"Kids Out Wild" PCT Days #87-89

PCT Day #87

“‘I refuse to let this suffering be for nothing. In fact, I refuse to suffer.’ I whispered to myself as I pushed each tent stake into the ground. ‘I can adapt. I am adapting.’ Another long day was done and I was forty-two miles closer to Canada.” —Heather Anish Anderson, “Thirst: 2600 Miles to Home”

When we arrived by bus to the little town of Seiad Valley, we were delighted to find a group of other hikers there. Lullaby, Butch, and Patience were just headed south for a road walk to Mt. Shasta. We got a quick photo with them before they left. Another “tramily” was just taking off for a road walk too. Mountain Time was with them, and he showed us the progress he is making on his 100-yard hand walk (he can go about 10 feet). It was hilarious. That group headed south, but four hikers who just hiked in from Ashland joined us at the Wildwood. Good Cop lives in Colorado. Hot Lips just moved from California to Nashville. M and Chef (a real police officer, not just a good cop) are from New Zealand. It was great to visit with them. Fairytale and Sunshine arrived at the Wildwood the next day; we haven’t seen them since Casa de Luna. They hiked a big portion of the PCT last year and just have 350-ish miles left. They are both teachers and have traveled the world. Sunshine was teaching Ruby math and jokes. She won’t forget 7×7=49 because the 49ers are Sunshine’s favorite football team. Both Sunshine and Fairytale use lots of praise when teaching and chatting with Ruby, and she loved it! It’s so great to run into so many friends in Seiad Valley, and it goes to show how small this world is—at least our world on the trail.

Lingo amongst hikers is to call those going north, NOBO, and those heading south, SOBO. Adam coined a new phrase describing what we are doing as we hop around trying to avoid the snow: NoSnowBO. Maybe that should be his trail name.

We got shakes at the famous Seiad Valley Cafe. Poor Ruby didn’t like the hazelnut flavor she chose, but the rest of us loved ours. I got the cheesecake flavor. It was the best!

The owner of the general store told Adam, “I know you are all trying to travel light, but those sticky lint rollers are really good for getting ticks off your clothes.” We didn’t take him seriously, but we should have! Poor Muir got the worst of it. Everyone except Adam had at least one tick removed.

It is a huge climb on the PCT as you leave Seiad Valley. Unfortunately, we got a late start because we needed to mail stuff home that we didn’t want to carry. Hitting the trail close to 10 a.m., not drinking enough water, and taking lots of stops to take ticks off Muir and each other left us with headaches and slow progress. After 9.9 miles, we set up camp. Guthook shows we climbed nearly 5,000 feet, and it took its toll on us! We were exhausted and barely finished dinner before the rain and wind hit hard!

PCT Day #88

Our tents held up well in the storm last night, and we hit the trail around 7:30 a.m. We were camped near a stream, which disappeared into the earth underneath us. This section is full of springs bubbling up from the ground, causing us to be super curious about all the water flowing under our feet!

We bought some dried crickets at a farmers’ market, and we’ve been eating them for snacks in this section. Some facts about crickets: they have significantly more protein, Vitamin B-12, prebiotics, calcium, and iron than chicken, beef, or pork. Ruby said it best (while trying to convince Sierra to eat the crickets): “They taste like peanuts! Just don’t look ‘em in the eye!” The guy who sold us the crickets (from Evolution Ranch CrickEATS) gave us a discount if we promised to send him pictures of us eating them while hiking. He’s trying to break into the hiker market.

On another note, our lunch was a complete failure. We had to quickly buy a few things to have enough food before we hit the trail and ended up with a few overpriced freeze-dried meals. The package said it served four, but that’s a total joke! We had a “loaded baked potato” and a “cheesy macaroni,” and we all ended up with maybe four bites. Good thing we had crickets though!

Today we got water from Bear Dog Spring. Seriously, some of the most delicious water on the whole trail was just bubbling straight out of the earth. Plus, Bear Dog should be Adam’s trail name, am I right? (Adam’s edit: “My third-great grandfather found his brother’s body after he and a grizzly fought each other to the death. After that, he hunted grizzlies avidly. After chasing a wounded male grizzly into its den, he left to get a couple of other hunters to help him with his kill. He went into the den and killed the grizzly, as he started to haul the grizzly out, he saw another set of eyes. He quickly grabbed his gun and killed the mamma grizzly, only to find there were two cubs. He dragged the male out and then sent in the other two hunters to drag out the female, not mentioning the cubs. No sooner did they go in than the two hunters shot back out of the den running down the mountain, scared of the cubs. Later, they dragged the two bears down the mountain with the two cubs following. He built a den for the cubs and raised them to full size adults. The Native American people of the area would often stop by to visit Woodasatuck (their name for bear dog) and his bears and listen to his stories as he spoke their language and enjoyed their company.” This story is from the life history of Ransom Asa Beecher). 14.2 miles today.