Day 115: Mile 1718.7 - 1740.0

When I arrived in Ashland, the day before yesterday, it was to clear blue skies. When I zeroed in Ashland, yesterday, it was to smoky graying skies. And when I left Ashland, today, it was to cloudy skies threatening rain. And I asked the guy giving me a ride to the trailhead, what's up with that, and he didn't know either.

But today I got back on trail, picking up where I'd left off, and walked off along old Highway 99 into the fog. It took a bit, but after maybe half an hour or so, it felt good to be back out here, and it even felt good to be alone, especially with the fog emphasizing the solitude. There would occasionally be "rain"--a few fat drops that almost seemed to be shaken from the trees rather than fallen from the clouds--but overall, it was just a foggy walk through the woods. Eventually around mid-morning the sun made an appearance, played peek-a-boo with the clouds for about an hour, then burned them all off and the day became sunny. Sunny, and to blue skies: a yellow sun, and very little smoke. And good thing too: as soon as the skies cleared, I crossed over a bluff and suddenly the world spread out before me, valleys and slopes and hills off into the distance, and all dominated by a singular mountain in the middle: Mount Shasta. I took a bunch of photos, but none of them captured just how imposing that peak is, it's snowed slopes clearly visible, distinct and bright and all alone above a sea of clouds. And below the yellow-grassed valleys, the rolling hills, even the steep slopes of other mountains, all rendered small and almost toy-ish beneath the curtain of that sea of cloud, and beneath the primacy of that redoubtable bulk. It was quite a sight!

Later in the morning, while tromping through the woods I passed by a SOBO hiker. Morning NOBO!, he declared. Excuse the tripod over there, I replied, waving a thumb over my shoulder. Oh you taking a shot?, he asked. Yep, I replied. Then: well, you are the 65th NOBO I've passed today. And I passed 127 yesterday. Jeez!, was all I could muster in response, and he went on his way. 127!: that's a lot! But it's also not unexpected. The fires--Tamarack, Dixie, Etna--have pushed a lot of us together, so we're all one big group now. Campsites are getting crowded--it's like southern California all over again!--and when we go into town store shelves are heavily picked over. The store in Etna didn't have any bars or ramen--all gone--and even the Safeway in Ashland was out of Smartwater 1L bottles (they only had the 6-packs of 1L bottles left, and while I'm thirsty, I'm not *that* thirsty) and flour tortillas. Flour tortillas! So it all fits. Still, it's wild to imagine 127 NOBO hikers, just a day ahead of me.

I took lunch by a piped spring where I loaded up on water--the next good source would be in 13 miles, and I'd have to camp before then--and then started the afternoon. Which was less eventful: more walking through the woods. At one point, the trail crossed over Hobart's Bluff, but I barely even noticed that. Although every says it is, Oregon is not flat--the trail today had its share of climbs, albeit very short. Rather, Oregon is just flatter than what came before. So many times I'll be coming up an incline that's running along a slope and I'll expect the incline to suddenly switchback and begin ascending up the hill. And previously, in California, it would! But in Oregon, it doesn't: it just rides over the local peak and then continues along at roughly the same elevation, around the bend and over to the other side of the hill. And that's a big difference, just psychologically.

The other psychological difference is that Oregon (so far) is a lot of woods, with breaks in those woods at meadows and bluffs and saddles that afford beautiful views, then back into woods. And so far, I haven't fully learned how to look at woods. In the desert, I tend tell the difference between different types of chaparral, different types of shrubland, and definitely between chaparral and riparian (riparian: so nice!). And being able to see the differences, I can watch the changes go by from slope to slope and it's interesting. That's the benefit of being so familiar with those landscapes, having hiked them for years. But I don't have the same subtle eye for forests and woods: they all tend to look the same. Perhaps I need to develop a forest-eye for Oregon, to go with my desert-eye from southern California. My desert-eye came unintentionally, though, just over time and experience, so I don't know how cultivate such a thing. Ah well, we'll see if something develops au natural.

Because I'm going to need something to tide me through all these trees!

Towards the end of the day, I came across a day-hiking couple--older but moving well--and, as I paused to wait for some faster thru-hikers behind me to pass, got to talking with them. Do you want a one minute ecological explanation of this region?, the guy asked. Sure, I said, and he proceeded to point out that this area--he motioned to the south, towards Pilot Rock--was where the coastal ranges met the inland ranges like the Sierras and Cascades. And so you'll see the exposed granite of the inland ranges, and you'll see the soft soil and trees of the coastal ranges, all mixed up here. And so this region, ecologically, he considered the real end of northern California. And he pointed out that the hills here, the westward facing ones, all had that golden color and I said, yeah, I noticed that in Ashland, that the eastern hills there looked like the eastern hills of Milpitas, all golden grassed with scattered dark green swaths of oak, and he nodded. Ashland, he joked, is basically northern Marin! But that same westward facing, eastward facing dichotomy of slopes happens up here as well. From what he was saying, what I had passed through this morning--when I passed by Pilot Rock--was a fascinating ecological place, with unique habitats made possible only by the mixing of these separate biomes, and I, well, I had appreciated none of it. But he did! Anyway, if I had had the time, I would have talked with them more--they were quite friendly and good humored--but the day was getting late and I wanted to get to camp.

Which I did, and I ended up camping "early" (in distance, not in time), at a campsite about a mile from the end of that 13-mile water carry. And as I was making dinner and eating, a lot of hikers passed by. One stopped and looked around, checked her Guthooks, and said, the next campsite is only a mile ahead. Checked her watch--there was still plenty of light--and said she'd try for that one. And I think the vast majority of folks are going to do just that: try for that one. Which is exactly why I'm staying here. I imagine it'll be pretty empty at this campsite, I imagine I'll be pretty alone, and that's just fine by me! After hiking with folks for a while, I'm by myself now, and I'm going to indulge that for a bit.

I did see Double Snacks' name in a trail register, and she did sign with today's date so we both passed it today, but I imagine she passed it in the morning whereas I did in the mid-afternoon, so she's likely pretty far ahead. And I'm not going to chase. Coming out of town, I'm traditionally a bit slow, and today I just took it easy: didn't even have a set destination, just figured I'd hike, then maybe around 4pm check for some nearby campsites and set goals then. Rather than setting a goal at the beginning of the day, like I did with Double Snacks (which is out of necessity: you'll split up during the day, so having a set destination enables everyone to meet up again). It's a more free and easy hiking style, much more in the vein of Andre Style, and I figure I'll give it a shot for the next couple days and see if the rumors are true, and you *can* make big miles in Oregon!

And that was the hike!  

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Some notes:

-- Ashland > Old Highway 99 > Pilot Rock Trailhead > Piped Spring > Hobart Bluff Trailhead > Highway 66 > Campsite

-- Here's maybe the beginning of a forest-eye: I've noticed that one some trees, the lower empty branches--the un-sunned ones--seem to be draped in moss. As in moss is hanging off of them, like ribbons of lacey green. And I wonder: does this hurt the tree? Because it seems where the moss is, leaves aren't. It only seems to happen to the bigger trees, and only at the lower, dead branches: the upper branches are still leaved (or needled, as the case may be) and lively.

-- Speaking of the good-humor of the older couple: they're locals, come up here all the time. He jokes that he hikes the PCT every year, just doesn't bother to mention that it's the same 4-mile stretch each time. And she apologized about all the smoke from the fires. We do our best, she joked, out there with our watering cans. They seemed a fun pair, likely animated when they were younger, but now that energy tempered into wit and a bit of whimsy.

-- A quick fire update. First, the Dixie Fire. I got an update from the shuttle driver this morning: evidently it's burning even more fiercely than before, and evidently it's burned through a town and there are people missing. That's terrible, absolutely terrible. Many of us on trail are hoping to come back and hike some part of what we skipped for the Dixie Fire (I personally skipped 300 miles), but if it keeps raging as it is, there's no guarantee that anything will even be open by the time we reach the Northern Terminus! I hope that isn't true and that they get the fire under control, but right now things are looking grim. (And, honestly, things are looking bad enough that the concerns of even a few hundred PCT thru-hikers really doesn't count for much.) Second, the fires up ahead. I checked the PCTA website before I left, and the Washington Ponds Fire has now closed everything from McKenzie Pass (Mile 1984) to Santiam Pass (Mile 2001). Put that together with the existing Lionshead Fire closure from Pamelia Lake (Mile 2027) to Olallie Lake (Mile 2048), and coming up we basically have a closure from Mile 1984 to Mile 2048: about 64 miles. I'll check the PCTA website as I get closer but, yeah, looks like there's another (albeit smaller) skip coming up in Oregon.