8/21/2023
Section: Milepost 1502.3 to 1485.8
Total Trail Miles: 1453/2650
Distance: 17.7 Miles
Moving Time: 06:31
Elevation Gain: 2674 ft
Click here for current location
Well, we tried to enjoy sleeping in the bed last night but, according to Amanda, she almost fell off at several points. Just can’t make these 1st world sleeping conditions work for us.
We headed back to Yaks for breakfast. We had heard that their breakfast burritos were bomb - in fact, more people had talked about the burritos than the burgers so we figured they were worth a shot. At Yaks, we ate and took a few moments to write out a birthday card for my sister, Katie. The burritos might have been better than the burgers, whatever sauce they are cooking up in the back of Yaks is off the chain. We walked back through downtown Mt. Shasta taking a quick peek through the crystal shop. We also stopped by the post office to pick up a box from Amanda’s parents. I then went and chilled at the local coffee shop, 4 Seasons, while Amanda went to visit “Foot Jesus” at Mt. Shasta’s lone outfitter. We had heard about this guy all along the trail - supposedly he had worked magic on many hikers that had arrived on Mt. Shasta’s doorstep with wrecked feet. I got a cappuccino and, before long, Amanda had returned with fresh shoes and old ones to ship off from the post office next door. When she returned from that she informed me that the outfitters had been out of Sawyer’s but that I should go check in and see if there was anything that could “bridge the gap.” We made a call to Doc and I ran down to the outfitters, called 5th Season, and went inside. Indeed, they were completely out of Sawyer filters but, checking out the hiker box in the back, I did find a replacement backflush syringe. While not a replacement, this was good news. I had broken our syringe a week back, before Etna, making it impossible to even attempt backflushing anymore. At least a new syringe would allow me to attempt to fix the situation. I returned to the coffee shop and found Amanda talking with Doc. I put my backpack in the bed of the truck and got in next to Amanda.
As we drove back to the trailhead, Doc informed us that we were in for a bit of wet weather. It turns out that “Hurricane Hillary'' was making landfall on the coast and would be moving inland soon, making for a wet day or so. We laughed at the name and thanked Doc for the info. 30 minutes brought us back south to the trailhead where he dropped us off. We thanked and paid Doc before donning our rain gear and backpacks and rejoining the trail.
The path today was relatively short, given the late start. From I-5, the PCT makes a slow and very steady climb up from I-5 on the north side of Girard Ridge, eventually regaining the “crest.” After about 6 miles up high it descends back to Cabin Creek where the stage ends. Pretty simple day.
We walked Soda Creek Road for about a half mile before the pavement returned to dirt. There was some confusion when we encountered signs saying the road was closed until we realized that they were intended for NOBO’s and that the section we had come through just the day before was now closed so… bit of crazy luck there. The trail led quickly up from the Sacramento river and, wow, it was immaculately kept. After 4 months of hiking, Amanda and I have some strong opinions regarding trail conditions. We both agree that the absolute best is an Oregon style, pine-needle based loam that is spongy and supportive with limited rocks and roots. On this surface, you can cruise and put away some huge miles. The best grade is actually uphill, but very moderately uphill. This is the combination we found on the pull out of the Soda Creek Road area for most of the day today and we crushed. The rain, at least in the short term, helped a lot as well - it kept us cool so we could work a little harder without feeling the shift. After the heat wave that had dominated last week, it was a welcome change.
We climbed and climbed and eventually attained the ridge. The rain has a somewhat unfortunate advantage of making stops less-than-delightful, so those were few and far between which only improved our overall moving average. Once on the ridge, we navigated through a series of saddles and forestry roads before descending. The rain was light but relentless and about halfway through the day, it became apparent that our 5-year old jackets had lost their waterproofing. Re-waterproofing our gear was on the list of things to do in the spring, but given that we were expecting summer weather on the trail, it was low on the list of priorities…which means it didn’t get done and it showed. We both have decent rain gear but I’ll be the first to admit, I don't really know what “good” rain protection performance looks like. I guess, optimally, any precipitation that falls on a well performing piece of raingear should bead up and roll off the jacket. This wasn’t happening. It started with the beading but, as the rain continued to pour out of the sky, the jackets just took on a uniformly “damp” condition which could be felt in places where skin was directly exposed to the inside of those areas. Maybe this is actually how raingear is supposed to work - i don’t really know but it makes for a quick cooling effect whenever one stops moving so, we didn’t really stop.
Eventually, we reached Cabin Creek. Now for some reason, that I still haven’t figured out, both Amanda and I spent most of the day today with a clear understanding that there was, indeed, a cabin just upstream of where the PCT crosses cabin creek and that hiking through the rain wasn’t a big deal because there would be a hardened shelter at the end within which we could get ourselves nice and dry. It was not until we reached the crossing of cabin creek and started walking upstream to a location where we thought this sweet structure of salvation was located that we started to realize, neither of us had actually seen trail beta suggesting such a structure existed. The creek was just called Cabin Creek. Maybe there had been, at one time, a cabin located around the creek, but no more. We walked up the creek for about half a mile before we reached the Cabin Creek trailhead and found a nice pit toilet, but nothing anyone in a normal situation would consider sleeping in.
Standing at the parking lot we just kinda laughed at each other in the pouring rain. “Well that sucks,” Amanda said. “Yea, it really does,” I agreed. So we hiked back down about 50 yards to the creek where, under normal, dry circumstances, a series of really nice campsites would have stood established. In their current state, we just attempted to find the one with the smallest puddle and Amanda set up the tent while I found some water - not a difficult task under the current conditions - and got to filtering. As we unpacked, we were dismayed to find that our jackets weren’t the only thing that had suffered some integrity loss over the years. Our backpack’s rain canopies were also far from water proof, as evident in the general dampness found within as we brought our things out. Worse still was my sleeping bag. In a standard internal pack, the sleeping bag goes on the bottom and everything is stacked on top of it for a compressing effect. The problem was that, while the rain canopies weren’t the best at keeping rain out, they seemed to perform well at retaining it and mine had formed a sort of bowl where it wrapped under the bottom of the packs. Over the course of the day it actually collected water at the base of the pack forming a sort of pond which the sleeping bag then sat in. There is a little hole with a metal ringlet at the bottom of the canopy that is meant to prevent water hold-up in this way but it has to be perfectly positioned to let the water out and I had not done a great job at positioning it properly. The end result was a very damp sleeping bag and down fill, as good as it is at other things, clots when wet, drastically reducing the efficacy of the bag. So yea, it was in pretty sorry shape as i tried to lay it out on the base of the tent.
As we began to get things organized under cover we were startled to see a woman coming down the little hill from the parking lot. Given the current state of things, it seemed highly unlikely that anyone would be out here by their own freewill. She introduced herself and said she was also a thru hiker that had flown into Sacramento and was making her way back up into Oregon to finish up some sections she had missed. She said she was meeting someone at the trailhead the next morning and taking them with her and that she had beer if we wanted some - which I definitely did, so Amanda and I made our way back up to her car and took a few cans and some fruit, thanking her profusely. We talked with her for a while before descending back to our tent, in which we prepared and ate dinner before getting everything set for the evening.
Rain makes everything just, generally, more shitty. You need the vestibule to cook under and then you eventually have to get in the tent and drag a bunch of wet stuff inside with you. You can't hang your gear to dry really - it’s just all around not fun. The novelty on this first night was kinda fun but quickly wearing off already - everything had a generally damp feeling to it. We finished dinner and got our beds laid out in the tent. I always do the best I can but at 6’3, it’s rough moving around inside the little space. I try to keep my elbows in. We fell asleep listening to the incessant pitter-patter of rain overhead.
