made it. We’re melting. A local said it’s definitely over 100 degrees.

We made 150 miles in the past 7 days, a good week. We enjoyed meeting 6 or so southbounders from Canada! Unfortunately, there are very, very few northbound (nobo) hikers down here now, heh. Mulling over options now.

 

Our final water source. The bugs were particularly bad today and we just had to keep moving. It helped so much to know that town was only a few hours away.

We knew there was a 4 mile road walk into town, and about a mile in, we passed a gate with multiple “BEWARE OF DOG” signs, but also one that read, “HIKERS – I give rides into town for gas money”. Clint’s ankle continued to be a source of pain all day and we decided this was the best solution (I could connect my steps to this spot next time I hiked). I passed the first gate and started to pass the second when a voice called out from the woods. “Need a ride?” “Yes please, if you don’t mind.” “I’ll be down in a minute.” It was a little weird. I could barely see the outlines of a house with a porch, but didn’t see the man. Honestly, it felt a bit like an early scene in Deliverance. The man soon drove down and loaded us, and we’d gone about a mile before we realized there was a very large dog behind us in the cab, which gave us a good laugh. We thanked and paid him, and then plunged into the little convenience store, where I bought cold soda and beer.

We tried to get a hitch east to Yreka, or even the little hamlet of Hamburg, to save Jena time on the road, but to no avail. She arrived late afternoon and we were quickly whisked east and north to Ashland, where we enjoyed a nice dinner and more beer at Caldera Brewery. SMB and Jena had credit for a free night in a Medford hotel, so we enjoyed the comforts of AC. Apparently, I had quite the body odor (impossible, I know) and when my hosts suggested I shower, I said I would in the morning, much to their chagrin.

I really enjoyed my time on trail with Squeeze Me Biscuits and appreciated his willingness to make it happen, and a huge thanks to Jena for helping extract us and return me to Portland the following day.

August 14th
Today’s miles: 24
My total mileage: 1458
PCT mile 1632
Today’s ascent: 5,200 ft

Today, we overshot a critical water source by a 1/3 of a mile, so we had to double-back and find it. In defense of our mistake, the sign for the spring was on a tree that was 3 meters to the left of the trail, silly. We pushed hard throughout the day because we have a relatively narrow extraction window tomorrow of 3 hours at Seiad Valley.

 

Just as night fell, we reached the flat campsite we’d been targeting, and found a fire roaring away. Two very young hunters (16?) have set up a base camp here. They share a long simple tarp setup and have an aura about them that they genuinely belong to this wilderness. Their family knows they’re up here for a week at a time. They’re not worried about getting fined for the fire, because the “local rangers are too lazy to come up here.” They can’t fathom that we’re going to reach Seiad Valley tomorrow, which is surprising to me, because it’s only 16 miles and all downhill, but I suppose they are more used to carrying heavier hunting gear and carcasses out. They fully expect to have a fresh kill before the next night, and said they’ll grill some of it then and there. I asked if they weren’t worried about bears coming to investigate. They said they’ll just shoot them too then.

It’s quite cold, and I am thankful someone else has made the fire and bears responsibility for it.

August 13th
Today’s miles: 20
My total mileage: 1435
PCT mile 1608

I convinced Squeeze Me Biscuits into dropping into Etna for a 4 hour break. I promised him we’d return to the trail that afternoon, and by Jove, we did. Thanks to Chris who treated us to several rounds of the blackberry blonde at the Brewery! And also big thanks to Susie and Tim for giving us rides to and from the trailhead! That was Squeeze Me Biscuit’s first hitchhiking experience! We ended up hiking 11 more miles, long into the dark. It was worth it!

We found a sad looking sunflower on a church lot in Etna. Squeeze Me Biscuits rose to the challenge of seeing to its needs.

 

The local I mentioned earlier, Chris, had invited us to stay at his house. He said he would barbecue on his grill and that he had growlers of beer at home. It was all very tempting. But Squeeze Me Biscuits was eager to return to trail and I had promised him we wouldn’t fall into the vortex of town, so we politely declined. We walked to the edge of town, where there’s a B&B with a small structure on the side that is specifically for PCT hikers. I spoke with the British owner, and he said we wouldn’t have any luck hitching up to the pass at this time. (It was around 6:30 PM), and that we’d best try in the morning. As I’m speaking with him, a lumber man, Tim, pulled over with a pickup truck full of chainsaws and fuel and several hikers already. We jumped in and we were soon back on trail.

I haven’t played a mobile game on my phone for ages. While cowboy camping last night, I thought, “Ok, I’m gonna reward myself with 10 minutes of a casual game on my phone.” Earphones plugged in. I load Plants vs. Zombies 2. And immediately realize what a mistake I’ve made. Moths start dive-bombing into my face. It was a short lived experience. So tonight, I pitched my tent in the dark, partly just so I could enjoy 10 minutes of zombies. It was perfect. I got my fix.