Mile 1575 - 1743: Bigfoot Country

Grinding Down Stone

I feel I am starting to really grind through Northern California. Small things are changing and my body remains responsive to the great ups and downs of the trail. I finish up my time in the Trinity Alps Wilderness and skip going down to Etna. I hear it’s a great place, but it will be too much time for me right now. I cruise along the day. I hear a strange noise as I come around hill. Music? No, bells. There are cows with bells all along the hills, very Swiss-like. They don’t seem to mind me much. I continue on through the Russian Wilderness. I see my first grouse of many, something I failed to do in the Sierras when they gave off their booming calls.

White Marble Mountain

At night I head all sorts of critters around. I’m not concerned about bears at all anymore, it’s the damn deer. They make a racket at night and don’t mind coming right up to the tent. I hear something rummaging around my bag late in the night and shoo it off. I find in the morning one of my gaiters, the fabric that goes around my ankle and shoe to keep dust, weeds, and rocks out of my shoes, has been stolen. Damn. I don’t think it’s too bad, but my shoes would begin to fill with all sorts of goodies very quickly. I enter into the Marble Mountain Wilderness. Why is it called that? There’s literally a giant marble mountain, with tons of marble around the trail. There’s somehow mow elevation gain than the day before, which disappoints me, I thought NorCal was going to be easy, I’m experiencing otherwise. My nose has been an issue lately as well. It’s not outright bleeding, but is getting clogged with blood clots. I keep shooting snot rockets that literally look like I’m snorting out parts of my brain. Then I finally get what happening. By shooting said snot rockets, I’ve burst the blood vessels in my sinuses. I’ll just have to have a clogged nose for a while. I look up after cleaning my nose and think about the wilderness I’m in. Crazy thing about through-hiking is that I can look at a vast wilderness and know it won’t even take me the whole day to see and hike through it. A rugged landscape is now navigable. While my eyes are on the landscape, my hand preoccupied with a Cliff Bar, I trip on an immovable rock and fall. I save the bar from too much dirt, but I was being a tourist and not looking at the trail. I make it to White Marble Mountain, or rather just below it. I’m surrounded by the marble. It’s hard, rough, and rigid. I figure it’d make great climbing. And for the first time in quite a few days, I just sit there and listen. Usually sitting is accompanied by some sort of action. Checking the map, eating, drinking, but this time, I just am there. The trail now oscillates between bare and heavily flowered, with an array of odorous perfumes that range from the pleasant to outright shit. The day gets late and I figure I’ll be hiking into the night again. As I walk away from Black Marble Mountain, I walk a divide between east and west. On side the sun falls, the other, the moon rises. I am caught in the middle. Even for a moment, I wish people could see what I see.  But it wouldn’t be enough. What matters as much as the visual scene in front of me is the smell of cool dust. The sound of the evening breeze over the ridge. The feeling of the calmness around.

I had trouble falling asleep, my legs were in pain despite cold water and ibuprofen. Despite this, I think my legs feel okay upon getting up and moving. Then I attempt to ascend the shortest of hills and my legs nearly outright deny my request to move. 

Forest gymnastics

Thankfully, most of the day is downhill into Seiad Valley, the last resupply in California before Oregon. The trail follows a creek most of the way down. Some challenging blowdowns and plenty of overgrowth, I feel blessed for once to be shorter as I have to navigate the stiff Manzanita like a tunnel. The bottoms of my shoes have begun to be ground down, making them slick. I rely now on the old nubs of broken limbs on the blowdowns to brace my feet against as I climb over the fallen trees, as I can no longer rely upon the grip of the tread on my shoes. Going downhill sounds easy enough, but it is hard on the legs, especially if you’re going down with speed, as I’m attempting. I do come across a stream where I’m able to refill water, soak my feet, and rinse my hair. I feel ready for the remainder of the day now. 

I attempt to quite putting down crazy existential notes to be put into my blog. I’ve got on plenty of time and space to work those things out in my head, I decide the world doesn’t need to hear my own personal breakthroughs. No sooner than I think this, my chest strap buckle explodes. I knew this day would come,  I admit I had not yet created a response plan,  but a spare caribener provides a lasting fix. Getting to Seiad Valley is a bit different as it has one of the longest road walks, which is about 5 miles. A lot of it is gravel, but once it turns into pavement, even along the Klamath River, the afternoon temperature rises to nearly 100 degrees. It’s hard on the knees but getting to the general store, I’m all too happy to rehydrate and get barely enough supplies to make it to Ashland. I decide to stay at the Wildwood RV Park about a half mile up the road. There’s shower access, I can rinse some clothes, and they off dinner, which happens to be some low budget lasagna, but any hot food is enough for me at this point. 

Everything is breaking it seems. My trowel has split in half, my chest strap,  my gaiters are gone. It’s about time to get to Ashland. Today I have to climb out of Seiad Valley, what is one of the steeps climbs of the trail, I plan on going over 8,000 feet in elevation today. I have a very tired body, I lay down next to the trail and close my eyes for 15 minutes. Not a nap, more like a reset. It’s like the timing on my engine is off, and I need to reset it and get it right. I’ve been pushing through NorCal but I’m betting on Oregon’s lack of elevation change for my legs to recover a bit. I pass by Red Butte, which looks like where that fake Sasquatch video from the 1960’s could have been shot.

I sit at BearDog Spring hoping to clean my feet. There’s barely a trickle. I walk back up to the trail and sit down for a while, beating the dirt out of my socks and shoes. I’m getting my first blisters, time to size up my shoes. I started with a 9 Wide and now I’ll be moving to a 10.5, maybe 11, as my current shoes are 10, but the extra miles are pushing my feet outward even more. I hear some rustling in the growth and see Zipline. I hadn’t seen her since a few miles outside agua dulce. We both immediately begin to talk shit about the day’s trail. I don’t like to be a downer,  but if it’s talking trash about the same experience with the same enthusiasm, I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t bring me comfort. She gives me water

The next water source is about 6 miles away, and it’s nearly 7pm, which with the current blowdowns and elevation gain, I figure I’ll get there after 9, which is something I’m not new to, but I soon realize this is different. Before I was more in the open, on ridges, my path illuminated  by moonlight. By 8:30 and 2 miles to go, the trail descends into the dark forest on the northeast side of the ridge where the light no longer reaches. I try to use my eyesight as long as possible, the entire time I’ve got chicken skin and the hair is standing on the back of my neck. It’s a primal thing. I know animals are more active around this time, and it’s like being in the ocean, I’m not in my element at this time of day. So my senses try to adapt to the changing conditions, but after a few trips, I eventually get my headlamp out which makes most of the tension in my body relax. The shapes and figures that broken trees make in the distance still keep me vigilant, it I eventually make it to the forest service road that will lead to the path to the spring, where I want to end up. As I get close I accidentally flash a tent, then another, and another. I turn my light off and turn on the red light to not blind all the hikers cozied up in their tents, there must 5 tents right near the trail. I eventually find the path down to the spring, steep and a bit unpacked, but my tension continues to wane the closer I get. I read about a tent site just a ways below the spring, so after locating the spring, I descend down a small social path to a cliff where there is a large flat area. The sound of cowbells echo from just below. I quickly set up camp and head back up to the spring. I’m out of water and I also want to rinse the lower part of my body off. Despite the low flow and time it takes to get clean, I know I’ll sleep better by doing it. I’m happy with my spot, happier being out of the woods too, the darkness felt like it was swallowing me. I got situated in my body and quickly got comfortable, barring the pain lingering in my feet and knees that would eventually subside. As I’ve got my light on in the tent it attracts bugs to the outside, so a bat accidentally runs into my tent. No big deal. As I turn everything off and lay there, not 10 minutes of quiet do I hear what sounds like a horse raging down the hill towards me. It stops about 25 feet away, it’s inside of the border of the trees, which I’m outside of, and gives me 3 strong snorts. It was too graceful moving down to be a bear, I knew that immediately, and the snorts reminded me of a horse, this being a very large deer or maybe even an elk. I hear nothing after this, no movement, no departure. Tents look unnatural, so I’m sure it just got spooked and decided to hold its ground. Despite the flimsiness of my tent, I feel secure and fall asleep

Finally, a New State

I filled up water the next morning but quickly went through it. I see more fresh spring water for drinking and clothes, but the cows, the clumsy sods, make a mess of things. Their bells ring around like a symphony while they trip and shove their way through the brushes. Today feels like the hottest day I’ve ever felt so far. Maybe it’s the humidity, but I stop for a second, concerned maybe I could overheat. I listen to music to push my body forward. For over 1000 miles I didn’t have music, books, anything. Something about NorCal broke that for me. Today I hit the Oregon border. In the trail register is a pint of liquor and a pack of light blue American Spirits.

Too hot for me to take a shot, but you bet I blasted a cig and kept climbing hills. A few folks were headed to a campground but I decided to keep going to hit a water source, I am keen to get the dirt off my body, surprise.

I eat the last of my food, I believe it’s enough to carry me the final 8 miles to Ashland. My feet hurt and I know they’re going to continue to hurt for a while. My legs struggle up the hill. I meet some hikers who are handing out apples, which I quickly accept. A feeling comes over me. Though I haven’t been to this part of Oregon, there is a symbolic familiarity. A place I haven’t called home in over a decade. I make my way to the trailhead and don’t even have to wait ride. I was talking to my brother on the phone as a lady rolls up and asks if we (I was standing next to “Yes Man”) needed a ride. I quickly confirm. She’s a teacher here and helps out during the summertime. A pretty good start to Ashland. She recommends an Indian buffet and I take her recommendation. I have 2 plates and I’m done. They were healthy sized plates, but I think the constant snacks and not having large meals has actually made my stomach smaller. One of my main goals in town is to get new shoes and gaiters. The last week has been a bit uncomfortable. The primary outdoor outfitter it out of all the things I need, they just sold their last gaiters about an hour earlier. Damn. I go down to the second hand outdoor retailer and I barely find a pair of new gaiters. They’re still shorter, but way more engineered than most gaiters. I don’t care, I’m sick of getting crap in my shoes. As for shoes, I go to a running store. It’s not an outdoor store, there’s no Altrasc which I was hoping for. I start talking with the associate there, and he convinces me on committing blasphemy, getting Nike trail shoes. I haven’t seen one person using Nike shoes, but after going back and forth around the store multiple times and scrutinizing the shoes, I’m convinced that they’re actually great shoes. Sorry Altra, sorry Hoka, but I think Nike may be getting this down. I make my way to the hostel I had booked a few days back. This was a right call as they were booked up. I was given the largest bed in the bunkroom, which is the second time this has happened, #blessed. I go out to get some groceries and use the hostel bike. It sucks and my legs are beat. I struggle up the short hills but avoid walking the bike. After a shopping trip and some Thai dinner, I spend the next few hours at the hostel just catching up on writing.

I go for a quick walk to downtown to grab a breakfast burrito. The sky is overcast. It’s a strange contrast to the day before. The walk takes about 20 minutes each way, but no way did I want to use that bike again. As I walk across the lot of the hostel, an older Toyota pickup full of people pulls up. “Need a ride?” Asks the girl behind the wheel. “Uhh, not yet, but in like an hour would be great” “That works!”, she yells. I grab her number. Too easy. This means I get onto trail before noon which I’m stoked about, and finish up my conversation with my brother that I ended the day before. The day isn’t physical but my feet begin having issues. I knew it wasn’t the shoes as the hint of issues came about the day before. Today my feels like they are on fire and I have shooting nerve pain in my calves. Damn, maybe it is the shoes. I walk through it as I don’t believe there’s any structural damage actually happening, just nerves being crazy. Not too far into the trail after being dropped off, there’s a few coolers of cold Gatorade provided by the Sky King Ranch, which I think foreshadowed the water situation coming up more than anything. It was good that I had access to more hydration, as I had eaten a pint of coffee ice cream earlier in the day that had caffeine in it. How much? No idea, but I felt I couldn’t stop walking, so sufficient.  After about 15 miles the shoes finally start to feel good and a bit of the nerve pain subsides. I was asking a lot of the shoes to what 1500 miles of walking has done to my feet. I finally force myself to sit and eat at a spring, the caffeine has completely curbed my hunger. 

Pilot Rock

After walking a few more hours, then caffeine has subsided, and more hunger returns, and I realize something. I’ve done it again. I’ve lost my spoon. This is the 4th spoon I’ve gone through, not including the 2 woods spoons I had to fashion. I don’t even hesitate in grabbing a piece of wood as my new utensil, thankfully I do have to do much to ensure it won’t leave splinters in my tongue. The sun starts heading down and the early evenings are starting to cool down. I am about cross a Forest Service road when I see the one animal that really stops me in my tracks, one that I fear, that I hope just, goes away. A skunk. I know the smell of a skunk, and being on the trail, getting sprayed would be the worst case scenario. It goes to the side a bit and I run past it. No issues, it was never interested. I finally arrive to Little Hyatt Lake where I set up for the night. There’s a small bridge that goes over the outlet and as night begins to fall, hundreds of bats come out, fluttering all around the bridge. This has me rinsing my legs rather urgently, another animal I don’t want to get on the bad side